Scuds squeeeeezzzzzzzzz close up

The dirt on Alexis Barbara
By Amalie Finlayson
March 3, 2005 - 10:44AM
http://www.smh.com.au/news/People/Scuds-love-game-partner/2005/03/03/1109700577051.html
Photo: Tony Ashby

This 18-year-old from Miami, Florida, has stolen the heart of The Scud - and accepted his proposal of marriage. But who is she, exactly?
1. Alexis Barbara, the property tycoon heiress girlfriend of Mark Philippoussis for the past five months, has just turned 18 - and accepted a marriage proposal from Mark Philippoussis, according to newspaper reports .
2. Her father is Oscar Barbara , a millionaire property developer. The son of Cuban emigres, Oscar worked from age 11 as a newspaper delivery boy, clothing store assistant and boat rental attendant, before he became a successful property developer. He is the president of Quantum Homes and the Builders Association of South Florida.
3. Alexis attended Gulliver Preparatory High School, and the University of Miami Online High School (UMOHS). She said : "UMOHS has allowed me a flexible schedule to pursue my acting career, still providing a very credible college prep education. Courses are extremely rigorous and require a lot of studying and work, yet it still allows me to study at the convenience of my schedule." A schedule that also included attending lots of tennis tournaments, presumably.
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4. Alexis' profession is variously described as model "slash" actor.
5. Alexis appears also to be a budding journalist. In an article in the UMOHS Virtual Village, she writes : "What does every high school student look forward to? Graduation! It is the day we begin a new step of our lives. It is the turning point for high school students to become adults and move onto the real world."
6. Alexis appeared in Eiffel on Campus , a "calendar full of beautiful collegiate talent", when she was 16.
The calender blurb described her thus: "Ingeneous yet charmingly haughty; and with a grade point average higher than every other but one in her class, the blossoming high school junior means business."
7. In a Florida newspaper, the St Petersburg Times, it says that Alexis' professional accomplishments include a small speaking part - well, two lines - in Paris Hilton's upcoming movie Pledge This. She apparently shot a scene for the film in which she was required to be covered in oil, but it was cut.
8. In Woman's Day in late January, this piece of important news was revealed : "While strolling down Melbourne's Chapel Street, Mark Philippoussis and girlfriend Alexis Barbara deliberately avoided Delta Goodrem's favourite ice-cream shop. Nevertheless, it's Alexis who's dealing out the sweets now, and as Mark's not playing tennis on account of a sore groin, there's no reason for him not to go for it!"
9. The ice-cream avoider travelled to Australia last year to be by Philippousis' side during his failed Australian Open campaign. She was accompanied by her mother, Ana.
10. A Barbara family friend reportedly revealed that Philippoussis had visited the teenage model in Florida and New York, and her family "loved him".