Sarah Shahi

Date of Birth		10 January 1980 , Euless, Texas, USA
Birth Name	Aahoo Jahansouz Shahi
Height	5' 3¾" (1.62 m)

Biography

Sarah Shahi was born Aahoo Jahansouz in Euless, Texas, to an Iranian father and Spanish mother. She is a former NFL cheerleader and a descendant of a 19th-century Persian Shah. She attended Trinity High School and Dallas Southern Methodist University, majoring in English and opera. As a teenager, she won several beauty contests, and took first place in the Miss Fort Worth USA pageant in 1997. She joined the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and was part of the 1999-2000 squad. She also appeared on the cover of their 2000 calendar.

While working as an extra on the set of Dr. T and the Women (2000), she met director Robert Altman, who encouraged her to move to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actress. She had recurring roles in several TV series, such as Alias (2001), in which she played "Jenny"; Dawson's Creek (1998), where she was "Sadia Shaw"; and The L Word (2004), playing "Carmen de la Pica Morales". Shahi was also the first ghost in Supernatural (2005), the CW paranormal drama series.