Printable Biography of America Ferrera

America Georgine Ferrera (born April 18, 1984) is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her Golden Globe-, Screen Actors Guild-, and Emmy Award-winning role as Betty Suarez on the ABC television comedy-drama series Ugly Betty and for her roles in the films Real Women Have Curves and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

America, the youngest of six siblings, was born in Los Angeles, California, to Honduran parents. She was raised by her mother in a Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles. She started acting at age eight in school plays and community theater. She attended George Ellery Hale Middle School and El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills. In interviews, Ferrera has noted the contrast between the image of the “typical Latina” experience and her own childhood, observing that growing up in a mostly Jewish, non-Hispanic neighborhood, she attended 52 bar mitzvahs and not a single quinceañera."

In July of 2002, she made her first TV movie, Gotta Kick It Up! for The Disney Channel. That same year, she made her feature film debut in the indie sleeper hit Real Women Have Curves. Ferrera followed this with roles in both television Touched by an Angel and film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Lords of Dogtown. Ferrera received a 2005 Movieline Breakthrough Award. In December 2005, she appeared in the off-Broadway play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, directed by Trip Cullman.

In 2006, she landed the lead role in Ugly Betty, an adaptation of the Colombian hit telenovela Betty La Fea, in which she portrays a girl whom her peers find extremely unattractive, thus the series title. As Betty Suarez, Ferrera wears fake braces on her teeth, bushy eyebrows and a disheveled wig, and make-up and clothing intended to downplay her own looks. Ferrera’s famous smile is reportedly insured by Lloyd's of London for $10 million.

According to Ugly Betty hair department head Roddy Stayton, “She’s a gorgeous girl with an incredible style sensibility in her personal life. What we do is Bettify her in the morning. It’s in contrast to the rest of the show, where everybody else is glammed up”, adding that it was Ferrera herself who coined the term “Bettification” to describe the process.

For her role in Ugly Betty, Ferrera won the 2007 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Comedy or Musical, beating out fellow nominees Marcia Cross, Felicity Huffman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mary-Louise Parker. As a result of the award, she was congratulated by the U.S. House of Representatives as being a role model for young Hispanics.[4] On 28 January 2007 Ferrera won the prestigious Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Female Actor in a Comedy Series. She also starred in and executive produced the poignant short film Muertas.

In 2007, Time Magazine chose Ferrera as one of the top artists and entertainers in their “Time 100: The Most Influential People In The World” issue.[5] In July 2007, America Ferrera also won Imagen Foundation’s Creative Achievement Award.[6] On September 16, 2007, Ferrera won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series for her role of Betty Suarez on ABC’s Ugly Betty. In the summer of 2007, she wrapped filming on the sequel to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Ferrera is the youngest of six siblings which include one brother and four sisters. That means she is the youngest of a family of 8, and one of 5 sisters. She is currently dating Ryan Piers Williams. They first met while working on his student film at USC. Ferrera has repeatedly denied rumors that they are engaged.

Ferrera attends the University of Southern California, where she is majoring in International Relations; as of January 2007, she lacked only one semester’s coursework to earn her degree. She spent the autumn of 2004 studying in the American University Washington Semester Program[8] and also attended New York University as a part of their Spring in New York program in the spring of 2006 while she was performing in Dog Sees God.