Mena Suvari
Born: 9th February 1979
Where: Newport, Rhode Island
The ex-model will always have to live with red rose petal garlanded image of herself as the object of Kevin Spacey's desire in American Beauty.
Since the attention-winning role, she has appeared in movies as diverse as the drugs drama Spun, gross-out comedy American Pie and British psychological thriller Trauma.
The daughter of an Estonian psychiatrist and a nurse, her christian name comes from a British aunt who was named after a hotel at the base of the pyramids - The House of Mena.
As a child she and her siblings were convinced their Rhode Island home was haunted and they saw "several apparitions a year."
Nicknamed Bean at school, she began modelling at 12 and made a commercial for Rice-a-Roni the next year.
Now resident in California, she began landing small TV roles, including ER and Chicago Hope, before parts in films such as Nowhere and the Morgan Freeman thriller Kiss The Girls.
Roles followed in Slums of Beverly Hills and as a friend of the telekinetic heroine in Rage: Carrie 2 before landing her breakout role in American Pie.
Next came the groundbreaking part of vampish cheerleader Angele Hayes in Sam Mendez's American Beauty.
In 2000, she married her boyfriend cinematographer Robert Brinkmann - 16 years her senior.
Roles followed in the comedy American Virgin with Bob Hoskins and the black drugs comedy Spun with Mickey Rourke.
Recent work includes the lacklustre British psychological thriller Trauma with Colin Firth and the Queen Latifah comedy Beauty Shop.
