Katherine Heigl

Katherine Heigl Biography

Katherine Heigl thumbnail image Heigl was born on Nov. 24, 1978, the youngest of five children to Paul and Nancy Heigl. The Mormon family moved several times while Katherine was young, so she lived in Washington D.C., Colorado, and Virginia before the family settled in New Canaan, CT for the remainder of Heigl’s childhood.

When she was nine years old, an aunt visiting from New York City took a series of portraits of the all-American blonde with the big smile, submitting them to modeling agencies. Heigl was promptly signed by the prestigious Wilhelmina agency and began catalog modeling and eventually TV commercial acting. In 1991, she was cast in the coming-of-age feature film, “That Night,” alongside Juliette Lewis and C. Thomas Howell, but the picture was not released until 1993. She followed up her acting debut with a pair of higher profile big screen roles in Steven Soderberg’s Depression-era drama “King of the Hill” (1993) and the romantic comedy, “My Father the Hero,” playing the rebellious teenage daughter of Gerard Depardieu (1994).

Katherine Heigl Career

When Heigl was 9, an aunt visiting the family decided to take a number of photographs of the young Heigl. After returning to her home in New York, the aunt sent the photos to a number of modeling agencies, with the permission of Heigl's parents. Within a few weeks, Heigl was signed as a child model. Almost immediately, a client slated Heigl for use in a magazine advertisement. She made her debut in a magazine advertisement and was soon earning $75 an hour posing for Sears and Lord & Taylor catalogs. Television jobs soon followed, the first in a national spot for Cheerios cereal.

Her acting debut came with an appearance in the 1992 movie That Night. Heigl appeared as Christina Sebastian in Steven Soderbergh's Depression-era drama King of the Hill before being cast in her first leading role as Nicole in the 1994 comedy My Father the Hero. During this time, Heigl continued to attend New Canaan High School, balancing her film and modeling work with her academic studies.

She then appeared opposite Steven Seagal as Sarah in the 1995 action thriller Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Despite an increased focus on acting, she still modeled extensively, appearing regularly in magazines such as Seventeen. She took the lead role in Disney's made-for-television film Wish Upon a Star in 1996. Also in 1996, Heigl's parents divorced and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.[2] After her high school graduation in 1997, she moved with her mother into a 4-bedroom house in Malibu Canyon, Los Angeles, and her mother became her manager.

In 1998, she co-starred with Peter Fonda in a re-working of the classic Shakespearian play The Tempest, set during the American Civil War. Later that year, she starred in the horror film Bride of Chucky.

In 1999, Heigl turned her attention to television when she accepted the role of Isabel Evans on the science fiction TV drama Roswell, a role that was expanded in the show's second and third seasons. Heigl was frequently featured in photo essays in magazines such as Life, TV Guide, and Teen as well as FHM. She appeared in the FHM and Maxim calendars, FHM's annual 100 sexiest women in the world, and was featured in the Girls of Maxim Gallery. In May 2006, Maxim awarded her #12 on their annual Hot 100 List as well as voted the 19th "Sexiest Woman in the World" by readers of FHM magazine. While Roswell was in production, Heigl worked on several films, including 100 Girls, an independent 2001 film in which she played competitive tomboy Arlene, and Valentine, a horror film starring David Boreanaz and Denise Richards in which she played medical student Shelley Fisher, who was killed during the film's opening scene.

Heigl accepted a role in Ground Zero, a television thriller scheduled to be telecast that fall which was based on the bestselling James Mills novel The Seventh Power, in the spring of 2001. She co-starred as a brilliant and politically-concerned college student who helps to build a nuclear device to illustrate the need for a change in national priorities; the device ends up in the hands of a terrorist following betrayal by a fellow student. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, however, the film was shelved when its plot was considered too inappropriate; it re-emerged in 2003 under the title Critical Assembly. After the terrorist attacks, Heigl recorded a passionate public service announcement for the American Red Cross in an effort to help raise money for victims.

In 2003, Heigl appeared in three television movies. She returned to the horror genre with Evil Never Dies, a modern-day variation on the Frankenstein story co-starring Thomas Gibson. Love Comes Softly, for Hallmark Entertainment, found Heigl starring as Marty Claridge, a young, pregnant newlywed traveling west. (She reprised the role of Marty in the sequel Love's Enduring Promise the next year.) And finally, Heigl played Isabella Linton in MTV's modern revamp of Emily Brontë's classic novel Wuthering Heights. In October 2003, Heigl was cast opposite Johnny Knoxville in The Ringer, a Farrelly brothers comedy that was released in December 2005. Heigl starred as Romy in the 2005 television movie Romy and Michele: In the Beginning, a prequel to the 1997 theatrical film Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.

2005 saw Heigl cast in what would become her most high-profile role, as intern Dr. Isobel "Izzie" Stevens on Grey's Anatomy, an ABC medical drama. The show, originally introduced as a midseason replacement, has become a huge ratings success. The same year, Heigl landed the starring role of Karly Hert in the independent film Side Effects, about marketing and the pharmaceutical industry.

In 2005, Heigl had established the chops and the personal background to perfectly fill the role of underwear model-turned-medical intern Isobel Stevens for a mid-season replacement medical drama called “Grey’s Anatomy.” It was her third role as an Isabel, and it did prove to be a charm, with the ensemble show developing into a critic’s pick and audience favorite. Heigl even received her first Golden Globe nomination, following her heartbreaking storyline of falling in love with her patient, Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who dies of heart failure after asking Izzie to marry him. The public’s respect for Heigl grew when, after a highly publicized cast argument, where costar Isaiah Washington used derogatory language against gay cast member T.R. Knight, Heigl appeared on camera in interviews to publicly express disgust with Washington and support Knight, who she claimed was her best friend.

In late 2006, Heigl was nominated for a Golden Globe award in the category, Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-series, or Motion Picture Made for Television for her work on Grey's.

The year “Grey’s” premiered, Heigl had appeared in her first big screen comedy, the low-brow Farrelly Brothers flick, “The Ringer.” The film was not a huge success, but Heigl’s handling of the material obviously made an impression on writer-director Judd Apatow, who cast Heigl in the lead in his one-night-stand-whoops story “Knocked Up” (2007). The film was slated for a June 2007 release, with early reviews touting it as one of the year’s best comedies. The film was also sure to instigate a whole new flurry of “Sexiest” and “Most Beautiful lists,” however, sadly for her male fans, Katherine had become engaged to singer-songwriter Josh Kelley in June of 2006. Also in her off-screen life, Heigl was an outspoken supporter of organ donation, involved with the charities Donate Life America and the James Redford Institute of Transplant awareness.

Katherine Heigl Photos