Early Life and Career
Duff was born in Houston, Texas, the second child of Robert Erhard Duff, owner of a chain of convenience stores, and Susan Colleen Cobb, a homemaker. After Duff's mother encouraged her to take an acting class alongside her older sister, Haylie, both girls won parts in various local theatre productions. At the age of six, the Duff sisters participated in the ballet The Nutcracker Suite with Columbus Ballet Met in San Antonio. The siblings became more enthusiastic about the idea of acting professionally, and eventually relocated to California with their mother. Robert Duff stayed at the family home in Houston to maintain their business. After several years of auditions and meetings, the Duff sisters were cast in several television commercials.
Early Work
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-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 second sequel to the successful Casper (1995), the film was released direct-to-video with generally unenthusiastic reviews.
Duff later appeared in a supporting role in the television film The Soul Collector (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). Actor Michael Chiklis, co-star of Daddio stated, "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".
Lizzie McGuire
Duff was dropped from the cast of Daddio prior to it being aired, which made her reluctant to pursue her acting career further. However, her manager and mother spurred her on, and a week later she successfully auditioned for a Children's television series, Lizzie McGuire. In the series, Duff portrayed the title role of Lizzie McGuire,
a clumsy but an average middle school girl. The show focused on her
life and her slow growth into teenhood. Her co-stars included Lalaine, Adam Lamberg, Jake Thomas, Clayton Snyder, Ashlie Brillault, Robert Carradine, and Hallie Todd.
Lizzie McGuire, which first aired on the Disney Channel in January 12, 2001, was a ratings hit, drawing in 2.3 million viewers per episode, and became the career breakthrough Duff had been waiting for. Her
participation in the show led to her becoming highly popular among
children between the ages of seven and fourteen, with critic Richard Huff of the New York Daily News calling her "A 2002 version of Annette Funicello". After Duff fulfilled her sixty-five episode contract with Lizzie McGuire, Disney considered continuing the franchise in further films and a prime-time television series to be broadcast on ABC, but the plans failed to take off because Duff's representatives claimed she was not being paid enough for the proposed series. However, she went on to reprise her role as Lizzie McGuire in the feature film spin-off, The Lizzie McGuire Movie in 2003.
Other Projects
During her time on Lizzie McGuire, Duff starred opposite Christy Carlson Romano and Gary Cole in the Disney Channel television film Cadet Kelly (2002), which became the network's most watched program in its nineteen-year history. In the movie, she plays a free-spirited girl who enrolls in a military
school and finds it hard to adjust to its strict and disciplined
environment.
Duff also made several guest appearances in television shows, her first as a sick child in the medical drama Chicago Hope in March 2000. In a 2003 episode of George Lopez,
she had a role as a makeup salesperson; she later reappeared in the
show in 2005 as a feminist poet friend of the character, Carmen (Masiela Lusha). In 2003, she acted opposite her sister Haylie in American Dreams, while in 2005, she played a classmate and idolizer of the title character of Joan of Arcadia. During her Most Wanted tour, she performed in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she filmed a brief appearance on the soap opera Rebelde. She was also the guest star on The Andy Milonakis Show for its third season premiere in 2007.Film Career
Duff's first role in a theatrical motion picture was in Human Nature (2002), an independent film shot before Lizzie McGuire and first shown at the Cannes and Sundance film festivals. Written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, the film follows a female naturalist, played by Patricia Arquette. Duff played the younger version of Arquette's character.
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Her first major role in a feature film was in the family action film Agent Cody Banks with Frankie Muniz
in 2003. The film received positive reviews and was successful enough
to spawn a sequel, in which Duff did not participate. Afterwards, Duff
reprised her role as Lizzie McGuire for The Lizzie McGuire Movie, which exceeded box office expectations earning, $42.6 million at the US box office and $55 million worldwide. It received mixed reviews with certain critics calling it, "an unabashed promotion of Duffs image, just as Crossroads was for Spears", while other reviews were generally positive and encouraging.
