Sarah Shahi
Aahoo Jahansouz "Sarah" Shahi (5' 3" (1.60 m) born January 10, 1980) is an American actress. A former NFL Cheerleader, Shahi was named no. 90 on the Maxim magazine "Hot 100 of 2005" list; she moved up to no. 66 in 2006. She also ranked no. 5 on the AfterEllen.com hot list in 2007. She is probably best known for starring in The L Word as Carmen de la Pica Morales and in Life as Detective Dani Reese. In 2011 she began playing the role of Kate Reed in the legal drama Fairly Legal on the USA Network.
Sarah Shahi was born and grew up in Euless, Texas, to an Iranian father, Abbas Shahi, and a Spanish mother, known as Mahmonir who was an interior designer. She has an older brother, Cyrus, and a younger sister Samantha. Sarah's family was forced to leave their homeland two years before the political and social unrest caused by the Islamic Revolution. Her birthname, Aahoo, means "gazelle" in Persian.
Shahi adopted Sarah as her name in second grade after hearing the song "Sarah" because she was "tormented" by other children, but grew up speaking Persian as well as English at her father's insistence. Shahi's parents began entering her in beauty pageants at the age of eight. Her parents divorced when she was 10. Shahi attended Trinity High School, where she was captain of the volleyball and basketball teams, and Dallas' Southern Methodist University, majoring in English and Theater. Shahi won the Miss Fort Worth USA pageant in 1997; hoping to become an actress, she joined the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders 1999–2000 squad despite not having cheered before, and appeared on the cover of the squad's 2000 calendar before moving to Los Angeles.
While working as an extra on the set of Dr. T and the Women in Texas, Shahi met director Robert Altman, who encouraged her to move to Hollywood, where she received roles in several series, including Alias, Dawson's Creek, Reba, and Supernatural. She may be best-known for her role as DJ Carmen de la Pica Morales on The L Word, which she joined in its second season. Shahi did not renew her contract with the series for the fourth season, and consequently her character was written out. She also played Farah in the second season of Sleeper Cell, and also appeared in HBO's The Sopranos, in the Season 6b episode "Kennedy and Heidi".
She co-starred in the short-lived NBC series Life as homicide detective Dani Reese.
In October 2009, Shahi landed the lead role in the USA Network pilot, Facing Kate. Shahi began filming in November 2009. On March 15, 2010, it was announced that USA Network had ordered eleven more episodes of the series. The show will follow the life of Kate Reed, a legal mediator who is frustrated with the bureaucracy and injustice she witnesses in legal system. The series title was later changed to Fairly Legal. The series began airing on USA in January 2011.
She lived with her mother after her parents divorced. She has a brown belt in karate. She is married to actor Steve Howey, whom she met when she guest starred on Reba. They were engaged in June 2007 while vacationing in Hawaii, and married on February 7, 2009 in Las Vegas. On July 9, 2009, their first child was born. They live in Los Angeles, California.
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