Cameron Diaz's Real Name: Cameron Michelle Diaz

Quick answer: Cameron Diaz's full name is Cameron Michelle Diaz. She was born on August 30, 1972, in San Diego, California. She became a star opposite Jim Carrey in The Mask (1994) and led hits including There's Something About Mary, Charlie's Angels, and the Shrek films. She acts under her birth name (Britannica; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

Britannica gives her name in full as Cameron Michelle Diaz. The Library of Congress name authority files her as "Diaz, Cameron." Its note reads "birth name: Cameron Michelle Diaz; nickname: Cami," and the record lists "Diaz, Cami" as a variant. One older LOC source gave 1973 as her birth year, but the other citations agree on August 30, 1972.

Britannica says she grew up in Long Beach, California. Her mother, Billie (née Early), was an import broker of Italian and German ancestry. Her father, Emilio, was an oil company foreman and second-generation Cuban American. At Long Beach Polytechnic High School, Snoop Dogg was a classmate. She began modeling at 16, appeared on the covers of Seventeen and Mademoiselle, did ads for Levi's, Calvin Klein, and Coca-Cola, and lived in Paris for a time.

Career highlights

At 21 she auditioned for a small part in The Mask. After a dozen callbacks she won the female lead, Tina Carlyle, and the comedy made her a star. After smaller films, My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) and There's Something About Mary (1998) cemented her box-office status. She showed range in Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich (1999) and Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday.

She teamed with Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels (2000) and its 2003 sequel. She voiced a role in Shrek (2001) and its three sequels. She also appeared in Vanilla Sky (2001), Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002), The Holiday (2006), Knight and Day (2010), The Counselor (2013), The Other Woman, and Annie (both 2014).

After Annie she stepped back from acting. She married musician Benji Madden in 2015, and they had a daughter in 2019. Britannica reports that Jamie Foxx persuaded her to return for the Netflix action comedy Back in Action. She co-wrote two health books with Sandra Bark, The Body Book (2013) and The Longevity Book (2016), and in 2020 co-founded the wine brand Avaline.

Name notes for searchers

Diaz is her father's surname, and she has no stage name. "Cami" is a family nickname recorded by LOC, not a professional credit. She has kept Diaz professionally since marrying Benji Madden.