Leslie Louise Bibb was born in Bismark, North Dakota on November 17, 1973 and raised in rural Nelson County, Virginia, the youngest of four sisters. After her father's death when she was three (1976), she grew up in a single-parent home. 1988 Moved with family to Richmond, Virginia at age 14 (date approximate), where Leslie excelled at St. Gertrude's, an all-girls school.

Bibb Says: "I went to an all-girls high school," she says. "I was popular among my group of friends, but everyone is popular among their group of friends, if they have a group of friends."

When Leslie was 16, her sister entered her photo on the spur of the moment in a nationally televised model search sponsored by Oprah Winfrey. "I thought I looked so sassy in (those) pictures," said Leslie. Out of a field of 6,000 applicants, she was one of 20 chosen to appear on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" before a panel of judges including Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Iman. Leslie walked away the winner. Bibb says: "It was like winning the lottery. It was surreal. The summer before I won, I was babysitting my sister's kids. The following summer, I was modeling in Japan." 

In 1990 The Oprah Winfrey Show held a nationwide modeling search. Sixteen-year-old Leslie Bibb took the prize...and in ten seconds her life changed forever.

After modeling in Japan, London, and Milan, Leslie is now turning heads in Hollywood. She appears on the series Popular on the WB Network. "Nine years ago you took a little girl from Kansas and gave her a new life," she told Oprah via videotape. "You made all my dreams come true."

After gaining such major recognition, Bibb's modeling career was launched. She briefly attended the University of Virginia, but by the age of 18 was working full time in New York with Elite, appearing in numerous magazines such as YM and Seventeen. While modeling brought Leslie to New York, it was acting that kept her there. She attended the William Esper acting studios for three years and took about nine months off in which she modeled in Europe (in France, Italy and England.) and Japan.

At Esper, Bibb was cast for two pilots, Face Value for the Fox television network and Talkgirl for MTV, neither of which were picked up as series. She landed the role of "dimwit model" for a Lee Jeans commercial. The slogan of the ad was "Lee Jeans will make you look like a model, just don't think like one." The director allowed Bibb to improvise on camera, and her wit came through.

Bibb left New York for Los Angeles, California. With enough money saved up, she gave up modeling and dedicated herself to acting. She had small parts in Pacific Blue on the USA network, Early Edition on CBS, Fired Up and Just Shoot Me on NBC, and Home Improvement on ABC.

Her first film role came in 1997's Private Parts, an adaptation of the autobiography of nationally-syndicated radio host Howard Stern. (An important book, right Leslie?) She played a page leading a tour of KNBC radio in New York, whose group happened upon a taping of one of Stern's early shows, featuring a woman who deep throated a 13-inch kielbasa sausage.

Leslie would later reminisce to TV Guide: "I didn't do anything with sausage, [but] to see this woman do what she did with the sausage was pretty awe-inspiring. It's like sword swallowing I guess."

In June 1997, only two months after arriving in L.A., Leslie landed her first television series, replacing the departed Susan Walters as the female lead for the second season of The Big Easy on USA. A new character, detective trainee Janine Rebbenack, was created for her. She co-starred with Tony Crane, who played Detective Remy McSwain. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled that October.

Leslie dyed her hair blonde to play a drug addict in the still-unreleased independent film The Young Unknowns, alongside another struggling young actor, Devon Gummersall of the cult-favorite TV series My So-Called Life.

Before Leslie had the chance to change her hair back, her managers convinced her to read for the role of Popular's blonde cheerleader Brooke McQueen. She had the flu.

"I called...my managers and said, 'Look, I'm not going in for this thing. I'm too sick, I feel like crap, and I don't have a bra on.'" Regardless, Leslie went to the audition and "gave one of the best reads I've ever done."

"It was so good," she said. "Cause I looked like crap, I didn't care... (the producers were) forgiving of my appearance."

Leslie landed the role, and now the 26-year-old plays a much younger woman on the show. In reality, she is almost seven years older than her co-star Carly Pope.

At first Leslie was guarded about her age, telling TV Guide she was 20-something while promoting the show's premiere in late September. But returning to The Oprah Winfrey Show for its 1990s follow-up episode on December 1 made her age clear to fans paying attention.

Popular, airing in a difficult time slot Thursday at 8 p.m., is not a hit by any means. However, the show is fairly successful for the young WB network, which recorded its first profitable quarter of operation in Fall 1999. The show has a significant chance to be renewed for another season.

Meanwhile, Leslie has used her success to re-launch her film career. She appears (still blonde) alongside Joshua Jackson (from the WB's Dawson's Creek), Paul Walker and Craig T. Nelson in "The Skulls," a Universal Pictures feature which opened nationwide on March 31 - 2.001. For more news click here.

Leslie is very athletic, and enjoys tennis, swimming and boxing, and toured New Orleans on a mountain bike while working on The Big Easy. She reads and sees movies when time permits, and toys with writing as a hobby. To relax on the set, she listens to a machine which produces the sounds of crickets, waves and white noise.

Leslie lives in Los Angeles with her dogs Jack and Harley. She continues her acting classes in L.A. with coach Leigh Kilton-Smith, and has acted on stage at the Imau! Theatre Company. She volunteers on Sundays doing theater workshops with juvenile delinquents through a group called "The Unusual Suspects."

Credit: lesliebibb.us