America's Most Beautiful People

Demi Moore
Roswell, New Mexico
By the time Demi was 14 years old, her family had left the UFO-associated area of Roswell and moved nearly 40 times, finally settling in Hollywood, where her high school classmates included Anthony Kiedis and Timothy Hutton.

Sarah Silverman
Bedford, New Hampshire
Sarah’s performances entered the shock-comedy genre pretty early in her career—after appearing in local television shows and community theatre projects, at just 17, she started performing stand-up, singing a song called “Mammaries” in a local New Hampshire restaurant

Brandon Flowers
Henderson, Nevada
The sexy, bad-boy frontman of The Killers got the dreamy rock star gig after replying to an ad that the band’s guitarist, Dave Keuning, placed in a local Las Vegas newspaper.

Hilary Swank
Lincoln, Nebraska
Hilary Swank might have some major mantle decorations now—with two Oscar trophies to her name—but she came from humbler beginnings. Born in Nebraska, she moved often, and spent a large part of her childhood in a trailer park.

Lauryn Hill
East Orange, New Jersey
The gorgeous former Fugee grew up in musical family, listening to her parents’ Motown recordings at their East Orange home. Though she still performs regularly, the soulful singer rigorously avoids publicity, instead choosing to keep her life with her partner, Bob Marley’s son Rohan, and their 6 children private.

Michelle Williams
Kalispell, Montana
The petite Academy Award-nominated actress is also a financial whiz—Michelle won the Robbins World Cup Trading Championship in 1997, an echo of her father’s earlier victory in the same competition (he's a stock and commodities trader professionally).

Jon Hamm
St. Louis, Missouri
Everyone’s favorite ‘50s womanizer (or at least, he plays one on TV) was quite the jock growing up—at his high school in rural Missouri, Jon played football, baseball, and competed on the swim team.

Britney Spears
McComb, Mississippi
The pop princess still has the drawl she developed growing up in rural Mississippi and Louisiana, where her rise to stardom began after landing a role on The Mickey Mouse Club. Now that she’s the first female artist to have six albums debut at number one on the charts, its seems she did manage to leave behind the mouse ears.

Jessica Biel
Ely, Minnesota
The fresh-faced actress left her native Minnesota far behind when she began her modeling and acting career—she went on to act in several major projects associated with other places—namely, 7th Heaven and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Dita von Teese
Rochester, Michigan
Dita’s noted fondness for retro glamour began early—growing up in Michigan, her mother, who loved all things Golden-era Hollywood, would supply a young Dita with special clothing for playing dress up, perhaps leading to the burlesque star’s current love of elaborate and dramatic costumes, including designing her own corsetry and lingerie.

Kate Bosworth
Cohasset, Massachussetts
The blonde beauty moved around a lot as a child, thanks to her dad’s job as a Talbot’s executive, but became a champion equestrian during her adolescence in coastal Massachusetts. Her horsey talents helped her land her first major role, in the 1998 film The Horse Whisperer.

Hilary Rhoda
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Before becoming an internationally successful model, Hilary had a slightly rougher hobby—playing competitive field hockey and lacrosse for her Maryland high school.

Anna Kendrick
Portland, Maine
Anna began her acting career on stage, appearing in the Broadway musical High Society when she was just 12 years old. She says she caught the acting bug at the age of 10, thanks to her parents allowing her and her brothers to hop a bus from Portland to New York City, where she attended auditions.

Reese Witherspoon
New Orleans, Louisiana
A thoroughly modern Southern belle, the Oscar winner spent most of her childhood in Louisiana and Tennessee, thanks to her parents’ careers in medicine, which she has said helped her develop “a sense of family and tradition.”



Jennifer Lawrence
Louisville, Kentucky
Before Jennifer Lawrence made her breakout performance as Ree Dolly in Winter’s Bone (and sent jaws dropping in that slinky red Calvin Klein dress), she was acting in church plays in her hometown of Louisville.



Janelle Monáe
Kansas City, Kansas
Janelle, an exhuberant singer, songwriter, and performer, has said that another famous (if fictional) Kansan had a great influence on her musically—Dorothy, from The Wizard of Oz.

Michelle Monaghan
Winthrope, Iowa
The former class president of East Buchanan High School also starred in several plays there, before going on to study journalism in Chicago. After modeling internationally, the brunette beauty moved to New York to pursue an acting career.

Janet Jackson
Gary, Indiana
As the youngest member of the Jackson family, Janet was a musical super star from a young age, spending much of her childhood performing with the Jackson 5. The family lived in Indiana until a record deal with Motown enabled them to relocate to a mansion Los Angeles.

Jennifer Hudson
Chicago, Illinois
It’s surprising to remember that the Grammy- and Oscar-winning songstress didn’t even win American Idol (she came in 7^th). The charming singer/actress got her musical start at the age of 7, singing in her church choir and doing Chicago-area community theatre.

Christina Hendricks
Twin Falls, Idaho
The voluptuous bombshell, who is a natural blonde, began dying her locks crimson at the age of ten. She started her acting career doing musical theatre as a child in Twin Falls before eventually becoming TV’s hottest office manager as Mad Men’s Joan Holloway.

Julia Roberts
Atlanta, Georgia
While growing up in Georgia, Julia originally wanted to be a veterinarian. The Oscar winner had her first brush with superstardom as southern belle in Steel Magnolias, but it was after playing a Hollywood prostitute in Pretty Woman that Julia shot to legend status (and gave thigh-high boots an insurmountable cultural reference point).

Leighton Meester
Marco Island, Florida
The Gossip Girl star had an unusual early childhood—when she was born, her mother was serving a federal prison sentence in Fort Worth on drug charges—the family moved to Marco Island after her release, and Leighton spent the remainder of her childhood there with a relatively normal upbringing. Inauspicious beginnings for the stylish star, who went on to attend the Professional Children’s School in NYC and book a Wilhelmina modeling contract by age 13.

Aubrey Plaza
Wilmington, Delaware
Aubrey’s unusual look and deadpan comedic delivery have been winning her fans on Parks and Recreation for several seasons. The comedian, who is half Puerto Rican, has said she was “like, the only diverse kid in my [Wilmington] high school,” and often bases her Parks character on her real life experiences.

Chloë Sevigny
Darien, Connecticut
The indie darling spent her childhood in the rather posh community of Darien (where she often babysat actor Topher Grace), spending her summers attending theatre camps and acting in various YMCA plays, before landing a leading role in the controversial 1995 film Kids.

Amy Adams
Castle Rock, Colorado
Though the Julie & Julia star was actually born to military parents in Vicenza, Italy, she spent her childhood and adolescence singing in the choir and training as a ballerina in Colorado.




 

Emma Stone
Scottsdale, Arizona
The Golden Globe-nominated actress started her acting career as a member of the Valley Youth Theatre in Phoenix, before heading to Hollywood to star in films like Superbad and Easy A.



Channing Tatum
Cullman, Alabama
The studly model-turned-actor spent a rural childhood in Alabama and Mississippi before going on to star in films like Step Up and G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra.