About Jennifer Tilly

Name	Jennifer Tilly
Current Residence	Harbor City Calif.
Born	Sep. 16, 1958
Birth Place	Harbor City California, US

Jennifer Tilly excels at playing dimwitted, buxom girlfriends and wives in movies; just look at her roles in Seed of Chucky and Liar, Liar for a little taste. She's frequently typecast into these roles, but in her real-life role as a World Series of Poker champion, she gets to showcase just how smart she really is.

On June 27, 2005, Tilly won a WSOP bracelet and $158,625 in the $1,000 Ladies' No-Limit Texas Hold'em event, outlasting 600 other players. She followed up this accomplishment on September 1, 2005, by winning the third World Poker Tour Ladies Invitational Tournament at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, Calif.

Tilly has also competed in the Poker Royale series on the Game Show Network (GSN), the third season of Poker Superstars Invitational on Fox Sports News (FSN), and the 2006 season of Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo.

However, it wasn't Tilly's original intention to become such a high-profile player in the poker world. The multi-racial daughter of Henry, a Chinese car salesman, and Patricia, a Caucasian schoolteacher, Tilly was born Jennifer E. Chan, and took her mother's maiden name, Tilly, before launching into her acting career. She was born in Harbor City, California, and raised mostly in Victoria, British Columbia, where she moved with her mother, two sisters and older brother after her parents divorced.

Her sights were set on acting as early as her teenage years when she put herself through the theater program at Stephens College in Missouri by winning writing competitions. She then headed to Los Angeles where she's had a steady line-up of roles for the past 20 years, including Bullets Over Broadway, a Woody Allen film in which Tilly played an aspiring but terrible actress. She was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her portrayal of the talentless Olive Neal at the 1994 Oscars.

It was her acting career that led her to poker, with a role in a 1989 gambling comedy called Let It Ride piquing her interest in playing. Soon after the production of the film wrapped, Tilly became involved in a regular home game with friends and began to develop her poker playing skills.

In 2003 she began playing in competitive tournaments, encouraged by her boyfriend, professional poker player Phil "The Unabomber" Laak, who she met at the WPT Invitational tournament at the Commerce Casino. After her 2005 WSOP win, Tilly credited Laak with teaching her everything she knows about poker. He helped her work out her game, and she said she learned a lot "through osmosis."

"The Unabombshell," as she's come to be known on the poker circuit, surprised everyone as the first celebrity to win a World Series event, but no-one was more surprised than she was.

During an interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, she said, "I was astonished too. As it started to approach the moment where I thought I might possibly be winning a new piece of jewelry, I was freaking out. And you know, I had almost all the chips, I had like 1,300 chips and the other girl had maybe, um, 57 chips. And I was like, I know because I'm on ESPN and the cameras are on me, there's going to be some way I'm going to lose my entire stack in one hand. But it didn't happen."

The debate over whether it was luck or skill that got her to that point was laid to rest when she also won the World Poker Tour's annual Ladies Night event just over two months later. She beat out poker pro Isabelle "No Mercy" Mercier (WPT Season 2 Ladies Night champion), Cecelia Mortensen (tournament player and wife of 2001 WSOP champion Carlos Mortensen), and Aidiliy Elviro (fianc

Trivia

• Was raised in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• Is dating poker pro Phil Laak
• Was nominated for an Oscar
• First Hollywood celebrity to win a WSOP bracelet
• Was married to "The Simpsons" writer/producer Sam Simon (1984-1991)