Later that year, Duff played one of the twelve children of Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt in the family film Cheaper by the Dozen, which remains her highest grossing film to date. She reprised her role in the sequel to the film called Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005), which failed to be as successful as the original film and was panned by critics.
In 2004, Duff starred in the romantic comedy A Cinderella Story.
Though the reviews were mostly negative, the film went on to become a
moderate box office hit, and critics were impressed by Duff's
performance. A Cinderella Story earned $66,068,046 worldwide and was a commercial success. Later that year, she starred in the film Raise Your Voice,
her first role in a drama film. Some critics praised Duff for appearing
in a more mature and serious role than her previous films, but the film
itself was heavily panned, with the Las Vegas Weekly writing: "Effortlessly combining Duff's bad acting and bad singing with bad writing and bad direction, Raise Your Voice is an insulting waste of time that begs to be silenced". Several reviews were particularly harsh towards Duff's vocals, with
critics pointing out what appeared to be her digitally enhanced voice
and were also indifferent towards her acting performance. The film received a lukewarm response at the box office, and is Duff's
least successful film commercially, with total theater receipts of just
$13,573,284. The same year, Duff received her first Razzie nomination for worst actress for her roles in Raise Your Voice and Cinderella Story.
20052006
In The Perfect Man (2005) she played the oldest daughter of a divorced woman (Heather Locklear), who moves to New York City as she desperately searches for love. Reviews were mostly negative and the film disappointed at the box office, grossing a mere $19,770,475 globally. That year, Duff was again nominated for a Razzie Award, for both The Perfect Man and Cheaper by the Dozen 2. The 2006 satirical comedy Material Girls again disappointed, grossing only $14,189,525 worldwide. The Martha Coolidge-directed film, co-produced by Madonna's independent film production company Maverick Entertainment, starred Duff and her real-life sister Haylie Duff as wealthy siblings who must fight to reclaim their fortune following a scandal. For the film, Duff was nominated for another two Razzie awards on January 24, 2007. The film is to be released in Europe in March of 2007, and has launched a foreign website confirming this information. Material Girls was released to DVD in the US on December 12, 2006. Due to excessive recording of Duff's next studio album, this was the only movie Duff starred in for 2006.
20072008
The Duff sisters are due to lend their voices to the computer animated comedy Foodfight!, which Lions Gate Films is to distribute in 2007. The film's director, Larry Kasanoff, said that he is "absolutely thrilled to have the Duff sisters as part of the cast." Duff also stars opposite John Cusack in War, Inc., due for release in July 2008. On September 7, 2007, Duff confirmed on Much On Demand, that she would be filming two independent films Greta, and Safety Glass.
Music Career
2002-2004
Duff recorded a cover of Brooke McClymont's "I Can't Wait" for the original television soundtrack for Lizzie McGuire in 2002, and "The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room" for the first Disneymania compilation album. Her first album was Santa Claus Lane (2002), a collection of Christmas songs which included duets with Lil' Romeo, Christina Milian, and her sister Haylie. Accompanied by the Disney Channel-only single "Tell Me a Story", it peaked well outside of the top 100 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart, but eventually received a gold certification. The album's title track was included on the soundtrack to The Santa Clause 2 and another song (What Christmas Should Be) was used in Cheaper by the Dozen.
Duff sang several tracks for the soundtrack to The Lizzie McGuire Movie, including "Why Not", which became a modest top twenty hit in Australia. Duff's second studio album, Metamorphosis (2003), included contributions by songwriter-producers such as The Matrix and reached number one on the U.S. and Canadian charts. It became one of the biggest selling albums of the year in the U.S. and has since gone to sell over 3.7 million copies. The lead single, "So Yesterday", was a top ten hit in several countries and its music video received heavy airplay on MTV, while "Come Clean" became Duff's first top forty U.S. hit and reached the top twenty elsewhere. The final single, "Little Voice", was not released in the U.S. and was a minor hit in Canada and Australia. In late 2003 Duff embarked on her first concert tour, the Metamorphosis Tour and later the Girl Can Rock tour.
