Jaime King (born April 23, 1979 in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American film actress and model. In her modeling career and early film roles, she went by the names Jamie King and most especially James King, which was a childhood nickname given to her by her parents, because her agency already represented another Jaime — the older, then-more famous model Jaime Rishar. Jaime, because of the latter name, is sometimes referred to as the “Model with a man’s name”.

Called by Complex magazine “one of the original model- turned- actresses”, Jaime appeared in Vogue, Mademoiselle, and Harper’s Bazaar among other fashion magazines. Afterwards, she began taking small film roles, her first large endeavor being the big-budget Pearl Harbor (2001), and later first starring role in Bulletproof Monk (2003). She has gone on to appear as a lead in various other films, gaining more notoriety after Sin City (2005), a role which she will reprise in the sequel Sin City 2 (2009).

Early Life & Family
Jaime was born in the suburbs of Omaha, NE, the daughter of Nancy King, a beauty queen, and Robert King. She has an older sister, Sandra, and a younger brother, Barry. Jaime was named after Lindsay Wagner’s character, Jaime Sommers, of the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman. Jaime’s parents separated in 1994, eventually splitting amicably in 1995. The two continue to work together in Omaha where they rent out low-income apartments. Jaime had attended the modeling school Nancy Bounds’s Studios and later dropped out of Westside High School in 1995 to pursue a modeling career in New York, afterwards enrolling in a home-study program run by the University of Nebraska.

Modelling Career
Jaime was discovered in November 1993, at the age of fourteen, while attending Nancy Bounds’ Studios, a school for modeling. After being spotted at her graduation fashion show by New York model agent Michael Flutie, Jaime was invited to New York to begin modeling professionally. She joined with Company Management, who already represented Jaime Rishar, a more established model at the time. To avoid confusion, Jaime opted to go by her childhood nickname, James, for the duration of her modeling career and later, the beginning of her film career. In March 1994, she traveled to New York for test pictures and received enthusiastic responses. However, she did not return to New York until July 1994 after gaining a successful advertisement for Abercrombie & Fitch. Much of Fall and Spring 1994 were spent commuting between Omaha and New York.

Jaime had a successful early career as a fashion model, and by age fifteen she had been featured in the fashion magazines Vogue, Mademoiselle, Allure, and Seventeen. At sixteen, Jaime had graced the pages of Glamour and Harper’s Bazaar. She was featured on the New York Times Magazine cover story published on February 4, 1996 and had walked the runway for Chanel and Christian Dior. In 1998, she began co-hosting MTV’s fashion series, House of Style, with fellow model turned actress Rebecca Romijn. Despite her success, Jaime has noted that she “remember[s] the times where I was so alone” and thought she was “never gonna be able to be a kid.” She, along with Kate Moss, had been often cited as those who helped popularize the idea of heroin chic in the 1990s.

In 2004, Jaime, along with Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, and Eva Mendes were chosen as spokesmodels for a high profile ad campaign for Revlon. The advertisements were featured in print, television, theatrical, outdoor and Internet venues, banking on their spokeswomen’s “collective star power” to sell the cosmetics products. In 2006, Jaime was chosen by Rocawear CEO Jay-Z to become the new face of the line; her advertisements were featured for the Winter 2006 Season. Jaime was also on the cover of the April 2008 issue Of Maxim magazine.

Acting Career
(Early work, 1998-2004)
In 1999, Jaime began her acting career and made her debut in the Daniel Waters’ comedy Happy Campers, as Pixel. Happy Campers was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, and in 2003, Jaime was nominated for “Best Actress” at the DVD Exclusive Awards for her portrayal of Pixel. Filmed in 1999, she also appeared in Filter’s music video for “Take a Picture”. Following her debut acting roles, Jaime appeared briefly in the film Blow, portraying Kristina Jung, daughter of George Jung (portrayed by Johnny Depp). Blow was based on the real-life stories of cocaine smugglers George Jung, Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder and the Medellín Cartel.

Jaime made her first appearance in a large Hollywood production with her role as the seventeen year old nurse, Betty, in the World War II epic romance Pearl Harbor (2001). Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine had commented that Jaime “has a lively minute or two” in the film, however, her part was small and the “young cast is mostly pinup packaging”. Jaime went on to be featured in the Incubus music video “Wish You Were Here”. The roles Jaime took part in during 2001 garnered her the “New Stylemaker” title at the Young Hollywood Awards.

In 2002, she appeared in the teen comedy Slackers as Angela Patton, Four Faces of God as Sam, and the crime comedy Lone Star State of Mind as Baby. Slackers received a majority of negative response from critics who found that the characters “are not so strikingly original as to elevate the slack material”, while Four Faces of God and Lone Star State of Mind did not have wide theatrical releases. 2003 saw Jaime in the film Bulletproof Monk, alongside Chow Yun-Fat and Seann William Scott, an adaptation of a comic book by Michael Avon Oeming. She auditioned five times, did a screen test and a physical test in order to obtain the role of Jade, a character skilled in martial arts. This was Jaime’s first leading action film role, however, Bulletproof Monk had received mostly negative reviews from critics, who cited that the fight scenes were not as well choreographed or directed as those other genre films, and that the alternating comedic and action scenes were jarring. Despite those negative reviews, Bulletproof Monk was nominated for “Choice Movie in a Drama/Action Adventure” award at the Teen Choice Awards. Late 2003 saw Jaime in Robbie Williams’ music video for “Sexed Up” and on the cover artwork for the single’s release. In 2004, Jaime appeared in the comedy White Chicks, playing Heather Vandergeld, with actress Brittany Daniel as her sister Megan Vandergeld, a parody on socialites Paris and Nicky Hilton. White Chicks was also negatively reviewed by critics, receiving five nominations at the Razzie Awards in the categories for “Worst Actress”, “Worst Director”, “Worst Picture”, “Worst Screen Couple” and “Worst Screenplay”. Despite the multiple Razzie Awards nominations, White Chicks received “Outstanding Directing for a Box Office Movie” and “Outstanding Writing for a Box Office Movie” at the BET Comedy Awards.

