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CAMERON DIAZ, the most promising blue-eyed blonde of 1994, confounded Hollywood. After scoring a career-launching babe role of a lifetime opposite rising superstar <a href="/people/jimcarrey/">Jim Carrey</a> in <I>The Mask</I>, the budding actress did . . . <I>nothing</I>. Or at least not as much as might have been expected. Her promising comic debut opposite the hyperactive, plexi-faced comedian awarded her the chance to immortalize an ass-kicking video-game character in the live-action celluloid version of <I>Mortal Kombat</I>, but a cruel twist of fate snatched the opportunity away: Diaz injured her wrist karate-chopping her trainer's head in preparation for the role and had to back out of the martial-arts extravaganza. She bided her time, taking the occasional high-paying modeling job, and hand-picking juicy, if low-paying, independent-film roles. "I think that definitely your chances of coming across material in independent films--material that is more interesting and more challenging--is more likely than in big-studio films," the shrewd and savvy actress has commented of the appeal of indie projects. "You always have to leave your doors open to independent films so you have that opportunity."
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Such impressive professional awareness may seem odd for someone so young and relatively inexperienced, but Diaz got an early jump on her career and has kept up the pace ever since. At the age of sixteen, she made the acquaintance of a photographer who wasn't just another sleazeball at a Hollywood party, and within a week of their meeting she had succeeded in landing a contract with the Elite Modeling Agency. Soon after, the smooth-talking teen convinced her parents to let her spread her wings in Japan ("Oh, Mom, Dad--it's super-safe!"), accompanied only by a fifteen-year-old fellow model. "Believe me, you can get into a lot of trouble being sixteen years old in a foreign country with no adult telling you when to come home," Diaz recalls. She spent the next five years continent-hopping--"Australia, Morocco, Paris, Mexico, here, there, everywhere"--and eventually settled into a Hollywood apartment with video producer Carlos de La Torre; their relationship held strong for five years.
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Though Diaz's modeling career proved quite lucrative--she posed for such magazines as <I>Mademoiselle</I> and <I>Seventeen</I>, and appeared in ads for Calvin Klein, Levi's, and Coca-Cola--she felt a void in her life. Her agent suggested she fill it by starting to make that painful and oft-tried transition from modeling to acting. Diaz went out on some auditions, finally getting a callback--her first of twelve--for a small role in Carrey's <I>The Mask</I>. "Anything the filmmakers wanted, I would do," Diaz says. "But it got to the point where I said, 'You know what? I'm not doing it anymore. I'm not gonna go practice with the choreographer so that he knows the steps he's gonna teach the real girl who gets the job.'" But in the end, her perseverance paid off, and she walked away with the female lead after director Charles Russell went to bat for her with the producers at New Line. <I>The Mask</I> being her first acting experience, Diaz didn't fully grasp the scope of what she was involved in: "About a month into the movie, I said, 'This is kind of a big film, isn't it?' And they all said, 'Yes, Cameron. Yes it is.'" The dawning awareness of her responsibility to the film contributed to her getting her first ulcer.
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The ulcer and her subsequent pre-production <I>Mortal Kombat</I> injury soured Diaz on big-studio films, so she patiently auditioned for a bevy of independent films. And a bevy of roles she won: Diaz ran off with her brother-in-law, played by <a href="/people/keanureeves/">Keanu Reeves</a>, in <a href="http://www.mrshowbiz.com/reviews/moviereviews/movies/134.html"><I>Feeling Minnesota</I></a>; she slept with brothers Ed Burns and Mike McGlone in <I>She's the One</I>; and perhaps most difficult of all to believe, she played <a href="/people/harveykeitel/">Harvey Keitel</a>'s wife in <a href="http://www.mrshowbiz.com/reviews/moviereviews/movies/34121.html"><I>Head Above Water</I></a>. The National Association of Theater Owners acknowledged her string of indie triumphs by naming her the N.A.T.O./ShoWest Female Star of Tomorrow.
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http://www.CelebSite.com/people/camerondiaz/content/bio.html
Cameron Diaz grew up on Long Beach, California, in a
confusing mix of races. Her father, a foreman with a
sizeable Californian oil company, is second generation
Cuban-American, whilst her mother, an import-export
broker, is part German, English and Native American!
Whatever, the out-come is a true delight. A slender vision
whose face is an engaging blend of youthful innocence and
a striking sense of fun, topped off with gorgeous blonde
hair. It was her father who named her Cameron. "My dad
always picked out the coolest names," she says. "If I had
been a boy it was going to be Menachem El Genio or
Sebastian Emilo. Luckily I was a girl."
Clearly such looks have
always been part of the Diaz
make up, and by the time she was just 16 years old she was
being approached by photographers at a Hollywood party,
all trying to persuade her that modeling should be her
chosen career. She took their advice and eventually secured
a contract with the modeling agency Elite, making a
comfortable, if not hugely successful living.
It is not hard to imagine that in high school in Long Beach,
California, Diaz was the Scary Pretty Girl who hung around
the older kids. A confident child, she was raised by
easy-going parents, who toted Diaz and her sister, Chimene,
everywhere. "My Parents were young, and if they went to a
party at a friend's house, they took us," says Cameron. "All
the adults treated us like we were adults." Her mother
supported young Cameron's interest in heavy metal music
by accompanying her to her first Van Halen show.
Cameron's move towards the
heady heights of Hollywood
stardom eventually came in a chance meeting at her
commercial manager's office, where she happened on the
script for a new comedy which included the role of
nightclub singer Tina Carlyle. In a flippant, off hand
comment, Diaz remarked that she, with no acting
experience whatsoever, could "handle a comedy!" The
necessary call was made."I was 21 when I was doing 'The
Mask'. That was really cool. That was safer; I couldn't have
done it when I was 16. I would have destroyed someone or
myself."
But that is exactly what the young actress has done. To
prove that The Mask was not a one-off fluke, Diaz
deliberately opted for a role in a low-budget comedy, The
Last Supper, in which a group of students hold dinner
parties and kill their guests.
"I did The Last Supper simply
to get the opportunity to work with other actors," Diaz has
said, "I never had any experience with acting other than in
The Mask." If The Last Supper didn't rate with The Mask at
the box office, her next project looks like skyrocketing her
career through the roof. Having had to pull out of the
filming of Mortal Kombat when she broke her hand
practicing karate for the film. Diaz went on to star along
side Keanu Reeves in the hard hitting drama Feeling
Minnesota, having beaten 70 other actresses to the part.
"I got the script along time ago and everybody kept telling me
to read it, but I just didn't get around to it because I thought
the position was already filled, so at the last minute I read it.
I liked it. And I went in and read for Stephen Baigelman.
And then I read with Keanu and Vincent a day later....."
Way back in March 1996, Cameron Diaz was honoured as
Female Star of Tomorrow at ShoWest '96. The actress
received the award at the convention's March 7th Final
Night Awards Banquet held in Bally's Events Centre in Las
Vegas.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4317/diaz.html
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