Back
in 1992, before the glam, little Jenny McCarthy was just your average college
student struggling to make ends meet.When
she couldn’t come up with tuition for her second year of nursing school at
Southern Illinois,
Carbondale
, Jenny thought perhaps modeling was the way to go.Turned down again and again for being “too curvy” in a world
dominated by waifs, Jenny looked to the sky for direction and saw – of course!
– the Playboy mansion.A place
where waifs were not welcome and her curves would pay.
She
personally delivered photos to the magazine’s
Chicago
office, and they agreed to feature her as Miss October 1993 for $20,000.She won the title Playmate of the year, the 100,000 prize that goes with
it, and her star was set.Or so it
seemed.Her struggles were not over,
as the transition from bunny to actress proved rather difficult.But her persistence, and that of her current live-in boyfriend/manager,
47 year-old Ray Manzella, paid off and Jenny received an interview from the
folks at MTV.They saw beyond the
curves straight through to her perky, quirky personality and hired McCarthy to
co-host Singled Out, which debuted in the summer of 1995.Jenny was more of a hit than the show itself, prompting MTV to secure her
talent with a position as full-fledged DJ and a one-year contract worth half a
million dollars.
MTV
also gave McCarthy creative license to develop a program of her own, of any
format, that she felt would showcase her talents.Thus the Jenny McCarthy show was born – “Lifestyles of the Rich and
Famous on acid” to quote its creator.Jenny
subsequently developed a sitcom for NBC, “Jenny,” in which she played a
Utica
,
NY
grocery clerk who inherits a
Hollywood
mansion.The show didn’t last
long, but that didn’t stall the real Jenny’s career.She has appeared in numerous films and television shows.In addition, Playboy offered her $500,000 for more nude photos.She declined, stating that her career path is not going in that
direction.And it doesn’t need to.Once her career took off, she has never had to struggle to find work
again.
Jenny was born on November 1, 1972 in south
Chicago
to a stay at home mom and a steel foreman dad who worked a lot of overtime to
send his girls to a private Catholic school.She graduated from
Mother
McAuley
Liberal
High School
in 1990.Jenny has three sisters,
Lynette, Joanne and Amy McCarthy.Their
cousin is actress Melissa McCarthy.In
September 1999, Jenny married director John Mallory Asher, becoming the
daughter-in-law of actress Joyce Bulifant.The
couple had a son, Evan Joseph Asher on May 18, 2002.Citing irreconcilable differences, Asher and McCarthy filed for divorce
in August 2005.
About Jenny McCarthy
