The girl who wooed Jude

Feeding her lover an icecream sundae, her blonde hair scraped back in a scruffy pony tail and with a ladder in her tights, Sienna Miller is the image of artless innocence.

Miss Miller is sharing intimate moments in New York with Jude Law, one of the world’s most desirable film stars, and there is talk of them buying a home together in London on their return.

There will be joint birthday celebrations at the end of December (she will be 22 on the 28th; he will be 31 on the 29th), and the romance is progressing so well there is even speculation about an engagement.

So who is this girl, all fair-trade ponchos and Navajo silver bracelets, who has so entranced Jude Law?

They were introduced in Los Angeles in July when she auditioned for the female lead in the remake of Alfie, and they got to know each other in London in September when the movie — starring Law in the Michael Caine role — started filming.

According to those on set, the chemistry was instant. Within a month, she had ditched her live-in boyfriend, investment banker David Neville, and was out on the town with Law, a father of three who, at the time, was still married to Sadie Frost.

A month on, and with Law’s divorce from Sadie finalised, they have set up temporary home together at the Trump Hotel in New York while filming of Alfie finishes and are said to be ‘head over heels’ in love.

‘They are having a lovely time,’ said a long-time friend of Law’s. ‘They are both very happy, and that’s nice to see after all that has happened.’

In Sienna Rose Miller, Jude appears to have found the perfect consort. She is exceptionally beautiful, welleducated and, unlike Sadie, has prospects in the film industry which appear to equal his.

While Law was one of Vanity Fair magazine’s faces of the future in 2000, with neat symmetry that accolade for 2003 has gone to Sienna.

Law describes his upbringing in Blackheath, South-East London, as ‘upwardly mobile bohemian’, and under Sadie’s influence he began to do yoga on a daily basis; now ‘hippy’ Sienna strikes a chord with his interest in the alternative.
She dresses in vintage clothes which make her look every inch the Notting Hill hippy-chick.

She also plays up her bohemian credentials in interviews, babbling about her family (‘we’re all madly creative!’), Pilates classes and growing lemon trees on her patio.

‘If I never make another film, I don’t care as long as I’m true to what I believe in, which is being kind,’ she declared. Intriguingly, Sienna is not the dreamy ingenue she might have you believe. Far from being acting’s ‘discovery of the year’, she has, in fact, been on the London party scene for several years.

Her social gadfly exploits have included dancing the night away with Princess Anne’s son, Peter Phillips, who begged for her phone number. As a model for four years, she has not been shy of using her spectacular figure to get herself noticed.

Anyone who doubts this is advised to look at the September page of this year’s Pirelli calendar, where she appears naked in a black and white photograph by Bruce Weber.

She has appeared semi-clad in lads’ magazine Maxim, and there has also been a naked appearance in an advertising campaign for U.S. fashion house Abercrombie & Fitch.

It’s a far cry from her avowed hatred of the superficial. But what is clear is that her determination to claw her way into the spotlight is no happy accident but has been aided by formidable contacts in the entertainment world.

Born in New York, Sienna’s background is wealthy and well-connected. Her mother, Josephine, a former model who lives in Chelsea, was once secretary to David Bowie, with whom she had a fling in the 1970s.

Her father, Ed Miller, a former banker with business interests in the tax haven of Bermuda, has moved back to his native New York to live round the corner from Mick Jagger’s Manhattan pad.

Sienna’s parents separated when she was five. A year later, her father moved in with the formidable designer Kelly Hoppen, and they had a daughter, Natasha, although that marriage is also now over. Sienna saw her father in the holidays - which included stints at Elton John’s place in the South of France.

Sienna says she knew from the age of three that she wanted to be an actress, and was encouraged by her mother. Aged nine, she went to board at Heathfield School in Ascot, and with her beauty and daring attitude she quickly became something of a leader.

Aged 16, she was spotted by Tandy Anderson, the owner of Select models, and, despite her relative lack of height (she is 5ft 6in), he thought her perfect. His gamble paid off: she became the face of Pepsi, and did highprofile campaigns for H&M, among others.

No doubt advised by her mother (once a Tatler cover girl) that modelling was not a career with prospects, she went to the Lee Strasberg drama school in New York when she was 18.

She won a small part in the BBC drama Bedtime, where she was deemed ‘adorable’ by the rest of the cast, though ‘she did struggle a bit with her lines’.
Then came her role in the American comedy Keen Eddie, which made her well-known enough to audition to play Nikki in Alfie.

The romance with Jude Law is clearly a dream come true, having long aspired to his social circle. Back in January, she failed to get him and his wife involved in a Fashion Against The War event.

Nevertheless, the speed of the romance has taken everyone-by surprise - Even Sienna admits: ‘It’s very flattering for me, as an actress at 21, to be doing a film with someone like him, and he’s great.’

Sienna is less emotionally complex than his ex-wife, far less demanding, and he finds her sweetness refreshing. However, Sadie Frost has reportedly said of the relationship: ‘It’s just a silly fling. It’s really not that serious.’ She now denies making those remarks.

Both sides want to maintain a truce. Remember, police were twice called to Sadie’s house during arguments earlier this year. It is a considerable advance that now they speak every day when Law rings to wish the children goodnight.
Now that Sadie is enjoying a relationship with guitarist Jackson Scott, she accepts that Jude is ready to move on, too.

A friend confides: ‘Everyone may be happy, but it has had its price. We’re happy for Jude, but there’s been an immense amount of pain to get here.’