Full Name: Katherine Marie Heigl
Date of Birth: 24th November 1978
Place of Birth: Washington DC, USA
Marital Status: Engaged to Roswell co-star, Jason Behrs
FILMOGRAPHY
That Night (1992)
King of the Hill (1993)
My Father the Hero (1994)
Under Siege 2 (1995)
Wish Upon a Star (1996)
Prince Valiant (1997)
Stand-ins (1997)
The Tempest (TV) (1998)
Bride of Chucky (1998)
Bug Buster (1999)
Roswell (TV) (1999-2002)
100 Girls (2000)
Valentine (2001)
Descendant (TV) (2003)
Vegas Dick (TV) (2003)
Love Comes Softly (TV) (2003)
Critical Assembly (TV) (2003)
Wuthering Heights (TV) (2003)
Love's Enduring Promise (TV) (2004)
Romy and Michele: In the Beginning (TV) (2004)
Zyzzyx Rd. (2005)
Side Effects (2005)
The Ringer (2005)
The 9th Passenger (2005)
Caffeine (2006)
BIOGRAPHY
From child model to minor film actress to break-out star in twenty years is pretty good going and Katherine Heigl shows no signs of stopping in her pursuit of stardom. Best known for her role in the hit WB network show Roswell, Katherine has also had her fair share of movie roles and big things are surely to come.
The Early Years
Katherine Heigl was born on November the 24th in Washington DC to parents of Irish and German descent. The youngest of four siblings, Katherine and family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut shortly after her birth and it was here that she was to spend the majority of her childhood.
When Katherine was only seven, her older brother Jason was tragically killed when he was thrown from the back of a pickup truck in a car accident. His parents made the decision to donate his organs and the incident has motivated Katherine to use her celebrity to promote organ donation.
Modelling
Katherine's first taste of 'fame' was as a child model. Aged nine she was signed to the international modelling agency Wilhelmina after an aunt took pictures of her to advertise a hair care product she had invented and, realising the potential, sent the shots to a number of New York agencies.
Katherine's first appearance was in a small magazine advertisement; this was soon followed by a nationwide TV advert for Cheerios. After a few further modelling and commercial jobs, Katherine appeared in her first movie in 1992 - That Night, which also starred Juliette Lewis. It was this that made Katherine decide to turn her talents towards acting.
Movies
Katherine's next movie role was in Steven Soderbergh's critically acclaimed King of the Hill in 1993; she played only a very minor role. Her next acting job was her very first leading role - in My Father the Hero alongside Gerard Depardieu. She plays a precocious child who pretends to be her father's lover to woo an older boy. Still fairly well known (at least in the UK), Katherine's performance is actually quite strong in what is otherwise a fairly poor movie.
"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!"
During all of this, Katherine was still taking modelling jobs while trying to keep her acting career going. She next had a small role in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory before taking her second lead role in Disney's Wish Upon a Star in 1996. It was during this year that Katherine's parents divorced and Katherine moved to Malibu Canyon, Los Angeles with her mother.
Katherine's next three acting roles were less than auspicious; they were small parts in Stand-Ins, Prince Valiant and the TV movie reworking of the Shakespeare play, The Tempest. After these came two horror movies, Bride of Chucky and Bug Buster. Neither are particularly serious films, but while Bug Buster is just plain crap, Bride of Chucky (the fourth Child's Play movie) was well received and works well as a spoof horror.
Roswell
It was in 1999 that Katherine signed on to play Isabel Evans in the WB network show Roswell (after auditioning for all three major female roles). She had never had any real desire to work in TV, but the success of shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it seemed that this could be a step in the right direction in her career. The show is based around a small group of aliens (Katherine plays one) living in Roswell, New Mexico, trying to hide from the Government, FBI etc... It has a cult following and while Katherine's character had little to do in the first series, she was much more prominent in the second and third.
Katherine's natural beauty led to her being extensively used during the publicity drive for the series - gracing the covers of many TV magazines as well as appearing in lad's mags such as Maxim and FHM in fairly revealing photoshoots.
More Movies
During the three years that Roswell was in production, Katherine also found time to appear in a couple of films. She has nothing more than a cameo in 100 Girls, but plays a fairly large role in Valentine, a horror movie also featuring Buffy star David Boreanaz and Denise Richards.
Ground Zero
In 2001 Katherine accepted a role in Ground Zero, a TV movie about two college students who build a nuclear bomb which falls into the hands of terrorists after they are betrayed. After the events of September 11th, the movie was shelved and its future remains unclear.
Post-Roswell
Since the cancellation of the show, Katherine has been fairly quiet. She made an appearance in an episode of TV series The Twilight Zone and has finished filming Descendant, a TV phychological thriller inspired by The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. No release has been set, but it will likely make an apearance on HBO in early 2003.
Sources:
The splendiforous imdb.com
kheigl.com
www.hollywood.com/celebs/bio/celeb/348285
www.celebritysun.com/KatherineHeigl.html