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Hilary Erhard Duff is an American actress, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur, author, and humanitarian. born September 28, 1987 and raised in Houston, Texas, Duff appeared in local theatre productions and television commercials before coming to prominence in the title role of Disney Channel's teen comedy Lizzie McGuire. Established as a teen idol, Duff reprised that role in The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003) and ventured into motion pictures with her early films Agent Cody Banks (2003), Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), A Cinderella Story (2004) and Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005) being among the biggest commercial successes of her career. Most recently, she has performed in a string of independent films and television dramas like Gossip Girl in addition to sharing production credits. Hilary Erhard Duff was born on September 28, 1987 in Houston, Texas. She grew up between Houston and San Antonio with her father Robert Erhard Duff, a partner in a chain of convenience stores in the two areas, her mother Susan Colleen (née Cobb), a homemaker turned film/music producer, and her older sister Haylie, who is also an actress and singer. From a young age, Duff took after her older sister and, encouraged by their mother, the pair enrolled in acting, singing and ballet classes. Both girls won roles in local theatre productions and, together, at the ages of six and eight, they participated in a touring BalletMet production of The Nutcracker in San Antonio. Her most recent credits include Raven Halfacre, the teenage daughter of a promiscuous alcoholic mother, in the drama film Bloodworth (2011) in which Los Angeles Times reviewer Sheri Linden thought she "acquits herself well" despite not warming to the film. The Examiner also wrote that the "biggest surprise performance [in the film] probably belongs to Hilary Duff." She also played Shasta O'Neil, a sexy high school senior, in the Polish brothers' comedy Stay Cool (2011) in which she co-starred with Winona Ryder, Mark Polish, Sean Astin, Chevy Chase, and Jon Cryer to neither much critical or commercial avail. In 2012, she appeared in the independent film She Wants Me, directed by Rob Margolies, as a well-known starlet Kim Powers who enters a love triangle. Upon release, Dignity debuted at number three in the US, a lower peak than Duff's previous albums and with lower sales, which Billboard attributed to the loss of fans during her musical evolution. Despite the relatively poor performance of the album, it produced Duff's highest-peaking US single to date, "With Love" (number 24), which also peaked at number 1 on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Songs chart, becoming the first of her three consecutive number ones on that chart; her second being "Stranger", the album's third single. Dignity has reached the top ten in several countries and was certified gold in the US by the RIAA. She embarked on her forth concert tour, simply entitled Dignity, from July 2007 to February 2008, which went around North America, Brazil and Australia. Following this, Duff had sold thirteen million albums worldwide and had performed across the world on four concert tours. Duff's most recent release and first greatest hits album was entitled Best of Hilary Duff (2008). Like Most Wanted (2005), the album features songs from her previous three albums, remixes and two new tracks: "Reach Out" and "Holiday". "Reach Out", which samples Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", was released in the preceding month of the album's release as its first single. The song became Duff's third number one dance hit in the US, but the album failed to reach the success of its predecessors, was her first album not to receive any RIAA certifications and peaked at number 125 on the US chart. Duff said she hoped to write a third new song for the release and to have "Holiday" released as a single. Hollywood Records later scrapped these plans, adding to their large list of cancelations which, in turn, led Duff to make the decision to leave the label after six years of service and develop this album to quickly end her contract, which had expected one more album. With Simon & Schuster, Duff has set up a book writing deal. Published in October 2010, her first novel Elixir, co-written with Elise Allen, has since been released internationally and become a New York Times best-seller. The book, aimed at young adults, traces the life of a seventeen-year old photojournalist searching the world for her father after his disappearance. After fate brings her and an unknown beautiful man who had began to mysteriously feature in her photographs, the pair strike up a love triangle, racing against time to unravel their pasts in order to save their futures. The sequel to the book, titled Devoted, was released in hardcover in October 2011. Devoted picks up where Elixir left off and continues the story of the dangerous love triangle. Duff also plans to release a non-fiction book in 2012 based on children coping with divorce.
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