Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lynn López (aka J. Lo, born July 24, 1970) is a well-known Puerto Rican-American actress, singer, designer, dancer, and fashion icon. She was born and raised in the Soundview section of Bronx, New York City, New York. Lopez speaks English and Spanish and has two sisters, Leslie (a music teacher) and Lynda, a well known television news anchor.

Nicknames

• J.Lo or Jaylo
• Jen
• Jenny
• Jenny Lo
• La Lopez (The Lopez)
• Mrs. Lopez

Before Being Famous

She started off as a backup dancer. She later took up acting, saying that she always knew she wanted to do this, and that her inspiration came from some of her favorite artists.

T.V. shows

She started in television as a "fly girl" (dancer) on the television comedy program In Living Color. She also played a small role in a short-lived television program "South Central". Lastly, she has starred in "Second Chances" and "Hotel Malibu".

Movies

She started her acting career early in the 1990s with movies like Mi Familia, Money Train, and U-Turn, but her breakthrough was the part of Selena Quintanilla in the movie Selena. She followed this with a well-received performance in Out Of Sight with George Clooney. She has also appeared in Anaconda, The Cell, Angel Eyes, The Wedding Planner, Enough, Maid in Manhattan, Gigli, Jersey Girl, and Shall We Dance, "Monster-In-Law& has appeared in several other movies and television shows.

Music

Her music, mainly pop, includes the albums J.Lo and On The 6, a reference to the subway line she used to take growing up in Soundview.

On The 6 was released in 1999 and featured the massive first single, "If You Had My Love". It also contained the Spanish language, Latin-flavored duet "No me ames" with Marc Anthony, which was an international hit and was not released as a single in the United States, although the video got moderate airplay on American VH1 and The Box as a novelty.

In the fall of 1999, the album's second American single, "Waiting For Tonight" was released. It was not a hit on the same scale as "If You Had My Love", but was huge nonetheless. The memorable video capitalized on the millennium craze of the time, featuring J. Lo at a futuristic dance party in a jungle, while an enormous clock counted down the seconds to the year 2000. The video also had a popular dance remix, by popular club remixer, Hex Hector. To date, the remix video still gets occasional airplay on MTV2, during dance blocks.

The albums also included the other hit singles like, "Feelin' So Good", a hip hop track which contained guest raps by Big Pun and Fat Joe and the Latin-dance-flavored track, "Let's Get Loud".

Towards the end of 2000, Lopez released "Love Don't Cost A Thing", her first single from her second album, J. Lo. Upon the album's release in early 2001, it quickly rose to the top of the charts; as had the single, which became her biggest hit since "If You Had My Love". The second single, "Play", which was written by rising teen star, Christina Milian, was a huge dance radio and club hit in early 2001 and was also successful on pop radio.

The album's next two singles, "I'm Real" and "Ain't It Funny" were her biggest ever hits both spending many weeks on top of the Billboard charts. However, to capitalize on this, Lopez asked Murder Inc. to remix both songs, completely changing the lyrics and melodies and adding raps from Ja Rule in both songs, and from Caddillac Tah to "Ain't It Funny (Remix)". The "I'm Real" and "Ain't It Funny" remixes were two of the biggest pop and rap hits in late 2001 and early 2002, respectively, and their more hip hop sound gave J.Lo street credibility and brought her music to a whole new group of fans.

She continued the successful trend by getting 50 Cent and Nas to write rhymes for two remixes of her next single, "I'm Gonna Be Alright". In mid-2002, Lopez released a remix album called J To The L-O: The Remixes, featuring the already popular rap remixes of "I'm Real", "I'm Gonna Be Alright", and "Ain't It Funny", and well as the dance remix of "Waiting For Tonight". The album also included rarer dance and hip hop remixes of her past singles, and a new song, a ballad called "Alive," which was included in Lopez' movie, Enough.

In the fall of 2002, Lopez released This Is Me... Then, which spawned three hugely popular singles: "Jenny From The Block," (based on the "Watch Out Now" by the Beatnuts which included raps from Jadakiss and Styles P); "All I Have," one of 2003's most popular songs to date, which was a duet with LL Cool J; and "I'm Glad". Later she released the fourth single "Baby I Love You" the musical theme for the movie "Gigli." Last, she released the fifth single "The One", but the video was based on the remixed version of the song which featured East Coast Rapper Joe Budden.

On November 18, 2003, she released her fifth album, Reel Me, which included a DVD having all her music videos from her first video "If You Had My Love" to her last one "Baby I Love You." This album also included a bonus track, "Baby I Love You (Remix)" featuring R. Kelly.

Claims to Fame

• Lopez was the first Latina to get paid over a million dollars for a project.
• Lopez was the first Latina actress to star in a leading role in film since Rita Hayworth retired in the 1970s.
• Lopez is (in 2003) the highest paid Latina actress in Hollywood.
• Lopez's first album On The 6 went platinum 8 times.
• Lopez's first single "If You Had My Love" was #1 for more than 9 weeks.
• Lopez is the first actress and singer to have a movie ("The Wedding Planner") and an album ("J.Lo") at #1 in the same week.
• Lopez's second album J.Lo went platinum 9 times.
• Lopez's third album J To Tha L-O! The Remixes was the first album of remixes to hit #1, because no other album of remixes had climbed the chart.
• Lopez's perfume Glow made history in 2001, by being the #1 perfume in more than 9 countries in more than 4 months.
• Lopez is the only woman who has been #1, 3 years in a row in the FHM list of the 100 Sexiest Females in the world.
• Lopez made the 2004 Fortune list of the wealthiest entertainers under the age of 40. Her wealth is estimated at $255 million.

Fashion

Lopez owns a clothing line called J.Lo By Jennifer Lopez. Her line is the most successful clothing line of artists on the industry market. Furthermore, she is planning to launch a jewelry line, hats, gloves, and a scarves line.

Lopez also launched a new clothing line called Sweetface which hit stores in November 2003, as well as a new perfume called Still, which was introduced in October 2003.

She did a photoshoot to represent the Louis Vuitton winter 2003 campaign, in which the pictures would be seen all over the world through TV commercials, billboards, ads, newspapers, magazines and more.

Other merchandise includes clothing for men and a cologne line for men due for release in winter 2004/05.

She does have a perfume line out right now called Glow, and she was in question before, because the name came from another patented perfume.

J.Lo Inc.

Jennifer Lopez owns a production company Nuyorican Productions, in which she is expected to produce some of her upcoming movies. Some of the projects are Carmen, Dirty Girls Social Club, and The Hector Lavoe Project. This company was founded together with her manager, Benny Medina, against whom she filed a lawsuit because of alleged fraud in July 2003.

The company produced the commercially successful movies The Cell, The Wedding Planner, and Maid In Manhattan. These three movies put together made more than $500 million worldwide.

Upcoming movies

• An Unfinished Life (December 24, 2004)
• Tick Tock (Spring 2005)
• Monster In Law (July 2005)

Relationships

Lopez has been in two short-lived marriages. The first one, which was with Ojani Onoa, ended in divorce in 1998 after 21 months, and the second, in 2001-2002, was with Chris Judd, her former backup dancer. Between marriages, in 1999-2000, she dated singer and designer P. Diddy, breaking up after a shooting incident in a New York night club. Recently, Lopez has been engaged to Ben Affleck, but the marriage planned for September 13, 2003 was called off a few days before the event. In January 2004 the couple split.

News media reported that on June 5, 2004, Lopez married singer Marc Anthony. There was no offical statement, but it is generally known that Lopez and Anthony are a couple.

Also see

• List of famous Puerto Ricans.