Jaime Elizabeth Pressly (born July 30, 1977) is an American Golden Globe Award-nominated, Emmy Award-winning actress and model. She currently plays Joy on the NBC sitcom My Name Is Earl.

Biography

Early life

Pressly was born in Kinston, North Carolina, the daughter of Brenda Sue (née Smith), a dance instructor, and James Liston Pressly, Sr. She has two siblings: sister, Jessica; brother, James Liston Jr. Pressly spent 11 years studying gymnastics and dancing; she was cast as a gymnast on the short-lived TV series Push. By the time she was fourteen, she was already the spokeswoman for her modeling agency, "International Cover Model Search", and she had begun to gain recognition for her modeling in the USA, as well as in Italy and Japan. Pressly attended Costa Mesa High School in California, where her mother had moved while her parents were going through the process of a divorce. Jaime subsequently sought and succeeded in having herself legally emancipated from her parents at the age of 15.

Career

Pressly starred as "Violet" in the 1997 film Poison Ivy: The New Seduction. In 1998 she played a recurring role as the assassin Mika in the TV action series Mortal Kombat: Conquest. In 1999, Pressly was cast as the promiscuous dancer "Audrey" on the television series Jack and Jill. Pressly starred in the independent film Poor White Trash, playing scheming gold-digger Sandy Lake. She subsequently appeared in a number of films, including Not Another Teen Movie (playing Priscilla, a stereotypical high school cheerleader) and Torque, as a crazed, motorcycle-riding criminal. Pressly posed nude for the March 1998 and February 2004 issues of Playboy.

In 2001, she was made the new spokesmodel for Liz Claiborne Cosmetics and its fragrance Lucky You. She has performed with the band The Pussycat Dolls. In 2002, she was ranked #8 in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World". In 2003, she launched a lingerie line, J'Aime, which later became a full sleepwear and ready-to-wear line. In 2006, Maxim magazine named her #34 on its annual list; she is also featured in its gallery. She also appeared nude in the May 2006 issue of Allure.

In 2005, Pressly joined the initial cast of the NBC sitcom My Name Is Earl, as Joy Turner. She has received two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on the show, winning the 2007 Emmy. She also appeared in a number of music videos, including for "Girls of Summer" by Aerosmith and for a cover of "Tainted Love" by Marilyn Manson. On May 31, 2006, she hosted the first annual VH1 Rock Honors.

She hosted the October 7, 2006 episode of Saturday Night Live. Prior to this, she guest starred on an episode of MADtv from season eleven, where she played Hillary Clinton in a parody of My Name Is Earl, "My Name Is Dubya", in which George W. Bush (Frank Caliendo) makes a list of all the bad things he's done in the past and rectifies them one by one. She also guest starred in an episode of the WB series Charmed, playing Mylie, a mermaid trying to find love; Alyssa Milano (who played Phoebe) guest stars on My Name is Earl during the November 2007 sweeps. She also appeared in an episode of the prank series Punk'd.

Personal life

Pressly dated her Jack and Jill co-star Simon Rex in 2000 and 2001. In a December 10, 2001 radio interview with Howard Stern, she said that Rex broke up with her on her birthday.

In October 2006, she became engaged to her boyfriend of a year-and-a-half, DJ Eric Calvo (aka DJ Eric Cubiche), with whom she had been friends for nine years. Pressly gave birth on May 11, 2007 at 7:31 a.m. in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to their first child, Dezi James Calvo. In a February 2007 interview on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Pressly said she wants the child to be bilingual (English/Spanish) to reflect Calvo's Cuban heritage.

Pressly said in a 2006 interview with Esquire magazine that she almost purchased a ticket for a flight on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but decided not to take the flight because she felt it left too early in the morning.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2009	I Love You, Man	Janet Mills
2008	Horton Hears a Who!	Mrs. Quilligan
2006	DOA: Dead or Alive	Tina Armstrong
2005	Death to the Supermodels	Tiffany Courtney
2005	My Name Is Earl(TV)	Joy Turner		2004	Torque	China
2001	Not Another Teen Movie	Priscilla
	Ticker	Claire Manning
	Joe Dirt	Jill
	Tomcats	Tricia
2000	100 Girls	Cynthia
1999	Inferno	Dottie Matthews
1998	Can't Hardly Wait	Beth
	Ringmaster	Angel
1997	Poison Ivy: The New Seduction	Violet

Playboy Special Editions

• Playboy's Book of Lingerie Vol. 58 November 1997 , Michael Bisco, pages 56-59.
• Playboy's Book of Lingerie Vol. 62 July 1998 - pages 32-33.
• Playboy's Nudes December 1998 - pages 16-17.
• Playboy's Sexy 100 February 2003.

Nominations

• Golden Globe 2008 Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini Series or Motion Picture Made for Television - My Name Is Earl.
• Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2006 and 2007

Winning the Emmy Award in 2007

• Screen Actor's Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series in 2008
• Satellite Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television in 2007

References

External links

• Jaime Pressly in Maxim Magazine
• Middletown Journal interview (March 2, 2006)
• About.com interview (December 2001)
• Dr. Drew interview