AllMovie

An actress of elegant, dark beauty, Hunter Tylo rose through the beauty queen ranks to become one of the most prominent models of the 1970s and '80s. Although that success alone might have been enough to satisfy the appetites of less-ambitious catwalk queens, Tylo went on to build an impressive acting career by alternating between daytime dramas and features. Born Deborah Jo Hunter in Fort Worth, TX, in 1962 and raised in nearby Springtown, Tylo was part Native American (her mother was Cherokee). She graduated from high school in 1980, the same year she gave birth to her first child, Christopher, and married his father -- though the union would ultimately be short-lived and the brainy beauty was soon studying to obtain a medical degree from New York's Fordham University. After making her film debut in the 1984 horror film The Initiation (as Deborah Morehart), Tylo took a role on the enduring television soap opera All My Children the following year. It was there that the actress met her future husband, actor Michael Tylo, with whom she eventually had a second son, Christopher. As roles on All My Children and The Bold and the Beautiful carried her career through the '90s, Tylo also appeared in guest spots on such popular series as Baywatch and The Nanny. In 2000, she was seen in the thriller Longshot and later the made-for-TV family drama Til' the River Runs Dry (2004). Tylo also founded the Hunter's Chosen Child charity and created her own cosmetics line.