Cameron Diaz

Cameron Michelle Diaz (born August 30, 1972) is an American actress and former fashion model. She is perhaps best known for her roles in blockbuster movies such as The Mask, There's Something About Mary, My Best Friend's Wedding, Charlie's Angels, Shrek, and Gangs of New York. Diaz was the second of three actresses to join the coveted "$20 Million Club" after receiving this salary for Charlie's Angels

Early life
Diaz was born in San Diego, California to Emilio Diaz and Billie (née Early). Diaz's father is a second-generation Cuban-American and her mother is Anglo-German. Diaz attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School at the same time as rapper Snoop Dogg.

Career
At 16 she began her career as a fashion model. Diaz signed with top modeling agency Elite Model Management. After graduating from high school, she went to work in Japan and met video director Carlo de la Torre. On her return to America, she moved in with him. For the next few years, her modeling took her around the world, working for contracts with major companies. She modelled for designers such as Calvin Klein and Levi's. She also graced the cover of the July 1990 issue of Seventeen magazine. During this period she also made a brief but now notorious soft pornographic film.
At 21, Diaz auditioned for The Mask. Even though she had no previous acting experience, she obtained the cast as the female lead. She signed up for acting lessons right after getting the part. Over the next three years, she won roles in low-budget, independent films, such as The Last Supper, Feeling Minnesota, and She's the One. She then regained mainstream success with her roles in My Best Friend's Wedding and There's Something About Mary. She won critical acclaim for her performance in Being John Malkovich, which earned her Best Supporting Actress nominations at the Golden Globes, the BAFTA Awards and the SAG Awards.

During the 1999-2000 period, Diaz starred in many films, such as Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, A Life Less Ordinary, Any Given Sunday, and the hit adaptation of Charlie's Angels. In 2001, she won nominations for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards and the AFI Awards for Vanilla Sky, and also voiced Princess Fiona in Shrek, for which she earned $10 million. In 2003, Diaz received another Golden Globe nomination for Martin Scorsese's epic Gangs of New York, and became the second actress (after Wedding costar Julia Roberts) to earn $20 million for a role, receiving the sum for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. After Full Throttle, Diaz only appeared in three films, Shrek 2, In Her Shoes and The Holiday . During 2004 and early 2005, Diaz explored some of the planet's environmentally unique locations while discovering ways to help preserve them for the 10-episode MTV series Trippin' which featured numerous celebrities and friends of Diaz, such as Jessica Alba, Drew Barrymore, Mark Hoppus, Eva Mendes and Justin Timberlake.

Future work for Diaz includes a role in Shrek the Third in 2007, where she co-stars with former boyfriend Justin Timberlake. She was set to team up again with The Mask co-star Jim Carrey in the film Fun with Dick and Jane, but she dropped out to star in In Her Shoes. She will also appear in Shrek 4. She will also star in The Box, a horror thriller which is due to start filming in November 2007.

On July 7, 2007, Diaz participated at Live Earth in New York by introducing Bon Jovi and The Police. In 2007, People ranked her as the Best Dressed Female Celebrity.

credit : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Diaz