Freddie Prinze, Jr.
Prinze at the San Diego Comic-Con, July 2009
Born	Freddie James Prinze, Jr. (1976-03-08) March 8, 1976 (age 36) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actors
Years active	1995–present
Spouse	Sarah Michelle Gellar (2002-present)
Parents	Kathey Elaine Cochran Freddie Prinze
Website
http://www.freddieprinzejr.org

Freddie James Prinze, Jr. (born March 8, 1976) is an American actor. He rose to fame during the late 1990s and early 2000s, after starring in several Hollywood films aimed at teenage audiences, I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), as well as She's All That (1999), Summer Catch (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002) Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), and Delgo (2008). Prinze has also had acting roles in television shows, including Friends, Freddie and 24. He is married to actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, and currently works for WWE as a producer and director.

Early life[link]

Prinze was born in Los Angeles, California and he is the only child of Kathy Elaine Cochran (née Barber), a real estate agent, and Freddie Prinze, an actor and comedian^[1] who died in 1977. Prinze's father was of Puerto Rican and Hungarian descent, while his mother is of English, Irish, and Native American ancestry.^[2] Prinze grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was raised Roman Catholic^[3][4] also embracing his Puerto Rican heritage.^[5][6] where he learned about Spanish and Puerto Rican culture from his paternal grandmother.^[7] He speaks fluent Spanish and Italian.^[6] He showed an interest in acting from an early age. After graduating in 1994, Prinze moved to Los Angeles to audition for television roles.^[8]

Career[link]

Television and film[link]

Prinze and Sarah Michelle Gellar at the Tribeca Film Festival, April 29, 2007

Prinze was cast in a guest role on the ABC TV series Family Matters in 1995. He then appeared on a few special programs and made-for-TV movies, before making his motion picture debut in To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday in 1996. In subsequent years, Prinze experienced success with appearances in youth-oriented movies. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), made him well-known among teenage audiences and his first leading role, the romantic comedy She's All That (1999), was very successful at the box office, grossing $63 million^[9] in the United States.

Subsequently, he had leading roles in Wing Commander (1999), Down to You (2000), Boys and Girls (2000), Head Over Heels (2001) and Summer Catch (2001), most of which were generally disliked by critics^[10] and had moderate box office success.^[11] In 2000, he was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World".

In 2002, he played Fred Jones in the live film version of the popular cartoon, Scooby-Doo and reprised the role in the 2004 sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. He starred in both Scooby-Doo movies alongside his wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar. He guest starred on the popular NBC show, Friends, as a sensitive male nanny named Sandy on the series 200th episode. He also appeared as Donny Crane, a character believed to be Denny Crane's son in the ABC legal drama-comedy Boston Legal. Prinze starred in his own television sitcom, titled Freddie. The sitcom is said to depict some actual events from his life. The show lasted one season before being canceled in May 2006. He guest starred on George Lopez for a crossover with Freddie. In 2004, Prinze accepted a special award from TV Land on behalf of his late father. He thanked his father's former co-star, Della Reese, for her continued advice and support. In 2006, he lent his voice to the character of Pi in the computer-animated film Shark Bait. Also, in 2007, he lent his voice to the character of Rick in Happily N'Ever After along with his wife Sarah Michelle Gellar, Wallace Shawn, Andy Dick, George Carlin, and Sigourney Weaver. In 2008, he originally auditioned for Jigsaw in Punisher: War Zone, but was not given the part at the decision of Lionsgate Studios.^[12]

He also voiced Tim and Jim Possible in the Kim Possible movie A Sitch in Time.

World Wrestling Entertainment (2008-2009)[link]

Prinze is a known fan of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and was shown on television in attendance at the March 2008 WrestleMania XXIV pay-per-view and its preceding Hall of Fame ceremony. He also made a cameo on an episode of The Dirt Sheet, an online program hosted by wrestlers John Morrison and The Miz, ^view and had created an official profile on WWE's "Universe" blog community where he would regularly write his thoughts on the current going-ons in the world of the WWE. His relationship with the company was furthered when he was hired as a member of the creative staff to contributing to weekly television and pay-per-view program^[13] for the SmackDown brand.^[14] It was later reported on February 22, 2009 that Freddie Prinze Jr and WWE parted ways.

