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With clouds of paparazzi camped out at the Four Seasons, Jennifer Lopez's two month stay in Toronto last year could be termed profitable, if not always enjoyable.

The Booty from the Bronx was earning her biggest payday yet, US$7.5 million to star in the movie Angel Eyes -- opening this week -- in which she plays a cop whose life is saved by a mysterious stranger (Jim Caviezel) who might be an angel.

While shooting here, her relationship with rap mogul Sean "Puffy" Combs was reeling from the then-recent shootout in a New York nightclub (a bullet missed her by 46 cm). Eventually the couple would call it quits.

She's now one of the hottest commodities in the entertainment world, having had both the top-selling CD and No. 1 box-office movie in the same week earlier this year.

So how did Lopez become the queen of all media? Here's a career timeline for Hollywood's highest-paid Latina:

1970: On July 24, Jennifer is born in the Castle Hill district of the Bronx to Puerto Rican-born computer technician David Lopez and his wife Guadalupe. She is the second of what would be three daughters (older sister Leslie is a housewife and sometime opera singer, while younger sister Lynda is a VH-1 VJ).

1975: After seeing West Side Story on TV, little Jennifer convinces her mother to let her take dance lessons. "When I said I wanted to be a performer, people went, 'Yeah, right,' " she told Interview mag. "You don't do that where I'm from."

1986: With 11 years of dance and acting lessons behind her, a high school kid takes to the audition circuit, making daily commutes on the '6' train from the Bronx to Manhattan (hence the eventual name of her debut album, On The 6).

The rail-riding pays off with her first movie role at age 16, in My Little Girl, in which Mary Stuart Masterson plays a rich kid who volunteers to counsel troubled inner-city teens. Jennifer plays a teen named Myra.

1990: J.Lo's break comes when choreographer/homegirl Rosie Perez auditions "Fly Girls" for the Wayans' sketch series, In Living Color. Picked from 2,000 auditioners, Jennifer moves to L.A., but is soon lonely. High school boyfriend David Cruz shows up to comfort her and moves in for five years. "I got along great with everybody on the show, except the Fly Girls," Lopez later says. "Dancers can be the bitchiest people in the world."

1993: Jennifer signs a deal with CBS and co-stars in two unsuccessful TV series within a year, Second Chances with Connie Sellecca and Megan Follows, and Hotel Malibu with Joanna Cassidy. The second series actually was spun from the first after the Northridge Quake destroyed Second Chances' set.

1994/1995: She gets two noteworthy gigs, a supporting role with Jimmy Smits and Ed Olmos in My Family, Mi Familia, Gregory Nava's acclaimed multi-generational film about a Latino family in America; and the "girl they fight over" role in Money Train with Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes. She later says Snipes aggressively came on to her during filming.

1996: Jennifer is cast as teacher Miss Marquez in the weepy Robin Williams movie Jack, directed by Francis Coppola.

On the eve of that movie's release comes bigger news. She has been cast as Selena, the slain Tejano music superstar and a modern-day saint in Mexico. The casting erupts into a firestorm when Chicana actresses (Salma Hayek for one) complain about a Puerto Rican being cast as a Mexican icon. "They never complain to my face," a feisty Jennifer tells The Sun in a 1997 interview. "I can box." She receives $1 million for the role.

1996/97: While shooting in Miami playing Jack Nicholson's love interest in Blood And Wine, Jennifer and friends eat at Gloria Estefan's restaurant, Lario's, where she falls for the waiter, 24-year-old Ojani Noa. Months earlier, the Cuban-born Noa had floated to Florida on a balsa-wood raft.

"Sex was like bathing in champagne. We did whatever two humans could possibly do," he later tells the tabloid Globe. She proposes to him while filming Anaconda in Brazil.

The wedding in Miami on Feb. 22, 1997 is attended by 250 guests, including Ed Olmos and Oliver Stone (who had just cast Jennifer in his movie, U-Turn).

