Tiffani Thiessen

The original motion picture soundtrack album, co-produced by Thiessen and Al Gomes of Big Noise, was placed on the Official Ballot for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards by The Recording Academy in several categories including Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

Tiffani Amber Thiessen (born January 23, 1974 ) is an American actress.

Thiessen participated in beauty pageants during her childhood and was crowned Miss Junior America in 1987.

The following year, she appeared on the cover of Teen magazine, having won the magazine's "Great Model Search".

Her roles as Kelly Kapowski on NBC's Saved by the Bell (1989–1993) and its spin-off media, and as Valerie Malone on Fox's Beverly Hills, 90210 (1994–98) established her as a teen idol of the 1990s.

In 1989, she was named Cover Girl's "Model of the Year", and landed her first role of Kelly Kapowski on NBC's television sitcom Saved by the Bell, starring until its end in 1993.

The success of the show gave her career a boost and Thiessen received Young Artist Award nominations for Outstanding Young Ensemble Cast in 1990 and Best Young Actress Starring in an Off-Primetime Series in 1991 and 1993.

Simultaneously, Thiessen guest-starred on series such as Married... with Children, Charles in Charge and Step by Step.

In 1992, she starred in her first television movies Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style and A Killer Among Friends, making her film debut in Son in Law in 1993.

Thiessen has appeared in several films, such as Son in Law (1993), Speedway Junky (1999), From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999), Love Stinks (1999), Ivans Xtc (2000), Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th (2000), The Ladies Man (2000), Hollywood Ending (2002) and Cyborg Soldier (2008).

She then continued with starring in spin-off Saved by the Bell: The College Years in its single season (1993–94) and in television movie Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas (1994), which marked the end of the original Saved by the Bell series.

In 1994, after her tenure on Saved by the Bell had ended, Thiessen landed the role of Valerie Malone in Fox's Aaron Spelling-produced hit teen-drama Beverly Hills, 90210, to fill the void after Shannen Doherty's departure.

She was the first actress to join directly the main cast of the show and portrayed Valerie until 1998, when she left in the early episodes of the ninth season of the show.

While starring in 90210, Thiessen began to take on continuous dramatic leading roles in television films: The Stranger Beside Me (1995) and She Fought Alone (1995), Sweet Dreams and Buried Secrets in 1996.

After her departure from the show, she appeared in a number of films, including Speedway Junky (1999), From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999), Love Stinks (1999) and The Ladies Man (2000); she also guest-starred on NewsRadio (1999), Two Guys and a Girl (2000), Just Shoot Me! (2001) and Good Morning, Miami (2003–04).

In 2000, she was featured in the music video for "You're a God" by Vertical Horizon, portraying a beauty pageant contestant, in her first music video appearance.

That year she also dropped her middle name which she had been including professionally for many years and is now credited as simply Tiffani Thiessen.

Meanwhile, Thiessen starred in direct-to-video parody film Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth (2000) and in television movie Everything But the Girl (2001), before appearing in the Woody Allen-directed film Hollywood Ending (2002) and starring in action-drama series Fastlane (2002–03) as Wilhelmina 'Billie' Chambers, for which she received a Teen Choice Award nomination for Choice TV Actress – Drama/Action Adventure.

Thiessen was Spelling's first choice to replace Doherty in the series Charmed in 2001, but she refused his offer because she was hoping the NBC pilot for Everything But the Girl would be picked up.

The role eventually went to Rose McGowan.

As an adult, she has played Wilhemina 'Billie' Chambers in Fox's Fastlane (2002–2003), Natasha Drew in ABC's What About Brian (2007), Elizabeth Burke in USA Network's White Collar (2009–2014), and Lori Mendoza in Netflix's Alexa & Katie (2018–2020).

For the latter, she earned a Daytime Emmy Award nomination.

In 2003, she launched her production company Tit 4 Tat Productions, producing and directing the short film Just Pray in 2005, which earned distinctions at several film festivals, including winning Best Score at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, an Academy Award qualifying festival.

She directed the short film Just Pray (2005), for which she earned a nomination from the Tribeca Festival for Best Narrative Short.

Later on, she starred in television movies Stroller Wars (2006) and Pandemic (2007), she joined the cast of ABC's drama What About Brian (2007) for its last five episodes and starred in the science fiction film Cyborg Soldier (2008).

In 2008, she made her second music video appearance, this time for Ben Lee's "American Television".

Thiessen appeared with her husband Brady Smith on the September 6, 2009 episode of season four of the reality show HGTV Design Star.

Interior designer Lonni Paul, one of the final three contestants of the season, was given the task of redesigning Thiessen's guest bedroom with an eco-friendly theme; Thiessen and Paul now have a nursery furniture line called PetitNest.

From 2009 through 2014 Thiessen appeared in the USA Network crime series White Collar as Elizabeth Burke.

She hosted the Cooking Channel series Dinner at Tiffani's (2015–2017) and the MTV comedy clip show Deliciousness (2020–present).

Thiessen was born in Long Beach, California, the daughter of Robyn (née Ernest), a homemaker, and Frank Thiessen, a park designer and landscape architect.

She has credited her brother, Todd, as one of her most important sources of inspiration, and her mother and grandmother as role models.

Thiessen told InStyle magazine: "I'm a mutt. I have so much of everything in me, and half of it I don't even know. German on one side, Greek, Turkish and Welsh on the other. My mom is very olive-skinned; I get my blue eyes from my dad."

On February 4, 2015, Thiessen reunited with Saved By the Bell costars Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Elizabeth Berkley, Dennis Haskins and Mario Lopez on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, in which they appeared in a Saved by the Bell sketch with host Jimmy Fallon.

In the same year, Thiessen started hosting her own show on Cooking Channel called Dinner at Tiffani's, which ran until 2017.

On June 7, 2017, Thiessen was cast as Lori Mendoza, mother of the Mendoza family on the multi camera Netflix sitcom Alexa & Katie, which premiered its first two seasons on March 23 and December 26, 2018.

In 2021, at the 48th Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, she was nominated in the category of Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Daytime Fiction Program.

In March 2020, it was announced that Thiessen would join the cast of the Saved by the Bell sequel series, reprising her role as Kelly Kapowski.

She guest-starred in three episodes.

The show premiered on NBCUniversal's streaming network Peacock beginning November 2020.