Milla Jovovich

Milica Bogdanovna "Milla" Jovovich[nb 1][nb 2] (/ˈjoʊvəvɪtʃ/ yoh-və-vich; born December 17, 1975) is an actress, model, musician, and fashion designer. She has appeared in numerous science fiction and action films, leading the music channel VH1 to deem her the "reigning queen of kick-butt" in 2006. In 2004, she was the highest-paid model in the world according to Forbes.

Born in Kiev, Jovovich emigrated with her parents to the United States when she was five. In 1987, she began modeling at the age of 12 when Herb Ritts photographed her for the cover of the Italian magazine Lei. Richard Avedon featured her in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements. In 1988, Jovovich had her first acting role in the television film The Night Train to Kathmandu, and that year also appeared in her first feature film, Two Moon Junction.

Jovovich gained attention for her role in the explicit 1991 romance film Return to the Blue Lagoon, as she was then only 15. She was considered to have a breakthrough with her role in the 1997 French science-fiction film The Fifth Element written and directed by Luc Besson. She and Besson married that year, but soon divorced. She starred as the heroine and martyr in Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).

In 2002, Jovovich starred in the science fiction horror film Resident Evil, adapted from the video game series of the same name. It received negative reviews from critics, but was commercially successful. She reprised her role in five sequels, all in the apocalyptic fiction action horror genre, made between 2004 and 2016.

Jovovich released an album, The Divine Comedy, in 1994. She continues to release demos for other songs on her official website and contributes to film soundtracks. In 2003, she and model Carmen Hawk created the clothing line Jovovich-Hawk. Jovovich has her own production company, Creature Entertainment.

Early life and familyMilla Jovovich was born in 1975 in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, the daughter of Galina Loginova, a Russian actress, and Bogich Jovovich, who is Serbian. Her maternal ancestors were from the city of Tula. She spent most of her early childhood in Moscow, Russian SSR, where her mother was from.

In 1980, when Jovovich was five years old, her family left the Soviet Union for political reasons and immigrated to London. They subsequently immigrated to Sacramento, California, settling in Los Angeles seven months later. Milla's parents divorced soon after their arrival in Los Angeles.

In 1988, her father had a relationship with an Argentine woman, and they had a son, Marco Jovovich. Due to her parents' divorce years before, Jovovich saw little of her half brother.

In Los Angeles, her mother tried to get acting jobs, but found little success because of language barriers, and eventually resorted to cleaning houses to earn money. Both parents served as cooks and housekeepers for director Brian De Palma. Milla's father was convicted and imprisoned for participating in an illegal operation concerning medical insurance; he was given a 20-year sentence in 1994, but was released in 1999 after serving five years. According to Jovovich, "Prison was good for him. He's become a much better person. It gave him a chance to stop and think."

Jovovich attended public schools in Los Angeles, becoming fluent in English in three months. In school, she was teased by classmates for coming from the Soviet Union: "I was called a commie and a Russian spy. I was never, ever, ever accepted into the crowd." At age 12, Jovovich left seventh grade to focus on modeling, which she had started at age nine. She has said she was rebellious during her early teens, engaging in drug use, shopping mall vandalism, and credit-card fraud. In 1994, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen at the age of 19.

Modeling careerIt was Jovovich's early work with Ritz, Richard Avedon and Peter Lindbergh that led to her success in advertising, bringing the young model contracts and covers for both Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Since then, she has been featured on more than 100 magazine covers, including all the major fashion magazines in the US. She has been part of campaigns for Banana Republic, Christian Dior, Damiani, Donna Karan, Gap, Versace, Calvin Klein, DKNY, Coach, Giorgio Armani, H&M, and Revlon. Since 1998, Jovovich has been an "international spokesmodel" for L'Oréal cosmetics. She was referred to in a minor cameo in Bret Easton Ellis' novel Glamorama, a satire of society's obsession with celebrities and beauty.

Jovovich was said to be designer Miuccia Prada's muse in 2002; a 2003 article claimed she was Gianni Versace's "favourite supermodel". In 2004, Jovovich topped Forbes magazine's "Richest Supermodels of the World" list, earning a reported $10.5 million.

In 2006, Jovovich was picked up by Mango, a Spanish clothing line, as their new spokesmodel and is featured in their ad campaigns; she can also be seen in ads for Etro. She has noted that "Modeling was never a priority" and that the money she earns enables her "to be selective about the creative decisions [she] make".

In 2012, Jovovich was hired as the new "face" of a global advertising campaign for wristwatch and jewelry retailer Jacob & Co.

