Denise Richards was born in Downers Grove, Illinois, the older of two daughters of Joni Lee, who owned a coffee shop, and Irv Richards, a telephone engineer. She has German, French-Canadian, Irish, English, and Welsh ancestry. She grew up in the Chicago area, until the family relocated to Oceanside, CA when Denise was 15. She began working as a model, and moved to L.A. after she graduated from high school. She landed parts in both TV and movies, and gave breakthrough performances in Starship Troopers (1997) with Casper Van Dien, Wild Things (1998) and The World Is Not Enough (1999), in which she plays a Bond Girl. She also was in Undercover Brother (2002) with Eddie Griffin and appeared in Scary Movie 3 (2003) with her now ex-husband, Charlie Sheen.
Denise Richards
Movies
Kambakkht Ishq
After Hollywood stuntman Lucky Doshi marries Kamini Sandhu, his Punjab-born friend and fellow Universal Studios colleague Viraj Shergill chastises him, while Kamini’s man-hating surgeon friend Simrita Rai coaches her to not be intimate with him. Simrita and Viraj clash verbally several times but things change after he ruptures his intestine…
Fun Facts
Former model.
Moved from Downer's Grove, Illinois, to Oceanside, California, when she was 15.
Born to Irv Richards, a telephone engineer, and his wife, Joni Richards. Has an older sister, Michelle Richards.
Her parents currently manage a coffeehouse named "Jitters"" in San Diego
Quotes
Doing love scenes is always awkward. I mean, it's just not a normal thing to go to work and lay in bed with your co-worker.
I found out early I could make more money modeling than I could waitressing and scooping Häagen-Dazs. But I always wanted to be an actress.
I'm spontaneous. I love going from one thing to something else and not knowing what I'm going to do next.
As a mom, I can't imagine how hard it would be to hear hurtful things, untrue things being said about my daughters.
Everyone says I'm exploiting the kids, but they haven't even seen one episode.
[on having her young daughters on her television program] I'm in a no-win situation. If I have my kids on the show, I'm exploiting them. If I don't, people will think I'm not a hands-on mom.
[on her ex-husband Charlie Sheen] I didn't go into this marriage with the idea of just trying it out. I fell in love and wanted to make a new life with him. A lot of people said to me, "How could you go out with someone with his past?"". But I've always believe that everyone deserves a second chance. I fell in love with who he was when I met him: a strong man who could admit his weaknesses and work through them."