Jennifer Love Hewitt

Jennifer Love Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas, and grew up in Central Texas. She began performing at age three, when she sang at a livestock show. By age five, she was taking tap, jazz, and ballet lessons, and at nine she joined the Texas Show Team, which toured Europe and the Soviet Union.

At age ten, Hewitt moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and singing. She appeared in more than twenty television commercials, including advertisements for Mattel and LA Gear, before joining the cast of the Disney Channel variety series Kids Incorporated from 1989 to 1991. Her performance with the cast earned a Young Artist Award, and she followed the series with roles in Munchie, Little Miss Millions, and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.

Hewitt became a household name after joining Party of Five as Sarah Reeves Merrin in 1995. She was initially cast for a nine-episode arc during the show's second season, but positive reactions led to her becoming a series regular through the show's final season. Her performance brought nominations from the Kids' Choice Awards, Teen Choice Awards, and YoungStar Awards.

Her film breakthrough came with I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), in which she played Julie James. She reprised the role in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), establishing her reputation as a prominent performer in horror films. She also starred as Amanda Beckett in Can't Hardly Wait (1998), appeared in Telling You, and produced the Party of Five spin-off Time of Your Life.

During the early 2000s, Hewitt pursued a mixture of film and television roles. She played Audrey Hepburn in The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000) and served as an executive producer on the television film. In Heartbreakers (2001), she starred alongside Sigourney Weaver as part of a mother-daughter con-artist team, and she appeared with Jackie Chan in The Tuxedo (2002).

Her other film work from this period included If Only, Garfield: The Movie, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, Shortcut to Happiness, Tropic Thunder, and the voice role of Princess Kyla in Delgo. She reprised Dr. Liz Wilson in both live-action Garfield films. She also appeared in the romantic drama Café and the independent comedy Jewtopia.

Hewitt starred as Melinda Gordon, a woman who could communicate with ghosts, on the CBS supernatural drama Ghost Whisperer. The series ran for five seasons and 107 episodes from 2005 to 2010. Hewitt also served as a producer and directed three episodes, including the show's 100th episode. She won Saturn Awards for Best Actress on Television in 2007 and 2008.

She played Samantha Horton in the 2010 television film The Client List, earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film. She later starred as Riley Parks in the Lifetime series adaptation, which ran for two seasons from 2012 to 2013. Hewitt also played Kate Callahan on the tenth season of Criminal Minds and joined 9-1-1 in 2018 as Maddie Buckley, an emergency-room nurse who becomes a 9-1-1 operator after leaving an abusive relationship.

Hewitt's musical career began during childhood, and she was one of the backing vocalists on Martika's 1989 single "Toy Soldiers." At age 12, she recorded her debut album, Love Songs, which was released exclusively in Japan. She later released Let's Go Bang (1995) and the self-titled Jennifer Love Hewitt (1996) through Atlantic Records.

Her single "How Do I Deal," recorded for the I Still Know What You Did Last Summer soundtrack, became her first charting single in the United States. In 2002, she released BareNaked through Jive Records, working with singer, songwriter, and producer Meredith Brooks. The album reached No. 37 on the Billboard 200, while the title track reached No. 6 in Australia.

Hewitt created the five-issue comic-book anthology Jennifer Love Hewitt's Music Box, published by IDW Publishing from 2009 to 2010. She also wrote The Day I Shot Cupid, a 2010 book about love and dating that became a New York Times bestseller within a week of its release.

Hewitt has been married to actor Brian Hallisay since 2013. They have three children: Autumn James Hallisay, Atticus James Hallisay, and Aidan James Hallisay. She gave birth to her first child, Autumn, at age 34.