Alba was born in Pomona, California to Mark Alba, who is of Mexican descent, and Cathy Jensen, who has Danish and French-Canadian ancestry; her father is dark and her mother has a light complexion Alba was raised in an Air Force family, along with her brother, Joshua Alba, and her grandparents until she was sixteen. She grew up a sports fanatic. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before they settled back in California. Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies; she suffered collapsed lungs twice, had pneumonia 4-5 times a year, a burst appendix, a cyst on her tonsils and asthma. This served to isolate her from other children at school because, as she claims, she was in the hospital so often that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She also revealed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that she suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child. Her health improved, however, when her family moved to California. Alba had expressed interest in acting since the age of five. She took her first acting class at age twelve, and an acting agent signed her nine months later. Personal life Alba has suffered from anorexia She also had a kidney infection in 2001. She suffers from motion sickness, which developed after childhood. Alba was engaged to her Dark Angel co-star Michael Weatherly, but it was called off. In January 2005, she began dating Cash Warren, a director's assistant on Fantastic Four, whom she met when filming that movie. Regarding children, Alba has stated: "I'm really girly when it comes to kids. I've been surrounded by kids my whole life because I'm the oldest of 15 cousins — I've been changing diapers since I was six. I want to have a couple, for sure". Alba announced on the UK teen website "Teen Today" in 2005, prior to the birth of her brother's child, that she was beginning a children's clothing line: "About four of my girlfriends have babies so they have no time for me. I figure if I can do baby clothes maybe they'll have more time to hang out!" Alba has revealed that she envisions a much older man as her ideal partner, making references to "Morgan Freeman, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, and Michael Caine. "I have this thing for older men. They've been around and know so much." She has said that she has no problem with one night stands, but that she no longer dates around. She has a tattoo of a daisy with a ladybird on it on the back of her neck, and the Sanskrit symbol for lotus flower, "padma", on her wrist. She has a 3 dogs, 2 pugs and a pitbull named Bowie. Bowie is named after singer David Bowie because, like the dog, David Bowie has two different eye colors. Her brother Joshua Alba appeared with her in "And Jesus Brought a Casserole," the first season finale of Dark Angel, in which he played Krit, one of her X-5 brothers who wanted to help destroy Manticore, also the only 'brother' that shared genetics with Jessica's character.

Jessica Marie Alba's Photos