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Kate Upton
USINFO | 2013-05-23 14:08
Kate Upton(born June 10, 1992) is an American model and actress, known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue first in 2011, when she was named Rookie of the Year,and again in 2012 and 2013, when she was announced as the cover model.Upton was born in St. Joseph, Michigan and raised in Melbourne, Florida.She is the daughter of Shelley, a former Texas state tennis champion, and Jeff Upton, a high school athletics director.She attended Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy.Her uncle is U.S. Representative Fred Upton (R-MI).Upton's great-grandfather, Frederick Upton, was co-founder of appliance manufacturer and marketer Whirlpool Corporation.[Upton attended a casting call in Miami for Elite Model Management in 2008 and was signed by them the same day. She eventually moved to New York City, where she then signed with IMG Models.[Upton first modeled for Damien Haumpy Garage, then Dooney & Bourke. She was the 2010–2011 face of Guess.In 2011, Upton appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She was featured in the body paint section and named Rookie of the Year for the issue.
In April 2011, an internet video of her doing the dougie hip-hop dance at a Los Angeles Clippers game went viral and served to increase her popularity. On April 30, 2012, a bikini-clad Upton performing the "Cat Daddy" by The Rej3ctz in a video directed by Terry Richardson also went viral, amassing almost 750,000 views in the first 24 hours.Upton made an appearance in a June 2011 episode of Tosh.0, filmed in Fort Cobb, Oklahoma, participating in a segment called "Knife or Banana", emulating a Japanese game show in which she is stabbed with a banana.In 2012, she was listed on Maxim's HOT 100 list, citing her photo shoots with Sports Illustrated.
On February 8, 2013, it was announced that Upton would be the cover model for the 2013 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, making her the first model to be on the cover of the issue back-to-back since Tyra Banks in 1996 and 1997.Parts of her 2013 Sports Illustrated pictorial were filmed in Antarctica, which was the first fashion shoot on that continent. Filmed during the Antarctic summer, temperatures on location are reported to have been around 32 °F with windchill bringing it to about 0 °F. Because of the cold she could not film for more than a minute at a time before being warmed again. By the end Upton suffered from failing hearing and eyesight, symptoms that are commonly associated with frostbite but can also be signs of hypothermia.