Breakthrough, 2005
2005 saw Jaime in a variety of film and television roles. She first appeared in the independent black comedy and satire Pretty Persuasion, playing a small role as Kathy Joyce, the step mother of Evan Rachel Wood’s character. Afterwards, she gained lead roles in the film adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel Sin City. She had met with director Robert Rodriguez, who was a fan of her work, and at the time Jaime was unaware that Rodriguez wanted her involvement in the film. Eventually, “we started reading [the Sin City graphic novel], and it was really fun”. Jaime portrayed Goldie and Wendy, the twin prostitutes in charge of the girls of Old Town, in the segment The Hard Goodbye opposite Mickey Rourke. However, because the twins never appeared in the same frame together, special effects were not needed to composite two images of Jaime. Sin City featured a large ensemble cast of well known actors which included Rosario Dawson and Jessica Alba, whom Jaime had “kinda grew up together” with in New York. Sin City had opened to wide critical and commercial success, gathering particular recognition for the film’s unique coloring process, which rendered most of the film in black and white but retained coloring for select objects; Jaime was one of the few in the black and white film to have color, that being, red lips and blond hair when acting as Goldie. The film was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in-competition and won the Technical Grand Prize for the film’s “visual shaping.” The family comedy Cheaper by the Dozen 2 featured Jaime as Anne Murtaugh in yet another large ensemble cast, and the Al Pacino drama Two for the Money as Alexandria; both films had negative critical and box office reception. In television, she had a one episode guest appearance on the teen drama The O.C. and a recurring role on the short-lived situation comedy Kitchen Confidential. Also, Jaime was featured in the Zach Braff directed music video for Gavin Degraw’s “Chariot”.

Recent & future roles, 2006-present
In 2006, Jaime appeared with a small role as Heather in the comedy The Alibi, and a starring role in the thriller True True Lie. Her largest role that year was in the David Arquette horror film The Tripper as Samantha; Arquette had, in addition to directing the film, had produced, written, and acted in it. Jaime had a recurring role on the short lived comedy The Class, which ended its run on television after an announcement in May 2007. The Class had been nominated for an Emmy in 2007, and won the People’s Choice Award for “Favorite New TV Comedy”.

In 2007, Jaime filmed They Wait, a horror-thriller film inspired by true events, with Terry Chen as her husband and Regan Oey as their son. She stars as a mother attempting to find the truth and save her son when threatened by spirits during the Chinese tradition of Ghost Month. It was featured in the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, but did not make a theatrical release until 2007.

Currently, Jaime has five films in production that have release dates estimated for 2008 and 2009. The first of three to be released in 2008 may be the Starwars-themed comedy Fanboys. Its release date was pushed first to January 2008 when director Kyle Newman received additional funding to shoot new sceces, but the busy schedule of the actors postponed filming. Still delayed, the filmmakers and its distributor, the Weinstein Company, are disputing which version to release. In May 2008, Jaime featured in another Newman-directed film, Act I of The Cube, the beginning of an online movie-making contest.

The Pardon, a film based on the true life story of Toni Jo Henry, the first and only woman to be electrocuted by the State of Louisiana, will star Jaime as Toni Jo Henry. The last film is the Jim Kouf comedy, A Fork in the Road, that will have Jaime portraying the character of April Rogers alongside Daniel Roebuck. 2009 will see the release of The Spirit and Sin City 2, both of which are in pre-production. Jaime confirmed her role in The Spirit, a live-action film adaptation based on the 1940s newspaper strip The Spirit, created by Will Eisner, in October 2007. Jaime will portray Lorelei Rox, “a modern-day siren with a voice that could kill”. The role will reunite Jaime with Sin City writer, Frank Miller, who is attached to write and direct The Spirit. Filming was slated to begin in October 2007, with a release date in January 2009. Jaime’s other 2009 film will also be written by and co-directed by Miller, in the film Sin City 2. She will reprise her role as twins Goldie and Wendy in the part sequel and part prequel.

Personal Life
During her first job modeling, Jaime was turned onto heroin and had an addiction to the drug from age fourteen to nineteen. In 1997, her boyfriend, twenty one year old fashion photographer Davide Sorrenti, had died from what was thought be a kidney ailment brought on by excessive heroin use. Following his death, Jaime became sober, and went to rehabilitation at age nineteen for her addictions to both heroin and alcohol. In 2006, she commented that her past reputation as a “party girl” is “like another lifetime” and she now thinks of herself as a different person.

In September 2000, Jaime dated Kid Rock and the couple made an appearance on The Howard Stern Show. In January 2005, while working on the set of Fanboys, she met husband Kyle Newman, the film’s director. Within three months of dating, the two moved in together. Newman proposed in Spring 2007, and the two married on November 23, 2007 in an “intimate and relaxed” ceremony in Los Angeles at Greystone Park and Manor, where Newman had proposed. Jaime told InStyle magazine, “I want at least three children.

Jaime enjoys surfing and is friends with numerous musicians. In an interview published in 1996, Jaime, after retiring from modeling, announced her plans to be a writer or a photographer. Jaime presently lives in Los Angeles.