PLEASURE WORLD

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Not surprisingly, Cameron Diaz grew up in San Diego, where party girls are groomed and at least an attempt at part-time modeling is mandatory. Initially at Los Cerritos Elementary School and Long Beach Polytechnic High School, she was heckled frequently for being one of the skinny girls. But she gained a backbone by standing up for herself and once people realized that she was — in fact — incredibly good-looking (even by California standards), she was out at parties by the time she was 16. It was at that time, and in that setting — a Hollywood party — that a photographer approached her and suggested modeling. A contract with Elite Model Management followed, and after finishing high school, Cameron Diaz become a great-looking globetrotter, traveling around the world to model for heavyweights like Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Coca-Cola, and Nivea.

Just as Jim Carrey was poised to make his breakthrough from TV to films by talking out of his ass, Cameron Diaz joined him to audition for the role of a reporter in his new post-Ace Ventura film, The Mask. The producers were so taken by her looks and natural skills that they gave her role of love interest, Tina Carlyle, and the success of the film earned her three MTV Movie Award nominations (including Best Breakthrough Performance and Best Desirable Female) and recognition from Roger Ebert as “a true discovery.” She became a truer discovery when she stole the thunder away from Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding by bringing the house down with a horrendous karaoke rendition of “Say A Little Prayer For You.” While the movie gave Julia Roberts her much-needed comeback, it allowed the new star to glimmer a little brighter.

Cameron Diaz stars in there’s something about mary and charlie’s angels

In 1998, Cameron Diaz added fearlessness to her resume by working with the Farrelly Brothers on the stalker movie masquerading as a romantic comedy, There’s Something About Mary. Trapped between the romantic advances of sleazy Matt Dillon, hapless Ben Stiller and shoe fetishist Chris Elliott, Cameron Diaz’s Mary Jensen became the most lovable summer movie babe of the year in the box office smash and garnered a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in the process. In an impressive move, she would follow up Mary as John Cusack’s homely wife in the twisted indie, Being John Malkovich, and play the owner of a football team in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday.

Starting in 2000, Cameron Diaz teamed up with Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu for the movie update of the television series, Charlie’s Angels. As Natalie Cook, Cameron Diaz displayed the requisite amount of ass-kickery, while also steaming up the screen with many views of her beautiful figure, leading many audience observers to conclude that she was indeed angelic. The film spawned a less than stellar sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, but it had the distinction of giving Cameron Diaz a record payday of $20 million, equaled only by Julia Roberts and Reese Witherspoon at that time. In between, she found greater long-term success by lending her animated voice to Princess Fiona, the heroine of the fractured fairy tale blockbuster, Shrek, and its sequels.

Cameron Diaz stars in knight and day and the green hornet

After living out the coveted movie fantasy of trying to kill Tom Cruise on-screen in Vanilla Sky, Cameron Diaz was hired by Martin Scorsese to play the pickpocket, Jenny Everdeane to Leonardo DiCaprio’s Amsterdam in the Oscar-nominated Gangs of New York. Cameron Diaz herself earned her fourth Golden Globe nomination for the film, but her subsequent output was suitably lacking in award-caliber content. Apart from more Shrek sequels, movies like In Her Shoes and The Holiday were not popular ventures. In 2008, she had a bit more success thanks to her shared bad behavior with Twitter king Ashton Kutcher in the uber-lite comedy, What Happens in Vegas.

In 2009, Cameron Diaz went the full-on dramatic route for the weepy drama My Sister’s Keeper and the morality drama, The Box, but neither of them gave her the box office glory or critical appreciation needed to reignite her career. She returned once more to animated form alongside her favorite green ogre in Shrek Forever After before taking the lead female role in the high-priced, star vehicle, Knight and Day. With her next major role being the love interest of The Green Hornet, the direction of Cameron Diaz’s next move on the Hollywood stock market will rest primarily in the hands of her costars; the similarly hyped, less-loved Tom Cruise and the slimmed-down Seth Rogen.

In 1996 Diaz received an award at the ShoWest Convention for “Female Star of Tomorrow.” In 2006 she won a People’s Choice Award for “Favorite Leading Lady.” On June 22, 2009, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Filmography

Television

To buy a cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?