Selena Gomez was born on July 22, 1992 and she's best known for her portrayal of Alex Russo on the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place. She had a few small roles before landing with Disney but it was the "Mouse House" that turned her into the star that she is. She's even more famous for her music career, in fact. Disney has her contribute songs to the soundtracks for "Tinker Bell", "Another Cinderella Story" and "Wizards of Waverly Place" and that recognition was enough to help her sell the heck out of her first record with her band. It sold 500,000 with ease and is barreling towards 1,000,000 as this is being written.
Her acting career began when she was quite young on "Barney and Friends". From there she had small parts in "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over", "Walker Texas Ranger", "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" and "Hannah Montana". Disney saw her as a talent for the future and signed her to a deal for a television show. Hollywood Records, owned by Disney, signed her to a recording contract and started putting her through the process they have for creating insanely successful television shows and stars. She has come out the other side of that with a career in hand and she's awfully fun to watch.
She's involved an exceptional number of charities, showing a concern for others that is atypical in someone as young as she is. She's the youngest UNICEF ambassador ever and talks about how she sees it as her duty to show the young people that follow her that they can make a difference in the world. It's refreshing to see her acting in such a selfless way a lot of the time. Her personal life is entirely free of scandal and she has five rescue dogs living with her.