Charisma Carpenter

Charisma Lee Carpenter (born July 23, 1970) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Cordelia Chase in the popular television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series Angel, for which she was nominated for four Saturn Awards. She is currently a regular in ABC Family's The Lying Game. --- Carpenter was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, the daughter of Chris, a bird sanctuary worker, and Don Carpenter, a salesman. She is of French and German descent on her father's side and Cherokee and Spanish descent on her mother's side. Her parents named her after an Avon perfume. Carpenter attended Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas; she was also a part of a song-and-dance troupe which performed in the Las Vegas area beginning when she was nine. When she was 15, her family moved to Rosarito city, Mexico and then to San Diego where she attended Bonita Vista High School and Chula Vista School of the Creative and Performing Arts. After graduation, Carpenter traveled throughout Europe. Once she returned to San Diego again, she worked as a video store clerk, an aerobics instructor, and in property management. In 1991, she worked as a San Diego Charger cheerleader. In 1992, she moved to Los Angeles. While swimming in San Diego in 1991, she, along with two friends, were set upon by Henry Hubbard Jr., a serial rapist who attempted to subdue her two male friends at gunpoint. During the altercation, her two friends and Hubbard were all shot, forcing him to flee the scene. (Her friends survived.) The incident led to his arrest and he was sentenced to 56 years in prison for a series of rapes and robberies. Carpenter helped secure his conviction by presenting his police-issue flashlight, which he had left at the scene, as evidence. --- Carpenter was discovered by a commercial agent while waiting tables in Los Angeles to save money for her college education. This led to her role on theatrical productions and more than twenty commercials. She made her first television role in 1994 by appearing in an episode of Baywatch. Shortly after that, she landed a starring role on Aaron Spelling's short-lived soap opera Malibu Shores. In 1996, Carpenter auditioned for the title role in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer but instead was cast as Cordelia Chase, a snobby and popular high school student. After three seasons on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Carpenter was offered an even larger role as the same character on the spin-off series Angel along with David Boreanaz. --- Carpenter was named #31 on Askmen.com's Top 99 Most Desirable Women 2002 and #44 on their 2005 list. Despite this, Carpenter has stated she does not view herself as a sex symbol. In the June 2004 issue of Playboy magazine, Carpenter appeared on the cover and in a ten-page nude layout. When asked by People magazine in 2005 about her nude pictorial and whether or not she would ever pose for Playboy again, she replied, "I don't know. I did Playboy for a very specific reason. Not only was it a good financial move, but it was about the place I was at in my life. I had just had my son and I'd gained 50 lbs. during pregnancy. I wanted to get back to my old self. I wanted to feel desirable and sexy. So I thought, 'What if I went full throttle?'" --- Carpenter married Damian Hardy on October 5, 2002. On March 24, 2003, Carpenter gave birth to a son named Donovan Charles Hardy. In March of 2003 during the airing of the fourth season of Angel. The couple separated and their divorce was made final in July 2008.