Jennifer Lopez Biography

Jennifer Lynn Lopez, known around the world as J. Lo, was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1969, to Puerto Rican parents who stressed a strong work ethic and a simple Catholic faith. Lopez has proved since the beginning of her career that persistence and hard work are more important than talent and looks (though she has all these attributes as well), as she spent her late teens and early twenties balancing work in law offices, dance and acting classes, endless auditions, and dance club performances. After several failures auditioning as a dancer for In Living Color, she finally landed her first regular high-profile gig as a Fly Girl dancer on the comedy show in 1991.

The early 1990s found Lopez in a succession of short-lived television shows, including South Central, Hotel Malibu, and the more, while she continued to dance in music videos, including Janet Jackson's "That's the Way Love Goes" in 1993. In 1995 Lopez got her first movie role in Mi Familia, and made the movie Money Train with Wesley Snipes shortly thereafter. She was the first Latina actress to get a one million dollar role, in the 1997 biopic Selena. In the late 1990s through 2003, she saw a spate of films, including Anaconda, U-Turn, Out of Sight, Antz, The Cell, The Wedding Planner, Angel Eyes, and Enough.  These roles elevated her asking price from the low seven figures to 12 million dollars for the 2003 flop, Gigli, which she made with then-boyfriend Ben Affleck. Lopez made $15 million for Monster-In-Law, making it her biggest payday to date. Following that, she made the film called An Unfinished Life, for a quarter of her previous salary, most likely for the opportunity to work with Robert Redford and burnish her acting chops. Her newest movie, Bordertown, is currently in production.

During the same period of time that her acting career was taking off, Lopez's music career was also in full swing. Between 1999 and 2002, she released three studio albums, including On the 6, J. Lo, and This Is Me...Then, as well as a successful album of remixes done with top hip-hop artists and producers. Over the years she also recorded a number of duets with fellow Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony, who represents the nexus and dramatic intersection of Lopez's artistic life with her real one. After a short hiatus from music, 2005 saw her fourth studio album, Rebirth, rocket onto and then quickly fall off, the Billboard 200. In 2006, Lopez has limited her musical output to appearances on the LL Cool J track, "Control Myself," and the production of her first Spanish-language album, Como Ama Una Mujer, set for release later in the year.

Ever the entrepreneur, with a net worth now estimated at over a quarter billion dollars, Lopez branched out into fashion and fragrances. She owns the JLO by Jennifer Lopez clothing line, the Glow by J. Lo fragrance collection, and she launched the Sweetface line in late 2005. At the premiere of Monster-In-Law in 2005, protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) roundly booed Lopez for her use of fur in her clothing lines; she commented to a broadcaster that night that she was "open" to being educated on the topic.

Lopez is in her third marriage now, to singer Marc Anthony, who left his Miss Universe wife, Dayanara Torres, in 2003 and married Lopez secretly in 2004. Her union with Anthony, which has already exceeded two years, is uncharacteristically long for Lopez. Her first relationships with waiter Ojani Noa and backup dancer Chris Judd were extremely short.

Lopez is often parodied and made the butt of jokes for her dramatic posterior, although it has not prevented her from winning all sorts of "sexiest woman in the world" polls at magazines in the U.S. and the UK. The term "J. Lo" has even entered the technical lexicon of Wall Street, to describe the rounding bottom of a stock’s price. From the barrios of New York to the vocabulary of the financial world, this hard working woman has continued to persevere, exhibiting a tremendous level of energy, enthusiasm, and an unwillingness to give up, give in, or give out. Whatever else might be said about her talents, her dedication and work ethic cannot be faulted, and stand as superb examples of how to achieve one's fondest dreams. By any measure, Jennifer Lopez is a winner.

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