Teri Polo

She first was known for her many recurring guest star roles on many TV series, then she delighted audiences with her performance as Pamela Byrnes in the hit comedic films Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers. She also impressed fans with her roles back on the small screen in I’m with Her and The West Wing, and then shocked some fans—and likely thrilled many guys who’d never heard of her—when she agreed to pose nude for Playboy.

Teri Polo, born on June 1, 1969, as Theresa Elizabeth Polo, in Dover, Delaware, got started off in show business as a ballet dancer as a young child (later, at fifteen, she danced for the Delaware Regional Ballet), moved into modeling after winning a contest for a Seventeen blue jeans advertisement when she was sixteen, and then decided to pursue a career in acting in New York City after little success as a model (she was "too short" at 5’8’’).

She first appeared in the short-lived teen drama TV I01, which lasted from 1988 to 1989, and featured other actors such as Friends’ Matt LeBlanc.

After that, Polo became known as a recurring guest star on a variety of television shows from the mid-1990s for almost a decade. Her larger roles were found on Northern Exposure, starring Cynthia Geary, Dough Ballard, Barry Corbin, Rob Morrow, John Corbett, and Janine Turner; the short-lived Brimstone, which starred John Glover (who currently plays Lionel Luther on the CW’s Smallville) as the Devil; Felicity, starring Keri Russell; Sports Night, with Josh Charles, Peter Krause, and Desperate Housewives’ Felicity Huffman; and The Practice.

Polo broke out into the big screen with a bang in 2000’s hit Meet the Parents when she took the role of Pam Byrnes, Ben Stiller’s character’s girlfriend. Robert De Niro, Blythe Danner, and Owen Wilson rounded out the cast. Polo reprised her role as Pam in the 2004 sequel, Meet the Fockers, which also included Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Stiller’s character’s parents. Polo is set to co-star alongside Stiller again in the upcoming Meet the Little Focker.

Back on TV, Polo snagged roles on the short-lived I’m With Her from 2003 to 2004 as the female lead Alex Young, opposite David Sutcliffe, who currently can be seen on Gilmore Girls alongside Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham. Then for the sixth and seventh seasons of The West Wing, which starred Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, and Martin Sheen, Polo became Helen Santos, the wife of Matt Santos, the Democratic presidential candidate, portrayed by Jimmy Smits.

In early 2005, Polo stirred up a bit of controversy among her fans when she agreed to pose nude for Hugh Hefner’s Playboy.

Polo was married to a photographer, Anthony Moore, from 1997 until 2003. The couple had a son together, Griffin, in 2002.