Early work (1985–1993)Jovovich's mother had "raised [her] to be a movie star." In 1985, Galina enrolled Jovovich at the age of 10 in acting classes, and when her acting jobs picked up, she started attending school for young actors rather than regular school system.

In 1988, Jovovich appeared in her first professional role as Lily McLeod in the made-for-television film The Night Train to Kathmandu. Later that year, she made her debut in a feature film as Samantha Delongpre in the romantic thriller Two Moon Junction. She had several roles in television series, including Paradise (1988), Married... with Children (1989) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990).

At age 15, she was cast as the lead as Lilli Hargrave in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), opposite Brian Krause. Given her age and beauty, she was often compared to Brooke Shields, another child model-turned-actress who had starred in the original Blue Lagoon. The role was controversial, as Jovovich appeared nude in the film, as had Shields in The Blue Lagoon.. For this role, Jovovich was nominated both for "Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture" at the 1991 Young Artist Awards, and "Worst New Star" at the 1991 Golden Raspberry Awards.

In 1992, Milla Jovovich co-starred with Christian Slater in the comedy Kuffs. Later that year, she portrayed Mildred Harris in the Charlie Chaplin biographical film Chaplin. In 1993 she acted in Richard Linklater's film Dazed and Confused. She played Michelle Burroughs, on-screen girlfriend to Pickford (played by her then-boyfriend Shawn Andrews). Strongly featured in promotions for the film, Jovovich was upset to find her role much reduced in the released film. Discouraged, she took a hiatus from acting roles, moving to Europe. She started to work at music.

Breakthrough (1997–2001)Jovovich returned to acting in 1997 with a lead role in the French science fiction action film The Fifth Element, alongside Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman. This was written and directed by Luc Besson. She portrayed Leeloo, an alien who helps to save the planet. Jovovich said she "worked like hell: no band practice, no clubs, no pot, nothing" to acquire the role and impress Besson. They married on December 14, 1997, but later divorced.

Jovovich co-created and mastered an alien fictional language of over 400 words for her role. She wore a costume that came to be known as the "ACE-bandage" costume; the body suit designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier was made of medical bandages. The Fifth Element was selected as the opening film for the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and its worldwide box office gross was over $263 million, more than three times its budget of $80 million. The Fifth Element was often praised for its visual style; critic James Berardinelli wrote, "Jovovich makes an impression, although her effectiveness has little to do with acting and less to do with dialogue". Jovovich was nominated for "Favorite Female Newcomer" at the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards and "Best Fight" at the MTV Movie Awards. The film inspired a video game and a planned Leeloo action figure, but the figure was never released due to licensing problems. In a 2003 interview, Jovovich said Leeloo was her favorite role.

In 1998, Jovovich appeared in Spike Lee's drama He Got Game, as abused prostitute Dakota Burns; she acted with Denzel Washington and Ray Allen. In 1999, she appeared in the music video for the song "If You Can't Say No" by Lenny Kravitz. That year she returned to the action genre playing the title role in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, under direction of Luc Besson. She cut her hair short and wore armor in several extensive battle scenes. Jovovich received generally good reviews for her performance, although she also received a Razzie Award nomination for "Worst Actress". The historical drama did moderately well at the box office, gaining $66 million worldwide. In 2000, Jovovich appeared as the troubled Eloise in The Million Dollar Hotel, a film based on a concept story by Bono of the band U2 and Nicholas Klein. Directed by Wim Wenders, Jovovich starred alongside Jeremy Davies and Mel Gibson; she provided vocals on the film's soundtrack. That year she also played bar owner Lucia, in the British western film The Claim (2000). This was followed by a supporting role as the evil Katinka in the comedy Zoolander (2001).

International success (2002–2006)In 2002, Jovovich starred in the horror/action film Resident Evil, released in the United States on March 15, 2002 and based on the CAPCOM video game series of the same name. She portrayed Alice, the film's heroine, who fights a legion of zombies created by the Umbrella Corporation. Jovovich had accepted the role because she and her brother Marco had been fans of the video game franchise. Jovovich had performed all the stunts required in the film, except for a scene that would involve her jumping to a cement platform, which her management deemed too dangerous, and had trained in karate, kickboxing, and combat-training. The film was commercially successful, grossing $17 million on its opening weekend, and gaining $40 million domestically and $102 million worldwide. Later, she portrayed the manipulative gang wife Erin in No Good Deed (2002), Nadine in the romantic comedy You Stupid Man (2002), punk rocker Fangora ("Fanny") in Dummy (2003), and provided a guest voice on the television series King of the Hill. The role of Fangora in Dummy allowed Jovovich to act in film with Oscar-winning Adrien Brody, who was a friend prior to filming. Jovovich found it easy to identify with this role because she felt Fangora possessed similar qualities to the actress' own life.

