Being born to an struggling actress didn't exactly equal a fairy tale beginning for Hildi Leeman. While most people assume that being the daughter of an actress would mean an easy childhood and a life of luxury, Hildi's upbringing was entirely different. Vanessa Leeman was a struggling actress, gaining minor popularity from a teen television show. When the television show ended, after 9 seasons, she went from being a teen sensation to being a struggling actress looking for work. It was a transition that Vanessa didn't make well. When she met the man who would be the father of Hildi, it was a fling, one that shouldn't have ended with a pregnancy. The relationship ended a few months after it started, and a month later, Vanessa realized she was pregnant.
It wasn't exactly an easy choice to not tell the father she was pregnant, but one that she felt was necessary. He was a rising writer/director who wasn't prepared, nor was he interested in becoming a father. She always said she would tell him when the time was right. That conversation was a conversation she never had. She was 20 years old, and not at all ready to be a mother, but she knew she had no choice. She would raise Hildi the best way she knew how. By 21 she was a mother of a baby girl with blonde curls and big blue eyes.
Vanessa struggled with the fact that she at the completion of her television show didn't have the same success that she once had. She was back at square one, auditioning for small parts, being cast as extras in horrible made for tv movies, taking any job she could just to make ends meet. Hildi spent most of her childhood alone in a tiny 2 bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. Her mother would occasionally make sure she knew that her lack of success wasn't primarily because she had got pregnant, but the pregnancy didn't help in any way. Hildi grew up knowing that fame was fleeting, and that her mother would do just about anything to be back on top, including jumping from one relationship to another, dragging her daughter through the revolving door of men who assured her they would make her a star.
By the time Hildi was 13, her mother had married the only man who she would ever know as "dad". Ronald Johnson was a television producer, and would become instrumental in not only her mother's successful television career, but in the starting out of Hildi's career. Acting was in Hildi's blood, and was her only saving grace. She lived her life in an imaginary world of books and screenplays. Vanessa's marriage to Ronald provided her the ability to attend a performing arts high school in Beverly Hills, and opened the doors to acting coaches and other luxuries that Hildi had never known before.
Hildi excelled in school, and learned to channel all the frustration and anger of a non-existent mother, and a father she never knew into her craft. Her father was always a mystery to her. Vanessa had told her once, after having far too many drinks to be having a talk with her daughter, that her father was a director. She wouldn't reveal his name, and would only tell Hildi that he didn't want anything to do with her. This would become something that would haunt Hildi every day.
In 2005, Hildi was cast as Bridget in the teen comedy/drama The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants based on the series of the same name. This was the role that Hildi needed to jump start her career. Her career hasn't been easy, but Hildi doesn't take it as seriously as her mother would like. She is aware that fame can come and go, and although she enjoys the benefits of doing something she loves, she isn't concerned about the outcome. She has always made a choice to choose her roles based on if the script speaks to her, and not how it will affect her career. Her mother, now retired from acting (for the time being) acted as her manager until 2009. In a very public battle over money, their relationship is rocky at best.
