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50 interesting things about actress, film producer and former fashion model Katherine Heigl.
1. Katherine Marie Heigl born November 24, 1978 is an American actress, film producer and former fashion model.
2. Katherine Heigl played Izzie Stevens on ABC's medical drama Grey's Anatomy from 2005 to 2010, a role for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2007.
3. Katherine Heigl has also starred in films, such as Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Knocked Up, 27 Dresses, The Ugly Truth, Killers, Life As We Know It and New Year's Eve.
4. Katherine Heigl played the main character in television series State of Affairs from 2014 to 2015.
5. Katherine Heigl started her career as a child model with Wilhelmina Models before turning her attention to acting.
6. Katherine Heigl made her debut in the coming-of-age film That Night in 1992.
7. Katherine Heigl o-starred as Isabel Evans in the television series Roswell and films, such as My Father the Hero before landing her break-out role in Grey's Anatomy.
8. Katherine Heigl has established herself as a cover model appearing on numerous publications including Maxim, Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan.
9. Katherine Heigl is married to singer Josh Kelley, with whom she has two adopted daughters.
10. Katherine Heigl is the youngest of four children of Nancy (née Engelhardt), a personnel manager and Paul Heigl.
11. Katherine Heigl's father Paul Heigl, a financial executive and accountant.
12. Her father is of German (including Swiss-German) and Irish descent.
13. Katherine Heigl's mother is of German ancestry.
14. Her siblings are Meg, Jason (deceased), and Holt.
15. Katherine Heigl lived in Virginia and then Denver, before her family settled in Connecticut; there, they moved into a Victorian-style farmhouse in the town of New Canaan, where she spent most of her childhood.
16. In 1986, her older brother Jason died of injuries suffered in a car accident, after being thrown from the back of a pickup truck while out for lunch with some of his high school classmates. His organs were donated by his family after death.
17. Her brother's death led Heigl's parents to convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Heigl was reared in that faith (prior to that, her mother had been Lutheran and her father Catholic).
18. When Heigl was nine, an aunt visiting the family decided to take a number of photographs of her. After returning to her home in New York, her aunt sent the photos to a number of modeling agencies, with the permission of Heigl's parents.
19. Within a few weeks, she signed with Wilhelmina Models as a child model.
20. Soon after signing with the agency, a client slated Heigl for use in a magazine advertisement where she made her debut.
21. At the time, she was earning $75 an hour posing for Sears and Lord & Taylor catalogs.
22. Heigl first appeared in her national television spot for Cheerios cereal.
23. After her film debut in That Night in 1992, Heigl played Christina Sebastian in Steven Soderbergh's Depression-era drama King of the Hill before being cast in her first leading role in the 1994 comedy My Father the Hero.
24. During this time, Heigl continued to attend New Canaan High School, balancing her film and modeling work with her academic studies.
25. Heigl dropped out of New Canaan High School after her sophomore year to pursue her career in Hollywood.
26. In 1995, she starred in the Steven Seagal action thriller Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Heigl portrayed a 16-year-old traveller on a train across a mountain pass to visit the grave of her deceased father with uncle Casey Ryback (Seagal), an ex-SEAL counter-terrorist expert. The main plotline has the train hijacked by mercenaries in Colorado, keeping her as a hostage.
27. Much of her work in the film was opposite Morris Chestnut, Sandra Taylor and Everett McGill.
28. Despite an increased focus on acting, she still modeled extensively, appearing regularly in magazines such as Seventeen.
29. Landed the lead role in Disney's made-for-television film Wish Upon a Star in 1996, portraying two body-swapping characters along with Danielle Harris.
30. In 1996 Heigl's parents divorced and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.
31. After her high school graduation in 1997, she moved into a four-bedroom house in Malibu Canyon, California with her mother, who also became her manager.
32. In 1998, she co-starred with Peter Fonda in a re-working of the classic Shakespearean play The Tempest, set during the American Civil War and starred in the horror film Bride of Chucky.
33. In 1999, Heigl turned her attention to television when she accepted the role of Isabel Evans on the science fiction TV drama Roswell, a role that was expanded in the show's second and third seasons. Heigl had auditioned for all three of the show's female leads (the other two roles eventually went to Shiri Appleby and Majandra Delfino) before she was finally cast as Isabel, an alien human hybrid.
34. Heigl was frequently featured in photo essays in magazines such as Life, TV Guide, and Teen as well as FHM.
35. Katherine Heigl appeared in the FHM and Maxim calendars, FHM's annual "100 Sexiest Women in the World", and was featured in the Girls of Maxim Gallery.
36. In May 2006, Maxim awarded her #12 on their annual Hot 100List as well as voted the 19th "Sexiest Woman in the World" by readers of FHM magazine.
37. While Roswell was in production, Heigl worked on several films, including 100 Girls, an independent 2001 film, and Valentine, a horror film starring David Boreanaz and Denise Richards.
38. accepted a role in Ground Zero, a television thriller scheduled to be telecast that fall which was based on the bestselling James Mills novel The Seventh Power, in the spring of 2001. She co-starred as a brilliant and politically-concerned college student who helps to build a nuclear device to illustrate the need for a change in national priorities. The device ends up in the hands of a terrorist following betrayal by a fellow student.
39. However, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the film was shelved when its plot was considered inappropriate. It reemerged in 2003 under the title Critical Assembly.
40. After the attacks, Heigl recorded a public service announcement for the American Red Cross in an effort to help raise money for victims.
41. In June 2006, Heigl became engaged to singer Josh Kelley, whom she had met a year earlier on the set of his music video for "Only You".
42. They chose not to live together before they were married, with Heigl later explaining, "I think I just wanted to save something for the actual marriage... I wanted there to be something to make the actual marriage different than the dating or the courtship."
43. They were married on December 23, 2007, in Park City, Utah.
44. In September 2009, the couple adopted a daughter, Nancy Leigh "Naleigh" Mi-Eun Kelley, from South Korea, the birthplace of Heigl's adoptive sister. Naleigh, whom they named after Heigl's mother and sister, was born with a heart defect and underwent open heart surgery before leaving Korea.
45. In April 2012, Kelley and Heigl adopted a second daughter, Adalaide Marie Hope Kelley, from the U.S.
46. First daughter's name Nancy Leigh means "Clearing Nancy". Second daughter's name Adalaide Marie Hope means "Noble Being" (Adalaide).
47. Katherine Heigl has worked with Best Friends Animal Society on several projects including their Pup My Ride program. The program transports small dogs from high-kill animal shelters to other parts of the US where there is a greater demand for such dogs. Her involvement in this led her to give Best Friends a grant which would fund a year of the program.
48. Katherine Heigl and her mother, Nancy, started Heigl's Hounds of Hope which operates as part of the Jason Debus Heigl Foundation. The Foundation was created in honor of Katherine's brother, who was killed in a car accident in 1986 at the age of fifteen. Heigl's Hounds of Hope rescues larger dogs with behavior problems from shelters with a high kill rate and rehabilitates them through training and other adjustments to make them suitable for re-homing.
49. In 2010, Heigl was honored with the "Presidential Service Award" by ASPCA for her work and dedication to animal welfare.
50. In 2011, Heigl launched the "I Hate Balls" Campaign, focused on promoting spay/neuter of pets, to help save the lives of millions of companion animals. The initiative features a Public Service Announcement starring Heigl and produced by Funny or Die.
Source: Wikipedia.org
