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Perky, petite and equally at home in earnest drama and mainstream comedy, Hayden Panettiere began her career as a child model and soap opera actress. As a preteen, she worked steadily as a voice-over actor in family films like "A Bug's Life" (1998) and "Dinosaur" (2000) before a recurring role as the long-lost daughter of "Ally McBeal" (Fox, 1997-2002) raised the actress' profile. Her energy and spunky can-do persona made her well cast for competitive teen features like "Ice Princess" (2005) and "Bring it On: All or Nothing" (2006), both of which helped lead to her major career breakthrough as a high school cheerleader endowed with superpowers in the primetime phenomenon, "Her s" (NBC, 2006-10). Panettiere marked her entry into teen romance with her starring role as a girl who befriends a teenager (Ryan Kelley) after a near-fatal accident propels him into a fantasy world in the little-seen fairy tale, "The Dust Factory" (2004). She rounded out her busy screen year with another Young Artist Award nomination for the Disney original movie "Tiger Cruise" (2004), in which she played a Navy commander's (Bill Pullman) daughter who tries to convince her dad to retire in the midst of the sudden mobilization of his ship post-9/11. That film marked Panettiere's debut in the world of music, when she contributed her recording of the song "My Hero Is You" to the film.

The show brought Panettiere to the attention of worshipful fanboys who had never met a cheerleader they did not like, giving the still young actress the tricky challenge of balancing both the sexy and the innocent as she moved into adulthood. With her first mainstream starring film role in the high school romantic comedy "I Love You Beth Cooper" (2009), Panettiere proved that mining her All-American girl persona was her ticket to big screen success.
 
Panettiere was born Aug. 21, 1989, just outside of New York City, NY. Her mother - a former actress and model - thought she would get some nice baby pictures out of seeing her only daughter in commercials, so she began bringing her on auditions.
Thus an 11 month old Panettiere began her career in a commercial for Playskool. At four years old, she landed a regular role as Sarah Roberts on the daytime soap opera "One Life to Live" (ABC, 1968- ), where she stayed until 1996 when she moved over to CBS to play Lizzie Spaulding on "Guiding Light" (CBS, 1952-2009).
During her four years as Spaulding, Panettiere was put through some serious acting challenges, including battling leukemia, getting kidnapped, and shooting her mother's boyfriend. Her efforts did not go unnoticed when she earned a Young Star Award nomination for Best Young Actress/Performance in a Daytime TV Series. Meanwhile, the tireless actress began expanding beyond the daytime market by landing supporting roles in made-for-televisions movies as well as the Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy, "The Object of My Affection" (1998).
 
Her first major film role came later that year by voicing pesky Princess Dot in the Disney/Pixar animated blockbuster "A Bug's Life" (1998). Panettiere's performance earned her a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Performance in a Voice Over in a Feature or TV, and her profile was raised significantly. Panettiere was cast to portray the lonely, pre-teen version of eccentric heiress Doris Duke in the miniseries "Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke" (CBS, 1999) and went on to give a plucky
performance as the nine-year-old daughter of a coach (Will Patton) weathering high school football desegregation in "Remember the Titans" (2000). She picked up a Young Artist Award for her supporting role, and the same year, was nominated for a Youngster Award for Best Young Voice-Over Talent for voicing Suri, the tomboy dino-daughter in the Disney hit, "Dinosaur" (2000).
As she approached the ripe old age of 12, Panettiere had appeared in more than 50 commercials, a dozen television series, 11 films and innumerable ads - enough that her career demands necessitated that she leave South Orangetown Middle School and opt instead for home schooling. She maintained her growing film presence with roles as a feisty and precocious preteen in the dismal Tim Allen comedy "J Somebody" (2001), which earned her another
Young Artist Award nomination, and as the younger version of Hilary Swank's character, Jeanne de la Motte-Valois, in the period film "The Affair of the Necklace" (2001). Returning to television, Panettiere scored a regular role in the final season of "Ally McBeal" as the long-lost daughter of McBeal (Calista Flockhart) - the result of an egg donation gone wrong a decade before. Panettiere next tackled more dramatic territory with a pair of guest spots on "Law & Order SVU" (NBC, 1999- ).
Panettiere began to display real range with back-to-back roles as a troubled 15-year-old suddenly placed in the care of her happy-go-lucky fashion model aunt (Kate Hudson) in the comedy, "Raising Helen" (2004), and as a teen daughter struggling to understand her father's sex change operation in the HBO film, "Normal" (HBO, 2003). She began a recurring role on the offbeat Fox sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle" (Fox, 2000-06) while co-starring opposite J ly Fisher as the daughter of a cash-strapped con-mom-on-the-run in "Lies My Mother Told Me" (Lifetime, 2004).