Kelly Hu Biography part 2
Entering high school, Kelly Hu discovered the Drama program at Kamehameha High School. Kelly Hu was so passionate about the class she signed up for it every semester for four years. The summer after her sophomore year she got the opportunity to travel with the Drama Club to the International Thespian Conference in Muncie, Indiana.


On this same trip, Kelly Hu experienced her first Broadway play in New York and visited Universal Studios in Los Angeles, reinforcing her desires to become an actress.

While still in school, Kelly was scouted by a modeling agent at a shopping mall who happened to represent Kelly's cousin, a very successful model in Japan at the time. Capitalizing on the Japanese intrigue with American beauty pageants at the time, her agent suggested that Kelly Hu take a class in modeling and try to win a pageant title to help better promote her in Japan. Fueled by the thought of making some quick money over the summer and the chance to travel, she took the agents advice.


While enrolled in a photo posing class, Kelly Hu heard about a local beauty pageant called Miss Hawaii Teen USA. She entered the pageant with the hopes of winning the local title and taking off to Japan that summer to a contract that was already signed and waiting for her.


After graduation, Kelly Hu decided to pursue her career in acting and modeling full time. She traveled to Japan where she worked as a model, getting cast in numerous commercials and was able to put her high school Japanese language studies to use. Then, in the summer of 1987, Kelly Hu got her first paying acting job. She landed the guest-starring role opposite teen heartthrob Kirk Cameron in the season premiere of the hit show...

"Growing Pains"

It was the break she'd been preparing herself for.

Follow up:

Before the show's airing, she moved to Los Angeles and daringly took out a full-page ad in the industry newspaper, Variety, announcing her arrival and availability for West Coast representation.


Kelly Hu's dare brought her success; after "Growing Pains", she was cast in numerous roles in films like Oliver Stone's The Doors, Strange Days, Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan, "Night Court", and "Melrose Place". In the filming of No Way Back with Russell Crowe, Kelly Hu performed as an undercover cop in her first action role.


Kelly found herself rolling over sofas, taking out bad guys and loving it. After a chance introduction to her roommate's Karate instructor, Shihan Morteza Alborzi, she immediately began her martial arts training in Kanzen Budo Kai at the Alborzi Karate Academy in Beverly Hills. Her appearance on Aaron Spelling's "Melrose Place" gained her much attention and new fans including Mr. Spelling himself, who later cast Kelly Hu as Dr. Rae Chang in his hot new daytime drama "Sunset Beach" that premiered on NBC in 1997. By getting that role, she had the opportunity to work with friend and former pageant-sister, Laura Harring (Mulholland Drive) Miss USA 1985.


Immediately following, Kelly Hu found herself on primetime as a tough San Francisco cop and protegé to Don Johnson's character on "Nash Bridges". During the hiatus, the Executive Producer of "Nash Bridges", Carlton Cuse, offered Kelly a guest-starring role on the television pilot "Supercop" with Hong Kong action director, Stanley Tong.


Kelly's performance as a sexy martial artist undercover cop from Shanghai made such an impact with CBS network executives and the show's producers that the actress was immediately offered a regular role on the renamed series "Martial Law". So in the begining of the 1998-99 television season, "Nash Bridges" fans bid a sad farewell to the character Michelle Chan, and were introduced to Grace "Pei-pei" Chen on the new prime time hit show which received a TV Guide award for Best New Drama Series.


After Kelly's run on television, Kelly Hu worked her way back into films, winning the role of love interest to World Wrestling Federation star "The Rock" in the highly anticipated film, The Scorpion King. At the same time, she graced numerous magazine covers including the prestigious Maxim Magazine, in which she was again, the first Asian American to claim that honor.




Shortly thereafter, displaying her fighting skills once again, she battled Wolverine as Lady Deathstrike in X2: X-Men United earning her a nomination in the MTV Movie Awards for "Best Fight Scene". Since then, Kelly Hu continues to appear in numerous films and television roles and has carved a position at the forefront of the entertainment industry as one of the most successful Asian actresses in America. In the midst of her success she keeps a modest outlook on life.