Sarah Michelle Gellar

Sarah Michelle Gellar was born April 14, 1977 in New York City, the only child of Rosellen Greenfield, a nursery school teacher, and Arthur Gellar. Both of her parents were Jewish, though Gellar's family had a Christmas tree during the holidays while she was growing up. In 1984, her parents divorced and she was brought up by her mother on the Upper East Side.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was estranged from her father from this time until his death from liver cancer on October 9, 2001. She attended New York's Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School and the Professional Children's School. Sarah Michelle Gellar held a straight-A average and became a competent figure skater. Her best friend was Melissa Joan Hart, who later was the star of the series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.

A petite, soulful-eyed, young actress who went from playing the daughter Erica Kane bore after a rape on ABC's "All My Children" to being "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (The WB, 1997-2001; UPN, 2001- ), Sarah Michelle Gellar earned a Daytime Emmy Award (for "All My Children") before she was old enough to legally order the celebratory champagne. Acting from age four, she made her professional debut as Valerie Harper's daughter in the 1983 CBS TV-movie "An Invasion of Privacy".

The next year, the brunette could be seen in a small role in the big screen "Over the Brooklyn Bridge", which starred Elliot Gould. Billed as Sarah Gellar, she also appeared in the feature "High Stakes" (1989). In the early 90s, she was in the pre-Broadway production of Neil Simon's "Jake's Woman" and played supported Matthew Broderick (then Eric Stoltz) in the Off-Broadway production of Horton Foote's "The Widow Claire".

Her TV career also began in earnest in the 90s. Sarah Michelle Gellar played the young Jacqueline Bouvier in the NBC miniseries "A Woman Named Jackie" in 1991, and was one of the adolescents in a small wealthy suburb on the short-lived syndicated soap opera "Swan's Crossing" (1992). For two years (1993-1995), she played the role of the scheming Kendall Hart on ABC's "All My Children".

Her character was supposed to be the child born to Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) after a teen-age rape who arrived in town determined to make Erica pay dearly for having given her up for adoption at birth. Sarah Michelle Gellar was twice-nominated for an Emmy and shortly after winning in 1995, it was announced she would be leaving the show. Rumors swirled about the young actress and her relationship with the veteran Lucci. (Sarah Michelle Gellar was quoted by TV GUIDE as saying "We didn't have a perfect working relationship.")

Relocating to California, Sarah Michelle Gellar won the role of Dyan Cannon's spoiled daughter in the Disney ABC TV-movie movie "Beverly Hills Family Robinson" (1997). She then landed the leading role as Buffy, based on the 1992 feature. Playing a high school teen who is "the chosen one" of her generation to destroy vampires but who also would like to have a normal adolescence, Sarah Michelle Gellar won critical praise for her comic abilities and her physicality.

The series and its star garnered a rabid fan following and continually won over critics, and "Buffy" was able to maintain both high standards and ratings even after switching networks from The WB to UPN for its final two seasons. Rumors swirled that Sarah Michelle Gellar may have had some behind-the-scenes friction on the show, but it seems likely that she will re-team with creator Joss Whedon and re-assume the "Buffy" role once again at some point in the future (she was nearly tapped for one of the concluding episodes of the spin-off "Angel" but producers feared her star presence would overwhelm the show's internal closure).

Sarah Michelle Gellar Personal life

Sarah Michelle Gellar met future husband Freddie Prinze Jr. during filming of the 1997 teen horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer but the two did not begin dating until 2000. They were engaged in April 2001 and married in Mexico on September 1, 2002 in a ceremony officiated by Adam Shankman, a film director and choreographer with whom Sarah Michelle Gellar had worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In 2004, while filming The Grudge in Japan, Sarah Michelle Gellar visited the famous Japanese swordsmith Shoji Yoshihara (Kuniie III) and bought a Katana from him as a birthday present for her husband. Sarah Michelle Gellar realized that she needed clearance from the government to remove the sword from the country, and after eventually succeeding, stated that it was "incredibly difficult" to do.

Sarah Michelle Gellar has said in interviews that she believes in God but does not belong to an organized religion. Sarah Michelle Gellar has said in interviews that she collects rare editions of classic children's literature.

Source: Yahoo! Movie, Wikipedia