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Tiffani Thiessen (born Tiffany-Amber Thiessen on January 23, 1974 in Long Beach, California) is an American television and film actress. After many years of going by her birth name, she is now credited as simply Tiffani Thiessen. Former child model and pageant winner turned successful TV actor, usually in roles of the prom queen vein. Thiessen began professionally posing at age seven, appearing in both print and TV ads as well as catalogues. After winning the title Miss Junior America in 1987, she moved to series TV, playing the squeaky clean girlfriend of the conniving Zach on the wildly popular Saturday morning teen hit, "Saved By The Bell" (NBC, 1988-93). The success of that series spawned several "Saved" TV-movies and a short-lived primetime spin-off, "Saved By The Bell: The College Years" (NBC, 1993-94). After making her feature debut in the Pauly Shore vehicle "Son-in-Law" (1993), Thiessen switched from playing wholesome to raising hell as troubled mini-diva Valerie Malone on Fox's "Beverly Hills, 90210". Producers hoped that Thiessen's character would do for "Beverly Hills" what Heather Locklear did for "Melrose Place", that is, add a bracing dose of bitchiness to spice things up. She was born in Long Beach, California; her father, Frank, was a park designer and her mother, Robyn, was a homemaker. She is of German, Greek, Turkish and Welsh descent. She told InStyle: "I'm a mutt. I have so much of everything in me, and half of it I don't even know. German on one side, Greek, Turkish and Welsh on the other. My mom is very olive-skinned; I get my blue eyes from my dad." She credits her brother, Todd, as one of her most important sources of inspiration, and her mother and grandmother as her role models. Her uncle, Roger Ernest, who attended college with Steven Spielberg and co-wrote one of his student films called Slipstream, and who appeared in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Sugarland Express playing a cop in both films, was the person who had first suggested that his niece enter show business. Her first big break in show business was her role on the television program Saved By The Bell, as nice girl Kelly Kapowski, a role she continued playing in the short lived Saved by the Bell: The College Years. This was very different from her next major role, as a duplicitous vixen, Valerie Malone, on Beverly Hills, 90210. She later guest-starred in the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl and the short-lived action show Fastlane, as well as guest-starring on Just Shoot Me!. Her transition to film has not gone well so far, as most of her movies have been critically panned. In 2002, she appeared in the film Hollywood Ending directed by Woody Allen. Thiessen appeared in two small budget films in 1999, the comedy "Love Stinks" with Bill Bellamy and Bridgette Wilson and the drama "Speedway Junky." She next appeared in the SNL spinoff film "The Ladies Man" (2000) and starred in the straight to video spoof "Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth" (2000). Although Thiessen had made the difficult transition from child actor to successful adult star, she was finding the notoriously difficult switch from TV to film even more challenging. In 2001, she returned to television with recurring spots on "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place" and "Just Shoot Me." However, 2002 gave Thiessen her biggest film role yet, in Woody Allen's "Hollywood Ending." 2002 also saw her return as a cast member on primetime, reuniting with Bill Bellamy in the Fox Series "Fast Lane." In 2005, she released a short (21 minute) film she had directed called Just Pray. It placed at several film festivals and was the first major effort from her new production company, Tit 4 Tat Productions. In January 2007 Thiessen joined the cast of ABC's relationship drama What About Brian, playing the boss of Brian, and a potential love interest for Adam. However, in May 2007 ABC officially canceled the series. During her Saved By The Bell and Beverly Hills, 90210 career she dated actor Brian Austin Green for about 7 years. In March of 1999, her then-boyfriend, actor David Strickland, committed suicide. From October 2001 to April 2003, she was engaged to actor Richard Ruccolo, whom she had met during the Two Guys and a Girl run. On July 9, 2005, she married actor Brady Smith in Montecito, California. Thiessen is a part of the Make-a-Wish Foundation. In February 2006, she accepted an invitation to serve on the National Advisory Council for the organization. |
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