Christina Applegate Biography

Born on November 25, 1971 in Los Angeles, California. Christina Applegate was raised by her actress mother, Nancy Priddy, after Priddy split from Applegate's father, record executive Bobby Applegate. When Christina was three months old, she made her acting debut in her mothers arms on the daytime soap opera Days of our Lives.

After performing in commercials for K Mart and appearing in several movies and TV shows, she received her breakthrough role as teen air head Kelly Bundy on Fox's popular sitcom Married... With Children at age fifteen. After an impressive 11 seasons, the show ended in 1997 and Applegate has since successfully distanced herself from her Bundy persona.

In 1998, she starred opposite Mark Wahlberg in the Hong Kong-tinged action-comedy The Big Hit and played the fiancee of a Mob scion in the Mafia parody, Mafia!

Inspired by her experience with her own mother growing up, Applegate returned to TV in 1998 to star as a single mom balancing work and family in the sitcom Jesse. Though the show had bright moment (including a People's Choice award in 1999) it was canceled two years later.

Following an ill-executed return to movies in 2001 with the time-travel comedy Just Visiting, Applegate managed to hold her own opposite some of her more respected film peers. She received strong reviews as Cameron Diaz's levelheaded best friend in The Sweetest Thing in 2002, and appeared with Wayne Paltrow in the flight attendant comedy A View From the Top.

Applegate married her longtime boyfriend, actor Jonathan Schaech, in October 2001. They began divorce proceedings in November 2005, during which time Applegate met Lee Rivals Alaskan fisherman and aspiring photographer whom she had met through a colleague in her Broadway show Sweet Charity. Their relationship was reportedly a rocky one, as Christina disapproved of his struggles with drug problems and they broke up in early 2008. Christina had moved on but still considered Grivas an "incredible human being" and "an extremely important and beautiful part of my life." When Grivas died of an apparent drug overdose on July 1, 2008. Applegate was "profoundly saddened." and added that Grivas was "Missed beyond words."

Applegate's woes would see no rest, as a mere 2 weeks later she would undergo a double mastectomy when she tested positive for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene. Following the procedure she was upbeat, and donated her time to combating breast cancer by speaking publicly about the disease and raising money for research. In doing so, she has joined fellow survivors Sheryl Crow and Susanne Somers as well respected champions of breast cancer awareness.

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