Jenny McCarthy

Jennifer Ann "Jenny" McCarthy (born November 1, 1972) is an American model, comedian, actress, author, activist, and game show host. She began her career in 1993 as a nude model for Playboy magazine and was later named their Playmate of the Year. McCarthy then parlayed her Playboy fame into a successful television and film acting career. Recently, she has written books about parenting, and has become an activist promoting research into environmental causes and alternative biomedical treatments for autism. She has claimed that vaccines cause autism and that chelation therapy helped cure her son - claims considered false by the medical community. McCarthy was born in Evergreen Park, Illinois to a middle-class Catholic family of Polish and Irish descent. She lived in the West Elsdon neighborhood of Chicago. She is the second of four daughters; her sisters are named Lynette, Joanne and Amy. Her cousin is Academy Award-nominated actress Melissa McCarthy of Bridesmaids and Mike and Molly. McCarthy's mother, Linda, was a housewife and courtroom custodian, and her father, Dan McCarthy, was a steel mill foreman. As a teenager, McCarthy attended Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School (whose