She has appeared in several music videos for artists like Will Smith. Mendes has been a model and ambassador for Cocio chocolate milk, Magnum ice cream, Calvin Klein, Cartier, Thierry Mugler perfume, Reebok, Campari apéritif, Pantene shampoo, Morgan, and Peek & Cloppenburg. She designs a fashion collection for New York & Company and is also the creative director of CIRCA Beauty, a makeup line sold at Walgreens.\n', '

Mendes was born in Miami, Florida, to Cuban parents Eva Pérez Suárez and Juan Carlos Méndez, and raised by her mother in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale after her parents\' divorce. Mendes was raised a Roman Catholic and at one time even considered becoming a Catholic nun. Her mother worked at Mann\'s Chinese Theatre and later for an aerospace company, and her father ran a meat distribution business. Mendes had one older brother, Juan Carlos Méndez, Jr. (1963–2016), who died from throat cancer. She also has an older sister, Janet, and a younger paternal half-brother, Carlos Alberto "Carlo" Méndez. She attended Hoover High School in Glendale, and later studied marketing at California State University, Northridge, but left college to pursue acting under Ivana Chubbuck.\n', '

Mendes began her acting career after a talent manager saw her photo in a friend\'s portfolio. Her first film appearance was in the direct-to-video Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror. Mendes was disappointed in her performance and she hired an acting coach. She then appeared in the films A Night at the Roxbury, My Brother the Pig, Urban Legends: Final Cut, and Exit Wounds.\n', '

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