Eva Mendes
Eva Mendes was born on March 5, 1974 in Miami, Florida to Cuban parents and was raised in Los Angeles by her mother after her parents’ divorce; Mendes has said that her mother “suffered so much to make my life OK” during her early years. Her father was a car salesman and her mother, also named Eva, is now an elementary school principal. She is one of the youngest of four children (she has two sisters and a brother). Eva Mendes was raised Roman Catholic and aspired to be a nun. As a child, Mendes was teased about her “buck teeth”.
Mendes never saw herself as an actress while she was young and decided to pursue other interests. She attended Hoover High School in Glendale and later attended California State University, Northridge to study marketing, but dropped out after wanting to begin an acting career. She studied with Ivana Chubbuck.
One day Mendes caught the eye of an agent who convinced her to pursue acting more steadily. She worked her way up through commercials to music videos, including an appearance in Will Smith’s video “Miami” and the Pet Shop Boys music video for “Se a vida é (That’s the way life is)” in 1996 and Aerosmith’s video “Hole in My Soul” in 1997, to guest roles in soap operas and supporting film roles. Her first film appearance was in the direct-to-video Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror.
Mendes received her first big-screen break when she appeared in Training Day. That performance led to roles in Stuck on You, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and as the female lead in the comedy Hitch opposite Will Smith. Her role in Once Upon a Time in Mexico also earned her a nomination at the Teen Choice Awards. Mendes has also been in commercials for Gushers, Revlon, and Levi’s. Mendes costarred in Ghost Rider with Nicolas Cage, and recently starred alongside Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, and Robert Duvall in the film We Own the Night, and Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson in The Spirit.
In early 2008, Mendes was reported to have been in a rehab facility in Utah for several weeks. In a statement, her representative said that she had been “working hard for the past year and made a positive decision to take some much-needed time off to proactively attend to some personal issues that, while not critical, she felt deserved some outside professional support.”
In 2008, Mendes was outspoken in her support for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Mendes and long-time boyfriend, George Gargurevich have been together for six years.