In 2004, Jovovich reprised the role of Alice in the sequel to Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The role required her to do fight training for three hours a day, in addition to the three months prior to filming in which she had "gun training, martial arts, everything". Apocalypse received even more negative reactions from the critics than the first film, but it was an even greater commercial success, ranking number one at the box office unlike the first film. Following the release of the film, Jovovich was unhappy with the critical results and director Alexander Witt's effort. She noted during an interview that year that her large action films take care of the commercial part of her career, while she acts in "independent little films that never come out" to appease her artistic side, and "It's a good balance". The following year, she was featured in Gore Vidal's faux trailer remake of Caligula, as Drusilla. In 2006, Jovovich's film, the science fiction/action thriller Ultraviolet, was released on March 3. She played the title role of Violet Song jat Shariff, a role that also involved heavily choreographed fight sequences. It was not screened for critics, but when reviewed, it was critically panned, grossing $31 million worldwide. That year, Jovovich also starred in .45, as Kat, the revenge driven girlfriend of an illegal gun and drug dealer with Scottish actor and DJ Angus Macfadyen.

Recent and future roles (2007–present)In 2007, Jovovich reprised her role as Alice in Resident Evil: Extinction, the third of the Resident Evil series. The film grossed an estimated $24 million in 2,828 theaters on its opening weekend, topping the box office gross for that week. It opened stronger than its predecessor, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, which opened with $23 million in 3,284 theaters (over 450 more theaters than Extinction). In a March 2006 interview, Jovovich said that she would not appear in another action film "for a long time", expressing a desire to portray more diverse roles, but she added that talks of another sequel in the Resident Evil franchise were a "real possibility".

Jovovich speaking at WonderCon 2012 about Resident Evil

In 2009, Jovovich starred in David Twohy's A Perfect Getaway with Kiele Sanchez, Timothy Olyphant, and Steve Zahn. The film is a thriller about a newlywed couple (Milla and Zahn) on their honeymoon in Hawaii. She played Cydney Anderson.

Jovovich played Lucetta, the wife of a jailed arsonist (played by Edward Norton) in Stone, a psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro. Filming began in May 2009 at the recently closed Southern Michigan Correctional Facility in Jackson, Michigan.

Jovovich played the role of Dr. Abigail Tyler in the science-fiction thriller The Fourth Kind and starred in the psychological thriller Faces in the Crowd, which was written and directed by Julien Magnat; in the latter film, she plays the survivor of a serial killer’s attack that leaves her suffering from a condition called prosopagnosia, which renders her unable to recognize faces.

Jovovich returned as Alice in the fourth movie of the Resident Evil series, Afterlife, which was directed by her husband, Paul W. S. Anderson. She had a role in Dirty Girl, which premiered on September 12, 2010 at the Toronto Film Festival, opposite Juno Temple, William H. Macy, Mary Steenburgen, and Tim McGraw. Jovovich starred in Paul W. S. Anderson's The Three Musketeers, as Milady de Winter, in 2011.

Jovovich is set to star in David R. Ellis' horror film Bad Luck, based on a screenplay by David J. Schow. She appeared in Famke Janssen's directorial debut film Bringing Up Bobby, which also stars Marcia Cross. Vykrutasy, a Russian film which translates into Lucky Trouble, also stars Jovovich.

Jovovich was set to portray Amalia Bezhetskaya in The Winter Queen in 2007; however, with the announcement of her pregnancy early that year, the film was postponed. In the spring of 2011, Seven Arts and GFM Films announced they would be merging their distribution operations. The joint venture is expected to release The Winter Queen under the direction of Fyodor Bondarchuk.

She returned to her role as Alice in the fifth installment of Resident Evil for Resident Evil: Retribution, which was released on September 14, 2012. She is also set to return as Alice in the sixth and allegedly last installment of the film franchise, entitled Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.

