Star Facts
- America hated her first name as a youngster and used her middle name, Georgina, until she started acting
- She was the class valedictorian at her high school
- America is 5' 4½" tall
- Her smile has been insured for $10m by same company that insured Marlene Dietrich’s legs
Biography:
Curvy Ugly Betty star America was a straight A student in school with a passion for acting. Working as a waitress from the age of 15 so she could pay for acting lessons, she went on to take a double major at the University of Southern California in theatre and international relations.
America’s acting career took off 16, with her role in the Mexican-American coming-of-age drama Real Women have Curves, for which she won the Best Actress award at the Sundance Film Festival. She landed parts in a couple of successful films before Ugly Betty, sharing the pants with Gossip Girl Blake Lively in 2005’s Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and starring alongside Emile Hirsch and the late Heath Ledger in the cult skateboard biopic Lords of Dogtown.
America became an international superstar and a role model for curvy ladies everywhere when she landed the lead role of Betty Suarez in the major hit fashion sitcom Ugly Betty in 2006. She became the first Latina actress to win an Outstanding Actress Primetime Emmy for her performance in the show, which ran until 2010.
She’s since gone on to lend her voice to the animated Tinkerbell and How to Train your Dragon, starring in Iraq War drama The Dry Land while the world holds its breath for a possible Ugly Betty movie.
America has been married to young director Ryan Piers Williams since June 2011, after meeting him while working on his student film at university.