Dark and handsome with just the right touch of humor, Wilmer Valderrama first caught the audiences attention as the loveable foreign exchange student Fez on FOXs popular long-running sitcom, That 70s Show (1998-2006). Raised in Venezuela until he was a teenager, Valderrama achieved success beyond his wildest expectations in Hollywood before he even graduated from high school.
Born Wilmer Antonio Valderrama on Jan. 30, 1980 in Miami FL to Balvino and Sobeida Valderrama, the attractive Latino actor moved back to his familys native Venezuela at the age of three. Valderramas family returned to the U.S. 10 years later, when he was 13, this time settling down in Los Angeles, CA. Not knowing a word of English, Valderrama was forced to pick up the language quickly. While attending William Howard Taft High School in Woodland Hills, he began to show an interest in acting. Actively involved in the drama and theater department at his school, he performed in a number of plays, including The Impossible Years, Never Been Kissed, and Rumors.
Landing professional work while still a teenager, Valderrama made his acting debut in a Spanish Pacific Bell TV commercial. His television debut came in 1998 on The Disney Channel series "Omba Makomba" (1997). That same year, the young actor landed a role on FOXs new sitcom That 70s Show. Portraying Fez, a foreign student trying to fit into 1970s suburban Wisconsin, Valderrama rounded out an ensemble cast on the instantly popular series. While working on the series, Valderrama graduated form Taft High School in 1999.
With the success of 70s, Valderramas resume began to fill out. He made his film debut in the 2001 baseball flick Summer Catch alongside Freddie Prinze Jr., followed by his role as DJ Keoki in the club-kid pic Party Monster (2003) with Macaulay Culkin.
Playing the part of entrepreneur in real life, Valderrama opened the Hollywood hotspot restaurant Dolce in 2003, followed by Geisha House in 2005 both of which were in partnership with fellow 70s co-stars Danny Masterson and Ashton Kutcher. Following the media attention that followed his relationship with pop-princess Mandy Moore, Valderrama soon earned a reputation as a young Hollywood lothario. Linked with both Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ashlee Simpson at one time, it was Valderramas year-long romance with the newly minted teen star Lindsay Lohan that put him in the brightest spotlight in 2004. To the chagrin of ex-girls Moore and Lohan, Valderrama would later boast of his sexual conquests publicly to Howard Stern in March of 2006.
Taking trash-talking to a new level in 2006, Valderrama pitched the show Yo Momma to MTV. As host and executive producer of the series, Valderrama went out across America to find the best free-style trash-talkers around. Shifting gears back to theater, Valderrama appeared in the Los Angeles Times critic's choice play "Blackout," as well as performed alongside Anjelica Huston and Sir Ben Kingsley in the Actors Fund of America all-star performance of the screenplay "Sunset Boulevard. Also that year, Valderrama appeared in Richard Linklaters adaptation of Fast Food Nation and was cast as Francis "Ponch" Poncherello in the film adaptation of CHiPs (2007), a role made famous in the 1970s by Erik Estrada. Surprising some, due to his playboy past, Valderrama also took on a new role that of the title character in the Disney Channel's show, "Handy Manny" (2006- ), a tune-filled cartoon for preschoolers about a repairman and his talking tools who introduce tots to the concept of teamwork. Valderrama admitted he took the role because of his close relationship to his 20-years younger brother, Christian.
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