Post-WWE[link]

In March 2009, it was announced that Prinze had signed on to star as Bradley, aka Ultimatum in the ABC show No Heroics, a US remake of the British show of the same name.^[15][16][17] The show was not picked up but Prinze was instead cast as a series regular for the eighth season of the television show 24, where he played a new CTU operative.

On August 17, Prinze appeared on WWE Raw as a Special Guest Host, and in the show, he was assaulted by then WWE Champion Randy Orton.^[18]

Return to World Wrestling Entertainment (2010-present)[link]

Prinze returned to World Wrestling Entertainment on October 1, 2010, in a role as producer and director.^[19] On the November 1, 2010 episode of Monday Night RAW, Prinze made an on-screen appearance as Vince McMahon's doctor, a dream sequence scene that coincided with Linda McMahon's attempt to win a seat in the Senate for the state of Connecticut.^[20][21]

Voice acting[link]

He voices as a pilot in a Vatta's War: Trading in Danger graphic audio book. Prinze voiced the new Mass Effect character Lieutenant James Vega in Mass Effect 3.^[22]

Personal life[link]

Prinze was involved in a long term relationship with Kimberly McCullough of GH fame for several years prior to marrying his current wife. Prinze married actress Sarah Michelle Gellar on September 1, 2002, in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, in the southwest of Mexico. The couple met several years before, while filming I Know What You Did Last Summer,^[23] started dating in 2000 and were engaged in April 2001. In 2007, for their fifth year of marriage, Gellar legally changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze.^[24][25] The couple's daughter, Charlotte Grace Prinze, was born on September 19, 2009.^[26] In April 2012, it was announced that Prinze and Gellar were expecting their second child.^[27][28]

Films[link]

Television[link]

Video Games[link]

Awards[link]

See also[link]

Puerto Rico portal

• List of notable Puerto Ricans

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Freddie Prinze, Jr.

• Freddie Prinze, Jr. at the Internet Movie Database
• Jam! Movies interview (October 5, 2005)
• Hispanic Magazine interview (September, 2005)
• Freddie Prinze Jr Fansite

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2008)

Freddie Prinze
Prinze in 1975.
Birth name	Frederick Karl Pruetzel
Born	(1954-06-22)June 22, 1954 New York, New York, U.S.
Died	January 29, 1977(1977-01-29) (aged 22) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, television
Nationality	American
Years active	1974-1977
Genres	Observational comedy
Subject(s)	Race relations, racism, Recreational drug use
Influences	Lenny Bruce
Influenced	George Lopez
Spouse	Kathy Prinze (1975-1977; his death; 1 child)
Notable works and roles	Chico Rodriguez on Chico and the Man

Freddie Prinze (born Frederick Karl Pruetzel; June 22, 1954 – January 29, 1977) was an American actor and stand-up comedian. Prinze was the star of 1970s sitcom Chico and the Man. He is the father of actor Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Early life[link]

Prinze was born Frederick Karl Pruetzel at St. Clair's Hospital in New York City, son of Edward Karl Pruetzel and his wife Maria Graniela Pruetzel. His mother was Puerto Rican, and his father was a Hungarian immigrant who had arrived in the U.S. in 1934.^[1] Prinze identified himself as Puerto Rican, and for comedic purposes called himself a "Hungarican."^[2][3][4]

Prinze was raised in a very mixed neighborhood in Washington Heights, New York City.^[5] He began his education at a private Lutheran school, in a religious compromise by his parents (his mother took him to Catholic Mass on Sundays). When Prinze was a small child, his mother enrolled him in ballet classes to deal with a weight problem. Without telling his parents, Prinze successfully auditioned for the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, where he was introduced to drama and continued ballet—and where he discovered his gift for comedy while entertaining crowds in the boys restroom. He dropped out of school in his senior year to become a stand-up comedian.

Career[link]

Prinze worked at several comedy clubs in New York City, including The Improv and Catch a Rising Star where he introduced himself to audiences as a "Hungarican" (part Hungarian, part Puerto Rican). For the sake of his budding comedic career, he changed his surname to "Prinze", which he chose because, according to his friend David Brenner, he originally wanted to be known as the King of comedy, but Alan King already had that last name, so he would be the Prince of comedy instead.

