Jennifer Love Hewitt (Scene!). Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.Jennifer Love Hewitt (Scene!)

Traces the life and career of the young actress famous for her starring roles on the television series "Party of Five" and in the motion picture "I Know What You Did Last Summer"

First Love

She got flowers from Johnny Depp at her high school graduation. She gets paid to kiss Scott Wolf and Freddie Prinze, Jr. She has primetime power, three pop albums, and a blossoming movie career. At only nineteen years old, Jennifer Love Hewitt leads a charmed life and knows it: "Someone upstairs is looking out for me big-time. There could never be a dream or a wish that would be as good as it is right now. My life is fantastic."

Someone upstairs might be helping out, but Love has created her own success from day one. Pat Hewitt remembers her daughter's first public performance: While the family was eating at a dining club in their hometown of Killeen, Texas, three-year-old Love vanished from the table. In a panic, Pat searched the restaurant, but it didn't take long to find Love. An angelic voice led Pat to the lounge, where she found Love had taken over a baby grand piano. She was using the instrument as a stage and singing "Help Me Make it Through the Night" to a delighted audience. Pat realized her daughter had the potential for big things.

Even her name suggests, well, big things. Love. It's her middle name, but she's always gone by it. She was named after Pat's best friend from college -- a tall, gorgeous blond. Love laughs about how different she is from her mother's friend, whom she has never met: "[She] was like five eleven, long blond hair past her butt, big blue eyes, freckles, and an hourglass figure. She was the most beautiful woman my mom had ever seen. My mom said if she ever had a little girl, she would name her Love. So when I was born, she of course named me Love -- even though I came out, like, 5'3", brown hair, half an hourglass figure, and completely different looking." The name Jennifer was a last minute suggestion from her brother, Todd, who thought she should have a "normal" name so kids wouldn't tease her. Instead of looking through a book of baby names, eight-year-old Todd decided to name his baby sister Jennifer after a cute girl down the street.

Her first name might be "normal," but Love's childhood was not. She was taking dance lessons -- jazz, tap, and ballet -- by the age of five. A couple of years later she was voted a "living doll" at a Texas beauty pageant and was chosen, at age nine, to tour Russia with the Texas Show Team, a troupe that brought pure American entertainment overseas.

But Love's big break came when she was performing at a livestock show in Texas. Love remembers being discovered: "In the pig barn I sang Whitney Houston's 'The Greatest Love of All' and there was a talent scout there." Her mother was referred to a manager in Los Angeles. On February 21, 1989 -- which happened to be Love's tenth birthday -- the family packed up the car and Love was on her way to Tinseltown.

Text copyright © 1998 by Daniel Weiss Associates, Inc.