The daughter of an army officer father and an elementary schoolteacher mother, Elizabeth Hurley grew up in the suburb of Basingstoke, England. Her dream as a youth was to become a dancer, so she went to a boarding school for ballet instruction when she was twelve years old. She soon returned home, however. Around the age of sixteen, Hurley became caught up in the English punk-rock scene. Despite her punkiness, Hurley won a college scholarship to the London Studio Centre, which taught courses for dance and theater.

Hurley parlayed her training at the London Studio Centre into theatre work and made her screen debut at the age of 21 in Bruce Beresford's movie Aria in 1987. Several roles in television and the film Remando al viento (1987) with young actor (and future beau) Hugh Grant soon followed.

Unbeknownst to Hurley, her fame was soon to skyrocket for two reasons. Reason number one was the London premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral (Grant's 1994 movie), where Hurley wowed the crowd by wearing a black Versace dress that was held together by nothing more than safety pins (check the picture galleries.) Hurley says, "That dress was a favor from Versace because I couldn't afford to buy one. His people told me they didn't have any evening wear, but there was one item left in their press office. So I tried it on and that was it."

Reason number two for Hurley's fame taking off was her becoming the spokesmodel representing top cosmetics house Estée Lauder. (Estée Lauder signed her shortly after the Versace safety-pin dress outing.) This assignment, along with the Hugh Grant/Divine Brown incident, thrust Hurley squarely into the public eye.

Hurley has appeared in several movies since portraying the "shagadelic" Vanessa Kensington in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. She had a major role in the film Dangerous Ground in 1997. After a brief absence from the big screen in 1998, Hurley reappeared with a vengeance. She starred in several films that were released within a year of each other -- Permanent Midnight (Fall 1998), My Favorite Martian (Spring 1999), Ed TV (Spring 1999), and Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Summer 1999). In addition to her starring roles in the above movies, Hurley served as a producer of Simian Film's second film, Mickey Blue-Eyes, which premiered Fall 1999. It appears as if Hurley is hot property at present having recently starred in Bedazzled with Brendan Fraser.