The second Disneymania disc was released in January 2004 and contained a duet with her sister, "The Siamese Cat Song". Another song, "Circle of Life", featured Duff and other Disney Channel Stars. Duff and her sister recorded a cover of The Go-Gos' "Our Lips Are Sealed" for the soundtrack to A Cinderella Story, which included two other songs by Duff. The video for "Our Lips Are Sealed" was popular on MTV's TRL but the song itself failed to chart on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
Duff co-wrote several of the tracks on her third album, the self-titled Hilary Duff, which she had an edgier, rock feel than Metamorphosis. It was released on her seventeenth birthday (in September 2004) and debuted at number two in the U.S. and number one in Canada. The album has sold over 1.5 million copies in the U.S. to date, but the single "Fly" failed to chart in the U.S. despite a popular video. It and "Someone's Watching over Me" reached the Australian top forty, but because the album was slightly less successful than Metamorphosis, no other singles were released. Duff then embarked on the nine-month Most Wanted Tour.
2005-2006
Duff's fourth album, Most Wanted
(2005), comprised her favorite tracks from her previous two albums,
remixes, and new songs inspired by pop-rock musicians such as The Killers and Muse. In an appearance on Total Request Live, Duff stated that it was not a greatest hits album, but that her label told her it was time to release a new album. She had more creative control over Most Wanted compared to her previous releases, co-writing the new material with producers Joel Madden and his brother, Benji, both members of Good Charlotte. The lead single, "Wake Up", became Duff's highest peaking single on the U.S. Hot 100 at the time, and its video received heavy rotation on MTV. The video for the second single, "Beat of My Heart", was also popular, but the single itself did not chart in the U.S. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and became her third number one debut in Canada. An Italy-only compilation, 4Ever, was released in 2006. Duff recorded new songs for her movie, Material Girls, which included a Timbaland-produced cover version of Madonna's "Material Girl" with her sister.
2007
For Duff's fourth studio album, Dignity, she co-wrote the material with Kara DioGuardi, who co-produced the album with Rhett Lawrence, Richard "Humpty" Vission, Tim & Bob and others. Duff stated that compared to her previous music, it is "more dancey"
and makes use of more real instruments. She said, "I don't know exactly
how to explain what we're doing, but it's fun and funky and different,
something new for me. It's really cool". She also described the album's sound as "a little less pop-rock and more electronic-sounding".
The first single, "Play with Fire", became a minor club hit but failed to chart in the U.S.; the second single, "With Love", was more successful, becoming Duff's biggest U.S. Hot 100 hit and topping the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. The music video for "With Love" was used as a commercial for Duff's first fragrance, With Love... Hilary Duff, which was launched in September 2006; the video reached number one on Total Request Live. Initially slated for release in late 2006, the album was released in April 2007 in North America and earlier
elsewhere. It reached the top five in the U.S. and Canada, the top
twenty in Australia and the top forty in the UK. The Dignity tour began in mid 2007. A third single, "Stranger", was a number one U.S. club hit. In September 2007, Duff announced that she will be recording her next single "Reach Out", which samples Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus". Duff has also confirmed that she has written a song titled "I Will" for singer Vanessa Hudgens's upcoming album.
Entrepreneurship
Duff launched her clothing line, "Stuff by Hilary Duff," in March 2004, with clothes distributed through Target in the United States, Kmart in Australia, Zellers in Canada and Edgars Stores in South Africa.
The company, initially started as a clothing line, has expanded its
business into furniture, fragrances, and jewelry, targeted at the teen
and preteen crowd. In 2007, the Internet website Stardoll.com previewed Duff's clothing
line to customers by allowing them to dress up a paper doll on the
website (which include Hilary Duff's own doll) with the clothes.
Playmates Toys released a celebrity doll of her in 2004. In late 2006, Mattel released a Hilary Duff Barbie doll. As a fashion designer, she had designed clothes for Barbie dolls in the past but with the release of her doll, she joined Reese Witherspoon, Beyonce Knowles and Lucille Ball who have their own celebrity-dolls.
