Cyrus, Miley

▪ 2009

Destiny Hope Cyrus; Miley Ray Cyrus 

born Nov. 23, 1992, Franklin, Tenn.

      Fifteen-year-old actress and singer Miley Cyrus spent much of 2008 dealing with the pressures of megafame. Though already well known to the preteen demographic for her wildly successful cable TV show Hannah Montana and its related sound track albums, she gained wider exposure as her song “See You Again” crossed over to the pop charts early in the year. She also found herself embroiled in controversy as several sets of photos of her, including one taken by Annie Leibovitz and published in Vanity Fair magazine, were denounced as risqué and inappropriate. She managed to deflect some of the unwanted attention, however, with the summer release of another album, Breakout.

      Cyrus was born to country singer and actor Billy Ray Cyrus and his wife, Tish, and she grew up on her family's farm outside Nashville. Her sunny disposition as a child earned her the nickname “Smiley Miley.” Though her father was initially reluctant to let her follow in his show business footsteps, at the age of nine she landed a role in an episode of his TV series Doc and another role in the film Big Fish.

      In 2005 Cyrus auditioned for the lead role in Hannah Montana, a Disney Channel series about a girl who leads a double life as a normal middle-school student and, with the help of a blonde wig, a glamorous pop singer. Though initially deemed by executives to be too small and young for the character, she persisted and won the part. The show debuted the following year (featuring Billy Ray as her TV dad) and became an immediate sensation, scoring record ratings for cable television and turning the 13-year-old into a bona fide star. Aiming to capitalize on the show's obvious youth-market appeal, a sound track album featuring the music of Hannah Montana was released in 2006 and eventually sold more than three million copies. It was followed by the equally successful Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus (2007), which was packaged as a double CD with half of the material under Cyrus's own name.

      In late 2007 Cyrus embarked on a national tour called Best of Both Worlds in support of her latest album. Two concerts from the tour were filmed and presented as a 3-D movie, which made more than $30 million in its opening weekend despite having been released only to select theatres. Among Cyrus's plans for 2009 were a feature-length Hannah Montana movie and an autobiography to be published by Disney-Hyperion Books. According to People magazine, the Miley Cyrus franchise was projected to be worth $1 billion in the 2007–08 fiscal year.

John M. Cunningham

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