Kelly Hu Pictures, Biography, Images, Videos, News

Kelly Ann Hu was born in Honolulu, Hawaii of Chinese, Hawaiian, and English ancestry. Her interests are karate and ballet. She currently resides in Brentwood, California. She has an older brother, who is a captain in the US Army. She also has a cat named Saju. And she has a boy friend named Ali Moussavi. She attended Kamehameha High School, which is restricted to youngsters of Hawaiian descent. Her first trip to the mainland was at age 16. "I was doing poorly in a US history class," she explains, "partly, I think, because Hawaii is so isolated from the rest of the country. So my mother took me to Philadelphia and Boston to see the Liberty Bell and other famous sites. I ended up getting an A in the course."

Hu embarked on a career in modeling after sharing the experiences of friends who had traveled to Japan on modeling assignments. When it was suggested that a beauty pageant title would increase her promotability, Hu agreed to enter the local Miss Teen USA pageant. Above and beyond her expectations, Hu not only won the local pageant, but was crowned Miss Teen USA in 1985. She was a bit disappointed when she learned her title contract put the brakes on any outside modeling for the full year of her reign. "Ironically, after winning the Miss Teen crown in Miami Beach, I wasn't allowed to model for a year because I was representing the pageant," she relates. "But it was a great experience because it gave me a chance to see more of the US. In New York I saw my first snow. My impulse was to pick it up and eat it but somebody stopped me." The title, she adds, "also gave me enough money to move to Los Angeles after school to pursue an acting career." And not to mention the title also led to numerous modeling assignments, including a four-month stint in Japan. Soon thereafter, Hu left her native Hawaii for Los Angeles. Shortly after arriving on the mainland, Hu obtained several commercial roles for such well-known products as Vidal Sassoon and Mary Kay Cosmetics. In Milan, Italy, however, she is best known for her role in a series of storyline commercials for Philadelphia Cream Cheese. She notes of the spots' popularity, "As I walk down the streets in Milan, the Italians stop, point and yell 'Hey, Pheel-a-DEL-phia!'". With automatic entry into the Miss USA pageant (a benefit of holding the Miss Teen title), Hu ran as Miss Hawaii in 1993. Of the adult pageant experience versus the teen, Hu says: "When competing as teens, everybody's just really happy to be there. But for a lot of women in the Miss USA pageant, it's their last chance at breaking into the industry, so they take it much more seriously. It's really vicious."