Sarah Michelle Gellar, born April 14, 1977 in New York City, is the wonderful, talented actress who brings the character of Buffy Summers to life every Tuesday night on UPN.
Her big break came while eating in a New York restaurant with some friends, and an agent, who had apparently been watching the young four year old for some time, approached the table Sarah was sitting at, and asked her if she's like to be on television. And the rest is an anspiring actresses dream come true.
Rosellen, Sarah's mother, didn't believe it when the agent called her to set up an audition with her daughter because Sarah had no previous acting experience. But, the next day, Rosellen drove her daughter to her first audition for the movie Invasion of Privacy. The actress whom Sarah was to read with had already gone home for the day, so Sarah just took the script, and read both her lines, and the other actresses lines (lowering her voive to sound more adult). She was hired for the job on the spot, the movie came out in 1983.
In 1981 Burger King hired Sarah on as their spokesgirl. One of the commercials mentioned the name of another food chain (McDonald's), which eventually led to a groundbreaking court case, which made it legal for a companies commercials to use the name of another company.
Sarah then appeared in a movie called Over the Brookland Bridge. After that Sarah took a break, not appearing in another movie or commercial until 1986 when she appeared as Emily in an episode of Spenser for Hire, a theater production The Widow Claire which also starred Matthew Broderick.
Though you'd think that Sarah would naturally fit in with her peers, it was another case. In junior-high Sarah attended the Columbia Preparatory School in New York, and found it very difficult to fit in due to the fact that many of the other kids were jelous and rich. Sarah was misserable at school, so she put all of her efforts into her acting.
In 1988 Sarah landed the role in the Chevy Chase movie Funny Farm in which she went uncredited. In 1989 she appeared in the movie High Stakes which she starred with Kathy Bates, this was also the only movie in which Sarah was credited as Sarah Gellar.
Also in 1989 Sarah hosted a Saturday-morning TV talk show for girls called Girl Talk, in which she would sit and talk about guys, clothes, friends, and other topics.
Finally, Rosellen caught grasp of her daughters misery in being in the prep school, and had her daughter transfered to the Professional Children's School in Manhatten. There Sarah got to learn, and improve on her acting at the same time. She also took up figure skating and tae kwon do, both of which would later help her when she landed the role of Buffy.
In 1991 Sarah was casted to play the younng Jacqueline Bouvier (later to be JFK's wife) in the movie A Woman Named Jackie in which Roma Downey player her as an adult. Also, one of the cast members on A Woman Named Jackie was a man named Mark Metcalf, who woudl later come to play The Master of BtVS.
Sarah then went on to star as Sydney Orion Rutledge in the FOX teen soap opera Swans Crossing, which Sarah admits today was a terrible program, but would later help her out.
Then, from 1993 to 1995 Sarah hit the air waves every weekday afternoon as Kendall Hart (a character 7 years older than Sarah at the time) on the soap All My Children which would later earn her a daytime Emmy award.
Finally, Buffy the Vampire Slayer came into Sarah's life about four years ago. And taking the job may have been the biggest break a young actress could have hoped for. But when Sarah signed on, she had no idea the show was going to be hit.
As the mid-late 90's rolled in, so did a whole new horror genre, and Sarah was right in the middle of it. We first saw Sarah do her horror thing in the Blockbuster hit I Know What You Did Last Summer where she played beauty pagent queen Hellen, which she starred in with some of the hottest teen stars Jennifer Love Hewit, Freddie Prinze, Jr, and Ryan Philippe. Then, we saw her scream her way to death again in last years sequel to the hit horror flick Scream. Scream 2 in which Sarah played Cici Copper, the serority "sober sister". This also starred some of todays hottest stars; Never Campbell, Jamie Kenedy, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette. The movie did so well in theaters, that it was brought back just months after being let out of theaters.
Sarah has hosted Saturday Night Live twice, and appeared on the 25th Anniversay special with fellow WB star (at the time) James Van Der Beek, and starred in several movies including Simply Irresitable, Cruel Intentions, and the two Scooby Doo Movies in which Sarah plays alongside her husband Freddie Prinze Jr. Along with several magazine covers, TV talkshow appearences, and many interviews, Sarah is considered one of the hottest teen stars of the 1990s, and she deserves it!
