With effortless charm, Parker is a unique star whose career began in childhood. After performing in a few Broadway shows, this precocious performer segued to TV and movies as a teen usually playing appealingly geeky heroines, even though off-screen she was all grown up and living with Robert Downey Jr. In the early '90s she broke up with Downey and transitioned to adult roles with sexy turns in a string of big-screen comedies such as L.A. Story. After shying away from series television for much of the decade, Parker took a chance on the female ensemble comedy Sex and the City and became an instant sex symbol and fashion plate. And while she was portraying a single thirtysomething New Yorker searching for Mr. Right, in real life she was happily married to Matthew Broderick. While researching her ancestry for an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, Parker discovered that a distant ancestor was accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1690s.