Josie Maran appears as a contestant in the fifth season of the ABC network’s celebrity reality television dance competition series Dancing with the Stars. She is an American supermodel and actress who was born on May 8, 1978 in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and she has mixed French, Dutch, German and Polish heritage. When she was younger and attending an all-girls’ school located in northern California, her childhood ambition was to secure a job as a model, especially after she saw and admired Christy Turlington’s modeling career and work for the Maybelline cosmetics brand. When she was 12 years old, she was first asked to join a fashion show while she was at a barbecue restaurant, and she eventually gained her first cover shot for Glamour magazine in 1998.
Maran is a graduate of the Castilleja School, and she began to focus more on modeling after she finished her education. Since she is considered too short at 5’ 7” for runway modeling, most of her work revolves around editorial modeling and image/advertising modeling instead. She signed with the Elite modeling agency in Los Angeles, and has worked with the likes of Guess?, the Backstreet Boys, and Sports Illustrated. She has also acted in films such as The Mallory Effect, Van Helsing, and The Aviator.
Josie Maran and Alec Mazo
(Photos courtesy of ABC)