Salma Valgarma Hayek Jimenez de Pinault was born on September 2, 1966 in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico. She is the daughter of Diana Jiménez Medina, an opera singer and talent scout, and Sami Hayek Dominguez, an oil company executive who once ran for mayor of Coatzacoalcos. Hayek's father is of Lebanese descent, while her mother is of Spanish descent. SheRaised in a wealthy, devoutly Roman Catholic family, she was sent to the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau, Louisiana at the age of twelve. She attended college in Mexico City, where she studied International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana. She is best known as the star of the movie" frida".Dark, petite and sexy, Salma Hayek got her start in Mexican television productions in the late 1980s before moving to Los Angeles to work in the movies.In 1993, She had small but memorable roles in Mi Vida Loca and 1996 From Dusk Till Dawn.Widely considered to be the first Mexican actress to become a Hollywood movie star since Dolores Del Rio Salma Hayek is known for bringing a fiery presence and striking, dark-eyed beauty to the screen. A soap star in her native Mexico, Hayek risked her entire career to come to L.A., where she struggled to be taken seriously.She subsequently gained a reputation as one of Hollywood's sexiest and busiest actresses. Hayek has freely admitted that she and her brother, Sami, were spoiled rotten by her well-to-do Lebanese-Mexican businessman father and her Mexican-born opera-singing mother.After getting into trouble for terrorizing the nuns, Hayek returned to Mexico, but she was eventually sent to Houston, Texas, to live with her aunt, where she stayed until she was 17. She subsequently moved to Mexico City, where she studied International Relations as a university student, but, to the chagrin of her family, decided to drop out in order to pursue a career as an actress. Starting out in local theatre productions, she eventually moved to television and landed a starring role in the popular soap opera Teresa. The show's success made Hayek a celebrity in her native country, but, desiring something more, she shocked her fans by deciding to quit the show in order to pursue a career in L.A.