For UK audiences, Helen Hunt appeared to come from nowhere when she won the 1998 Best Actress Oscar for "As Good as it Gets" but US audiences have been following her career since the 70s.
Born on 15th June , 1963 in Los Angeles, California, Helen Elizabeth Hunt was the daughter of Gordon Hunt, a theatre director who later in life directed TV sitcoms such as "Frasier", "Caroline in the City" and "Mad About You". She made her first acting appearance when she was nine years old in a TV movie called "Pioneer Woman" in 1973.
That role lead to a slew of series and one-off TV guest roles, notably including a recurring role in "St Elsewhere" from 1984, before she met her first film success in "Trancers" and "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", both in 1985 but remained predominantly a television actor.
Originally the lead female actor, alongside co-star Paul Reiser, Hunt became increasingly involved in the hit show and ended up co-producing as well as contributing jokes. For the show's final season in 1999, the shooting schedule was arranged around her expanding film career and she was said to be paid a million dollars per episode.
By then she was also playing the high profile roles in "As Good as it Gets" and special effects epic "Twister".
Famously, her 1998 Oscar came when she was the only American nominee in a year dominated by British stars such as Dame Judi Dench and Helena Bonham Carter, and arguably she won for her least interesting role. Since her Oscar, however, her career has ignited and she has demonstrated her versatility in a range of roles in recent roles such as "Cast Away", "Pay It Forward" and "What Women Want".
