Portal:Hampshire/Selected biography/14

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Elizabeth Jane Hurley (born 10 June 1965) is an English actress, fashion model, producer and designer. She was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England in 1965. Hurley's father, a lapsed Catholic of Irish descent, was a British Army major, while her mother, an Anglican, was a schoolteacher at Kempshott Infant School. She has an older sister, Debbie, and a younger brother, Michael.

A start in Hurleys' career came in the late 1980s, when she won a Face of the Year competition at a local newspaper in Winchester, and gained a year's modelling contract with a prestigious London firm as the first prize. She made her first film appearance in Aria in 1987 and attracted some attention with the Dennis Potter-directed UK TV movie Christabel in the late 1980s, and appeared in several low budget English and Hollywood films, including the 1992 thriller Passenger 57, in which Hurley played a stewardess. She also appeared on television on both sides of the Atlantic, appearing in the British series Rumpole of the Bailey and the George Lucas-produced The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

In 1994 Hurley attended the London première of the film Four Weddings and a Funeral starring her then-companion Hugh Grant. Hurley's appearance in a black plunging Versace dress held together with gold safety pins gained her considerable media attention. It has often been referred to simply as "that dress" and is credited with the launch of her high profile career.