Josie Maran

Johanna Selhorst "Josie" Maran (born May 8, 1978) is an American model, actress, and entrepreneur. --- Maran was born in Menlo Park, California. She is of Russian Jewish descent on her paternal side. Maran attended Castilleja School, an all-girls school in Palo Alto, California from grades 6 to 12. While she was still in high school, Maran was approached by a woman who asked her for a modeling performance in San Francisco, and a scouting agent encouraged her to pursue modeling professionally. Her first cover was Glamour in 1998. In 1990, an appendectomy left Maran with a noticeable scar that is typically edited out of photos. Signed at age 17 with the Elite modeling agency of Los Angeles, Maran appeared on her first cover with Glamour magazine in 1998; she was then the featured Guess? Girl in their summer 1998 and fall 1998 campaigns. After building a résumé of over 25 commercials and advertisements, including playing Howie D's companion in the music video of Backstreet Boyshit Everybody (Backstreet's Back), in which she was bitten on the neck by Count Dracula (played by Howie D), Maran moved cross-country to join with Elite in New York City. In 1999, she landed a multi-year deal with Maybelline. Maran appeared in the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue for three consecutive years; from 2000 to 2002. In 2001, Maran appeared in an independent film, as title character Mallory in The Mallory Effect. Maran followed this by appearing as Susan in Swatters in 2002. In 2004, she appeared in three films - as a French model in Little Black Book, as one of Dracula's brides, Marishka, in Van Helsing, and briefly as a cigarette girl in The Aviator. Maran appeared in a short film "The Confession" alongside Wentworth Miller in 2005, and as Kira Hayden in The Gravedancers in 2006. --- Maran and her husband,[8] Iranian American photographer Ali Alborzi, have two daughters, Rumi Joon, born on June 20, 2006 and Indi Joon, born on July 1, 2012.