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The leggy sex symbol, best known for her bubbly romantic comedy roles, gets serious as the mother of a dying young girl in the tear-jerker My Sister's Keeper, in cinemas 14 August. Wet to know the California girl much much more intimately.
1. Cameron was born in sunny San Diego, California, on 30 August 1972.
2. She comes from an interesting background. Her mom Billie is of English, German and Cherokee heritage, while her father Emilio is of Cuban-America descent.
3. Even more curious– she went to high school with Snoop Dogg.
4. Cami, as she is known to her buddies, left home at the age of 16 when she signed to Elite Model Management and spent the next five years travelling to wherever her modelling career took her.
5. Some of the brands she posed and pouted for: Calvin Klein and Levi's. She also featured on the July 1990 cover of teen bible Seventeen magazine.
6. At 21, she returned to California and auditioned for her first film part, despite having no previous acting experience.
7. That first movie role was an unforgettable one, as the va-va-voom sex bomb who made Jim Carrey's eyes pop out of his head, quite literally, in The Mask back in 1994.
8. She's all about giving back to her family. Her father had a small role as a "Jailbird" in her smash hit, There's Something About Mary.
9. After signing on for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Cami became the 2nd actress to join the "$20 Million Club" after Julia Roberts – a glass ceiling paycheck amount that still exists for many hardworking actresses...
10. So clearly she can afford to wash her face in Evian bottled water every day. Not that it seems to be helping her skin situation, but hey…
11. She may be gorgeous now, but in high school her nickname was "Skeletor" due to her tall, skinny frame. Bet they're wishing they were nicer to her now…
12. She's sexy. REAL sexy. Miss Diaz has appeared on more than 10 sexy, beautiful and hot lists including People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1998 and 2002.
13. She may be a terrible singer (remember that karaoke scene in My Best Friend's Wedding?), but people love singing about her. Brian Wilson mentions her name in his 1998 song "South America". It goes: "I'm hungry and I'm doing lunch with Cameron Diaz". Robbie Williams also uses her name in "I Will Talk and Hollywood Will Listen".
14. Julie Andrews thinks she's the shiz. When asked who she would choose to play Maria in The Sound of Music, Andrews cited Cameron as her choice. It must've been that Fraulein outfit in Charlie's Angels that won Julie over.
15. As a former model, it's no surprise that Cami has a reputation for being 'fashionably' late. No wonder her salary expectations took a knock in recent years…
16. Even though she's never been Oscar-nominated, she's had her fair share of acclaim. Cameron has been nominated for a Golden Globe four times, as well a Screen Actors Guild Award (for Vanilla Sky) and a BAFTA (for Being John Malkovich).
17. Although she's also been nominated for a Razzie (which 'dis'honours the worst movie achievements of the year) twice – Worst Actress for What Happens in Vegas, and shared the Worst Couple nomination with her co-star Ashton Kutcher.
18. Cameron starred as Tom Cruise's psycho girlfriend in Vanilla Sky in 2001, but had an opportunity to work with the Scientologist mega-star five years previously when she was considered for the role of Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire – which eventually went to Renee Zellweger.
19. Shock! Horror! Cameron is not a natural blonde!
20. She successfully sued the National Enquirer for defamation after they claimed that she cheated on then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake. But we all know that relationship didn’t last…
21. Cameron did a bit of soft-core porn in 1992, appearing in an S&M video called "She's No Angel" shot by photographer John Rutter. In 2004, Cameron won an injunction against him preventing him from distributing her dirty little secret – but the video is apparently available on a dodgy Russian porn site. So get Googling!
22. Catfight alert! Cami and director Sofia Coppola apparently hate each other's guts. Here's the story: Sofia's award-winning movie Lost in Translation is loosely based on her own life. At the time of writing the movie, Sofia was married to director Spike Jonze, who previously directed Cameron in Being John Malkovich. Hollywood legend has it that the airhead actress character Kelly (played by Anna Faris) in Translation is actually a parody of Cameron, who, some claim, had a disruptive effect on Sofia's marriage during the making of Malkovich. Scandalous!
23. She's had a long and complicated relationship history. She dated Matt Dillon in the 90s, picked up where Jennifer Aniston left off with model Paul Sculfor, was engaged to 30 Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto, and then there was some guy named Justin Timberlake. Apparently they were hot stuff together. Cami's also been linked to Leonardo DiCaprio, surfer Kelly Slater, Jude Law, Gerard Butler and Bradley Cooper.
24. She's a keen surfer-chick, but doesn’t mind passing the time with a spot of knitting – a hobby she picked up from Julia Roberts while they were filming My Best Friend's Wedding.
