Giada Pamela De Laurentiis (; born August 22, 1970) is an Italian-American chef, writer, and television personality. She was the host of Food Network's Giada at Home. She also appears regularly as a contributor and guest co-host on NBC's Today. De Laurentiis is the founder of the catering business GDL Foods. She is a winner of the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle Host and the Gracie Award for Best Television Host. She was also recognized by the International Hospitality Institute as one of the Global 100 in Hospitality, a list featuring the 100 Most Powerful People in Global Hospitality. Early life Giada Pamela De Benedetti was born on August 22, 1970, in Rome, Italy, the eldest child of actress Veronica De Laurentiis and her first husband, actor-producer Alex De Benedetti. De Benedetti was a close associate of Giada's maternal grandfather, film producer Dino De Laurentiis. As a child, Giada often found herself in the family's kitchen and spent a great deal of time at her grandfather's restaurant, DDL Foodshow. Her parents were married in February 1970 but were later divorced. After her parents' divorce, Giada and her siblings moved to Southern California, where they took their mother's surname. After graduating from Marymount High School in Los Angeles, De Laurentiis attended the University of California, Los Angeles, earning her bachelor's degree in social anthropology in 1996. Her maternal great-grandmother was English and her grandmother was British-Italian film star Silvana Mangano. Her paternal grandmother, Pamela De Benedetti née Leslie-Jones (1923-1998), was also English. Her siblings include sister Eloisa, a makeup artist, and brothers Igor and Dino Alexander II, a Hollywood film editor who died of melanoma in 2003. Her stepfather is producer Ivan Kavalsky. Career De Laurentiis studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, with aspirations of becoming a pastry chef. After returning to the United States, she became a professional chef working in several Los Angeles restaurants, notably the Wolfgang Puck-owned Spago. She later worked as a food stylist and was contacted by the Food Network after styling a piece in Food & Wine magazine in 2002. Her daytime cooking show on the Food Network, Everyday Italian, premiered April 5, 2003. On Chefography, a Food Network biography program, she said she never wanted to be in her "family business" of show business, and that she felt uncomfortable in front of the camera when she first began hosting Everyday Italian. When