In September 2006, Duff released her perfume, "With Love... Hilary Duff", which was distributed by the Elizabeth Arden company. The perfume was initially sold only in Macy's in the U.S. but is currently being sold in other regions like Japan and Canada.
In 2007, Duff announced that she will be releasing a summer version of
the perfume titled, "Wrapped With Love". It was released in January
2008, and a Spring Gift Set version will be released in time for
Valentines Day.
Duff and her pet dog Lola made an appearance in the Electronic Arts game The Sims 2: Pets,
which was released on October 2006. In console versions of the game,
Duff's character visits public areas and allows the players to let
their Sims socialize with her and Lola. Duff and celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson have often been criticized for displaying their dogs as fashion accessories rather than pets.
Personal Life
Duff began dating singer Aaron Carter in 2001. They met on the sets of Lizzie McGuire, when Carter had a cameo role in a Christmas episode. The relationship lasted two years. It was reported that Carter left Duff for Lindsay Lohan,
but soon broke up with Lohan and resumed dating Duff. Carter later
stated that he also cheated on Duff with her best friend, and that Duff
"got her heart broken" and he was "sorry" for his actions. Claymation facsimiles of Duff and Lohan appeared on the celebrity wrestling series Celebrity Death Match on March 23, 2007.
Duff and Lindsay Lohan were later reported to have been involved in a
"feud" with each other over their relationship with Carter. As of 2007, Duff and Lohan had reconciled. Lohan attended the release party for Duff's album Dignity and Duff told People magazine that she thought Lohan was "fun" and "a nice girl".
Duff began dating Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden in 2004. After a long period of tabloid speculation, Duff's mother Susan announced their relationship in a June 2005 interview for Seventeen magazine. In a June 2006 interview with Elle, Duff stated "...(virginity)
is definitely something I like about myself. It doesn't mean I haven't
thought about sex, because everyone I know has had it and you want to
fit in". Duff later told MuchMusic
that she did not say the quotes attributed to her in the article and
that the subject was "definitely not something that I would talk
about..." Duff and Madden broke up in November 2006.
In 2007, Duff was photographed many times with NHL player Mike Comrie.
Although Duff never revealed much about the relationship, the couple
was seen hugging and kissing, with Duff even attending some of Comrie's
games. Comrie bought Duff a brand new $100,000 car for her twentieth
birthday. Duff is involved with various charities, is an animal rights enthusiast and a member of Kids with a Cause. She also donated $250,000 to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. In 2005, she donated over 2.5 million meals to Hurricane Katrina victims in the south. In August 2006, Duff traveled to a New Orleans elementary school and worked with USA Harvest to distribute meals. She has also served on the Advisory Board of the "Audrey Hepburn Child
Benefit Fund" and the Celebrity Council of "Kids with a Cause".
In August 2005, Duff said she received veneers because she chipped off one of her front teeth on a microphone during a concert. She explained, "My teeth aren't the strongest, and I kept chipping them
on the microphone. One show, I literally spit half of my two front
teeth out." She subsequently had her veneers redone to match the size of her original teeth. Duff's parents separated in 2006 after 22 years of marriage, due to
infidelity on the part of her father. She wrote about the pain caused
by the separation in her songs "Stranger" and "Gypsy Woman". She earned $15 million in 2005 and in December 2007, Duff was ranked at #7 in the Forbes "Top 20 Earners Under 25", with an annual earnings of $12 million.
Controversies
In 2004, reports emerged that Avril Lavigne and Duff were having a spat. Newsweek quoted Lavigne as saying, "I read that I was supposedly mad at my fans for dressing like me". Lavigne further added,
They quoted Hilary Duff saying, 'Avril needs to appreciate her fans
more and blah, blah, blah.' I'm like, excuse me? First off, it's not
even true. I never said that. And second, who the hell cares what she
has to say about my fans? Whatever. Hilary Duff's such a goody-goody,
such a mommy's girl".
