A Field Guide To Maria Menounos

We generally make these Field Guides for people when they've recently done something spectacular or when we want to drop fatty amounts of praise upon an unsung hero. In this case, we feel like we've seen Maria Menounos wear so many bikinis that it's unfair of us to go on living a second longer without learning her life story.

Maria Menounos was born June 8, 1978 in Medford, Massachusetts to Greek immigrant parents Costas and Litsa Menounos. She attended a Greek Orthodox elementary/middle school and a public high school, and between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, Maria worked in a Dunkin' Donuts. She started entering beauty pageants when she was seventeen, and the following year, she was crowned Miss Massachusetts Teen USA; she never won any other pageants, but she always placed well.

Maria attended Emerson University, and during her senior year, she became a correspondent for Channel One news, a short news program for teens broadcast via satellite to middle schools and high schools around the country. It might sound like a small job, but while working as a reporter for Channel One, Maria got to travel around the world, work with NATO airmen aboard an AWACS during a combat mission, and interview George W. Bush. As exciting and informative as the work was, Maria's real moment in the spotlight came when she got picked up by "Entertainment Tonight." From there, things get a little confusing.

Long story short, it's incredibly hard to label Maria Menounos as one type of entertainer. Though she's originally known for being a celebrity news correspondent on "ET" and later "Access Hollywood," she often shows up in movies, she directs, she makes tons of TV cameos, she was on "One Tree Hill" for half of a season, she runs charities, she's hosted a Eurovision Song Contest in Greece (she speaks Greek fluently, by the way), she's tag-team wrestled at WWE's "WrestleMania XXVIII" (and won), she's danced on "Dancing with the Stars" (and received two cracked ribs), and we swear, every time we blink, there are new pictures of her looking amazing in a bikini.

And here's a random and cute fact: Maria's laugh is well-known by her fans, and she's described it as "a cross between Fran Drescher and Woody Woodpecker."

Even though we first learned her name when her bikini bottoms got pulled to the side, we've grown to appreciate Maria as a modern Renaissance woman, and we can't wait to see what she does next. (Hopefully, it'll involve more swimwear.)

Be sure to check out:
· Her Twitter (twitter.com)
· An unofficial fansite: Maria Menounos Online (mariamenounosonline.com)

[At top: Maria Menounos freezing in a bikini in Times Square in February. She's such a baller.]