JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT: MY LIFE IN 10 Pictures

RAISED IN Nolanville, Texas, Jennifer Love Hewitt got a taste of showbiz right out of the gate.

“I used to perform at livestock shows because that was a very Texas thing to do,” she says. But the aspiring singer who “loved entertaining people and making them happy” felt out of place. It wasn’t until her mother took her to LA at age 10 that she felt like she “truly belonged somewhere because there were lots of people around just like me.” Yet Jennifer, who turns 45 on Feb. 21, has tried to make her mark as an individual professionally and as a wife and mother of three. “I definitely have learned that who I am is mine and doesn’t belong to other people,” she shares. “Your opinion of yourself does not have to be based on what other people say.” As Jennifer imparts to her children, Autumn, Atticus and Aidan, her philosophy is simple: “Spend your life doing things you really want to do because you’re happy when you’re doing things you really want to do.”

1 1989 KID STUFF Starting out in commercials and TV’s Kids Incorporated, Jennifer “learned at a really young age you don’t get anything necessarily easy. For some people, you do just wake up one day and you get one part and you’re a big star. For me, it wasn’t that way. I always had jobs,” she’d say. “I was a workhorse.”

 2 1993 NAME GAME Upon landing a role in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, she’d go with her full name in the credits for the first time. “My mother was just going to name me Love. But my brother [Todd] was afraid people would think I was a freak. He said, ‘I think Jennifer is the most beautiful name in the whole wide world.’ That’s how I got Jennifer.”