Sarah Jessica Parker is best known for her role as Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City. Parker had been acting since her early teenage years and has enjoyed a successful career.
Although she is happily married, has children, what makes her life very inspiring and impressive is that she started from nothing.
Scroll down to find out how Sarah Jessica Parker got where she is today?
Sarah Jessica Parker – early life
in 1965, Sarah Jessica was born on March 25 in Nelsonville and was the youngest of eight. Her parents divorced while she was young and raised by her mother, Barbara. Her mother remarried a truck driver, Paul Forste. Her mother found it tough raising her children alone while running a nursing home.
“The problem with talking about it is that people like to put a Dickensian twist on it as if I were an orphan,” she explained. “There were times when we didn’t have electricity because we didn’t pay the bill on time – we simply didn’t have the money that month – and sometimes we relied on the government for free lunches.”
“But my parents were very clever and industrious; culturally, our lives were very rich, even though, in practical ways, things were kind of a mess.”
Sarah Jessica Parker looks back and says that she doesn’t regret having a tough upbringing since it gave her a good work ethic.
“I’ve never borrowed a penny from anybody. I think it’s a real privilege to grow up the way I did, and I think my son’s strangely at a disadvantage because he’s a child of affluence, and he doesn’t know what that means,” she explained.
First professional lead role at age 8
“That is a great concern to me. I almost wish we could create a false universe for him – I know this is going to be misinterpreted across the world, but I think there is something good about not having much.”
Sarah Jessica Parker wanted to help her mother support the family. It was always evident that she was talented at performing, and she brought home paychecks by performing as both a dancer and singing.¨
When she was eight Sarah landed her first lead in a production of The Little Match Girl.
“I asked my mother if I could audition. So I went downtown to WLW-TV, which is our local NBC station, and stood in line and auditioned,” she said in an appearance on Inside the Actor’s Studio.
“And I was eventually cast as The Little Match Girl, and, I think it shot, it was a sum total of five days, and I was paid $500. And the only rule was that they get me out in time to get to my ballet class.”
Soon, people working in the business discovered her, and in 1976 she got her first Broadway role in The Innocents.
Parker’s career blossomed from there so Barbara and the family moved to New Jersey to support her acting career where she began to make a lot of money.
Sarah Jessica was trained in both singing and ballet and studied at the American Ballet School and the Professional Children’s School.
Sarah Jessica Parker – ‘Sex and the City’
In 1979, she finally got her big breakthrough on Broadway, starring as the orphan in Annie. At the same time Parker was attending Dwight Morrow High School.
In 1982, she got another breakthrough on television starring in the sitcom Square Pegs and she starred in more prominent films during the nineties.
In 1991, she starred alongside Steve Martin in L.A. Story and the year after in Honeymoon in Vegas alongside Nicolas Cage. In 1994, Parker appeared in Tim Burton’s celebrated film Ed Wood.
Following her appearance in these movies Parker was offered the part of a lifetime.
In 1998, the first episode of Sex and the City premiered, with Parker starring as Carrie Bradshaw.
The show turned Sarah Jessica Parker into an uber-celebrity spite almost passing up on the opportunity to star on the show.
“‘Darren Star reached out to me,’” she recalled her agent telling her. “‘He’s written this pilot [“Sex and the City”] and tells me he wrote it with you in mind — you were in his head when he was writing it. I’m going to send it to you. I’ve read it. I think it’s really good. You should meet with him.’”
Released her own clothing line
“I said, ‘Really? I feel like I’ve got it all right now, I can do a play, then do a movie, then do a play, then do a movie,” she added. There’s a lot of flexibility. What could be better? Do I really want to go back to making a television series when I’m maybe held hostage signing a long-term contract?’”
“I met with Darren, and there were a couple of concerns that I had — like I really wasn’t keen on doing nudity and language issues — but [agent] Kevin continued to say to me, “This is different. You have never done anything like this before. No one’s ever done a part like this. Do this.”
It was Darren Star that actually convinced Parker to do the show, which ended up being a critical decision in her career.
Sarah Jessica Parker’s character had a great sense of fashion and she would also get involved in the fashion industry which brought her collaborations to the next level.
Parker released fragrances, did ads for Gap, had a cosmetics deal with Garnier, designed a clothing line and received roughly $4.6 million for her clothing line for US chain Steve & Barry.
Sarah Jessica Parker – family & net worth
Depiste Sarah Jessica Parker being wealthy, she made sure that all her clothes designed for the clothing chain cost less than $15.
“I want to be clear about what I’m about to say. Relative to the rest of the world, I’m extremely well paid. But I know that almost everybody who works in network television works much less than I do and makes much more,” Sarah Jessica Parker told Oprah in 2004. “I own the show, so when it’s sold, there’s something in there for me. But I’ll never think I have money because I spent so many years without.
“I’ve been financially responsible for so many people for such a long time—my family—that it’s not enough to have money for myself. And it’s not about luxury. It’s about my mom’s house payments. And my father is about to be laid off on Monday,” she added.
In 1997, Sarah Jessica Parker married actor, Matthew Broderick. In 2002 she gave birth to her son James Wilkie Broderick followed by twin sisters Tabitha Hodge Broderick and Marion Loretta Elwell Broderick in 2009.
“I have a fantastic husband. Here’s the honeymoon part: I still think he’s the funniest, wittiest, most clever man I’ve ever known. He’s still the person who makes me laugh harder than anybody—and I still want him to laugh at me,” Sarah Jessica Parker mentions
Sarah Jessica Parker no makeup photo
“A few times, I’ve said to him, ‘I’m not getting the big laughs from you today.’ It means something for him to laugh because he’s so bright. He’s from a world my mom held up as really desirable— that Philip Roth, super literary world. His parents were very much a part of the intellectual art crowd. I think a lot about his career, and I worry about him. This guy’s got four movies coming out, and he’s about to go back in and save a Broadway show [at the time of the interview, he was returning to The Producers ]. I think people need to know about that. Few people do what Matthew does.”
Parker has always been a beauty icon, whether she’s wearing makeup or not.
Sarah Jessica appearance particularly her glowing skin has been in focus on social media. The 56-year-old actress has shared her best tips for getting the same glow.
“I’ve never thought a lot about [my attitude to beauty], to be honest,” she explained. “It’s never been that I’m without vanity – because that would be total malarkey – but I sort of think that time moves along, you buy the things you like, you learn how to put your makeup on the way you feel comfortable, and that feels most like yourself.”
Through the years, Parker has been seen without makeup several times when walking down the streets of New York – and she indeed looks terrific!
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