Katie Cleary

Born and raised on the North Shore of Chicago, in 1981, Katie is an only child who was raised by her mother. Katie`s strength, confidence, and drive came from her mom`s hard work, love, and determination as a parent. Katie says if it wasn`t for her mother`s love and strength, she would never have the ambition to do what she is doing today.

Ever since Katie was a young girl, she dreamed of becoming an actress in Hollywood. After years of balancing high school and modeling in Chicago, she entered a Liberal Arts College in Wisconsin with a track scholarship. Katie finished college with a Business and Marketing Degree while working as a model part-time.

Katie has always been very independent and driven to accomplish her goals and dreams in life. The summer of 2004, after graduation, Katie took a real estate position in Chicago. In the interim, she enrolled in acting classes and worked on a few movie sets while going to auditions. This was a very busy and enlightening time as she juggled all these endeavors as her knowledge for the film industry grew exponentially.

One of Katie`s many accomplishments was gathering ten humane societies and organizing a fundraiser, by herself, which raised a huge amount of money to help support animal rescue and abuse centers. Katie`s passion has always been to help rescue animals that have been abused or unwanted and she often visits sanctuaries and volunteer`s her services. Her goal is to one-day start her own rescue center and sanctuary for unwanted and abused exotic and domestic animals.

You may recognize Katie from the hit TV show "America`s Next Top Model" Season #1. Recently, she worked on such movies as "The Break Up" and the "Lake House", which were filmed in Chicago. Katie has also hosted such shows on The TV Guide Channel,"Ripe Live", and co-hosted the show "Get Out" appearing on HDTV. Recently, Katie appeared on Larry King Live and talked about her life before and after "Deal or no Deal" and how it all got started. Be on the lookout for Katie in her national commercials for Chandon Champagne, Emerald Nuts, and Black Magic, her new AT&T commercial with Brody Jenner and Lauren Conrad. She will be appearing in CSI NY, and her new show on CBS.com Called "Heckel U" airing Febuary 2009, and "Fake or Real" on the E! Network.