Jennifer Love Hewitt -- born February 21, 1979 -- is an actress and singer. She is well-known for her roles in the Fox television series Party of Five, as Sarah Reeves, from 1995-1999, and also starred in the I Know What You Did Last Summer films, as Julie James. Hewitt can currently be seen on the CBS television series Ghost Whisperer. As a singer, her single "How Do I Deal" reached twenty-six on the U.S. charts.
Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas to Herbert Daniel Hewitt and Patricia Mae Shipp. She moved to Garland, Texas in 1987, her father is a technician and her mother worked as a speech pathologist. Hewitt grew up in Harker Heights, Texas. After the divorce of her parents, Hewitt and her only sibling, Todd Hewitt, were brought up by her mother. Her first name was given to her by her brother, after a girl of whom he was fond as a youngster, while her middle name, "Love", was given to her by her mother after her best friend in college.
As a young girl, Hewitt was attracted to music which led to her first encounters with the entertainment industry. At the age of three, she sang "The Greatest Love of All" (Whitney Houston's) at a livestock show. Just a year after that, at a restaurant-dance hall, she entertained an audience with her version of "Help Me Make It Through the Night". By the time she was five, Hewitt already had tap dancing and ballet in her portfolio. At nine, she became a member of the Texas Show Team. At the age of ten, at the suggestion of talent scouts, she moved to Los Angeles, California, with her mother to pursue a career in both acting and singing.
After moving to Los Angeles, Hewitt appeared in more than twenty television commercials. Her first break came as a child actor on the Disney Channel variety show Kids Incorporated (1989–1991). In 1992, she played Pierce Brosnan's daughter in a pilot for NBC called Running Wilde, which featured Brosnan as a reporter for Auto World magazine whose stories cover his own wild auto adventures, but the series wasn't picked up and the pilot never aired. She later played on television in several short-lived series, such as Fox's Shaky Ground (1992–1993), ABC's Byrds of Paradise (1994), and McKenna (1994–1995). Finally, Hewitt became a young star after landing the role of Sarah Reeves on the popular Fox Television show Party of Five (1995–1999), joining the cast during its second season. She continued the same role in the short-lived Party of Five spinoff, Time of Your Life (1999). Hewitt was also one of the producers, but the show was cancelled after only half a season.
She won sexiest woman of the year in 1997.
She made her film debut in the independent film Munchie (1992). Hewitt became a film star after a lead role in the horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The film had great box-office appeal and Hewitt became one of the most popular young stars in the U.S. -- together with her co-stars: Freddie Prinze Jr., Ryan Phillippe, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. She also played in the sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). Other notable film roles included the high-school comedy Can't Hardly Wait (1998) and a starring role with Sigourney Weaver in the romantic comedy hit Heartbreakers (2001).
In 2000, Hewitt appeared in The Audrey Hepburn Story.
In 2002, she was paired with Jackie Chan in the action comedy The Tuxedo which was a box office bomb.
Since September 2005, Hewitt has starred in the television series Ghost Whisperer. In Australia, Ghost Whisperer has been popular since its introduction; in the United States, the show averages 9-10 million viewers for each new episode.
To date, she has released four albums with some success, most notably in Europe and Japan. Her first album was released in Japan, where she is widely considered a pop star.
In March 2005, Hewitt was featured in Maxim magazine and their Girls of Maxim gallery. In May 2006, the magazine named her #29 in their Hot 100 list
