katherine heigl

Actress Katherine Heigl is so close to her "Grey's Anatomy" co-star T.R. Knight, she has refused to get married without her "brother" by her side.

The Emmy-winning actress is to wed her fiance, singer Josh Kelley, later this year, but she was so adamant Knight was present at the ceremony she has planned her December 23 nuptials around his work schedule.

A source tells Us Weekly, "(Knight's) a brother and a best friend to her.

"She wouldn't get married without him."

First-time winners defeat established veterans
Alex Strachan, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, September 17, 2007
It was in with the new and out with tried-and-true in early awards last night at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, as first-time winners found themselves in the spotlight at the expense of established veterans.

Katherine Heigl won a surprise Emmy for her supporting performance in Grey's Anatomy. Two-time nominee Terry O'Quinn won his first Emmy, for Lost, and Jaime Pressly walked home with her first trophy, for My Name Is Earl.

Earl and Lost were expected to be overlooked in a night many believed would focus on established and retiring series like The Sopranos.

Heigl was born in Washington, D.C. to Paul Heigl, a financial executive/accountant, and Nancy, a personal manager.[1] She has German and Irish ancestry[2] and was raised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[3][4] She had a strict upbringing.[5] She is the youngest of four children (in addition to siblings Meg, Jason and John (Holt) Heigl). Heigl lived in Virginia and then Denver before her family settled in Connecticut, where they moved into a large, old Victorian-style farmhouse in the wealthy town of New Canaan, where she spent most of her childhood.

In 1986, her 15-year-old older brother Jason died of injuries suffered in a car accident, after being thrown from the back of a pickup truck. When doctors determined he was brain-dead following an eight-hour operation, the family decided to donate his organs. The Heigl family was never in any doubt that Jason would have wanted his organs and tissues donated for transplant.[6] Heigl is now a strong proponent of organ donation.[7]

[edit] Career
When Heigl was nine, an aunt visiting the family decided to take a number of photographs of her. After returning to her home in New York, the aunt sent the photos to a number of modeling agencies, with the permission of Heigl's parents. Within a few weeks, Heigl was signed as a child model. Almost immediately, a client slated Heigl for use in a magazine advertisement where she made her debut. She was soon earning $75 an hour posing for Sears and Lord & Taylor catalogs. Television jobs soon followed, the first in a national spot for Cheerios cereal. She made her acting debut in the 1992 movie That Night. Heigl appeared as Christina Sebastian in Steven Soderbergh's Depression-era drama King of the Hill before being cast in her first leading role in the 1994 comedy My Father the Hero. During this time, Heigl continued to attend New Canaan High School, balancing her film and modeling work with her academic studies.

She then appeared opposite Steven Seagal in the 1995 action thriller Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Despite an increased focus on acting, she still modeled extensively, appearing regularly in magazines such as Seventeen. She took the lead role in Disney's made-for-television film Wish Upon a Star in 1996. Also in 1996, Heigl's parents divorced and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.[5] After her high school graduation in 1997, she moved with her mother into a four-bedroom house in Malibu Canyon, Los Angeles, and her mother became her manager.

In 1998, she co-starred with Peter Fonda in a re-working of the classic Shakespearian play The Tempest, set during the American Civil War. Later that year, she starred in the horror film Bride of Chucky.

In 1999, Heigl turned her attention to television when she accepted the role of Isabel Evans on the science fiction TV drama Roswell, a role that was expanded in the show's second and third seasons. Heigl was frequently featured in photo essays in magazines such as Life, TV Guide, and Teen as well as FHM. She appeared in the FHM and Maxim calendars, FHM's annual "100 Sexiest Women in the World", and was featured in the Girls of Maxim Gallery.[8]In May 2006, Maxim awarded her #12 on their annual Hot 100[9]</ref> List as well as voted the 19th "Sexiest Woman in the World" by readers of FHM magazine. While Roswell was in production, Heigl worked on several films, including 100 Girls, an independent 2001 film, and Valentine, a horror film starring David Boreanaz and Denise Richards.

Heigl accepted a role in Ground Zero, a television thriller scheduled to be telecast that fall which was based on the bestselling James Mills novel The Seventh Power, in the spring of 2001. She co-starred as a brilliant and politically-concerned college student who helps to build a nuclear device to illustrate the need for a change in national priorities; the device ends up in the hands of a terrorist following betrayal by a fellow student. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, however, the film was shelved when its plot was considered inappropriate; it re-emerged in 2003 under the title Critical Assembly. After the attacks, Heigl recorded a public service announcement for the American Red Cross in an effort to help raise money for victims.

