Chyler Leigh

Birthday: 10 April 1982, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

Height: 5' 6" (1.68 m)

 

Biography

Born in Charlotte, North Carolina and raised in Virginia Beach and Miami Beach, Chyler began her career in front of the camera at age 12 modeling for magazines and catalogues. Her success in print later led to national commercials for Coca Cola and Wendy's, among others.

By age 16, she had already completed several pilots (ABC's "Wilder Days" (2000) and the WB's "Saving Graces" (1999)) at the onset. Aaron Spelling confirmed the young actress's talent when he hired her a few years ago as a series regular in the WB series "Safe Harbor" (1999) after seeing her performance on "Saving Graces" (1999). She also guest-starred on "7th Heaven" (1996) in a powerful three-story arc wherein her character, "Frankie", a young, inept mother had adversely influenced the family.

Leigh made her film debut in the Colombia/Tri-Star hit comedy spoof Not Another Teen Movie (2001), which opened nationwide December, 2001. She originally auditioned for a smaller role, but the producers and directors were so impressed with her performance that they invited her to read for the lead. Leigh was stunned by her good fortune.

By January of 2002, Leigh had already landed a series role on the Fox comedy "That '80s Show" (2002) (from the producers of "That '70s Show"). The mid season comedy series portrayed Leigh as a rebellious teenager on the Fox Network. After the short-lived run, the series was canceled, and Leigh was immediately brought to executive producer David E. Kelley for consideration in his new Fox series "Girls Club" (2002). Three days later, Leigh was flown for the New York up-fronts where she was introduced as one of the new series leads, "Sarah Mickle", a young attorney, on Fox's 2002 "Girls Club" (2002).

After only two episodes of "Girls Club" (2002) had aired, Leigh received a personal phone call from Kelley informing her of the show's cancellation and his desire to bring her forward to his already established series "The Practice" (1997). With only a matter of weeks between shows, Leigh was at work on the set of ABC's "The Practice" (1997) as "Claire Wyatt", a new Series Regular for the 2002-2003 season. In 2004, Leigh was reunited with Fox for their new half hour comedy pilot "Lucky Us". Chyler landed the starring role of the free-wheeling conservative young architect, "Lucy Reed". Weeks later, Leigh made a guest starring appearance as "Kate Spangler", a feisty young ad exec, in Fox's new drama series "North Shore" (2004)".

Later in the season, Leigh took a brief break from Fox to shoot a series lead role opposite Billy Campbell in the WB's drama pilot "Rocky Point" (2005). The series was centered on a young woman (Leigh) living on Hawaii's North Shore who takes in her estranged father (Campbell).

Most recently, Leigh has been tapped as a series regular on Fox's 2005 one hour pilot "Reunion" (2005). Leigh will star as "Carla", the quirky good girl who we see transform throughout the emotional, dramatic series which follows her and her five closest friends from their high school graduation in 1986 to their 20th reunion. "Reunion" (2005) from Warner Bros. TV and Class IV Productions was written/created by Jon Harmon Feldman and will be directed by Jon Amiel. The pilot's executive producers include Stephen Pearlman, Andrew Plotkin and Jon Harmon Feldman 

Drug addiction and recovery

At age 16, Leigh met her future husband, 20 year old Nathan West, when they both attended auditions for the pilot of a WB series titled Saving Graces.^[6][7] The two began a relationship and Leigh left home and moved in with West. Leigh and West, both who had a troubled family-life and had experienced a difficult upbringing, were described by Leigh as being "broken". ^[8] This led them to experiment with drugs such as marijuana and cocaine and this experimentation quickly escalated into drug addiction. The catalyst for change eventually came in 2001 when Leigh, drug addicted and barely eating, was told by a director she looked unhealthily thin.^[9] Furthermore, she and West attended a Christian church service at the encouragement of a friend and this helped them break free of their addiction. By 2002, the couple were clean and sober and wed in Alaska surrounded by their closest family and friends.^[10]

Career

Leigh started acting at an early age and debuted in the film world at age 15 in 1997's Kickboxing Academy, starring opposite her brother, who played her love interest in the movie. She started hosting in local TV shows and modeling; in 2001, Leigh nabbed the lead role in the box-office success Not Another Teen Movie as Janey Briggs. She also appeared in Marilyn Manson's music video "Tainted Love", a song which appeared in the film. She was ranked #65 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2002.^[11] In 2002, Leigh was cast in two short-lived TV series: Girls Club, in which she played lawyer Sarah Mickle, and That '80s Show, in which she played punk rocker June Tuesday. She then became a series regular on the ABC legal drama The Practice, but was let go at the end of the season due to budget cuts. Following that, she joined the cast of Reunion in September, 2005.

In ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Leigh first appeared as a woman in Joe's bar who was noticed by Derek Shepherd while in the third season finale, it was revealed that she was Lexie Grey.^[12] She was made an official series regular for season four, and remained so until the eighth season finale.^[13]

Chyler is starring in the tv movie Window Wonderland ^[14]

Personal life

On July 20, 2002, Leigh married fellow actor Nathan West. The couple worked together in 2000 on the television series 7th Heaven, playing Mary Camden's (Jessica Biel) troubled friends Frankie and Johnnie. Leigh and West have three children - a son and two daughters: Noah Wilde (born December 2003), Taelyn Leigh (born September 2006),^[15] and Anniston Kae (born May 7, 2009).^[16]

Leigh has said that she and her husband have a pact in which the person who guesses the baby's sex correctly gets to choose the name. When pregnant with Noah, she guessed she was having a boy so she chose the first name and Nathan gave him his middle name. For Taelyn, Nathan correctly guessed it was a girl, so he named her. Their third child, also a girl, was guessed correctly by West; he chose the name Anniston Kae.^[17][18]

Leigh also supports The Thirst Project.^[19]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Hall Pass	Co-Host
1997	Kinetic City Super Crew	unknown
1997	Kickboxing Academy	Cindy
1999	Saving Grace	Grace Smith	unknown episodes
1999	Safe Harbor	Jamie Martin	Main cast member, 10 episodes
2000	M.Y.O.B.	unknown	1 episode
2000	7th Heaven	Frankie	3 episodes
2000	Wilder Days	Rip	unknown episodes
2001	Not Another Teen Movie	Janey Briggs
2002	That '80s Show	June Tuesday	13 episodes
2002	Girls Club	Sarah Mickle	9 episodes
2003	The Practice	Claire Wyatt
2004	North Shore	Kate Spangler	1 episode
2005	Rocky Point	Cassie
2005	Reunion	Carla	Main cast member, 13 episodes, 2005–2006
2007–2012	Grey's Anatomy	Dr. Lexie Grey	cast member; 113 episodes
2010	The 19th Wife	Queenie Alton
2012	Private Practice	Dr. Lexie Grey	Special Guest Star, 1 episode
2012	Brake	Molly Reins
2013	Holding Patterns	Leah
2013	Window Wonderland	unknown	TV Movie