Occupation: actress,model/Занятие: актриса, модель
Date of Birth: 17November 1973 / Дата Рождения: 17 Ноября 1973
Place of Birth: Bismark, North Dakota, USA/Место Рождения: Бисмарк, Северная Дакота, США
Height: 5' 11" /Рост 5' 11"
Relations: Father Died when Leslie was 3, 3 Sisters (Leslie is the youngest)/Семейные отношения: Отец Умер, когда Лесли было 3 года, 3 Сестры (Лесли - младшая)
Hair color: Blond/Цвет волос: Блондинка.
Eye color: Green/Цвет глаз: зеленые
Hobbies: Hiking, Biking, Collecting Antiques, Reading/Хобби: Пеший туризм, Вождение велосипеда, Сбор Антиквариата, Чтение.
Education: Brief Time at Virginia, 3 Years at William Esper Acting Studio/Образование: Некоторое время в Вирджинии, 3 года в актерской школе Вильяма Еспера.
Leslie Louise Bibb was born on November 17, 1973 in Bismark, North Dakota, and raised in Nelson County, Virginia. She and her mother later moved to that state's capitol city, Richmond, where Leslie attended an all-girls Catholic high school.
Leslie's father died when she was three. She has three older sisters. Leslie is a natural brunette who dyes her hair blonde thanks to her recent acting gigs.
In 1990, The Oprah Winfrey Show and the Elite Agency held a nationwide modeling search. Bibb's mother took photos of 16-year-old Leslie to send in.
"I thought I looked so sassy in (those) pictures," said Leslie. Around 6,500 girls entered the contest. A week before she flew to Chicago for the show, her prom date dumped her.
"I felt like the big geek in high school," she told TV Guide, "And I still feel like a big geek."
Leslie probably felt better, however, when judges John Casablanca, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Iman picked her as the winner. (I'd say her ex felt pretty damn stupid right about then.)
"All hell broke loose," she recalled. After finishing her junior year, Leslie flew to New York City and signed a contract with Elite. She modeled over the summer, and went on a trip to Japan. She returned home for her senior year and graduated, then decided to forgo a full-time modeling career to attend the University of Virginia
After a single semester, however, she dropped out and moved to New York City. She attended the William Esper acting studios for three years and took about nine months off in which she modeled in Europe.
At Esper, Bibb was cast for two pilots, Face Value for the Fox television network and Talkgirl for MTV, neither of which were picked up as series. She landed the role of "dimwit model" for a Lee Jeans commercial. The slogan of the ad was "Lee Jeans will make you look like a model, just don't think like one." The director allowed Bibb to improvise on camera, and her wit came through.
"I don't read books," she deadpanned, "Cause if it's a really important book they'll make a movie about it."
Poking fun at her model friends led to other roles, and Bibb left New York for Los Angeles, California. With enough money saved up (and probably fearing revenge from the dimwits), she gave up modeling and dedicated herself to acting. She had small parts in Pacific Blue on the USA network, Early Edition on CBS, Fired Up and Just Shoot Me on NBC, and Home Improvement on ABC.
Her first film role came in 1997's Private Parts, an adaptation of the autobiography of nationally-syndicated radio host Howard Stern. (An important book, right Leslie?) She played a page leading a tour of KNBC radio in New York, whose group happened upon a taping of one of Stern's early shows, featuring a woman who deep throated a 13-inch kielbasa sausage
. Leslie would later reminisce to TV Guide: "I didn't do anything with sausage, [but] to see this woman do what she did with the sausage was pretty awe-inspiring. It's like sword swallowing I guess."
In June 1997, only two months after arriving in L.A., Leslie landed her first television series, replacing the departed Susan Walters as the female lead for the second season of The Big Easy on USA. A new character, detective trainee Janine Rebbenack, was created for her. She co-starred with Tony Crane, who played Detective Remy McSwain. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled that October.
Leslie dyed her hair blonde to play a drug addict in the still-unreleased independent film The Young Unknowns, alongside another struggling young actor, Devon Gummersall of the cult-favorite TV series My So-Called Life.
Before Leslie had the chance to change her hair back, her managers convinced her to read for the role of Popular's blonde cheerleader Brooke McQueen. She had the flu.
"I called...my managers and said, 'Look, I'm not going in for this thing. I'm too sick, I feel like crap, and I don't have a bra on.'" Regardless, Leslie went to the audition and "gave one of the best reads I've ever done."
"It was so good," she said. "Cause I looked like crap, I didn't care... (the producers were) forgiving of my appearance."
Leslie landed the role, and now the 26-year-old plays a much younger woman on the show. In reality, she is almost seven years older than her co-star Carly Pope.
At first Leslie was guarded about her age, telling TV Guide she was 20-something while promoting the show's premiere in late September. But returning to The Oprah Winfrey Show for its 1990s follow-up episode on December 1 made her age clear to fans paying attention.
Popular, airing in a difficult time slot Thursday at 8 p.m., is not a hit by any means. However, the show is fairly successful for the young WB network, which recorded its first profitable quarter of operation in Fall 1999. The show has a significant chance to be renewed for another season.
Meanwhile, Leslie has used her success to re-launch her film career. She appears (still blonde) alongside Joshua Jackson (from the WB's Dawson's Creek), Paul Walker and Craig T. Nelson in "The Skulls," a Universal Pictures feature which opened nationwide on March 31.
Leslie is very athletic, and enjoys tennis, swimming and boxing, and toured New Orleans on a mountain bike while working on The Big Easy. She reads and sees movies when time permits, and toys with writing as a hobby. To relax on the set, she listens to a machine which produces the sounds of crickets, waves and white noise.
Leslie lives in Los Angeles with her dogs Jack and Harley. She continues her acting classes in L.A. with coach Leigh Kilton-Smith, and has acted on stage at the Imau! Theatre Company. She volunteers on Sundays doing theater workshops with juvenile delinquents through a group called "The Unusual Suspects."