Anneliese van der Pol

Anneliese Louise van der Pol (born September 23, 1984) is an American actress and singer. After an early career in musical theatre, she was cast as Chelsea Daniels in the Disney Channel Original Series That's So Raven, a role that gained her renown among young audiences. Van der Pol also has a career as a singer, and Van der Pol was born in Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands to Willem van der Pol, who is Dutch and the director of the Physical Plant at the California State University in Fullerton, California, and Dyan Ross, an American from Brooklyn, New York City. Van der Pol's mother named her after Anne Frank, after visiting the house where Frank hid.[1] Van der Pol has two older sisters, Rachel and Sarah, and is of Jewish heritage.[1] Van der Pol's family moved to her mother's native United States when she was three years old, and she retains dual citizenship between the Netherlands and the United States She is fluent in English and speaks a little Dutch.[citation needed]
Van der Pol attended Washington Elementary School in Bellflower, California. Van der Pol began acting in third grade and graduated from the theater program of the acclaimed Orange County High School of the Arts. She played Eva Perón in the Buena Park Civic Theatre production of Evita in 1999, and received positive reviews from the Los Angeles Times. At fifteen years old, she was also one of the youngest actresses to play the role in a professional production.has recorded several songs for The Walt Disney Company.