In June 2007, there were reports of a run-in between the two at a Maxim
party in New York. Evidently, a complication in the arrival time of
both, caused the unwanted run-in. Lavigne was said to be furious at
this, pacing around and pressuring her company to leave.
In June 2006, when asked about her then-boyfriend Joel Madden, a native of Waldorf, Maryland, in an interview with Elle, Duff replied, "He's very real, like, he's from a pretty ghetto place in Maryland... I like that". Duff's "ghetto" comments sparked a mixture of mild offense and
bemusement from residents of the Waldorf area, as the suburban, mostly
middle-class town did not fall into the traditional impoverished inner city concept of a ghetto. Duff later claimed she was referring not to Waldorf, but actually a section of Baltimore where Madden lived briefly as a young adult.
In late 2006, Duff took legal action against an alleged stalker and his roommate. On November 3, 2006,
Duff's stalker, Maksim Miakovsky, was arrested for threatening to kill
her. He was booked on charges of making criminal threats and stalking.
According to legal papers filed by Duff, Miakovsky came to the U.S.
"for the sole purpose of meeting and becoming romantically involved
with Ms. Duff". Miakovsky was being held on $200,000 bail at the Manhattan Beach jail. He was arraigned on November 7, 2006. On January 19, 2007, Miakovsky was sentenced to 117 days in jail and five years probation after pleading no contest to the charges.
By 2005, Duff appeared to have lost weight, leading the media to speculate that she had developed an eating disorder, although Duff denied this claim. Duff was interviewed on the Australian current affair show Today Tonight and stated that she lost weight by leading a more active lifestyle. Later in 2006, an article on Digital Spy stated that Duff slimmed down to a U.S. size zero because of media reports suggesting she had gained fifteen pounds. She later stated that she had been feeling the pressure to be thin,
because she is perceived in the media to be either too fat or too thin.
Duff called this "judgmental" and "mean".
In January 2008, videos of Duff surfaced on the internet, which showed her lip-syncing at her concert in Mexico.
Duff's representative spoke out about the incident saying, "She was not
lip-synching. It was faulty equipment. There was no sound coming out,
but she was singing". He also added that she was not using her regular
sound equipment, but instead was using locally provided equipment and
that her microphone was inadvertently set on mute for the first few
minutes of the performance.
Awards
| Year |
Award |
Award ceremony |
|---|
| 2000 |
Best Performance in a TV Movie or Pilot - Supporting Young Actress (The Soul Collector) |
Young Artist Awards |
| 2003 |
Rising Star Award |
Fort Myers Beach Film Festival |
| Teenager of the Year |
Rolling Stone |
| Choice Movie Breakout Star - Female (The Lizzie McGuire Movie) |
Teen Choice Awards |
| Big Breakthrough of 2003 |
VH1 Big in 03 Awards |
| 2004 |
Franchise's Performance Award |
DVD Awards |
| Favorite Female Singer |
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, USA |
| Best Newcomer |
TMF Awards, Netherlands |
| Fake ID Club award |
TRL Awards |
| Best Female Artist |
World Music Awards |
| Best Young Ensemble in a Feature Film (Cheaper by the Dozen) |
Young Artist Awards |
| 2005 |
Born to Lead Award |
COSMOgirl! Magazine Annual Awards |
| Favorite Movie Actress (A Cinderella Story and Raise Your Voice) |
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, USA |
| Choice Movie Blush Scene |
Teen Choice Awards |
| Best Sister Style (Hilary and Haylie Duff) |
US Weekly Hottest Hollywood Style Awards |
| 2006 |
Best New Artist |
TRL Awards (Italy) |
| 2007 |
People's Choice: Favourite International Artist |
MuchMusic Video Awards (MMVAs) |
| First Lady |
TRL Awards (Italy) |
| Choice Love Song - With Love |
Teen Choice Awards |
| Best International Act |
Kids Choice Awards (Italy) |
Special thanks to Wikipedia for this info!
