Helen Hunt is an Academy Award winning actress, a director and screen writer. She was born June 15, 1963 in Culver City, California. Her mother was a photographer and her father a film director and a coach for actors. Hunt grew up partially in California and New York City and went to UCLA.

Helen Hunt started her acting when she was still just a child. In the 1970s, she had roles on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "The Bionic Woman", and "The Swiss Family Robinson". Throughout the 1980s, Hunt continued acting in small roles on TV series. In the 1990s, Hunt got the role which she is most known for: Jamie Buchman on "Mad About You". The series lasted from 1992 to 1999 and Hunt won Emmy Awards for her role on the show from 1996 to 1999.

During this time, Helen Hunt also was starring in major Hollywood movies. For her portrayal of a single mother and waitress in the 1998 film "As Good As It Gets", Hunt won an Academy Award for Best Actress. The year 2000 was a particularly good year for Hunt as a film actress. With the end of "Mad About You", Hunt found more time to act in film and appeared in five major movies, including "Cast Away" and "Pay It Forward". Helen Hunt is also a director and directed some episodes of "Mad About You". In 2007, Hunt made her film directorial debut with "Then She Found Me". She was also the co-screenwriter and producer of this film.

Helen Hunt was in a five-year relationship with the actor Hank Azaria before marrying him in 1999. They divorced a year later and Hunt began to date Kevin Spacey. As of 2001, Hunt has been in a relationship with Matthew Carnahan. The couple has a daughter together who was born in 2004.