Carrie Ann Inaba

I couldn't list a single profession for Carrie Ann Inaba in the title of this blog entry, because she's done a lot of different things.   

She's been a dancer, an actress, a choreographer, a talk show host . . . lots of stuff.

Anyway, she's been a dancer in numerous movies, and her dancing and acting talents led her to appear in not one, but two Austin Powers movies.  She had a small role in 1999's Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me in which Austin goes back to the 1960s, and she had a slightly larger role in 2002's Austin Powers: Goldmember, in which Austin finds himself in the 1970s.  In the latter movie, her character's name is . . . an expletive pun.  I won't repeat it here.

Ms,. Inaba got her start as one of the "Fly Girls" on the sketch-comedy show "In Living Color" (as did Jennifer Lopez, an earlier honoree on this blog), and, appropriately enough, she's a judge on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars."

And if that weren't enough, she's a co-host on CBS's lady chat show "The Talk," the Big Eye network's answer to ABC's "The View."

Fun fact: Ms. Inaba is of Irish, Chinese, and Japanese descent, having been born and raised in Honolulu.  As she was born in 1968, I can't help but wonder if she was named for the Hollies song "Carrie Anne," which came out a year earlier.