Music careerJovovich had begun working on a music album as early as 1988, when she was signed by SBK Records after the company heard a demo she recorded. In August 1990, she asserted in an interview that the then-forthcoming album would be "a mix between Kate Bush, Sinéad O'Connor, This Mortal Coil, and the Cocteau Twins". After it was initially presented by SBK strictly as a pop album, Jovovich protested, insisting on using her personal poetry for lyrics and recording her own instrumental material. Jovovich had written the songs when she was fifteen, with the exception of a Ukrainian folk song, "In a Glade", that she covered. In April 1994, billed under her first name, she released The Divine Comedy, a title that was a reference to the epic poem by Dante Alighieri of the same name. Jovovich had chosen the title after seeing Russian artist Alexis Steele's proposed cover artwork sketch for the then untitled album. Jovovich found that the sketch had "all the struggle that I'm singing about. It IS the divine comedy". The Divine Comedy was well received by critics, and featured pop-infused traditional Ukrainian folk songs that led to comparisons with musicians Tori Amos and Kate Bush. John McAlley of Rolling Stone called the album "remarkable", "strikingly mature and rich in invention", and as featuring "angst-laced poetry with vivid melodies and arrangements that find a common spirit in synth pop, European folk and psychedelic dream rock".

Jovovich released the track "Gentleman Who Fell", with an accompanying music video, as the sole single from the album. The music video was originally directed by Lisa Bonet and featured Harry Dean Stanton, but Jovovich was unsatisfied with the results and decided to film another version. The second version of "Gentleman Who Fell", a homage to Maya Deren's short film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), was subsequently played on MTV. Jovovich toured the United States during most of 1994 to promote the album, opening for Toad the Wet Sprocket and Crash Test Dummies, as well as playing smaller acoustic sets. Jovovich had opted to perform in smaller and more intimate settings, turning down a musical appearance on Saturday Night Live. Jovovich has also been collaborating musically with longtime friend and musician Chris Brenner, who co-wrote with her on the Divine Comedy Album and who was the musical coordinator for the supporting tour. She and Brenner met in 1993 and have since worked together on several ventures. Following The Divine Comedy, she expressed interest in releasing a second album, having had ten songs ready for a future recording that was intended for a Summer 1996 release. Despite the appearance of a lo-fi field recording The People Tree Sessions in 1998, Jovovich has yet to release a second album.

In May 1999, Jovovich along with Chris Brenner formed an experimental band called Plastic Has Memory, in which she wrote the songs, sang, and played electric guitar. The band was "uch heavier and darker than the vaguely Ukrainian folk-sounding elements of her first album" and had a similar sound to a grunge and trip hop Portishead. Plastic Has Memory played about a dozen shows in Los Angeles and New York City for a potential Virgin Records album release, one of which Mick Jagger had attended. Though Plastic Has Memory was featured on Hollywood Goes Wild, a benefit celebrity compilation album, the group never formally released a record and is no longer together.

Jovovich has contributed tracks to several of her film soundtracks, including The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) and Dummy (2002), and has also provided songs for the soundtracks of films in which she has not acted such as Underworld (2003) produced by musician Danny Lohner who was the bass player in Nine Inch Nails for many years. Her song "The Gentlemen Who Fell" was featured on The Rules of Attraction soundtrack in 2002. In 2001, Jovovich was one of many celebrities whose vocals were featured in a cover of "We are Family" to raise money for the American Red Cross. She has appeared as guest vocalist on the song "Former Lover" on Deepak Chopra's album, A Gift of Love II: Oceans of Ecstasy (2002) and Legion of Boom (2004) by The Crystal Method.

Since 2003, Jovovich has worked with musician Maynard James Keenan, of Tool and A Perfect Circle, on his Industrial side project Puscifer, contributing vocals to the track "REV 22:20", which was featured on various film soundtracks in its original or a remixed form. As of January, 2009, she can be heard collaborating with Maynard and Danny Lohner on the Puscifer track called, "The Mission." She also performed the song at the first live Puscifer performance on February 13, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Danny Lohner, and longtime music collaborator Chris Brenner currently continue to record and perform with Jovovich who has made several highly praised appearances in recent years.

Jovovich continues to write songs which she refers to as "demos", and which are provided for free in MP3 format on her official website. She provides license to freely download and remix the tracks, but reserves the right to sell and issue them.

A new single called Electric Sky was released on May 18, 2012. The song was presented at the Life Ball in 2012.

Fashion designJovovich and fellow model Carmen Hawk launched a line of clothing called Jovovich-Hawk in 2003. The pair opened a showroom in New York City's Greenwich Village on September 13, 2005, and the line lasted for four years. All of the dresses for Jovovich-Hawk line were designed by herself and her partner Carmen Hawk, in The atelier is based in Los Angeles, but pieces could be found at Fred Segal in Los Angeles, Harvey Nichols, and over 50 stores around the world. Vogue has praised the line for its "girl-about-town cult status most designers spend years trying to achieve."

