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Born in Charlotte,
North Carolina and raised in Virginia Beach and Miami Beach, Chyler began
her career in front of the camera at age 12 modeling for magazines and
catalogues. Her success in print later led to national commercials for Coca
Cola and Wendy's, among others.
By age
16 she had already completed several pilots (ABC's "Wilder Days" and the
WB's "Saving Graces") at the onset. Aaron Spelling confirmed the young
actress's talent when he hired her a few years ago as a series regular in
the WB series "Safe Harbor" after seeing her performance on "Saving Graces."
She also guest-starred on "7th Heaven" in a powerful three-story arc wherein
her character, Frankie, a young, inept mother had adversely influenced the
family.
Leigh
made her film debut in the Colombia/Tri-Star hit comedy spoof "Not Another
Teen Movie", which opened nationwide December, 2001. She originally
auditioned for a smaller role, but the producers and directors were so
impressed with her performance that they invited her to read for the lead.
Leigh was stunned by her good fortune.
She
explains, "I had always planned on being a veterinarian or part of
Greenpeace, so you can imagine how amazing it felt when I heard I got the
part. My manager has always encouraged me to take risks and challenge
myself. This part really gave me the opportunity to do so."
By January of
2002, Leigh had already landed a series role on the Fox comedy "That 80's
Show" (from the producers of "That 70's Show”). The midseason comedy series
portrayed Leigh as a rebellious teenager on the Fox Network. After the
short-lived run, the series was cancelled, and Leigh was immediately brought
to Executive Producer, David E. Kelley for consideration in his new Fox
series "Girls Club." Three days later Leigh was flown for the New York upfronts where she was introduced as one of the new series leads, Sarah
Mickle, a young attorney, on Fox's 2002 "Girls Club."
After
only two episodes of "Girls Club" had aired, Leigh received a personal phone
call from Kelley informing her of the show's cancellation and his desire to
bring her forward to his already established series "The Practice".
With only a matter of weeks between shows, Leigh was at work on the set of
ABC's "The Practice" as Claire Wyatt, a new Series Regular for the 2002-2003
season.
In 2004, Leigh was
reunited with Fox for their new half hour comedy pilot “Lucky Us”. Chyler
landed the starring role of the free-wheeling conservative young architect,
Lucy Reed. Weeks later, Leigh made a guest starring appearance as “Kate
Spangler”, a feisty young ad exec, in Fox’s new drama series “The North
Shore”.
Later
in the season, Leigh took a brief break from Fox to shoot a series lead role
opposite Billy Campbell in the WB’s drama pilot “Rocky Point”. The
series was centered on a young woman (Leigh) living on Hawaii’s North Shore
who takes in her estranged father (Campbell).
Most recently,
Leigh has been tapped as a series regular on Fox’s 2005 one hour pilot
“Reunion”. Leigh will star as “Carla”, the quirky good girl who we see
transform throughout the emotional, dramatic series which follows her and
her five closest friends from their high school graduation in 1986 to their
20th reunion. “Reunion” from Warner Bros. TV and Class IV
Productions was written/created by Jon Harmon Feldman and will be directed
by Jon Amiel. The pilot’s exec. producers include Steve Pearlman, Andrew
Plotkin and Jon Harmon Feldman.
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