Kelly Hu was born on February 13, 1968, in Honolulu, Hawaii. She took an early interest in performing, creating, and singing songs in public when she was just two years old, and by the age of five she had convinced her mother, Juanita, to enroll her in dance school, where she learned ballet, tap, and acrobatics. Meanwhile, her older brother, Glenn, was teaching her the moves he was learning at his Kung Fu lessons. With remarkable natural talent, she was soon beating up boys in their neighborhood while he took bets.
Hu's parents divorced when she was six and she and her brother went to stay with their maternal grandparents in the small town of Kahului. There she took up baton twirling and marching. Two years later she returned to live with her mother and began figure skating and playing hockey, always a very competitive child.
While in high school she became passionately interested in acting, and traveled to Indiana to attend an International Thespian Conference. But despite all this, she ultimately found herself on the road to stardom by accident. She was browsing in a shopping mall when she was spotted by a scout who persuaded her to try modeling. Entering the Miss Hawaii Teen USA beauty pageant to raise her profile, she was shocked when she won first prize. She soon went on to become the first ever Asian Miss Teen USA.
After graduation, Hu made the decision to pursue modeling and acting full time, spending some time in where she appeared in a series of commercials. Her big break came when she won a role in the teen TV series Growing Pains, alongside Kirk Cameron and Alan Thicke, and she subsequently moved to Los Angeles to launch her career.
Though the big city proved a tougher environment than she had expected, her determined approach secured her roles in a series of films including Oliver Stone's The Doors, with Val Kilmer and Meg Ryan; No Way Back, with Russell Crowe and Helen Slater; and Strange Days, with Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett.
These roles gave her the money to take proper karate lessons, the results of which soon began to make an impression on casting directors and viewers alike. Hu proved she was more than just a pretty face when she starred alongside Don Johnson and Cheech Marin in Nash Bridges, enjoying the chance to beat up the bad guys. She went on to enjoy a similar role in Martial Law, with Sammo Hung Kambo and Erik Betts.
Hu's big break in the movie world came in 2002 when she got a major part in The Mummy spin-off The Scorpion King, starring alongside The Rock and Steven Brand. She followed this up with an impressive performance in X2: X-Men United, and is now set to star in the spin-off film Wolverine.
Despite the success of her chosen career, Hu retains a wide range of interests. She does fundraising for AIDS charities and for assorted environmental causes, including running a marathon in support of Reef Check Hawaii . She reached the top fifteen percent in the World Series of Poker Ladies Tournament, playing alongside Mimi Rogers, Anne Heche, and Ricki Lake. She ran a fast food restaurant with her ex-boyfriend, investment banker Ahmad Ali Moussaui; she has visited soldiers serving in Iraq; and she became the first Asian American to appear on the cover of Maxim, an issue which outsold all others in the magazine's history. In her spare time she enjoys swimming and roller-skating.
YUDDY
