Anneliese van der Pol

Anneliese van der Pol
Van der Pol as Belle in Beauty and the Beast
Born	Anneliese Louise van der Pol (1984-09-23) September 23, 1984 (age 32) Naaldwijk, Netherlands
Nationality	American, Dutch (dual)
Occupation	Actress, singer, model, dancer
Years active	1999 - present
Home town	Bellflower, California, U.S.
Website	twitter.com/anneliesevdp

Anneliese Louise van der Pol (born September 23, 1984) is a Dutch-American actress, singer, model, and dancer. She is best known for her role as Chelsea Daniels on That's So Raven. Van der Pol also has a career as a singer and has recorded several songs for The Walt Disney Company. She made her Broadway debut in 2007, and appeared Off-Broadway in 2009. She has also acted in the 2010 vampire spoof film Vampires Suck directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

Van der Pol was born in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands, to Willem van der Pol, who is Dutch and the director of the Physical Plant at the California State University in Fullerton, California, and Dyan Ross, an American from Brooklyn, New York City. Van der Pol's mother named her after Anne Frank after visiting the house where Frank hid (van der Pol's mother is Jewish). Van der Pol has two older sisters, Rachel and Sarah. Van der Pol's family moved to her mother's native United States when she was three years old, and she retains dual American and Dutch citizenship.

Van der Pol attended School in Bellflower, California where she began acting in third grade at Washington Elementary School. She attended Bellflower Middle School and High School, then transferred and subsequently graduated from the acclaimed Orange County High School of the Arts in Santa Ana, CA. In 1999, van der Pol played Sandy Dumbrowsky in the Huntington Beach Playhouse revival of Grease, which earned her a Bobbi Award for "Best Actress in a Musical." She played Eva Perón in the Buena Park Civic Theatre production of Evita in 1999 and received positive reviews from the Los Angeles Times. At the age of fifteen, she is also the youngest actresses in Theatrical History to play the role in a professional production.