Maria Bello

Born: April 1967
Where: Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA

The former Amstel Light girl landed a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Natalie Belisario in Wayne Kramer's The Cooler.

While studying political science at Villanova University, she took acting classses and graduated to small off-Broadway roles.

However, she spent six desperate years on the acting margins before her debut TV performance in the comedy Misery Loves Company.

She demonstrated her versatility with a strong romantic turn opposite Bruce Greenwood in an episode of Nowhere Man and made her TV-movie debut in The Commish: In the Shadow of the Gallows.

She checked into County General Hospital for three ER episodes as sassy pediatrician Anna Del Amico and made a strong impression as a recovering junkie in Permanent Midnight.

In 1999 she starred as a hooker with ties to Mel Gibson in Payback and in 2000 she made a strong impression as the sultry leather-clad owner of the bar Coyote Ugly.

She also appeared as another vulnerable sexpot in director Bruce Paltrow's Duets before playing the TV actress wife of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear) in Auto Focus.

In 2003, she starred alongside William H Macy in The Cooler - for which she also landed a Screen Actors Guild nomination - and appeared in the thriller Secret Window.

French director Jean-Francois Richet cast her as a police psychologist in the remake of John Carpenter's cult classic Assault On Precinct 13 in 2004.

Recent work includes David Cronenberg's thriller A History of Violence alongside Viggo Mortensen.