Jessica Marie Alba was born on 28 April 1981, in Pomona, California to Catherine Louisa (Jensen) of Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, and Mark David Alba of Mexican descent. To comply with the professional obligation in his US Air Force career, David Alba had to move to Boloxi in Mississippi and Del Rio in Texas with his family, before being finally settled in Claremont in Southern California, when Jessica was nine. Unfortunately, Jessica did not have a happy and healthy childhood, which was marked by a multitude of ailments. Since she was a child, she had asthma and apart from that she suffered from repeated bouts of pneumonia, had partially collapsed lungs twice, a ruptured appendix and also a cyst on her tonsils. As a result, she had to spend a lot of time in the hospital during her childhood, which made her Isolated from the other children at school, as no-one got the opportunity to spend enough time with her, and no one knew her well enough to befriend her.

Nevertheless, after graduating from Claremont High School at the age of 16, she went on to attend the Atlantic Theatre Company, as she had been interested in acting since she was five years old, and at the age of eleven, she persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where she won the grand prize to receive free acting classes. However, nine months later, an agent signed her a contract for two weeks to play the small role of Gail in Camp Nowhere (1994), but two weeks contract ultimately extended to two-months, as one of the prominent actresses dropped out of the project.

Since then, Jessica appeared in several television serials, but rose to prominence at the age of 19 as the lead actress of the American science fiction television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination. But she rose to greater prominence in Hollywood when she appeared as Kirsten, one of the three obnoxious popular girls tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed (1999), co-starring Drew Barrymore and also played the leading female role of Molly in the comedy horror film Idle Hands (1999), alongside Devon Sawa. However, Jessica had her big screen breakthrough in 2003 when she appeared in the leading role of Honey Daniels, an aspiring, sexy and tough music video choreographer in Honey (2003), directed by Bille Woodruff, that grossed over $60 million worldwide. In the same year, she also played the female leading role of Selima, a beautiful young local woman of Sarawak, a remote village in colonial Malaysia, who was assigned to sleep and teach the native language and customs to the new British officer John Truscott, in the British-American romantic film The Sleeping Dictionary (2003).

Interestingly, although the film contained female nudity and explicit sex scenes, a body double was used to enact those steamy scenes for Jessica. Nevertheless, Jessica Alba was awarded the Best Actress in a DVD Premiere Movie for her performance in the film.

In 2005, Jessica starred opposite Bruce Willis to play the exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in an all-star cast in the provocative new-noir crime anthology Sin City (2005), which was critically acclaimed, grossed US$158.8 million and Jessica won an MTV Award for Sexiest Performance. In the same year she also appeared as Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl, in Fantastic Four (2005), which was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide.

Her last film in the year was the thriller Into the Blue (2005), in which she appeared as Sam, girlfriend of Jared, an experienced deep-sea diver, who along with another couple, sailed for the vast ocean on a rickety boat, to claim ownership of a sunken pirate treasure of inestimable value, but found themselves in trouble with a drug lord after discovering the sunken airplane.

After reprising her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Alba portrayed the role of Cam Wexler, the love interest of a womanizer dentist, in Good Luck Chuck (2007), which earned harsh criticism, but made almost US$60 million upon its release. In the same year, she also appeared in the psychological thriller Awake (2007), performing the character of Sam Lockwood, the girlfriend of a wealthy man undergoing heart transplant surgery, who discovers that the surgical team intends to murder him, instead of giving him a new lease of life. While her performance in the film was praised by the famous film critic Roger Ebert, and the film made US$32.7 million, in the same year, Jessica also played Lucy, a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill (2007), which was a major box office flop.

After that Jessica Alba opted to make her presence in the supernatural horror-thriller film The Eye (2008), a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she portrayed the role of Sydney Wells, a successful classical violinist, who after a surgery of cornea transplantation to recover her vision, gained the uncanny ability to see into the supernatural world. However, the film received generally negative reviews from critics, but Jessica won the Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller award at the 2008: Teen Choice Awards for her performance in the film. Apart from that, in 2008, Jessica also appeared as Jane Bullard, the woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs Ice Hockey Team in The Love Guru (2008), which was a critical and commercial flop.

Jessica Alba did not have any film release in 2009, but throughout 2010, she made her presence in significant roles in several high-profile films. In her first role in the year, she appeared as Joyce Lakeland, a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me (2010), alongside Kate Hudson, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Although the film was criticised for its graphic depiction of violence directed towards women, it was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. Her next film in the year was the romantic comedy Valentine’s Day (2010), in which she played Morley Clarkson, the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast, which included Bradley Cooper and Julia Roberts. Despite negative review and named one of the top worst chick flicks by the reputed Time magazine, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$ 216.5 million. In the exploitation action film Machete (2010), Alba appeared as an immigration officer, named Sartana and although the film was criticised as messy, violent, shallow, and tasteless, it grossed over US$310 million worldwide. Apart from that, in the same year, she also portrayed the role of Mona Gray, a painfully withdrawn young woman in An Invisible Sign (2010), and Andi Garcia, an extrovert drug representative, in Little Fockers (2010).

During the next decade, Jessica reprised her role of an Immigration Officer in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, but her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) received mixed reviews from film critics. Apart from that, her subsequent films include, among others, the romantic comedy Lessons in Love Some (2014), the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and a coming of age story Dear Eleanor (2016).

Unfortunately, unlike several other talented artists of her age, Jessica never got the opportunity to work under any reputed film director to achieve international recognition and she never even got any nomination for an Oscar, BAFTA or Golden Globe Award. However, she has always been popular due to her stunning look and was named among the top 25 sexiest celebrities on the cover of Playboy magazine in 2006. However, although Jessica has accepted that she needs to use her sexuality and good looks to her advantage, she has a strict no-nudity clause as a standard part of all of her contracts. In her personal life, Jessica Alba married Cash Warren in 2008, and is the proud mother of two daughters.