Actors - Hilary Duff

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	Actors - Hilary Duff

Hilary Erhard Duff (born September 28, 1987) is an American actress and singer. After gaining prominence in the television show Lizzie McGuire, she has since gone onto a film career, with roles in mainstream pictures such as Cheaper by the Dozen and independent films such as Material Girls
. Duff has also ventured into a music career as a pop musician.

Biography

Early life and career

Hilary Duff was born in Houston, Texas as the second child of Robert Erhard Duff, owner of a chain of convenience stores, and his wife Susan Colleen Cobb, a homemaker. Duff's middle name of "Erhard" was the maiden name of her part German American paternal grandmother, Mary Erhard; Duff also has German ancestry on the part of her maternal grandmother, Amy Beulah Schlemmer. After Duff's mother encouraged her to take an acting class alongside her older sister, Haylie Duff, both girls won parts in various local theatre productions. At the age of six, the Duffs participated in the ballet The Nutcracker Suite with Columbus Ballet Met in San Antonio. The siblings became more and more enthusiastic about the idea of acting professionally, and they eventually relocated to California with their mother. Bob Duff stayed at the family home in Houston to maintain their business. Through years of auditions and meetings, both sisters managed to clinch appearances in several television commercials.

Television and film

Most of Duff's first few acting roles were small, starting off with an uncredited appearance in Hallmark Entertainment's western miniseries True Women (1997). She also served as an extra, again uncredited, in writer and director Willard Carroll's ensemble comedy drama Playing by Heart
(1998). Her first major part was as the star of the 1998 film Casper Meets Wendy
, playing the young witch Wendy who encounters the animated character Casper. Like Casper: A Spirited Beginning
(1997), the first sequel to the hugely successful Casper
(1995), the film went direct-to-video with generally unenthusiastic reviews.

Duff later appeared in a supporting role in the television movie The Soul Collector
in 1999, which was based on a Kathleen Kane novel, and starred Bruce Greenwood as an angel who helps out a female farmer (Melissa Gilbert) whose husband has recently died. Duff ended up winning a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Movie or Pilot (Supporting Young Actress).

Duff's first serious shot at fame came when she was cast as one of the children in the pilot episode of the NBC sitcom Daddio (2000). Said Michael Chiklis, star of Daddio, "After working with her the first day, I remember saying to my wife, 'This young girl is going to be a movie star.' She was completely at ease with herself and comfortable in her own skin".

and indifferent towards her acting performance, although she did receive a Razzie award nomination for "Worst Actress" (in addition to her work in A Cinderella Story). The film also received a muted reception at the box office, where it became Duff's least commercially successful film to date.

In Duff's next film, The Perfect Man
(2005), she played the eldest daughter of a divorced woman (Heather Locklear) who moves to New York City as she desperately searches for a good man to settle down with. Reviews were uniformly negative, and it was a commercial failure. She was nominated for a Razzie Award for both The Perfect Man and Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

Duff's next film is the satirical comedy Material Girls
. The Martha Coolidge-directed film, co-produced by Madonna's independent film production company Maverick Entertainment, stars Duff and her real-life sister Haylie Duff as wealthy siblings who must fight to reclaim their fortune following a scandal. The Duff sisters are also due to lend their vocal talents to the computer animated comedy Foodfight!
, to be distributed by Lions Gate Films in 2007. The film's director, Larry Kasanoff, said that he is "absolutely thrilled to have Hilary and Haylie Duff as part of the cast".

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