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Supermodel Amber Valetta was born on February 9, 1974, in Phoenix, Arizona. She was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and when she was 15 years old her mother enrolled her in modeling school, thus beginning her career. Her first photo shoot was for the Italian Vogue magazine. After a shoot for Elle magazine, Valetta moved to Paris.

Quickly being sought by countless photographers, the photogenic Valetta had plenty of work coming her way. She modeled fashions for the ad campaigns of such designers as Calvin Klein, Versace, Prada, Chanel and Gucci. Soon after she was chosen as co-host of MTV's fashion show "House of Style."

The leggy blonde stands 5' 8" tall and measures 34B-23-35. She has appeared in several films, including What Lies Beneath, with Harrison Ford; Hitch, with Will Smith; and Raising Helen, with Kate Hudson. Valetta has also appeared in countless magazines, gracing the cover of many. As a teen, she aspired to become a sociologist, but while not accomplishing that dream, today she uses her celebrity status to support many charity events. She is a vegetarian and in her home town has organized a charity to help fight hunger.
Supermodel-cum-Hollywood actress Amber Valletta hit the runway in her late teens, and, though a frequent presence in fashion ads for several years prior, first made national headlines in July 1993. That summer, under representation by Boss Models, the svelte 19-year-old Oklahoman blonde upstaged heavyweight Cindy Crawford as the primary spokeswoman for Capezio handbags -- and turned more than a few heads in the process. Not long after, Valletta also signed on as the chief spokeswoman for Elizabeth Arden. In 1996, Valletta succeeded Crawford again -- this time as the co-host (alongside Shalom Harlow) of MTV's hit documentary series House of Style. The by-now-familiar program found Valletta and Harlow carrying viewers behind the scenes of the fashion world, and (in the process) covered everything from runway preparation to before-the-camera apparel to anorexia nervosa. In 1999, Valletta's modeling intersected with social work when she helped raise over 350,000 dollars for the St. Jude Royal Gala Benefit in Monte Carlo, and later parlayed that effort into a promotional tour for Elizabeth Arden Splendor perfume that had Valletta and other company reps giving terminally ill children heartstring-tugging "moments of splendor."

Although hosting duties on House of Style represented Valletta's first broad leap into filmed entertainment, she delayed her cinematic work for another four years. In 2000, the model debuted onscreen as the spirit of a murdered coed in Robert Zemeckis' Hitchcock retread, What Lies Beneath, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford. Valletta's roles -- given the actress' off-camera motherhood and intermittent magazine work -- accumulated slowly over the next several years (in films such as the Nicolas Cage holiday vehicle The Family Man and the Danny DeVito-directed black comedy Duplex); as a result, Valletta only ascended gradually to top billing. In 2005, however, she attained her highest-profile exposure to date (and gained much-deserved respect as an actress) in the Andy Tennant-directed romantic comedy Hitch. As Allegra Cole, the city's most eligible bachelorette, who falls for the least likely candidate (overweight and self-conscious klutz Kevin James), Valletta played an admirable straight man to both James and "date doctor" Alex "Hitch" Hitchens (Will Smith). After a noticeable onscreen absence in 2006, Valletta returned to cinemas the following year, with two back-to-back roles in supernatural thrillers. She first received second billing as a nubile young bride in the James Wan-directed Saw follow-up Dead Silence -- a slasher picture about a quiet little town plagued by the spirit of an evil ventriloquist. And later that year, Valletta portrayed Claire in the Mennan Yapo-directed Premonition, starring Sandra Bullock. Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

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