During 1973, he made his first television appearance on one of the last episodes of Jack Paar Tonite. In December 1973, his biggest break came with an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Prinze was the first young comedian to be asked to have a sit-down chat with Carson on his first appearance. (Prinze appeared on and guest hosted The Tonight Show on several other occasions). He also appeared on The Midnight Special to perform his comic routine. From 1974 to 1977, Prinze starred as Francisco "Chico" Rodriguez in the NBC TV series Chico and the Man with Jack Albertson. The show was an instant hit.

Prinze made several appearances on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, most notably at the roasts for Sammy Davis Jr. and Muhammad Ali. In 1975, he released a comedy album that was taped live at Mr. Kelly's in Chicago titled Looking Good—his catch phrase from Chico and the Man. In 1976, he starred in a made-for-TV movie, The Million Dollar Rip-Off.

Prinze had a little-known talent for singing, examples of which could be heard in the background of the title song of the Tony Orlando and Dawn album To Be With You, in his appearances on their variety show, and on rare occasions on his own sitcom.

About four months prior to his death, Prinze had signed a multi-year deal with NBC worth US$6 million over five years.

Upon becoming wealthy, Prinze took martial arts lessons from Robert Wall, a student of Bruce Lee, who appeared in Enter the Dragon and Return of the Dragon. Soon after, Wall became godfather to Prinze's newborn son Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Personal life[link]

Prinze married Katherine Cochran in October 1975, with whom he had one son, future actor Freddie Prinze, Jr. In 1976, after his arrest for driving under the influence of quaaludes, his wife filed for divorce on the grounds that his escalating drug dependence was endangering their son.

Death[link]

Prinze suffered from depression, and on January 28, 1977, shot himself with a small semi-automatic pistol after talking on the telephone with his estranged wife. His business manager, Marvin "Dusty" Snyder, tried to intervene, but Prinze shot himself in the head,^[6] and was rushed to the UCLA Medical Center to be placed on life support following emergency surgery. Prinze's family removed him from life support, and he died at 1 p.m. on January 29. He was 22.

In 1977, the death was ruled a suicide. In a civil case brought years later, a jury found that his death was accidental.^[7] Prinze had a history of playing russian roulette to frighten his friends for his amusement.^[8] He had left a note stating that the decision to take his life was his alone.^[9]

Legacy[link]

Prinze's mother wrote a book about her son, The Freddie Prinze Story, which was published in 1978. In September 1979, the TV movie Can You Hear the Laughter? The Story of Freddie Prinze, premiered.

Prinze's life and death were a focal point of one of the storylines in the movie Fame set in Prinze's alma mater Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. The character Ralph Garcy (stage name for Raul Garcia) played by Barry Miller speaks often of growing up with Prinze and seeing him as the local neighborhood hero. Prinze's death affects him profoundly, and Garcy credits Prinze with inspiring his own career; he says he is doing it "for Freddie." Later, as Garcy's stand-up career shows similar promise, he falls into a depression and drug use as Prinze had, nearly destroying himself. The character Doris Finsecker (Maureen Teefy) in one scene screams at Garcy that he is not Freddie, and he does not have to be self-destructive just because Freddie was.

Prinze also received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame a few decades after his death. In 2001, TV Land began showing reruns of Chico and the Man.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Puerto Rico portal

• List of Puerto Ricans
• German immigration to Puerto Rico

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Freddie Prinze

• Freddie Prinze Sr
• Freddie Prinze at the Internet Movie Database
• Freddie Prinze at Find a Grave

Sarah Michelle Gellar
Gellar at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con International
Born	Sarah Michelle Gellar (1977-04-14) April 14, 1977 (age 35) New York City, New York, U.S.
Other names	Sarah Michelle Prinze
Occupation	Actress, producer
Years active	1981–present
Spouse	Freddie Prinze, Jr. (2002–present)
Children	1

Sarah Michelle Prinze^[1][2] (born April 14, 1977), known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar ( /ˈɡɛlər/), is an American actress and producer. After being found by an agent in a local restaurant in New York City, she had a role in the made-for-TV movie An Invasion of Privacy and went on to appear in shows like Spenser: For Hire. She originated the role of Kendall Hart on the ABC daytime soap opera All My Children, winning the 1995 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series.

