Grammy-winning Latina pop singer Shakira was born in Barranquilla, Colombia. Her father is a Lebanese-American immigrant and her mother a native of Colombia of Italian and Spanish decent. Began her music career at the age of 12 and has won several awards in both Spanish and English categories of music. A large contributor to movie soundtracks, Shakira is popularly known for performing barefoot while on tour. She was ranked the 9th sexiest woman in the world by Stuff magazine in 2002. Steven Spielburg had wanted to cast the singer in the Catherine Zeta-Jones role of THE MASK OF ZORRO back when he was originally attached to direct it but Shakira turned him down because she didn't feel she was a good enough actress or that people would be able to understand her accent.