Cameron Diaz Born August 30, 1972, in San Diego, California. The daughter of Emilio Diaz, a second-generation Cuban-American oil company foreman, and his wife Billie, who is of Native American, Italian, and German descent, Diaz began modeling when she was 16 years old. Her successful modeling career took her to Japan, Australia, Morocco, and Paris, among other locales, landed her in such magazines as Mademoiselle and Seventeen, and in advertising campaigns for such companies as Calvin Klein, Coca-Cola, and Levi's.Many were jealous to the point of fury when Cameron Diaz made her film debut in the high-budget Jim Carrey vehicle, The Mask. Here’s another good-looking bit of fluff stealing another prime role, it was said - she’s all face’n’figure, no acting ability at all. Such accusations have been made about many an actress who's gone on to prove herself as a serious professional. They've even been made about actresses who were serious professionals already. Just because a performer's beautiful it doesn't mean she hasn't won a scholarship to the Actors' Studio and starved off-Broadway for fifteen years.Despite her undeniable box office appeal, Diaz continued to appear in relatively low-budget independent film - including the black comedy Very Bad Things (1998), Malkovich, and the ensemble film Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000), which aired on Showtime cable television in 2001 and costarred Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, and Calista Flockhart as well as more mainstream projects. In the fall of 2000, she starred alongside Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu as one of the three female detectives at the heart of the hit big-screen remake of Aaron Spelling's campy 1970s television show, Charlie's Angels.
