Jessica Marie Alba

Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in Dark Angel, Sin City, Fantastic Four, Into the Blue and Idle Hands.

Alba was born in Pomona, California, to Mark Alba, who is Mexican American (though both of Jessica Alba's paternal grandparents were born in California), and Catherine Jensen, who has French and Danish ancestry; the two married while in their teenage years. Her maternal grandfather was a Marine NCO for thirty years, serving in the Pacific during WWII, and later as Asst. Drum Major for the United States Marine Band. Alba was raised in an Air Force family, along with her brother, Joshua, an actor who appeared with her in the season one finale of Dark Angel, and her grandparents until she was 17 years old. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi and Del Rio, Texas, before they settled back in California.

Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies; she suffered collapsed lungs twice, had pneumonia 4-5 times a year, a burst appendix, and a cyst on her tonsils. This served to isolate her from other children at school because, as she claims, she was in the hospital so often that no one knew her well enough to befriend her.

She has also acknowledged suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder during childhood. Her health improved, however, when her family moved to California.

Alba had expressed interest in acting since the age of five. She took her first acting class at age twelve, and an acting agent signed her nine months later.

Alba has revealed that she envisions a much older man as her ideal partner, making references to Morgan Freeman, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, and Michael Caine. "I have this thing for older men. They've been around and know so much."

Regarding children, Alba said, "I'm really girly when it comes to kids. I've been surrounded by kids my whole life because I'm the oldest of 15 cousins — I've been changing diapers since I was six. I want to have a couple, for sure".

She has a tattoo of a daisy with a ladybug on the back of her neck, the Sanskrit symbol for the lotus flower, padma, on her wrist, and a lower back tattoo of a bow.

-- Wikipedia