Already a familiar face to young audiences due to her extensive teen modeling career, actress Leslie Bibb broke through with an auspicious starring role on The WB's high school drama "Popular" (1999-2001), playing Brooke McQueen, a cheerleader under pressure to keep up her perfect image. When her rival, the headstrong school newspaper reporter Sam joins her family (Brooke's single father hooks up with Sam's single mother), it shakes the foundation of the teenager's life and somewhat twisted self-image. Although the tall blonde actress herself was quite a few years out of high school when taking the role of 16-year old Brooke, her youthful looks and somewhat wide-eyed manner belied her real age. The youngest of four daughters raised in Virginia by her mother (a young widow), Bibb got her start after one of her sisters entered her in a model search sponsored by "The Oprah Winfrey Show". As a finalist, the teen appeared on the popular talk show and was judged the winner, launching a promising career that soon included appearances in layouts and ad campaigns featured in teen fashion magazines including SEVENTEEN and YM.
Soon the acting bug bit the young hopeful and she went on to study for three years in New York before landing her feature film debut with a role as an NBC tour guide in the 1997 film adaptation of Howard Stern's autobiography "Private Parts". That same year, Bibb's small screen appearances included guest roles on NBC's "Fired Up" and "Just Shoot Me" as well as her first regular starring role on television, replacing Susan Walters as the female lead of USA Network's New Orleans-set crime drama series "The Big Easy". After more guest appearances on "Something So Right" (ABC) and "Early Edition" (CBS), she had a featured starring role in a 1999 episode of the short-lived "Walker, Texas Ranger" spin-off "Sons of Thunder", playing a targeted young woman claiming to be the daughter of regular Butch (Alan Autry). Returning to features, she landed a supporting role in heartfelt independent comedy "This Space Between Us" and a starring turn alongside Devon Gummersall and Eion Bailey as a naive aspiring actress in L.A. in "The Young Unknowns" (both 1999). Following her newfound "Popular" fame, Bibb could be seen in the thriller "Skulls" (2000), starring fellow WBer Joshua Jackson as a Yale student who unknowingly joins a sinister secret society.