Margery Epstein / WENN

Leighton Meester in pink, pre-‘Gossip Girl’

Actress Leighton Meester pauses for a photo while being honored at an event for Los Angeles's '30 Under 30' -- that is, 30 successful people under 30 years old. This was at the Camden House in Beverly Hills, California on April 20, 2006. Leighton Meester was born in 1986, so she turned 20 the year this photo was taken. (10 years to spare!) The honor proved prophetic: the next year she began her starring turn as socialite Blair Waldorf in the soapy TV drama Gossip Girl, which ran for six successful seasons.

See our biography of Leighton Meester