George Lucas and Kelly Hu
Hu was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the daughter of Juanita, an engineering drafter for Honolulu, and Herbert Hu, a salesman and exotic bird breeder; the two divorced during Hu's childhood.
Hu has held a lifelong interest in singing and dancing and has also been interested in martial arts since her early childhood, when her older brother would arrange for her to fight neighborhood boys. Hu's cousin was a successful model in Japan and Hu decided to follow her example. To gain publicity, Kelly won the Miss Hawaii Teen USA 1985 title and competed in the Miss Teen USA 1985 pageant, becoming the third Miss Teen USA titleholder. Hu has mentioned in interviews that her mother had told her America was not ready for an Asian as such a prominent role model. However, Hu became the first Asian American to win the title. Ironically enough, she discovered after winning that she was prohibited from appearing in non-contest related activities for the year of her reign, this rule soon changed later on the coming years.
Hu worked in Japan and Italy, the latter in which she became well-known as the star of a series of ads for Philadelphia brand cream cheese, playing a young Japanese college student named Kaori. Hu moved to Los Angeles and began her acting career in 1987 with a guest starring role as Mike Seaver's Hawaiian love interest on the sitcom Growing Pains Hu followed this with appearances on TV series such as Night Court, Tour of Duty, 21 Jump Street, and Melrose Place and her first movie role in Friday the 13th VIIl: Jason Takes Manhatten as one of Jason's victims. Hu also won the title of Miss Hawaii USA in 1993, became the first former Miss Teen USA to win a Miss USA state title, and went on to compete in the 1993 Miss USA pageant held in Wichita, Kansas. She entered the top 10 in second place, after winning the preliminary interview competition and placing second and third in swimsuit and evening gown. Then she made the top 6 ranked second, winning the top 10 evening gown competition and placing second in swimsuit. Kelly was eliminated in 4th place after the judges' questions, just two hundredths of a point from the Final 3.
In 1995, Hu played an undercover police officer in the movie No Way Back. While the movie was not a major success, it opened a new career direction for Hu in action adventure roles. She was then cast as Dr. Rae Chang on Sunset Beach for six months in 1997. Afterwards, Hu was cast as police officers Michelle Chan in the television series Nash Bridges (1997 – 1998), as Pei Pei "Grace" Chen on Martial Law (1998 – 2000), and as Agent Mia Chen on the last three episodes of the television series Threat Matrix (2004). Her subsequent movie appearances include The Scorpion King (2002), Cradle to the Grave (2003) and X2 (2003). She provided voice talents for the popular video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, The Sith Lords as Visas Marr, the Sith woman who joins the Jedi Exile's party. Hu has been featured twice in Maxim magazine (May 2002 and May 2005).
In January 2007, Hu began appearing in a full time role on the TV Series In Case of Emergency. She plays Kelly Lee, a Korean American woman who accidentally reunites with her high school classmates, yet realizes none of them grew up according to their high school plans.
During the first quarter of 2007, Kelly completed filming the film Stilleto, and after that, Farmhouse. In the fall of 2009, Kelly is due to appear in The Tournament as 'Lai-Lai Zhen'.
In 2010, Kelly is set to star as The Assistant in Sanzhar Sultanov's crime drama - The Story.
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