Amber Valletta

Born on February 9th 1974, Amber Valletta, despite her exotic name, is American, having been born in Tucson, Arizona. Her parents soon moved from Tucson to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Amber was raised.

Growing up, Amber wanted initially to become a sociologist and work in the social scope. But her life took a different, albeit blessed, turn and she ended up in a very different career. Knowing that her little girl's beauty stood out among the rest, her mother enrolled her in a modeling school at 15 years old.

A local agency soon sent the now 5'9" brunette to Milan where her first shoot was posing for Italian Vogue. Soon after that, Amber got her first big break; the cover shoot for French Elle magazine by Hans Feurer. Not too long after that, Amber, like most models began residing in Paris.

Amber immediately became a modeling sensation, having picked up where fellow supermodels Cindy Crawford and Claudia Schiffer had left off. Photographers and magazines alike couldn't get Amber's face pasted on billboards and magazine covers fast enough.

Big names such as Steven Meisel, Richard Avedon, Bruce Weber, Patrick Demarchelier, Herb Ritts, Nick Knight, Paolo Roversi, Irvin Penn, Mario Sorrenti and Peter Lindbergh were all scurrying to Amber for her photogenic face and svelte body.

Amber has since appeared in numerous prestigious advertising campaigns such as Versace, Calvin Klein's Escape, DKNY, Prada, Valentino, Jil Sander, Gucci and Chanel. She co-hosted MTV's House of Style with best friend and fellow model Shalom Harlow and she even became the face of Elizabeth Arden.

Although she didn't end up becoming the sociologist she wanted to be, Amber does use her position as a celebrity to support various charity events. In 1995, she organized a charity called Supermodels Stepping Out Against Hunger, a fashion show that took place in her hometown to benefit the Tulsa Community Food Bank.

On the personal front, Amber dated Leonardo DiCaprio, as did the majority of models in the free world. Unfortunately, their relationship didn't last (he's currently dating Gisele Bundchen). Amber was also married to Hervé Le Bihan, whom she met on a Calvin Klein photo shoot in 1994. Two years later, the couple divorced.

Amber finally ended up meeting renowned Olympic volleyball player Christian McCaw on a chance encounter and is currently pregnant with their child. So the beautiful vegetarian is saying good-bye to her flat-as-a-board tummy, for a little while anyway.

Over the summer, Amber appeared in What Lies Beneath, which starred Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, and also co-starred in an independent film entitled Drop Back Ten.

Although she's currently on hiatus anticipating the birth of her soon-to-be bouncing baby, Amber will be on magazine covers and hopefully in more films before mid-2001.