The marriage lasts 18 months, though Noa said she phoned to ask for a divorce six months after the "I do's." The call came while she was filming Steven Soderbergh's Out Of Sight with George Clooney. Her salary was $2 million. "I think wealth got in the way," she told Playboy of her failed marriage.

As the year ends, People magazine declares Jennifer Lopez one of "The 50 Most Beautiful People In The World."

1998: The world discovers J.Lo's butt. The London Sunday Times runs a piece about re-thinking women's body images and refers to "her backside, her butt, her rear, her rump, her posterior, her gorgeously proud buttocks." Reviewing Out Of Sight, the L.A. Weekly reviewer notes, "Lopez, whose spectacular a-- juts out as expressively as her swollen mouth, is terrific." By the next year, when Grammy host Chris Rock quipped that she'd arrived in two limousines, "one for her and one for her a--," J.Lo's skin had worn thin. "At every single awards show for the past year, everyone has made the same joke. It's tired, you know? Get some new material."

Also in '98, J.Lo makes an appearance in the video for Been Around The World by Sean "Puffy" Combs. The two begin a relationship which they both take pains to publicly deny.

As the year ends, the Diva creates controversy when she cuts loose in Movieline about her peers. On Gwyneth Paltrow (whose career, she hints, wouldn't have happened without Brad Pitt): "Tell me again what she's been in. I swear to God, I don't remember anything she was in." On Winona Ryder: "I was never a big fan of hers." On Madonna: "Do I think she's a great actress? No." On Cameron Diaz: "

"A lucky model who's been given a lot of opportunities I just wish she would have done more with."

Lopez makes enemies. A year later, J.Lo would show up late to a Millennium New Year's party at Donatella Versace's house in Miami. Fellow guest Madonna yelled, "Dinner's over now!" to her as she entered. Madonna and Gwyneth and friends then pointedly left the dinner area and reportedly froze Jennifer out.

1999/2000: 1999 has its highs and lows for J.Lo. The high is the aforementioned On The 6, a ready-for-radio album championed by Sony boss (and the former Mr. Mariah Carey) Tommy Mottola. The album, featuring a duet with Marc Anthony, knocks Ricky Martin off his No. 1 spot on the charts.

The low comes on Dec. 27 when J.Lo joins Puffy and his entourage at the hip-hop spot Club New York. At about 2:30 a.m., shots are fired during a dispute between Puffy's rap protege Shyne and another man. Three people are wounded. At one point, Puffy reportedly offers his driver a diamond ring, given to him by Jennifer, as a bribe if he claims Puffy's gun is his. All involved, including Jennifer, are arrested, although she is subsequently released. Eventually, Shyne would be convicted of attempted murder and Puffy is cleared.

Suddenly, J.Lo becomes a symbol of women attracted to bad boys. She's the inspiration for countless relationship articles. The Puffy/J.Lo affair is now everybody's business.

Elsewhere in her life, business is booming. In February 2000, she gains worldwide attention by showing up at the Grammys wearing a flimsy, extremely low-cut green dress.

The psycho thriller The Cell comes out in summer 2000 to good reviews. In addition to filming Angel Eyes in Toronto last summer, she begins filming Michael Apted's Enough, "about an abused woman who fights back."

2001: In January, her second album -- J.Lo -- debuts almost simultaneously with her latest movie, The Wedding Planner. They put her on top of the music charts and box office at the same time. The Wedding Planner, a romantic comedy co-starring Matthew McConaughey, winds up grossing $60 million.

Puffy is history, her new man is dancer Chris Judd.

Most recently, Jennifer Lopez announced her own line of clothing with Tommy Hilfiger's brother Andy (featuring tight T-shirts and studded jeans). And she has signed to star as an FBI agent in the thriller Tick Tock, due to start filming in the fall.

This Friday, her latest movie -- Angel Eyes -- is released in theatres.

How Jennifer Lopez became a music and movies superstar