Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek is a smoking babe known all over the world for being one of the hottest, sexiest women on the planet. Sure, she is a decent actress, but if she looked like Martin Landau do you think we’d be talking about her?

Born in born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico, she is the daughter of a Lebanese-Mexican oil company executive, and an opera singer of Spanish descent. Her family, devout Catholic, was well off and sent her to a boarding school in Louisiana when she was 12. The nuns running the school asked her to leave because of bad behavior and she returned to Mexico.

Shortly after she dropped out of college to become an actress she landed a role in Teresa, a Mexican soap opera that made her a star, then in 1991 moved to Los Angeles to study acting under the legendary Stella Adler. She returned to Mexico to film El callejón de los milagros which won more awards than any other film in the history of Mexican Cinema.

After Robert Rodriguez cast her in Desperado, Hollywood came calling and she quickly became one of the biggest stars in the world. She has appeared in From Dusk till Dawn (Juliet Lewis), The Faculty (Jordana Brewster, Famke Janssen), Wild Wild West (Frederique Van Der Wal) and Across the Universe (Evan Rachel Wood, T.V. Carpio). It is however, her career as a producer which boosted her to a 4th place ranking in the Hollywood Reporter’s list of the most powerful Latinas in Hollywood. Jennifer Lopez was only 10th. She produced Frida, which she also starred in and received an Oscar nomination and she is the producer of the Emmy winning show Ugly Betty (America Ferarra, Rebecca Romijn).