Gellar came into promincence in the late 1997 when landed significant parts in the successful horror films I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 2 and played Buffy Summers on the WB/UPN television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for which she won six Teen Choice Awards and the Saturn Award for Best Genre TV Actress and received a Golden Globe Award nomination. She found film critics praise for her performace in the teen drama Cruel Intentions (1999) and she subsequently appeared in the box office hits Scooby-Doo (2002), Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), and the American remake of Japanese horror film The Grudge (2004). Since then she has starred in limited released and straight-to-video films such as 2006's Southland Tales, 2007's Suburban Girl and 2008's The Air I Breathe. She most recently had a main role in the television series Ringer.

Early life[link]

Gellar was born in New York City. She is the only child of Rosellen (née Greenfield), a nursery school teacher, and Arthur Gellar, a garment worker.^[3] Both of her parents were Jewish, though Gellar's family displayed the Christmas tree tradition during the holidays in her childhood.^[4][5]

In 1984, when she was seven years old, her parents divorced and she was raised solely by her mother on the city's Upper East Side. She graduated from Fiorello LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts in 1995.^[6][7] Gellar was estranged from her father until his death from liver cancer on October 9, 2001. Talking about not having a father figure in her early life, she remarks: "I might have been an immaculate conception. You never know. My father, you can just say, is not in the picture. I'm not being deliberately evasive about him, it's just that there's so little to say. He is not a person who exists in my life. Just because you donate sperm does not make you a father. I don't have a father. I would never give him the credit to acknowledge him as my father".^[8]

Career[link]

Early career (1981–1991)[link]

At the age of four, she was spotted by an agent in a restaurant in Uptown Manhattan. Two weeks later, she auditioned for a part in An Invasion of Privacy, a television film starring Valerie Harper, Carol Kane and Jeff Daniels. At the audition, Gellar read both her own lines and those of Harper, impressing the directors enough to cast her in the role. She subsequently appeared in a controversial television commercial for Burger King, in which her character criticized McDonald's and claimed to eat only at Burger King. This led to a lawsuit by McDonald's. As a child, Gellar modeled for magazines.^[9]

Gellar appeared in TV series such as Spenser: For Hire and Crossbow, and had minor roles in the films Funny Farm (1988) and High Stakes (1989 film)|High Stakes (1989). In 1991, she appeared as a young Jacqueline Bouvier in the TV movie A Woman Named Jackie.

Breakthrough (1992–2003)[link]

Gellar's first major break came in 1992, when she starred in the serial Swans Crossing and was subsequently cast in the soap opera All My Children, playing Kendall Hart, the long-lost daughter of character Erica Kane (Susan Lucci). In 1995, at the age of eighteen, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series for the role.^[10]

Gellar left All My Children in 1995. Gellar stated that she was screen tested eleven times (originally auditioning for the role of Cordelia), before she landed the lead in the 1997 TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, playing a teenager burdened with the responsibility of fighting a number of mystical foes, mostly vampires. The show was well received by critics and audiences alike. Throughout its seven seasons and a total of 144 episodes, Buffy, and by extension Gellar, became cult icons in the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia. Gellar sang several of the songs during the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode "Once More, with Feeling", which spawned an original cast album.

Gellar has also hosted Saturday Night Live a total of three times (1998, 1999, and 2002), appearing in a number of comedy sketches. In 2000, Gellar guest appeared as Debbie in the HBO series Sex and the City episode "Escape from New York". Gellar has lent her voice to animated TV series, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and several episodes of Robot Chicken. A spin-off series (Angel), featured two episodes in which she guest starred.

Gellar built on her television fame with a motion picture career, and had intermittent commercial success. She first had her major film role in the popular slasher film I Know What You Did Last Summer. She was cast as Helen Shiver, an aspiring beauty actress.^[11] Washington Post found her "likable".^[12] The film was successful at the box office, grossing $125,586,134 worldwide^[13] and earned Gellar a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actress – Horror and a MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance. As a result the film has been parodied and referenced in popular culture.^[14]

Gellar got a role in the teen horror Scream 2, in which she portrayed Cici Cooper,^[15] a Sorority sister and film fan. She signed on to Scream 2 without having read the script, on the basis of the success of the first film.^[16] The film gained acclaim and earned an impressive $172,363,301.^[17] With her recent work at the time, she cemented her It girl status with her first appearance on the 'Most Beautiful' list by People magazine.^[18]

