Jennifer Lopez

Born: July 1970
Where: The Bronx, New York

Lopez has managed the difficult crossover from music to movies and back again with roles in the likes of Out of Sight and The Wedding Planner..

However, her private life - her doomed marriages, the ill-fated fling with Puff Daddy and her on-off relationship with Ben Affleck - have threatened to overshadow her career.

Of Puerto Rican stock, she was born into the tough Castle Hill neighbourhood and took singing and dancing lessons at the age of five.

After high school - where she excelled at gymnastics and track events - she briefly worked in a legal office while still taking dancing lessons.

At 18, she left home and, although she made her film debut in My Little Girl, her showbiz break did not come until she beat 2,000 aspirants to land a spot in the chorus of In Living Color.

Her first feature success came in 1995 with My Family, in which Lopez was cast as the youthful version of the matriarch of a Mexican-American family.

That same year, she co-starred opposite Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes in the action blockbuster Money Train.

She married Ojani Noa in 1997 but a year later they were divorced.

In 1998, she solidified her leading lady status, starring opposite George Clooney in Steven Soderbergh's action thriller Out of Sight and also lent her voice to the animated feature Antz.

Lopez was well on her way to superstardom, and made the most of her fame by releasing her debut album called On the 6, after the subway line that runs from her Bronx home into Manhattan.

While the singles If You Had My Love and Waiting For Tonight tore up the charts, she was enjoying more screen success as the star of the awful sci-fi thriller The Cell.

Lopez, whose debut album J.Lo hit the top of the US charts, dated Sean Combs also known as Puff Daddy in early 1998, but they announced their break-up in 2001.

She then married her back-up dancer, Cris Judd, in September 2001 although the marriage lasted little more than nine months.

And thus began the affair that would become known as 'The Bennifer Saga'. Lopez and action hero Ben Affleck were engaged for a time, until his gambling allegedly came between them.

Ironically, she was trying her hand at fluffy romantic comedy, playing The Wedding Planner who quite literally falls for the groom (Matthew McConaughey), when she refound her commercial success at the cinema.

Keeping up her career's positive momentum, Lopez starred as a policewoman who falls for Jim Caviezel in the romantic thriller Angel Eyes and starred in Michael Apted's highly slated thiller/drama Enough.

Her next film cast her in a Pretty Woman-esque mode for Maid in Manhattan, in which she played a housekeeper at a posh New York hotel who falls for Ralph Fiennes.

However, the follow-up - Gigli - opposite Affleck was critically slated with the subsequent Jersey Girl not faring much better.

In 2004, she starred in the Richard Gere vehicle based on the hit Japanese rom-com Shall We Dance?

Recent work includes the comedy Monster-in-Law which teamed her up with Jane Fonda in her first big screen role in 15 years.