Gellar, Sarah (Anne) Michelle (1977– )

US actor. Best known as the star of the teen television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), her popularity has grown from the contrast of her petite, vulnerable beauty to her tough girl roles. Her film work includes I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Scream 2 (1997), Simply Irresistible (1999), Cruel Intentions (1999), Harvard Man (2001), the Scooby-Doo series (2002 and 2004), and The Grudge (2004).

She appeared in her first film, the television movie An Invasion of Privacy (1983), at the age of seven. She went on to portray a scheming teen in the US soap opera All My Children (1993–95), for which she received an Emmy award in 1995.

Gellar was born in New York City, and began acting at the age of four, appearing in many advertisements throughout her childhood and early teens. She attended the Professional Children's School in New York and was a competitive figure skater for three years. She had small roles in the films Over the Brooklyn Bridge (1984) and High Stakes (1989). During the early 1990s she appeared on stage in Neil Simon's Jake's Woman and Horton Foote's The Widow Claire. Other television credits include the mini-series A Woman Named Jackie (1991), the soap opera Swan's Crossing (1992), and the television movie Beverly Hills Family Robinson (1998). She is married to the actor Freddy Prinze, Jr.