After making a cameo appearance in the romantic comedy She's All That, Gellar had the starring role in Simply Irresistible, film that premiered in early 1999. The film opened to negative reviews^[19] and did not do well at the box office.^[20] She admitted in an interview having regrets for her choice to work in the film: "Simply Irresistible was just a bad choice – and for that, it was a great learning experience. I wasn't ready to make that movie. I was too young. The script was not ready. I knew in my heart before I left to make it that I should back out."^[21]

Cruel Intentions (1999), a modern-day retelling of Les Liaisons dangereuses featured a kiss between Gellar and co-star Selma Blair that won the two the "Best Kiss" award at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. This film was a modest hit at the box office, grossing over $38 million in the United States and over $75 million worldwide, and earned several awards and nominations. Critic Roger Ebert stated that Gellar and co-star Ryan Phillippe "develop a convincing emotional charge" and that Gellar is "effective as a bright girl who knows exactly how to use her act as a tramp".^[22] Gellar's role showed her versatility as an actress, and many were surprised to see her playing a brunette cocaine addict with an appetite for manipulating and using people. Her performance was praised by a number of critics, including Rob Blackwelder for SPLICEDwire, who wrote about the "dazzling performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar who plunges headlong into the lascivious malevolence that makes Kathryn so delightfully wicked. (Plus she looks great in a corset.)".^[23]

Gellar next played a lead role in James Toback's independent Harvard Man (2001), where she played the daughter of a mobster. The movie gained mixed reviews after its premiere.^[24]Filmcitic.com found Gellar's performance "memorable" along with cast's.^[25] The movie included two sex scenes with Gellar, helping her shed her good girl image even more after 1999's Cruel Intentions.^[26]

During her growing film career Gellar continued work on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer; however, she decided to leave the show after the seventh season. When asked why, she explained, "This isn't about leaving for a career in movies, or in theater – it's more of a personal decision. I need a rest."^[21] Shortly after the show's end, Gellar stated that she had no interest in appearing in a Buffy feature film, but that she will consider it if the script is good enough.^[27] She did not appear in the final season of Angel, causing the intended episode ("You're Welcome") to be rewritten for the character of Cordelia Chase.^[28] Gellar has said that she was willing to appear in the episode, but scheduling conflicts and family problems prevented it.^[29] Another actress, Giselle Loren, voiced Buffy for an animated series based on the show, which never aired, and the various Buffy video games.

In her feature in Esquire magazine Gellar expressed her pride for her work on Buffy, "I truly believe that it is one of the greatest shows of all time and it will go down in history as that. And I don’t feel that that is a cocky statement. We changed the way that people looked at television."^[30] Gellar's likeness is used in the comic continuation of the series.

[edit] Post Buffy career and hiatus (2004–2010)

Gellar in Dubai in December 2004

After the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gellar's next film was the 2004 horror film The Grudge, which was a success at the box office, grossing $187,281,115 worldwide.^[31] David Wirtschafter, the president of the William Morris Agency (which represented Gellar), subsequently told The New Yorker that the success of The Grudge "takes our client Sarah Michelle Gellar, who now is nothing at all, and… makes her a star, potentially. Suddenly, the Sarah Michelle Gellar space is meaningful". The remark led Gellar to terminate her association with the agency; Gellar is now represented by the Creative Artists Agency.

Gellar appeared in the sequel The Grudge 2, which opened in October 2006; in the film, she has a minor role reprising her character from the first film. Gellar next appeared in the thriller The Return, which was released the following month and in which she played a businesswoman haunted by memories of her childhood and the mysterious death of a young woman. The movie was marketed as a horror movie and many including critics were surprised to find The Return was, as Rafe Telsch said, "just a murder mystery with a few supernatural elements". The movie pulled in a disappointing $4,800,000 weekend gross with little promotion.^[32]

Gellar then lent her voice to two animated films: the animated fairy tale Happily N'Ever After, and TMNT, in which she played April O'Neil. She followed those with a string of films including Southland Tales, The Air I Breathe, Suburban Girl (earlier known as "A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing"), and Possession (a supernatural thriller based on the South Korean film Jungdok known to English language audiences as Addicted).^[33] Southland Tales opened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2006 and was released in the U.S. in November 2007.^[34]

