Biography
Salma Hayek Jiminez was born
on September 2, 1968, in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico. Her father, Sami Hayek
Dominguez, is a Lebanese businessman who ran for mayor of Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, in 1997.
Her mother, Diana Hayek who comes from a Spanish background, is an opera singer and talent
scout.
Determined to see that her grandchild develop into a ravishing beauty, Salma’s
grandmother frequently shaved young Salma's head and clipped her eyebrows, in the belief
that such treatments would add and sheen to her granddaughter's thick dark locks.
Equally determined to see that she became well-educated, Hayek's staunchly Catholic
parents shipped her off to a boarding school in Louisiana when she was 12. While the
beguiling youngster proved both attentively studious and properly religious, she also
displayed a bent for mischief that she chiefly directed against the long-suffering nuns
who ran the school: among other infamies, she once slipped into the faculty dormitory and
set all of the alarm clocks back three hours. The end result of this childhood prank was
that Salma ended up suspended and carted back home after just two years.
It only took her two more
years to finish high school, and her mother, fearful of the effects "college
boys" might have on her impressionable young daughter,
sent Salma to Houston, where she lived with an aunt until her 17th birthday.
When Salma returned to Mexico, she relocated to Mexico City to attend college, where she
commenced international relations studies. Though she had harbored acting ambitions since
childhood, Salma for years was reluctant to seriously pursue such a vocation for fear of
alienating her parents. Ultimately, she decided that the path of the dutiful daughter and
stable career girl was one she could not bear to walk and frankly confronted her parents
about her aspiration.
In spite of voluble objections from her family and the derision and disbelief of her
friends, Salma quit college and embarked on an acting career. She first found work in
plays at neighborhood theaters, including one in 1988 where she performed in a theatrical
production titled Aladino y la Lampara Maravillosa (Aladdin). She then went on and made
some commercials which led her to land a cast in a Mexican soap opera.
In 1989, Salma Hayek received the TV Novela Award for Best Actress in Teresa and for Best
Newcomer in Nuevo Amanecer, an award equivalent to the Emmy.
In 1991, Salma emigrated to Los Angeles, where she willingly plunged to the
bottom of the heap in order to take a shot at conquering Hollywood. Her first U.S.
production was in the movie Mi Vida Loca (a.k.a. My Crazy Life) in 1993. However,
intensive lessons, both in English and acting, paid handsome dividends in 1995 when Salma
appeared with Antonio Banderas in Desperado, a movie directed by Robert Rodriguez. Salma
then struck sparks with a Baldwin brother in both Fair Game and Fled, and made an undead
love slave out of George Clooney in From Dusk 'Til Dawn.
Salma Hayek Internet shrines cropped up like weeds, and in 1997 the sultry spitfire landed
her first lead role in the States, playing opposite Matthew Perry in the cross-cultural
romantic comedy Fools Rush In.
She also appeared in TNT's adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which she
portrayed Esmerelda to Mandy Patinkin's Quasimodo. In 1998 she appeared in the movie
Studio 54 and made a cameo appearance in The Faculty. In 1999, Salma appeared with
Will Smith and Kevin Kline in Wild Wild West and also appeared alongside Ben Affleck, Matt
Damon, Chris Rock, Linda Fiorentino, and Alan Rickman in Kevin Smith's Dogma. She will
soon take on the much-coveted portrayal of painter Frida Kahlo in the biopic Frida
Salma once declared that she would get married when she found a man "who has more
cojones than I do." While she's been keeping house with British actor Edward
Atterton, whom she met while making Hunchback, since 1997, the issue of the quantity of
his "cojones" remains in doubt, as the two have yet to wed.
In an interview Salma once stated “I aim for a lifetime full of movies. I want to
work for a long, long time...and if I am very lucky and blessed, maybe somewhere along the
line there will be one movie in there that becomes a classic." While her romantic
future may be up in the air, Salma's film agenda should remain fixed for quite some time.
This site is dedicated to Salma Hayek herself and all her
fans all over the world. Remember that this site is NOT affiliated in any
kind of way with Salma Hayek herself or her management.
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