Who

Cattrall achieved fame as the over-the-top vamp Samantha on Sex and the City.

Backstory

Born to a housewife and construction worker in Cheshire, England, Cattrall moved with her family to British Columbia as a baby and then spent her teen years at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in London, before moving to New York at 16 to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1975, Kim scored a role in famed director Otto Preminger's Rosebud; she later appeared in the '80s teen sex comedy Porky's, and in similarly undistinguished films from the era like Police Academy, Turk 182! and John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China. A starring role opposite Andrew McCarthy in 1987's Mannequin suggested some leading lady potential, but by the early 1990s, her star had largely faded.

Cattrall's fortunes changed in 1998 when Darren Star tapped her for Sex and the City, giving the actress the once-in-a-lifetime role of nymphomaniac man-eater/public relations exec Samantha Jones. Cattrall spent six seasons talking ad nauseam about her vagina and screwing every hunk in sight until the show wrapped in 2004, an end that was partly blamed on Cattrall's oversized pay demands and her rivalry with Sarah Jessica Parker.

Post-Sex Cattrall gave herself a G-rated makeover and starred in Disney's Ice Princess. But she returned to Samantha Jones soon enough. After reportedly holding up the Sex and the City movie for years, Cattrall finally arm-twisted New Line into doling out a salary to her satisfaction, and shooting began in late 2007. The movie arrived in theaters in May 2008.

Personal

Cattrall has been married and divorced three times. After a short relationship in her mid 20s with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Cattrall tied the knot with Canadian author Larry Davis. She later married architect Andreas Lyson and, most recently, Mark Levinson, with whom she penned the 2004 erotic how-to Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm. Since divorcing Levinson, she's been linked to British actor Alexander Siddig, former star of the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and is currently dating a Canadian chef named Alan Wyse, who's 23 years her junior. She lives just off Park Avenue in the 70s, in a Tony Ingrao-designed apartment, and spends weekends at a beach house in East Hampton, where she's sometimes spotted canoeing.

In print

In addition to Satisfaction,Cattrall authored the book Sexual Intelligence in 2005, which billed itself as a "breathless tour of sexual significance and cultural discovery." She dialed down the smut for her third book, Being a Girl: Navigating the Ups and Downs of Teen Life.

No joke

Cattrall starred in a series of double entendre-heavy Nissan ads, broadcast only in New Zealand, which were pulled from the airwaves in 2006 after consumer complaints. In one of the commercials, she has an orgasm in the car after driving over a speed bump.