Suburban Girl and The Air I Breathe were screened at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. Suburban Girl did not receive a theatrical release and was released on DVD in early 2008. It was described as "a blend of Sex and the City and The Devil Wears Prada" and a "pseudo-sophisticated romantic comedy" according to Variety.com.^[35] Her on screen chemistry with Alec Baldwin was either criticized or praised, with Eye For Film commenting, "The film works best when Baldwin and Gellar are together – aside from the fact that Gellar seriously needs to eat a bun or two".^[36] Film website moviepictirefilm.com stated "Gellar and Baldwin both give wonderful performances and make their chemistry incredibly real and ultimately, quite heartbreaking. Containing a ton of laughs and killer fashion that could give "The Devil Wears Prada" a run for its money, this movie has something uncommon in most romantic comedies, tons of style and a huge heart."^[37]

The Air I Breathe was released theatrically the same month to generally poor reviews. The New York Times called it a "gangster movie with delusions of grandeur."^[38] However, Gellar's performance was praised by a number of critics, DVD Talk Review noted that "her character here has the deepest emotional arc, and she hits all the right notes."^[39]

On June 25, 2008, it was announced she is no longer attached to the film version of the video game American McGee's Alice.^[40][41]

It was reported on September 25, 2008 that Gellar would return to television in the HBO series The Wonderful Maladys.^[42][43] The show is about three dysfunctional adult siblings living in New York and struggling to deal with the loss of their parents years ago.^[44] Creator Charles Randolph told Variety that he wrote the part with Gellar in mind,^[44] and described Gellar's character as having "a kind of zealous immaturity – like a drug addict with a to-do list."^[44] Gellar and Randolph would serve as executive producers.^[45] HBO shot the pilot in May 2009.^[46] According to an interview with Adam Scott the show was not picked up.^[47]

The film Possession, starring Gellar, has had a range of release dates – starting with February 2008. The film was finally set to be released in theatres in January 2009, but due to financial problems at YARI Film Group,^[48] the release was yet again pushed forward. In March 2009 it was announced that the film would skip theatrical release altogether, and go straight to DVD/Blu-ray. It was set to be released on May 12, 2009.^[49][50] However, the movie was not released on DVD/Blu-ray as scheduled. Possession was released straight to DVD in March 2010.

Gellar also stars in Veronika Decides to Die (2009).^[51] The film tells the story of a young woman suffering from severe depression who rediscovers the joy in life when she finds out that she only has days to live following a suicide attempt. Filming of the movie began on May 12, 2008, in New York City^[52] and finished in late June.^[53] It was reported that Kate Bosworth was previously attached to the project.^[54] The film was released in Brazil on August 21, 2009.^[55] After her work in 2009, her daughter Charlotte Grace Prinze was born and Gellar decided to take a break from work to spend time with her.

[edit] TV comeback with Ringer (2011–present)

In 2011, Gellar signed on to star and work as executive producer for a new drama titled Ringer, in which she plays a woman on the run who manages to hide by living the life of her wealthy twin sister. The show was originally made for CBS but was picked up by its sister channel The CW in May 2011.^[56][57] On May 11, 2012, The CW announced the cancellation of Ringer.^[58] Gellar has stated that part of her decision to return to a television series was because it allows her to both work and raise her daughter.^[59] The series premiered with high rating for the network (the first episode brought 2.84 million viewers) and mixed-positive reviews. E! Online wrote that Gellar was "awesome" and "fantastic",^[60] TV Line remarked she "does a fine job" as both characters^[61] and USA Today found her performance "well-defined".^[62]

On August 4, 2011, Gellar confirmed she will be returning as a guest star on the ABC soap opera All My Children before the show's ending in September but not as Kendall Hart.^[63] Her airdate was September 21, 2011.^[64] She portrayed a patient at Pine Valley Hospital. She tells Maria Santos that Pine Valley is familiar to her, and, that she is "Erica Kane's daughter". She also states that she saw vampires before they became trendy—a reference to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Gellar is featured as a playable character in the new Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack Escalation, and also the second female playable character in the whole "Call of Duty" series, in which she appears as herself shooting a movie for George Romero, fighting off a horde of zombies.^[65]

Media[link]

