Giada Pamela De Laurentiis was born August 22, 1970, in Rome, Italy. She is the daughter of Veronica De Laurentiis and Alex De Benedetti, and granddaughter of film producer Dino De Laurentiis and Silvana Mangano, a noted Italian actress from the 1950s, '60s and '70s.
At age 7, Giada De Laurentiis and her parents moved to Southern California where she attended Marymount High School and later graduated from UCLA with a degree in social anthropology. Academic life, however, was not for Giada. She enlisted in Paris' prestigious Le Cordon Bleu school and specialized in pastry and cuisine. After graduating, she returned to Los Angeles to work in some of that city's best restaurants, among them Wolfgang Puck's Spago and the Ritz Carlton Dining Room.
In 2001, Giada De Laurentiis got her big break. She was working as a food stylist and styled a piece for Food and Wine magazine when the Food Network came calling. In 2003, Everyday Italian first aired on the network and featured Giada cooking classic Italian dishes in a straightforward, simple manner, using only the best ingredients. And though the dishes themselves were technically perfect, Giada De Laurentiis' stiff delivery left a bitter taste in some critics' mouths. Ironically, some accused Food Network producers of hiring a model or an actress who was pretending to cook, rather than a real chef.
In 2003, Giada De Laurentiis married her long-time sweetheart, fashion designer Todd Thompson, a clothing designer with the Anthropolgie company. The two had been dating since 1991.
Undaunted, the network ordered a second season of Everyday Italian and Giada De Laurentiis' stock began to climb. In 2005, the Food Network introduced Giada in a new format - Behind the Bash - where she took viewers behind the scenes of some of the biggest weddings and events in the U.S. to witness the catering process firsthand. The following year, she appeared on a special episode of Iron Chef America in which she and Bobby Flay competed against - and lost to - Rachael Ray and Mario Batali. The 90-minute episode was a roaring success for the Food Network. It scored the highest ratings the network had ever received in the 18- to 35-year-old bracket.
In January 2007, Giada De Laurentiis packed her bags and headed out for some Weekend Getaways, a new show in which she tours cities across the United States, visits some of the tourist sites and enjoys some of the best local fare. In October of 2008, she launched Giada at Home, a show that features Giada cooking for family and friends and planning special events.
Giada De Laurentiis is also the author of cookbooks - Everyday Italian, Giada's Family Dinners (which became a New York Times No. 1 bestseller) and Everyday Pasta - as well as the founder of GDL Foods, a Los Angeles-based catering company, and a spokesperson for Barilla Pasta, the world's largest manufacturer and producer of pasta, and Pyrex Glassware.