In November 2006, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and US Vogue nominated Jovovich-Hawk for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award. Jovovich-Hawk was nominated as a finalist, although Doo-Ri Chung took the top prize.

In 2007, Jovovich and Hawk designed the costume for Jovovich's character in Resident Evil: Extinction. The shorts Alice, her character, wears are a variation on the 'Alice Star' Shorts from the Spring 2007 collection. In late 2007, Jovovich-Hawk signed a deal to design a diffusion collection for Target's Go International campaign, following in the footsteps of Luella, Paul & Joe and Proenza Schouler.

In late 2008, Jovovich and Hawk mutually agreed to end the business due to increased demands on their time. Jovovich explained, "I'm an artist. I'm not someone who can deal with shipping rates and taxes".

Media personalityJovovich and Ali Larter promoting Resident Evil: Afterlife at Comic Con 2010.

Jovovich has been noted for her careers as a model, singer and actress. Music channel VH1 has referred to her as the "reigning queen of kick-butt" for her roles in various sci-fi and action films and Rebecca Flint Marx of Allmovie said that despite the negative critical response for the Resident Evil films, the franchise has turned Jovovich into an "A-list action star". Her action roles have given her a geek following for which MTV said she was "Every Geek's Dream Girl".

In 2004, Jovovich was ranked No. 69 on Maxim magazine's "Top 100 Hot List", ranked No. 82 in 2005 and ranked No. 21 in 2010. Maxim also named her No. 11 on their list of "Hottest Nerd Crushes". In 2008, she was ranked No. 90 on Ask Men's Top 99 Women of 2008 List. In 2011, Jovovich attended and sang at the birthday celebration of Mikhail Gorbachev. The actress also gave a speech in which she thanked Gorbachev, saying that when she and her family left the Soviet Union in 1980 they were sadly sure that they would never see their relatives again and that thanks to him they have been reunited.

Personal lifeJovovich was born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union to a Serbian father – a doctor, and a Russian mother – an actress, but grew up mostly in Moscow, Russia, where her mother had come from. While she has no memories of her early years in Ukraine, Milla says she "remembers a lot" about her life in Russia. In addition to English, she is fluent in French and partly in Russian. She was raised in a Russian household and referred to the role the Russian culture played in her life when she stated in 2005: "I have a Russian mother, she was a famous actress in the USSR (Galina Loginova). And the first books, which I read, were in Russian. I was raised in the atmosphere of the Russian classical theatre school. The art, built on the system of Stanislavsky – that's the most realistic art. And the modern cinema stands on the same principle. A Russian person wants to find the truth. This is the base of the Russian culture. I never forget it, especially since I have Russian roots". When asked if she still feels Russian, after having left Russia at a young age, Milla replied, "Definitely. I still speak Russian. I speak it with my daughter. I read her Russian stories and poems. My roots are very important — they make me who I am". Jovovich established a charitable foundation in 2005 to help Ukrainian children. At the time she referred to herself: "I am a strong Ukrainian girl, that is why I work a lot". However, later, in an interview for the Ukrainian version of the Vogue magazine, Milla stated she doesn't actually consider herself Ukrainian. Expressing her disagreement with several newspapers that presented Jovovich as a "Ukrainian actress", her mother Galina said, "They may say whatever they want. My parents are Russian, from Tula. Milla is half Russian, half Montenegrin. But, I think, she considers herself of Russian descent".

In addition to being a former smoker, Jovovich has advocated the legalization of cannabis, and appeared in a spread and on the cover for High Times. In an article published in 1994, she admitted that her only vices were cigarettes and cannabis. She practices yoga and meditates often in attempts to live a healthy lifestyle; although not affiliating with any specific religion, she prays and considers herself a "spiritual person". She avoids junk foods and prefers to cook for herself. She practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in addition to other varieties of martial arts. Jovovich also enjoys playing the guitar, and writing poems and lyrics for songs.

Relationships and marriageJovovich currently resides in homes in Los Angeles and New York with her husband, film writer and director Paul W. S. Anderson, whom she married on 22 August 2009. The two met while working on the 2002 film Resident Evil, which Anderson wrote and directed, and in which Jovovich starred. Anderson proposed to Jovovich in 2003, but the two separated for a period of time before becoming a couple again. On November 3, 2007, Jovovich gave birth to their first child, daughter Ever Gabo. The child was born at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. Their second child, daughter Dashiel Edan, was born on April 1, 2015.

