Eva Mendes is an American actress of Cuban descent. She was born on March 5, 1975 in Miami Florida, but after her parents divorced she was raised by her mother in the suburb of Glendale near Los Angeles. She is the youngest of four children and the only one born in the United States.

After finishing Hoover High School in Glendale she attended California State University but dropped out to pursue an acting career. She studied acting under Ivana Chubbuck, an acting coach and founder of the Ivana Chubbuck Studio. Although she had played smaller roles in music videos and films, she was barely known until her breakthrough role in the movie "Training Day"(2001), co-starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. Since then she has been featured in many movies such as "Stuck On You" (2003), "2 Fast 2 Furious" (2003), "Hitch" (2005), "The Women" (2008), etc.

Along with acting Mendes is an international spokeswoman for the cosmetics mogul Revlon and is active in their campaign to raise money for breast cancer research.

She has also posed nude for PETA in their anti-fur campaign. As for non-charity related nudity, she has appeared naked in Flauntmagazine as well as posed topless for the Italian edition of Voguein May 2008. She was voted one of the sexiest and hottest women by FHM and Maxim magazines numerous times and has also been a Maxim covergirl. She was also voted as the number one Most Desirable Woman by many popular magazines in 2009.

She took some time off from work in 2008 to, as her publicist stated "adress a non-critical personal issue" after reportedly being in a rehab centre in Utah for several weeks. She has been with her boyfriend, a Peruvian Film maker George Augusto since 2002.