Jaime King

King was born on April 23, 1979, in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Nancy King, a former beauty queen, and Robert King. She has an older sister Sandi, an older brother Barry and a younger brother Robert (Robbie). King was named after Lindsay Wagner's character, Jaime Sommers, on the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman. King's parents separated in 1994. King had attended Nancy Bounds' Studios, a modeling school, and in 1995 dropped out of Westside High School in order to pursue a modeling career in New York City. She later enrolled in a home-study program run by the University of Nebraska.King was discovered in November 1993, at age 14, while attending Nancy Bounds' Studios. After being spotted at her graduation fashion show by model agent Michael Flutie, King was invited to New York City to begin modeling professionally. She joined Company Management, which already represented Jaime Rishar, a more established model. To avoid confusion, King opted to use her childhood nickname, James, for the duration of her modeling career and later, at the beginning of her film career. In March 1994, she traveled to New York for test pictures and received enthusiastic responses, however, she did not return to New York until July 1994, after gaining a successful advertisement for Abercrombie & Fitch. Much of fall and spring 1994 were spent commuting between Omaha and New York. King had a successful early career as a fashion model, and by age 15 she had been featured in the fashion magazines Vogue, Mademoiselle, Allure, and Seventeen. At sixteen, King had graced the pages of Glamour and Harper's Bazaar. She was featured in the cover story of the New York Times Magazine published on February 4, 1996, and had walked the runway for Chanel, Alexander McQueen and Christian Dior. In 1998, she began co-hosting MTV's fashion series, House of Style, with fellow model turned actress Rebecca Romijn. Despite her success, King noted that she "remember[s] the times where I was so alone" and thought she was "never gonna be able to be a kid." In 2004, King, along with Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, and Eva Mendes was chosen as a spokesmodel for a high-profile ad campaign for Revlon. The advertisements were featured in print, television, theatrical, outdoor, and Internet venues, banking on their spokeswomen's "collective star power" to sell the cosmetics products. In 2006, King was chosen by Rocawear CEO Jay-Z to become the new face of the line; her advertisements were featured for the winter 2006 season.