Her father was Dutch-born and worked as a custom furniture maker; her mother was American-born, of Dutch descent, and was an English teacher. Rebecca attended Berkeley High School where her nickname was the "Jolly Blond Giant". Then, she attended the University of California at Santa Cruz where she majored in Music, but left in 1995. Rebecca (in her own words): "I was a freshman at UC Santa Cruz, really poor and restless to see the world. I used to sit in my dorm room, thinking, I just know I'm missing out on something. But, of course, I had no money. And so this friend hooked me up with an agency, and it happened very quickly. I moved to Paris, got a cover of French Elle, and stayed for two and a half years". This tall (5' 10") blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty was a natural for modeling, and has posed for Sports Illustrated, Christian Dior, Victoria's Secret, to name but a few. Rebecca first met John Stamos in 1994, at a Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and had her first date with him in Disneyland. They married in September 1998, but have since broken up. Rebecca's favorite foods are filet mignon, tuna sashimi, and Haagen-Dazs Cappuccino-Commotion. But to keep her weight at a svelte 130 lbs, she stays fit with a rigorous stretching and strengthening routine (her firm body tone is evident when compared to photos of her earlier modeling, where she was very slim but not toned). Rebecca's most famous movie role so far was as the shape-shifting "Mystique" in X-Men (2000), based on the long-running comic book series about teenage mutant superheroes (that Jack Kirby started way back in 1961). To play Mystique, every day Rebecca had to start out nude, and then 2 female makeup artists would apply blue body paint, and other stick-on parts, for 8 hours a day. Rebecca told Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (1992) that things like tissue paper would stick to her hips; and one day the long hours of wearing sticky paint makeup made her so upset, that the director told her to "have a glass of white wine" and relax. Notwithstanding those technical difficulties, "X-Men" was a box-office bonanza, and Rebecca's future in films was assured.