Jennifer Lynn L?pez is a well-known Puerto Rican-American actress, singer, fashion designer, dancer and all-around cultural icon.
Lopez was born and raised in the Castle Hill section of The Bronx, New York City, New York. Lopez has two sisters, Leslie (a music teacher) and Lynda, a well-known television news anchor at WCBS-TV in NY. Lopez is a notable graduate of Preston High School. After graduation, Lopez matriculated at Baruch College in Manhattan. She later dropped out to pursue her dreams as an entertainer.
Lopez started off as a backup dancer. She later took up acting, saying that she always knew she wanted to do this.
Lopez started her acting career in the early 1990s with films such as Mi Familia (1995), Money Train (1995), and U Turn (1997), but her real breakthrough would not come until she took up the part of Selena Quintanilla in the movie Selena (1997), for which she was nominated a Golden Globe for her starring role. Lopez followed this with a well-received performance in Out Of Sight (1998) with George Clooney.
She has also appeared in Anaconda (1997), The Cell (2000), Angel Eyes (2001), The Wedding Planner (2001), Enough (2002), Maid in Manhattan (2002), Gigli (2003), Jersey Girl (2004), Shall We Dance (2004), and Monster-in-Law (2005), among other movies and television shows.
She is considered especially adept at romantic comedies, with The Wedding Planner and Maid in Manhattan being two of her more commercially and critically successful vehicles. Many people consider Lopez to be stronger and more talented as an actress than as a singer, while some criticising her lack of real vocal range and her producers' heavy use of background vocalists. On the other hand, a few of her film performances have been heavily criticised, most notably in the overall disaster Gigli, which seemed to have a negative effect on her popularity, something she has only recently been regaining with the back-to-back #1 box office hits, Shall We Dance and Monster-in-Law.