In 2003, Heigl appeared in three television movies. She returned to the horror genre with Evil Never Dies, a modern-day variation on the Frankenstein story co-starring Thomas Gibson. Love Comes Softly, for Hallmark Entertainment, found Heigl starring as Marty Claridge, a young, pregnant newlywed traveling west. (She reprised the role of Marty in the sequel Love's Enduring Promise the next year.) Heigl played Isabella Linton in MTV's modern revamp of Emily Bront?'s Wuthering Heights. In October 2003, Heigl was cast opposite Johnny Knoxville in The Ringer, a Farrelly brothers comedy that was released in December 2005. Heigl starred as Romy in the 2005 television movie Romy and Michele: In the Beginning, a prequel to the 1997 film Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.

In 2005, Heigl was cast in what would become her most high-profile role, as intern Dr. Isobel "Izzie" Stevens on Grey's Anatomy, an ABC medical drama. The show, originally introduced as a midseason replacement, has become a huge ratings success. The same year, Heigl landed the starring role in the independent film Side Effects,[10] about marketing and the pharmaceutical industry. In late 2006, Heigl was nominated for a Golden Globe award in the category, Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-series, or Motion Picture Made for Television for her work on Grey's Anatomy. Also in 2006, she filmed Knocked Up, a comedy from writer/director Judd Apatow, starring opposite Seth Rogen. Upon its June 2007 theatrical release, the film received largely positive reviews from critics, and proved to be a box office success.

She has been on FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World" list twice as of 2007.

Katherine Heigl arrives at the 59th Annual Emmy Awards.On September 16, 2007, Heigl won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Izzie Stevens. In her acceptance speech she acknowledged that even her mother did not believe she would win, and when her name was called, had to be censored vocally by the telecast's producers, due to her saying "Shit!" when she reacted to the win.[11]Earlier she had corrected telecast announcer Rebecca Riedy, who had been given an incorrect phonetic spelling of Heigl's name, when she mispronounced her name as Hi-gell before the presentation of the award with Kyle Chandler for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie.

Font: ****Midway through yesterday's ceremony, The Sopranos had won just won two awards, despite leading all series nominees with 15 nods. The Sopranos was a double winner for its writing and directing.

Established series were not entirely overlooked in the early going, however.

Jeremy Piven won his second Emmy in as many years, for his performance as talent agent Ari Gold in Entourage.

And Conan O'Brien won the Emmy for best writing for a variety, music or comedy program, for his long-running talk show Late Night, over a field that included perennial winner The Daily Show and newcomer The Colbert Report.

Early on, though, it was clearly a night for newcomers.

Heigl was visibly startled by her win, despite being in one of TV's most popular dramas.

"My own mother told me I didn't have a shot in hell of winning tonight, so I have nothing prepared," Heigl said, before crediting Grey's Anatomy creator Sondra Rhimes and her fellow women performers in the hospital drama's cast for her win.

Familiar faces in the winners' circle early on included Robert Duvall, a winner for the filmed-in-Alberta miniseries Broken Trail. It was Duvall's first Emmy, after four nominations.

Broken Trail also won the Emmy for miniseries, and best supporting actor, Thomas Haden Church.

"Jumped out of a limo to pee," a clearly surprised Church said, then added: "Pants immediately not fitting."

Tony Bennett: An American Classic won the Emmy for best variety-music-or-comedy special, to go with the four awards it won in last weekend's technical categories.

An American Classic tied Broken Trail and the filmed-in-Alberta TV movie Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee with five Emmys overall to lead the field midway through the evening.

In a ceremony noted for being more staid and conservative in recent years than daring and original, first-time host Ryan Seacrest tried to inject a new, youthful spin with frequent references to his American Idol cohorts, Emmy bloggers and quips about reality shows like Kid Nation.

Awards in the high-profile fields of best drama, comedy, actor and actress were handed out later in the evening.

Of the more than 50 nominations in these categories, fully half were first-timers. Three of the comedy series nominees were new to the party: Entourage, 30 Rock and Ugly Betty.

30 Rock and Ugly Betty were considered the favourites to win in a field that also included Two and a Half Men and The Office, last year's winner.

First-time nominees for best drama included Heroes and Boston Legal.

The Sopranos was favoured to win for its swan-song season, in a field that also included House and Grey's Anatomy, both two-time nominees for TV's biggest prize.