Gellar has appeared on the covers of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, FHM, Rolling Stone, and other magazines. She was featured in the annual Maxim "Hot 100" list in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2008 and in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women" of 2005. She was voted number 1 in the magazine's 1999 edition. In 1998, she was named one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People (in the World)". Gellar has appeared in "Got Milk?" ads as well as in the Stone Temple Pilots music video "Sour Girl" and Marcy Playground music video "Comin' Up From Behind". In 2007, she was ranked No.54 on FHM Hot 100 List and was a celebrity spokesperson for Maybelline. Wearing a black lace brassiere, she was on the cover of the December 2007 issue of Maxim magazine and was named Maxim magazine's 2008 Woman of the Year. In 2008 she ranked in the top 5 of the Maxim "Hot 100" list.^[66]

She was also featured in Google's Top 10 Women Searches of 2002 and 2003, coming in at #8, and featured in UK Channel 4's 100 Greatest Sex Symbols in 2007, ranked at #16. Roles like Buffy and Cruel Intentions made her a sex symbol across the globe. Gellar featured in FHM's German, Dutch, South African, Danish and Romanian editions 100 Sexiest Women lists every year from 1998 onwards.^[67] Topsocialite.com listed her as the 8th Sexiest woman of the 90s along with Alicia Silverstone, Gillian Anderson and Shannen Doherty.^[68] Other appearances and listings include: Entertainment Weekly's Top 100 TV Icons in 2007, Entertainment Weekly's Top 12 Entertainers of the Year in 1998 (ranked #3) and Glamour's 50 Best Dressed Women in the World 2004 and 2005 (ranked at No.17 and #24).^[67] BuddyTV ranked her #27 on its TV's 100 Sexiest Women of 2011 list.^[69]

In 2007, Gellar was featured in Vaseline's "Skin Is Amazing" campaign, with other actors such as Hilary Duff, Amanda Bynes, and John Leguizamo. Gellar graced the cover of Gotham and featured as their main story in the March 2008 issue, in which she spoke about how passing 30 has evolved her style. Gellar said "It sounds clichéd, but when women turn 30, they find themselves. You become more comfortable in your own skin. Last night on Letterman, I wore this skintight Herve Leger dress. Two years ago, three years ago? I would never have worn it."

In 2011 Gellar joined "The Nestlé Share the Joy of Reading Program" which aims to promote the importance of reading to the development of young children and to encourage them to continue reading over the summer break.^[70]

Personal life[link]

Gellar and husband Freddie Prinze, Jr. at the Tribeca Film Festival

Gellar met her future husband Freddie Prinze, Jr., during filming of the 1997 teen horror film, I Know What You Did Last Summer ^[71] but the two did not begin dating until 2000. They were engaged in April 2001 and married in Mexico on September 1, 2002 in a ceremony officiated by Adam Shankman, a film director and choreographer with whom Gellar had worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gellar's bridesmaid was her closest friend of many years, Lindsay Sloane. The two also played each other's respective love interests, Fred and Daphne in the 2002 film Scooby-Doo and its sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. In 2007, Gellar legally changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze in honor of the couple's fifth year of marriage.^[1][2] In 2004, while filming The Grudge in Japan, Gellar visited the famous Japanese swordsmith Shoji Yoshihara (Kuniie III) and bought a katana from him as a birthday present for her husband.^[72] Gellar learned that she needed clearance from the Japanese government to remove the sword from the country and, after eventually succeeding, stated that it was "incredibly difficult" to do.^[73]

Gellar gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Charlotte Grace Prinze, on September 19, 2009.^[74] In April 2012, it was announced that Gellar and Prinze were expecting their second child.^[75][76]

Gellar is an active advocate for various charities, including breast cancer research, Project Angel Food, Habitat for Humanity and CARE,^[77] a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty, all of which she says you get to "physically do something". She says, "I started because my mother taught me a long time ago that even when you have nothing, there's ways to give back. And what you get in return for that is tenfold. But it was always hard because I couldn't do a lot. I couldn't do much more than just donate money when I was on the show because there wasn't time. And now that I have the time, it's amazing."^[78]

Gellar has five tattoos. She has a symbol for integrity on her lower back; a heart, a dagger and a cherry blossom on her ankle and two dragonflies on her back.^[79]

Gellar has a black belt in taekwondo.^[80][81][82] Politically she is a Republican.^[83]

Filmography[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]