Actress and swimsuit model Kathy Ireland began her modeling career when she was still in her teens, signing with Elite Model Management while she was still in high school. The bombshell had no trouble finding regular work, but her big break came in 1984, when the 21 year old was featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. It would be the first in 13 consecutive appearances in the annual pin-up edition of the magazine. She would also grace the Swimsuit Issue's cover three times, along with a host of other magazines.
Ireland parlayed her celebrity into a movie career, beginning in 1988 with the widely panned Alien from L.A. She would go on to appear in a number of other films, like Loaded Weapon 1, Necessary Roughness, and Mom and Dad Save the World, and lent her name to an extremely successful KMart clothing line.
Though acting was never her major career, she continued to pop up here and there in various projects including The Larry Sanders Show, Miami Hustle, and a pair of sweet-natured made-for-TV Christmas movies. In 2009 she was a contestant on the ninth season of the reality competition series Dancing With the Stars.
