“She told her mom she would wear the shirt in public. “I'm wearing it out tomorrow... I promise you it will make a statement without making a statement.”
Her size 36C boobs have provided Jennifer some humor throughout her career.
“We had this joke on the set [of “I Know What You Did Last Summer”]. All the girls wore tiny tops, so we called it I Know What Your Breasts Did Last Summer.”
And she told Playboy, “I just accepted them as a great accessory to every outfit.”
Born in Waco, Jennifer got her first name from a girl whom her brother had a huge crush on and her middle name after her mother's college roommate.
She was raised by her mother in Harker Heights, Texas, and at age 3 she sang at a livestock show. Jennifer took jazz, tap and ballet lessons and at an early age joined the Texas Show Team, and toured Europe and the Soviet Union.
Classic TV Beauties 1990s Countdown
JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT as Sarah Reeves in "Party of Five"
Years before she was named Sexiest Woman on Television by TV Guide and became a regular cover girl on Maxim magazine, Jennifer launched her career as Sarah on the biggest surprise hit series of the late 1990s.
For six seasons Jennifer played the girlfriend of Bailey (Scott Wolf) on “Party of Five,” a show that revolved around five siblings who became orphans after their parents were killed by a drunk driver.
While Jennifer was paying her dues in “Party of Five,” she branched out into films, starring in the slasher movie “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (1997). Jennifer was cast as Julie James, one of four friends stalked by a killer one year after covering up an auto accident.
During this time, a surprising growth of her breasts transformed Jennifer from a girl into a fully developed woman.
“My chest grew bigger... and random women would come up to me on the set and go, 'Oh, who's your doctor?'” she said in an interview with the website www.culture.com. “And I would think, 'What is wrong with you? First of all, boobs are not this fascinating and second of all, why are you denying the fact I was working 18 hours a day on a film and not laying on a table and getting a boob job.'”
Her prominent breasts brought unwanted attention.
“When you're still a teenager, you don't want anything to draw attention to yourself. I did a whole day's interview in Australia and everyone was like, 'So are your boobs real or not?'
“I was taking that stuff so personally that when I was walking down the street in Sydney with my mom, I saw this T-shirt that said Silicone Free.”
.No. 7
Five years later Jennifer's mother moved the family to southern California – Jennifer later said the family left home for LA because they didn't have anything to keep them in Texas – and Jennifer landed a job on the Disney Channel series “Kids Incorporated.”
“When I came to Los Angeles, it was the first time that I ever felt like I belonged somewhere,” she said. “Not because it was wacky, but because people here understood what it felt like to perform, and there were other kids my ages who wanted to do it. I didn't get looked at as, 'God you freak.'”
Singing was Jennifer's first choice of entertainment as she recorded three albums by the time she was 17. Her song “How Do I Deal” (1999) peaked at No. 36 in the USA and rose to No. 8 in Australia.
“It's interesting to create empowerment in a woman, who essentially could feel powerless and who could find herself in danger and could look at the situation she's in, if she wanted to, as not very empowering,” Jennifer said in an interview with www.collider.com. “She's making decisions and she's making them consciously, and she's growing sexually, emotionally, physically and mentally in this job.”
Playing a masseuse was a completely different experience for Jennifer.
“It was a little nerve-wracking the first day, sure. It's awkward for [the male actors] because I'm in lingerie and they're in pretty much nothing, and we're in front of so many people,” she said. “It is a very intimate thing to have to massage people, so it does take a couple of takes to feel comfortable with it.”
“I never particularly wanted to act. I just wanted to sing. I have a hard time speaking in public and become very nervous,” she said. “But when I sing, the nerves go, for some reason. I was confused when I was younger. One minute I was judged to be the girl next door, the next it was a vixen.”
As a young teen, she appeared in several short-lived TV series: “Shaky Ground,” “The Byrds of Paradise,” and “McKenna.”
“Party,” which aired for six seasons (1994-2000), was scheduled to be canceled after the first season although it received rave reviews from critics. The Chicago Tribune praised the show as “an encouraging sign that the Fox network can actually supply thoughtful programming that doesn't necessarily begin and end in the bedroom.”
In 1995 TV Guide called the series “The Best Show You're Not Watching,” and a year later “Party” won a Golden Globe award for Best Drama, becoming one of the lowest rated shows to win that award.
“Party of Five” spun off “Time of Your Life,” a show centered around Jennifer's Sarah character who moved to New York City. The series was canceled midway through its first season.
Five years later Jennifer returned to network TV to star in “Ghost Whisperer,” a show about a woman who communicated with ghosts. As Melinda Gordon, she won three Best Actress awards from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films and two Best Actress on Television Saturn Awards during the five season run (107 episodes).
Jennifer starred in a 2010 Lifetime Network movie, “The Client List,” playing a former Texas beauty queen mother-turned prostitute. Two years later it was turned into a series.
“I've never played a character who is this overtly sexual,” she said in a 2012 Maxim article. “It's definitely a departure from the normal stuff I do. It's a lingerie-heavy show... It's not your mother's Lifetime.”
After her husband abandoned her, the character (Riley Parks) went to work at a day spa and soon realized that she needed to give customers more than basic massages in order to make ends meet.
Note to our Readers: Most of the pages of the 1990 Classic TV Beauties are not ready for the website. Check back next month.