Prior to her relationship with Anderson, Jovovich married on-screen boyfriend Shawn Andrews in 1992 while filming Dazed and Confused together. Andrews was 21, while Jovovich was 16; the marriage was annulled by her mother two months later. Shortly after the annulment, Jovovich moved to Europe with her friend and musician Chris Brenner where she met and then lived with her new boyfriend, ex-Jamiroquai bassist Stuart Zender, in London from May 1994 to October 1995. From 1995 to 1997, she dated photographer Mario Sorrenti. In Las Vegas, she married The Fifth Element director Luc Besson in 1997 where they went skydiving directly after the ceremony; they divorced in 1999. Between 1998 and 2001, she befriended the young poet and musician, Anno Birkin, and each was the other's inspiration behind many of their compositions. Jovovich became involved with Birkin romantically just before his death in a car accident on November 8, 2001.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milla_Jovovich

Milla Jovovich Actress - Date of Birth 17 December 1975, Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Ukraine]

Birth Name Militza Jovovich

Height 5' 8" (1.73 m)

Mini Bio (1) Milla Jovovich is an Ukrainian-born actress, supermodel, fashion designer, singer and public figure, who was on the cover of more than a hundred magazines, and starred in such films as The Fifth Element (1997), Ultraviolet (2006), and the Resident Evil (2002) franchise.

Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich was born on December 17, 1975 in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now in Ukraine). Her Serbian father, Bogdan Jovovich, was a medical doctor in Kiev. There, he met her mother, Galina Jovovich (née Loginova), a Russian actress. At the age of 5, in 1981, Milla emigrated with her parents from the Soviet Union, moving first to London, UK, then to Sacramento, California, and eventually settled in Los Angeles. There her parents worked as house cleaners for the household of director Brian De Palma. Her parents separated, and eventually divorced, because her father was arrested and spent several years in prison.

Young Milla Jovovich was brought up by her single mother in Los Angeles. In addition to her native Russian, she also speaks Serbian and English. However, in spite of her cosmopolitan background, Milla was ostracized by some of her classmates, as a kid who emigrated from the Soviet Union amidst the paranoia of the Cold War. Many emotional scars had affected her behavior, but she eventually emerged as a resilient, multi-talented, albeit rebellious and risk-taking girl. She was coached by her actress mother since her childhood, first at home, then studied music, ballet, and acting in Los Angeles.

She shot to international fame after she was spotted by the photographer Richard Avedon at the age of 11, and was featured in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements, and on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine 'Lei' which was her first cover shoot. She made her first professional model contract at the age of 12, and soon made it to the cover of 'The Face', 'Vogue', 'Cosmopolitan' and many other magazines. In 1994, she appeared on the cover of 'High Times' in the UK, at the age of 18. The total number of her magazine covers worldwide was over one hundred by 2004, and keeps counting. In 2004, she made $10.4 million, becoming the highest paid supermodel in the world.

Milla appeared in ad campaigns for Chanel, Versace, Emporio Armani, Donna Karen, DKNY, Celine, P&K, H&H, and continues her role as the worldwide spokesmodel for L'Oreal. Thanks to their continued success with Milla, Giorgio Armani chose her to be the face of his fragrance, Night. In addition to Armani's fragrance, Milla was the face for Calvin Klein's Obsession and Christian Dior's Poison for over 10 years and has most recently become the new face for Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist fragrance, which debuts in August 2009. Milla continues to shoot with the fashion industry's most sought after photographers, including Peter Lindbergh, Mario Sorrenti, Craig McDean and Inez & Vinoodh.

Milla made her acting debut in the Disney Channel movie The Night Train to Kathmandu (1988) and she made guest appearances on television series including Married with Children (1987) (in 1989 as a French exchange student), Guns of Paradise (1988) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990). In 1988, at age 12, she made her film debut credited as Milla in a supporting role in Two Moon Junction (1988) by writer/director Zalman King. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she played several supporting roles as a teenage actress in film and on television, then starred in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991). In 1997, she co-starred opposite Bruce Willis in the sci-fi blockbuster The Fifth Element (1997), then she starred as the title character of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).

In the early 2000s, Milla had a few years of uncertainty in her acting career due to the uneven quality of her films, as well as some hectic events in her private life. She appeared with Mel Gibson in Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. She went on to co-star with Wes Bentley and Sarah Polley in The Claim (2000) and in Ben Stiller's spoof of the world of models and high-fashion, Zoolander (2001).

