Hayden Panettiere

The 5' 1" American actress and singer, Hayden Leslie Panettiere, or famously known as Hayden Panettiere, was born on August 21, 1989 in Palisade, New York to parents Skip Panettiere and Lesley Vogel. Her father, Skip, was a lieutenant in a fire department and her mother, Lesley, used to be a soap opera actress. Panettiere has a younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, that also works as an actor.

When Panettiere was 11 months old, her mother introduced her to the showbiz by having her to appear in commercials. Her first appearance was for Playskool's advertisement. Few years later, in 1994, she was cast as Sarah Roberts on the ABC soap opera, "One Life to Live", where she remained until 1997. Panettierre first caught people attention when she portrayed Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Spaulding, an abused girl who battled leukemia, on the CBS daytime-drama, "Guiding Light" (1996-2000). The show received a Special Recognition Award from The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for bringing national awareness of the disease to the attention of daytime viewers while at the same time scored Panettiere a Young Star Award nomination for the category of Best Young Actress/Performance in Daytime TV Series in 2000. In regards of her performance as Lizzie, Panettiere simply stated,"When the camera comes on, I am not Hayden any more, I am Lizzie!"

After successfully portraying Lizzie, this blonde girl continued appearing in numbers of animated movies and feature films. In 1998, she lent her voice to Dot in Pixar animated movie, "A Bug's Life". The following year saw Panettiere being nominated for a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, thanks to her serving as narrator in "A Bug's Life Read-Along." After that filling in the voice of Suri in "Dinosaur," a feature film produced by Walt Disney Pictures released to movie theaters in 2000, she as well was cast alongside Denzel Washington in "Remember the Titans" as Sheryl Yoast, a portraying role that led her to be nominated for Young Actress Award in the category of Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actress. During the period of 2001 to 2003, Panettiere appeared in TV series "Ally McBeal's" and "Malcolm in the Middle", and in feature film "Joe Somebody". She also filled in the voice of Kairi in a video game entitled "Kingdom Hearts". In addition to those projects, Panettiere was also among the cast for HBO's made-for-TV movie "Normal."

Had herself involved in several other big screen projects, naming some were "Raising Helen" (2004), "Ice Princess" (2005) and "Racing Stripes" (2005), it was not until the year of 2006 that Panettiere saw a big breakthrough in her acting career with her joining the cast of NBC's science fiction drama TV series "Heroes." Starring in as Claire Bennet, a high school cheerleader who has a spontaneous regenerative ability, she admitted that options are sometimes limited because "people look at [her] as either the 'popular cheerleader' type or just 'the blonde.'" Nevertheless, the series indeed was the night's most-watched program among adults aged 18-49, attracting 14.3 million viewers overall and receiving the highest rating for any NBC drama premiere in five years by the time it was released on September 25th.

With the TV series becoming a hit among viewers, Panettiere also snagged some more prestigious awards, including Scream Award-Breakout Performance, Teen Choice Award- Choice TV Actress: Drama, and Saturn Award-Best Supporting Actress in a Television Program or Series. Saw both her acting career and skills striking even higher, the young movie beauty signed another deal to star in the drama flick "Fireflies in the Garden" (2008) which will see her stars alongside senior actors like Julia Roberts and Ryan Reynolds among others. Also fluent in singing, Panettiere is working on her debut solo album "Fallen Love," which notwithstanding with its initial release date on May 8, 2007, would be released by 2008.

Having a full plate on her agenda, however, doesn't prevent Panettiere from embarking romance. Previously dated actor Stephen Colletti for more than one year before then split in September 2007, she was then romantically linked to "Heroes" co-star Milo Ventimiglia.