Jaime Pressly

Jaime Pressly
Pressly at the Slim-Fast Fashion Show in January 2008
Born	Jaime Elizabeth Pressly (1977-07-30) July 30, 1977 Kinston, North Carolina, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, model
Years active	1997–present
Spouse(s)	Simran Singh (m. 2009–11)
Children	1
Website	www.jaimepressly.com

Jaime Elizabeth Pressly^[1] (born July 30, 1977) is an American actress and model. She is best known for playing Joy Turner on the NBC sitcom My Name Is Earl, for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards (winning one) as well as a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has also appeared in films such as Poison Ivy: The New Seduction, Joe Dirt, DOA: Dead or Alive, and I Love You, Man.

Early life

Pressly was born in Kinston, North Carolina, the daughter of Brenda Sue (née Smith), a dance instructor, and James Liston Pressly, a car salesman.^[2] She has two siblings: James Liston Pressly, Jr. and Jessica Pressly. She spent more than a decade studying gymnastics and dancing, and later attended Kinston High School in Kinston, North Carolina, where her mother had moved while her parents were going through a divorce.

By age 14, she had appeared on her first cover (Teen Magazine) and had become the official spokesmodel for the International Cover Model Search, and soon after began to get recognition for modeling in the United States, as well as in Italy and Japan. She sought and succeeded in having herself legally emancipated from her parents at the age of 15 so she could travel to Japan, as neither of her parents could make the trip.^[3]

Career

Pressly at the 2009 premiere of I Love You, Man

Pressly starred as "Violet" in the 1997 film Poison Ivy: The New Seduction. In 1998 she starred as "Nikki" on the short-lived TV series Push, and also played a recurring role as the undead assassin Mika in the TV action series Mortal Kombat: Conquest. From 1999-2001, she played "Audrey" on the drama series Jack and Jill. Pressly starred in the independent film Poor White Trash, playing scheming gold-digger Sandy Lake. She subsequently appeared in a number of films, including Not Another Teen Movie (playing Priscilla, a high school cheerleader) and Torque, as a crazed, motorcycle-riding criminal.

In 2001, she was made the new spokesmodel for Liz Claiborne Cosmetics and its fragrance Lucky You. In 2002, she was ranked #8 in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World". In 2003, she launched a lingerie line, J'Aime, which later became a full sleepwear and ready-to-wear line. In 2006, Maxim magazine named her #34 on its annual list;^[4] she is also featured in its gallery.^[5] Pressly posed nude for the March 1998 and February 2004 issues of Playboy. She also appeared nude in the May 2006 issue of Allure.^[6]

Pressly guest-starred in episodes of several TV shows. In an episode of the WB series Charmed, she played Mylie, a mermaid trying to find love; (Alyssa Milano, who played Phoebe, later guest-starred on My Name is Earl.^[7]) Other series on which she made guest appearances were The Twilight Zone, Fastlane, Las Vegas, Becker, Night Man, Silk Stalkings, and others. She appeared in an episode of the prank series Punk'd.^[8]

In 2005, Pressly was cast in the NBC sitcom My Name Is Earl, as Joy Turner. In 2007, she won an Emmy Award^[9] for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on the show.^[10]

Pressly sang "Fever" in an appearance with the band The Pussycat Dolls.^[11] She has appeared in a number of music videos, including "The Space Between" by Dave Matthews Band, "Girls of Summer" by Aerosmith, and the Marilyn Manson cover of "Tainted Love". On May 31, 2006, she hosted the first annual VH1 Rock Honors.

Pressly was a producer, as well as a star, in the 2005 movie Death to the Supermodels. She hosted the October 7, 2006, episode of Saturday Night Live. She guest-starred on an episode of MADtv (season 11), playing Hillary Clinton in a parody of My Name Is Earl, "My Name Is Dubya", in which George W. Bush (Frank Caliendo) makes a list of all the bad things he has done in the past and rectifies them one by one.

Pressly with co-star Jon Favreau, Robert McCurdy, and Cole Dabney, founders of the Austin Film Critics Association, after a press junket interview for I Love You, Man at SXSW 2009

On December 3, 2009, it was announced that she would guest-star on an upcoming episode (series 4, episode 10) of the CBS comedy, Rules of Engagement. She would play a possible surrogate mother for Jeff and Audrey (Patrick Warburton and Megyn Price).^[12] She reprised her role in the fifth-season premiere (series 5, episode 1). She appeared in the Fox sitcom I Hate My Teenage Daughter, which aired from November 30, 2011 to March 20, 2012. In July 2012, Pressly starred in Jimbo Lee's Abby in the Summer.^[13]

In 2013, TV Land announced that Pressly was cast in the lead role for Jennifer Falls as Jennifer Doyle, a mother of a teenaged daughter, who must move in with Doyle's mother after being fired from a high-paying job. Doyle becomes a waitress in her brother's bar.^[14]

Personal life

Friends since 1996, she started dating DJ Eric Calvo (DJ Eric Cubeechee) in 2004. After Pressly became pregnant, the two were engaged in October 2006. Pressly gave birth on May 11, 2007, in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to their first child, Dezi James Calvo.^[15] In a February 2007 interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Pressly said she wants the child to be bilingual (English/Spanish) to reflect Calvo's Cuban heritage. Pressly told People the name is part of a running joke, as Cuban-American Calvo does a Desi Arnaz impersonation, calling Pressly "Luuucy" when he comes home at night.^[16] In November 2008, the couple announced their separation.^[17]

Pressly said in a 2006 interview with Esquire that she almost purchased a ticket for a flight on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but decided not to take the flight, because she felt it left too early in the morning.^[18]

In July 2009, Pressly was engaged to entertainment lawyer Simran Singh.^[19] They wed on September 26, 2009, at the Dick Clark estate. Guests, including Pressly's two-year-old son, attended the ceremony on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.^[20] On January 21, 2011, Pressly filed for divorce from Singh, citing irreconcilable differences.^[21][22]

Pressly was arrested in Santa Monica, California, on the night of January 5, 2011, for suspicion of driving under the influence,^[23] a charge to which she eventually pleaded no contest and received three years of informal probation.^[24][25]

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

Video games

References

External links

• Jaime Pressly at the Internet Movie Database
• About.com interview (December 2001)
• Jaime Pressly at Emmys.com