Kristen Bell (born July 18, 1980) is an American actress who currently stars in the U.S. television show Veronica Mars.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Bell was raised in suburban Huntington Woods, and attended Shrine High School in nearby Royal Oak. There she took the starring role in the school's 1997 production of The Wizard of Oz as Dorothy Gale. She also appeared in Fiddler on the Roof (1995); Lady Be Good (1996); and Li'l Abner (1998). In 1998, the year of her graduation, she appeared in Polish Wedding , a movie that was being filmed locally.

Following high school, Bell enrolled in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She took a key role as Becky Thatcher in the short-lived Broadway musical of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 2001. That same year she officially made her credited film debut in Pootie Tang, though her appearance in that film exists only in the credit sequence. In 2002, she appeared in the Broadway revival of The Crucible.

Bell then appeared in a handful of television shows as a special guest before landing a role in the Hallmark movie The King and Queen of Moonlight Bay in 2003. A year later, she appeared in the television movie Gracie's Choice .

In 2004, Bell made her big-screen debut, appearing in David Mamet's Spartan as Laura Newton, the President's kidnapped daughter, acting alongside Val Kilmer. Following this, Bell's career continued to progress as she won the role of the title character in UPN's drama Veronica Mars, which was launched in the fall of 2004. The show has earned positive reviews from television critics and has been renewed for a second season.

Bell has recently finished filming Fifty Pills , set for release later in 2005, and continues to star in Veronica Mars. She now lives in Los Angeles and has made several appearances on popular late-night television shows. A film version of her off-Broadway musical, Reefer Madness (a spoof of the 1938 anti-marijuana propaganda film of the same name), will debut on the Showtime network in April 2005, with Bell reprising the role she played in the musical.

External links

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• Official Site