Paris Hilton Biography

Socialite. Born on February 17, 1981, in New York, New York. Paris Whitney Hilton is the eldest child of real estate developer Richard Hilton and socialite Kathy Richards Hilton. Along with sister Nicky and brothers Barron and Conrad, Hilton is one of multiple heirs to the Hilton hotel fortune.

Given the childhood nickname "Star" by her mother and grandmother, Hilton, who began modeling as a child at charitable functions, was born into acting stock. Her maternal grandmother was actress "Big" Kathy Dugan, and aunts Kim and Kyle Richards continue to earn film and television roles. Hilton is also related to Zsa Zsa Gabor (who wed her great grandfather Conrad Hilton), and can claim ties to Elizabeth Taylor, who was briefly married to Hilton's great uncle Conrad Nicholson Hilton Jr.

Hilton spent her childhood moving from one luxury home to another. While living in the family's Beverly Hills mansion, she attended her freshman year of high school at the Marywood-Palm Valley School in California. When the Hilton family relocated to New York City in 1996, she continued her studies at the Dwight School. At this time, the family took up residence in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, and frequently vacationed at a multi-million dollar home in the Hamptons.

As East Coast transplants, Hilton and her sister regularly attended society functions, charitable events, fashion shows and A-list parties. The two soon became regulars on the red carpet, and a titillating 2000 Vanity Fair spread shot by famed photographer David LaChapelle cemented their burgeoning fame.

Around this time, Hilton signed with Donald Trump's modeling agency, T Management. She was soon seen in a flurry of campaigns for leading clothing designers such as Christian Dior and Tommy Hilfiger, as well as national publications. Hilton has since worked with other top agencies, including Ford Models Management and London's Model 1 Agency.

Hilton, who courted regular media attention for her outrageous lifestyle, was christened "New York's leading IT girl" in 2001. Short-lived romances with actor Leonardo DiCaprio and boxer Oscar de la Hoya—as well as callous comments directed at her peers—earned Hilton bad press, and further fortified her reputation for careless jet setting and hard-partying.

Hilton soon tried her hand at acting, making a cameo in Zoolander, Ben Stiller's feature-length spoof of the modeling world. Over the next few years, she continued split her time between runways and movie sets, appearing in the 2002 horror flick Nine Lives. The following year, she acted in the feature films Wonderland and Cat in the Hat, and began work on her own small-screen reality series.

In November 2003, an unauthorized four-minute video of Hilton began to circulate on the Internet; dubbed "One Night in Paris," it featured Hilton engaging in intimate acts with then-boyfriend Rick Salomon. Salomon marketed the video, earning millions in sales, and Hilton filed suit. Although the case was settled out of court, reports stated that Hilton received $400,000 from the video. Additionally, she publicly stated that she had never intended the video to be a commercial venture.