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Katherine Marie Heigl plays Isabel “Izzie” Stevens on Grey’s Anatomy. Her nickname is Katie and she is 5’9″. Katherine Marie Heigl was born in Washington, DC, on November 24, 1978 to Nancy and Paul Heigl. She spent most of her childhood in Canaan, Connecticut. She is half Irish and half German. She has two older siblings John and Meg. A tragic and painful even happened when her brother Jason died in 1986 of brain injuries suffered in a car accident, after being thrown from the back of a pickup truck. Doctors determined he was brain-dead and the family made the difficult decision to donate his organs. This was not only a painful chapter in Katherine’s life but it brought a greater perspective and appreciation to life. It motivated her to use her celebrity to promote the importance of organ donation.
Katherine started her career as a child model. An aunt, visiting the family in New Canaan, took a number of photographs of Katherine, then aged nine, in a series of poses to advertise a hair care product she had invented. Upon returning to New York, with permission from Katherine’s parents, she sent the photos to a number of modeling agencies. Within a few weeks Katherine had been signed to Wilhelmina, a renowned international modeling agency. Almost immediately she made her debut in a magazine advertisement and soon followed this with an inaugural television appearance in a national commercial for Cheerios breakfast cereal.
Following a number of commercials and modeling assignments for Sears and Lord & Taylor, she made her big-screen debut in That Night (1992), which starred Juliette Lewis and C. Thomas Howell. It was then that she realized that acting rather than modeling was her passion. In 1993 Katherine appeared in Steven Soderbergh’s critically acclaimed Depression-era drama King of the Hill (1993), before landing her first leading role as a rebellious teenager alongside Gérard Depardieu in My Father the Hero (1994). During this time Katherine continued to attend New Canaan High School, balancing her academic studies with work on films and modeling, which she undertook during holidays, vacations and weekends.
In 1995, she played Sarah Ryback, the niece of Steven Seagal’s character, in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995), which was her “debut” in the action film genre. Acting was now becoming a stronger focus for Katherine, although she still modeled extensively, appearing regularly in magazines such as “Seventeen.” Television appearances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” (1992) and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” (1993) soon followed, before she took the lead role in Disney’s Wish Upon a Star (1996) in 1996. It was also during that year that Katherine’s parents divorced and, following her graduation from high school in 1997, she moved with her mother into a four-bedroom house in Los Angeles’ Malibu Canyon area. This enabled her to focus upon acting with the guidance and support of her mother, who now managed her career.
In 1999, Katherine decided to branch out into series television when she accepted the role of the haughty yet vulnerable Isabel Evans on “Roswell” (1999), a show that blended teen angst with sci-fi drama. Though she had never planned to embark on a career in television, the role of Isabel, a teenager with a secret life, was an offer she found impossible to refuse. In the series, Isabel, her brother Max (Jason Behr) and their friend Michael (Brendan Fehr) are aliens passing as humans in Roswell, New Mexico, as they desperately try to hide the truth from government agencies, the people of Roswell and even their own adopted families. To publicize her role on the show, Katherine graced the covers of magazines such as “TV Guide,” “Maxim,” and “Teen” and was interviewed on “Later with Greg Kinnear” (1994) and “The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn” (1999). Along with her mother Nancy, she also appeared in an episode of the Sci-Fi TV talk show “Crossing Over with John Edward” (1999), during which she spoke with John Edward, a psychic medium, about her late brother, Jason.
During the three years “Roswell” was in production, Katherine found time to work on several movies. 100 Girls (2000), an independent film released in 2001, is the story of a college freshman who meets the girl of his dreams in an elevator during a blackout, and spends the rest of the movie trying to find her again. Her cameo role is that of Arlene, the competitive tomboy. The second film, Valentine (2001), a horror film starring David Boreanaz and Denise Richards, appeared in U.S. theaters on February 2, 2001. In this movie, which is based upon the 1996 novel by Tom Savage, Katherine plays Shelley, a medical student who meets a sudden demise.
In the spring of 2001, Katherine accepted a role in NBC’s Critical Assembly (2003) (TV), a two-hour original television thriller. Katherine and Kerr Smith (“Dawson’s Creek” (1998)) co-starred as brilliant and politically concerned college students who build a nuclear device to illustrate the need for a change in national priorities, but are betrayed by a fellow student when the bomb ends up in the hands of a terrorist. Unfortunately, the telefilm, directed by Eric Laneuville, written by Tom Vaughan, and based on the best-seller “The Seventh Power” by James Mills, was shelved when its storyline was deemed too close for comfort to the events of September 11, 2001. It was eventually broadcast in 2003.
Since the cancellation of “Roswell” in the spring of 2002, Katherine has been busy with various projects, including an appearance on UPN’s update of the classic television series, “The Twilight Zone” (2002). That episode, entitled “Cradle of Darkness”, aired October 2, 2002, and featured Katherine in the role of a woman who goes back in time to stop one of the most notorious murders in history. In addition, she completed a movie, Descendant (2003), a psychological thriller inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” She has also starred as Romy in ABC/Touchstone’s two-hour telepic Romy and Michele: In the Beginning (2005) (TV), a prequel to the 1997 feature Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997).
During the summer of 2002, Katherine made a major decision in the direction of her career when she signed on for representation in all areas with the William Morris Agency, one of the biggest and most prestigious agencies in the entertainment industry. She is now being represented by Norman Aladjem at Paradigm Agency and being managed by Nancy Heigl and Stephanie Simon and Jason Newman at Untitled Entertainment.
Katherine dated Joseph Lawrence in 1994. She graduated from New Canaan High School class of 1996. In high school she played the cello. In later years she ranked #72 in Stuff magazine’s “102 Sexiest Women in The World” (2002). Later in 2005 om FHM’s magazine for “100 Sexiest Women in the World 2005″ she ranked #55. In 2006 for the same magazine she ranked #19 and in 2007 – Maxim magazine Hot 100 she ranked #14.
As we all know she was engaged and still is since June to Josh Kelley. She plans to marry him on December 23, 2007 in Utah where she has a ranch property. There will be a tribute to her late brother, Jason, at the ceremony.
Personal Quotes:
[on her role in My Father the Hero (1994)] “There are still men who come up to me today and say, ‘You were really hot in that film!’ I was 14, for God’s sake!”
“One of the most interesting things about that show ["Roswell" (1999)] for me was that because Isabel was an alien, I got to do many things, so that was creatively satisfying. I think anyone’s fear of getting involved in a show that could run for several years is that you’ll be playing only one character for that long; that can get stale for an actor, so on ‘Roswell’ I really lucked out”.
["Razor" Magazine interview] “I’m grateful people think I’m beautiful or think I’m sexy, and I suppose it’s better than the alternative, but I do try to fight it a bit so it’s not all people see me as. And I’d love to one day be in a position where I could choose a role to showcase my creativity versus just my bra size.”
“I love changing my look. I would love, love, love to cut all my hair off into a really short, punky haircut.”
You can also see more about Katherine on her fan site Kheigl.com
