Marisa Miller

Marisa Lee Miller (née Bertetta; born August 6, 1978) is an American model and actress best known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and her work as a lingerie model for Victoria's Secret. After a stint shooting with photographer Mario Testino for fashion magazines such as Vogue, Miller began working for both companies in 2002. In 2007, she became a Victoria's Secret Angel, and graced the cover of the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to record-setting numbers. Her accomplishments have led to her being dubbed the "return of the great American supermodel." She is known for contracts with companies such as Harley-Davidson, for whom she is the first spokesperson in the history of the company, and the NFL, for whom she became a spokesperson in 2010. Miller is considered a sex symbol; she ranked No. 1 on Maxim magazine's 2008 "Hot 100" list and in FHM's global 2010 "Sexiest Women in the World" poll. Aside from modeling, she is an ambassador for both the American Cancer Society and the USO. Miller made her film debut in R.I.P.D. (2013). --- Born Marisa Lee Bertetta in Santa Cruz, California, to Krista (née Useldinger) and Marc Bertetta, Miller attended high school at Aptos High and Monte Vista Christian School. She considered herself a tomboy growing up, with mostly male friends and little awareness of anything girly. Out of shyness, she often wore large t-shirts to hide her body and would get fully dressed just to go to the trash-can while at the beach. Miller was first "discovered" at age sixteen walking through a San Francisco café by two Italian modeling agents. After talking to her mother, she was on a plane to Italy with her mother a few months later, despite her "shy and conservative" personality. Miller gained attention in 1997 when she appeared in the first issue of Perfect 10 magazine. Although she came in third behind Ashley Degenford and Monica Hansen in Perfect 10 magazine's first annual model search, she was repeatedly showcased in following issues, including the covers of the Winter 1998 and August/September 1999 editions, as well as a reprint for the Fall 2004 edition cover. --- Miller moved from a start as an amateur magazine model to high profile mainstream work after an acquaintance showed a picture of her to famed fashion photographer Mario Testino in 2001. Testino asked to meet Miller, who was running a surf school at the time, and was invited to Manhattan Beach, California, where she would be surfing. Noticing her, Testino snapped pictures of her and approached her with a job offer of editorials for both the American and Italian editions of Vogue. Within six months, Miller was working for Victoria's Secret and the coveted Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, in which she appeared in every issue from 2002 to 2008. In particular, she famously posed wearing only an iPod in the 2007 issue. She has appeared in a diverse range of magazines, many of them international editions, such as GQ, Maxim, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, and Vanity Fair. She has featured in advertisements for Nordstrom, J.Crew, Guess?, Tommy Hilfiger, Bath & Body Works, and True Religion jeans. It was not until 2007 that she filmed her first television commercial for Victoria's Secret, appearing alongside Heidi Klum for the It bra. On December 4, 2007, Miller made her debut in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and opened a segment in the following year's edition. Other runway work include 2007's Fashion for Relief show, benefiting victims of Hurricane Katrina, as well as MTV's Fashionably Loud, Imitation of Christ, Inca, and Amir Slama's Rosa Cha, for which she was one of the most anticipated models. On the February 12, 2008 episode of the Late Show with David Letterman, it was revealed via a three-story billboard in New York City that Miller would grace the cover of that year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. The tandem online launch of the issue drew record page views to the SI website: 228 million, a 41% increase over 2007. In September 2008, Sports Illustrated released a "Best of Marisa Miller" swimsuit calendar for the 2009 year. --- Miller's first work in television was as a judge on the Bravo reality series Manhunt: The Search for America's Most Gorgeous Male Model in 2004, the same year she appeared in Puddle of Mudd's "Spin You Around" music video. 2007 brought appearances in the pilot episode and finale of VH1 reality show The Shot and cameos in HBO's Entourage and the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother, the latter with her fellow Victoria's Secret Angels. In 2009, she had a guest judge role on an episode of America's Next Top Model and a minor role in an episode of Gary Unmarried; in 2010, she co-hosted an episode of Game Trailers TV with Geoff Keighley. She has appeared in commercials for the NFL Network and the California Travel and Tourism Commission's "Visit California" campaign. Miller's 2008 commercial for Activision's Guitar Hero: World Tour was deemed too sexy to air. Miller's first film role was in R.I.P.D. (2013), with Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges. --- The swell in publicity resulting from her 2008 work served to land Miller in the number one spot on Maxim magazine's "Hot 100" rankings for 2008, beating out list regulars such as Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, and Eva Longoria. This marked the first time anyone has debuted on the list in the number one position. In her subsequent cover story for the July issue, Maxim proclaimed her as the "return of the great American supermodel." Of such acclaim, Miller admits, "I get a kick out of it, but it would be stupid to let it go to my head. It’s modeling—I didn’t find the cure for cancer." Miller continued to be highly rated and appeared on the list in 2009 in 18th place, and in 2010 in 10th place. --- She married Jim Miller, a Los Angeles surfing contest promoter and lifeguard from California, in 2000. The couple separated in 2002; they divorced soon after. After the divorce, Marisa continued using the surname Miller. She married music producer Griffin Guess on April 15, 2006. Miller gave birth to the couple's son, Gavin Lee Guess, on December 14, 2012.