Born in Pont-Audemer, France, Laetitia Casta spent her childhood in the lush countryside of Normandy. At age 15, she was approached by an agent of Paris' Madison Models while building sand castles on a beach in Corsica. Now, we've commented on this type of thing before, in Koika'a bio, but obviously things swing differently in some parts of the continent. Many countries frown on approaching 15-year-old girls with a view to photographing them. Anyway, after her father agreed to let the agency take some test photographs, Laetitia's wondrous natural beauty impressed the founder of Madison models as well as the director of the French magazine Elle. Modeling contracts ensued and in 1993 Laetitia signed on with Guess Jeans for a very successful avertising campaign.

In 1996, Laetitia became one of the lead models of Victoria's Secret, and was featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition for three consecutive years. She has appeared on over 100 covers of fashion magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Glamour, as well as doing commercials for the cosmetics company L'Oreal.

Follwing the law that all models must eventually become actresses, Laetitia made her feature film debut in Astérix et Obélix contre César (1999), the most expensive French film ever made and a smash hit in Europe. It didn't hurt that her next two roles, in La Bicyclette bleue (2000) and (2000), featured her in nude scenes. In any case, she has built quite a successful acting career with six more roles since those. In 2004 she made her stage debut in Jean Giraudoux's play Ondine.

In January 2000, Laetitia received one of the highest accolades for a French woman, becomming the model for 'Marianne'. Marianne is the symbol of liberty and republic in France, and French tradition holds that every town hall has the bust of the most beautiful woman of that decade as Marianne. Laetitia was chosen to hold that that honour for the decade 2000-2010.

In 2006, Laetitia bought an apartment in London and lived there part-time, which caused something of a minor scandal. Many French people thought it was improper for the model of Marianne to move to another country, and we enjoyed a brief episode of mutual Anglo-French bashing before everyone got tired and decided to focus on Big Brother, or whatever came next.

Laetitia has two children: a daughter Sahteene Sednaoui (b. Paris, 19 October 2001) with photographer Stephane Sednaoui, and a son Orlando (b. 21 September 2006) with Stefano Accorsi. Laetitia is said to enjoy painting, writing, rollerblading, going to the cinema, and dancing in whatever spare time she can find.

                           

On the catwalk:
           

• Unofficial Laetitia Casta fan site (bit short on content)
• Official Victoria's Secret Lingerie site
• Laetitia's entry on IMDB

Laetitia puts her awsome figure to good use in the film version of the Asterix comic strip 1024 x 768	Looks like one fashion photographer couldn't resist :-) 1024 x 768
Laetitia shows off her amazing legs under the desert sun 1024 x 768	If I was her, I'd be holding onto those too :-) 1024 x 768
Showing off her legs again 1024 x 768