Milla achieved box office success in the U.S. and around the world with the action-packed thriller, Resident Evil (2002), based on the wildly popular video game, Resident Evil. It was written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Milla reprised her role as the zombie slaying heroine, Alice, in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), and again in Resident Evil: Retribution (2012). A sixth resident Evil movie is in pre-production.

She received glowing reviews opposite Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Illeana Douglas in Dummy (2002) which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. In the spring of 2006, Milla returned to the big screen as action heroine, Violet, in the futuristic film Ultraviolet (2006) directed by Kurt Wimmer.

Focusing on her personal sense of style, her love of fashion led Milla and her friend and business partner, Carmen Hawk, to launch their Jovovich-Hawk clothing line, which achieved instant acclaim in the domestic and international fashion world. The fresh, unique line garnered the attention of red carpet watchers and fashion magazines, including American Vogue, who featured Jovovich-Hawk on their coveted list of "10 Things to Watch Out for in 2005." A student of voice and guitar since she was very young, Milla began writing songs for her first record at the age of 15.

Her first album, "The Divine Comedy", was released by EMI Records in 1994. Informed by her experiences as a child growing up as a Russian emigrant in the Red-bashing Reagan era, the introspective European-folkish debut drew favorable reviews for Milla's songwriting and performing. She continues to write music, and has had songs featured on several film soundtracks. She has been writing music and lyrics to her song-demos, playing her guitar and sampling other sounds from her computer, and allowing free download and remix of her songs from her website.

Charitable work also plays a major part in Milla's life. She has served as Master of Ceremonies and co-chaired with Elizabeth Taylor for the amfAR and Cinema Against AIDS event at the Venice Film Festival, and has been heavily involved with The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, as well as The Wildlands Project.

For many years Milla Jovovich has been maintaining a healthier lifestyle, practicing yoga and meditation, trying to avoid junk food, and cooking for herself. Since she was a little girl, Milla has been writing a private diary, a habit she learned from her mother. She has been keeping a record of many good and bad facts of her life, her travels, her relationships, and all important ideas and events in her career, planning eventually to publish an autobiography. After dissolution of her two previous marriages, Milla Jovovich became engaged to film director Paul W.S. Anderson; their daughter, Ever Anderson, was born on November 3, 2007.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov and Brad Cafarelli, Publicist

Paul W.S. Anderson (22 August 2009 - present) (2 children)

Luc Besson (14 December 1997 - 2 May 2000) (divorced)

Shawn Andrews (2 October 1992 - 25 November 1992) (annulled)

Her name is pronounced Mee-la Yo-vo-vitch.

Mother is Russian actress Galina Jovovich.

Father is a Serbian pediatrician, from Belgrade Serbia, who moved to Russia and married her mother there.

Frequently attends big show business events such as celebrity parties, premieres, openings, fashion shows and awards shows. Is a fixture in magazine paparazzi sections because of this.

Has been on the cover of more than one hundred magazines worldwide.

Once fronted a band called Plastic Has Memory.

Voted the Sexiest Female Movie Star in the Australian Empire magazine. [September 2002]

While filming the movie Dazed and Confused (1993), she eloped with actor Shawn Andrews to Las Vegas, Nevada. It was 1992 and several months before she turned 17. Since she was only 16 at the time, her mother had the marriage annulled.

Has performed almost most of her own stunts in Resident Evil (2002).

Attended high school with Christina Applegate; then later made a guest appearance on Married with Children (1987).

Her music video "The Gentleman Who Fell" is based on Maya Deren's short film Meshes of the Afternoon (1946).

Ranked #98 in the 2005 FHM list of "100 Sexiest Women in the World".

Voted #65 on VH1's 100 Most Hottest Celebrity Bodies.

Named #82 on Maxim magazine's Hot 100 Women of 2005 list.

At the age of just 11, she was used in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements, which were shot by Richard Avedon.

Has one sibling, a half-brother named Marco (born 1988).

She is fluent in English, French, Serbian and Ukrainian.

As a teenage girl, she lived with her single mother, because her father spent seven years in prison, and her parents divorced.

She enjoys martial arts and she practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Divides her time between New York City and Los Angeles, California.

She owns a 5559-square-foot house in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills that she purchased in 1998 for $775,000. A 4026-square-foot house in Beverly Hills that she paid $2,223,000 for in 2004. And a 3010-square-foot house in the Doral Isles Saint-Croix development in Doral, Florida (just outside Miami) that she purchased in 2005 for $910,000 (2009).

Sold her four-bedroom, 3582-square-foot house in Beverly Hills, California for $2.750 million. She originally purchased the house in late 2001 for $1.8 million (2009).

Her ethnicity is half Serbian (paternal) and half Russian (maternal).

Named one of the "Twenty Most Beautiful People of the Decade" by Interview magazine (2009).

Named #43 Sexiest Woman by the Spanish version of DT magazine (2011).

Her favorite horror movie is The Shining (1980).

She's claustrophobic. She said the scariest thing she had done was the scene in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) where her character had to be in a small tank.

For The Fifth Element (1997), the production decided to dye Jovovich's hair from its natural brown color to her character's signature orange color. However, due to the fact that her hair had to be redyed regularly to maintain the bright color, Milla's hair quickly became too damaged and broken to withstand the dye. Most of Milla's hair fell out and eventually a wig was created to match the color and style of Leeloo's hair, and was used for the remainder of the production.

Milla's surname meant "son of Jovan".

Has small cameo in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), she is shown starring in a TV commercial that Jeff Bridges' character is watching in the beginning of the film.

She's afraid of needles.

She said the reason she did Resident Evil (2002) was because her brother was a huge fan of the video game.

She said the romance sequel Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991) was the worst film she has ever done.

For Zoolander (2001), she based her performance of Katinka on her mother Galina Jovovich.

(August 22, 2009) Married for the third time her boyfriend of 7 years and father of her 21-month-old daughter Ever, Paul W.S. Anderson, following a 6-year-long engagement.

Gave birth to her first child at age 31, a daughter named Ever Gabo Anderson on November 3, 2007 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. Child's father is her fiancé (now third husband), Paul W.S. Anderson.

Gave birth to her second child at age 39, a daughter named Dashiel Edan Jovovich-Anderson on April 1, 2015 at 5:45 a.m. She was 7 lbs., 10 oz. and 20 inches long at birth. Child's father is her third husband, Paul W.S. Anderson.

Returned to work 4 months after giving birth to her daughter Ever in order to begin filming A Perfect Getaway (2009).

Has starred with five actors from The Avengers movies: Robert Downey Jr. in Chaplin (1992); Samuel L. Jackson and Stellan Skarsgård in No Good Deed (2002); Thomas Kretschmann in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004); and Chris Hemsworth in A Perfect Getaway (2009).

With the release of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), Jovovich passes Kate Beckinsale (Underworld Series) as the female actor to star in the same role, as a lead, in the most major films (6). Beckinsale, as of this note, was negotiating a sixth Underworld, but you know how things in Hollywood can go. BTW Lois Maxwell holds the overall actress reprisal title playing Ms. Moneypenny in 14 James Bond films.

I think that's one of the only reasons God created celebrities. To help those who can't help themselves.

[on The Fifth Element (1997)] I worked like hell. No band practice, no clubs, no pot, nothing.

[on Resident Evil (2002)] If this movie was made in America they would have had a guy and we would have been his harem or entourage. Big studios don't trust that women will bring in that kind of audience, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) was really an exception to the rule. Most of the time, if you make a big action film there has to be a big action guy in it. It's very European to trust a woman to play that kind of a role.

I'm a dabbler.

About Madonna: Oh, my God! I used to ride my bicycle around for hours in the garage of our apartment building singing "Material Girl". (In Style magazine, September 2006).

[on Resident Evil (2002)] We've got really infantile mentalities on this movie. We're like: "It's gross - cool! It's disgusting - print it!". You have to think like a fifteen-year-old. Wet dress. Zombies. Guns. Cool!

To be an actor, you have to know yourself really well. That's been a major thing for me, to really understand why I do things.

It's going to seem idiotic to say this, but I think that at a given moment we all need a place to ourselves where we can refuge ourselves and cut ourselves off from the world.

I'm not really easy to live with! There needs to be unlimited patience and unconditional love. Men I've known before loved my independent spirit and were proud of my success, to the point that they'd become jealous of the time I devote to my career.

I am a strong Ukrainian girl, that is why I work a lot.

At the age of 16, I was already dreaming of having a baby because I felt myself to be an adult, but my mum forbid it. Right now, I feel like a teenager and I want to have fun for one or two more years before starting a family.

[On why she hated Ultraviolet] Listen. All I can tell you is I was completely locked out from the editing room, which was unfortunate, because I was promised that I wouldn't be. On both Resident Evils I had a lot of input into the movie, before it was finished...more on the first than on the second. But with Ultraviolet I was very depressed, because Kurt Wimmer was a real cad, in the sense that he kind of reneged on his promises and didn't allow me to see my performances.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000170/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm