The Alias star changes disguises, looks great in a dress, and knows martial arts. But her secret weapon? Insane likability.

(Editor’s note: Why Are They Famous? is our newest column, a biweekly analysis of celebrities and other figures in the public eye. Rather than rehashing stars’ bios, WATF both discusses their appeal and investigates what their success says about our society.)

Before the debut of Alias in 2001, Jennifer Garner was a nobody; today she’s Hollywood’s number one action heroine. Alias was the start of it all, the cloak-and-dagger/spy.vs.spy/James Bond-covert operation series in which she plays Sidney Bristow, a secret agent who dons colored wigs and kicks a lot of ass. Something about this character (I think it was the orange wig) struck a chord in TV audiences around the world. The show garnered a loyal following, won her the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV series in 2002, and is now in its fourth season. Soon after her award, she scored a role starring opposite two of Hollywood’s most popular actors, Ben Affleck (don’t groan - he is popular, however pathetic he is) and Colin Farrell in the comic book action flick Daredevil. A year later, she was headlining her own movie, taking a spin in the romantic comedy genre in 13 Going on 30. And two years after Daredevil, she is starring in the spinoff/sequel Elektra, which comes out this January. As if that wasn’t enough, she recently took the role “Jen” in the famous tabloid couple, “Ben & Jen,” replacing Jennifer Lopez and reuniting with her former costar, Ben Affleck.

Sadly enough, it is only with her latest role that she’s finally captured my attention. I tried watching Alias a few times but it was too confusing, and I slept through most of Daredevil, so I didn’t have a chance to formulate a fully realized fantasy of her red leather-clad legs wrapped around my neck. I do, however, read a lot of tabloids. Whenever I go to the airport, I like to buy a copy of US Weekly, People, In Touch, or Star - and sometimes all four. Recently, I convinced my boss to get a subscription of US Weekly for the office. And so a few weeks ago during my lunch break, while reading an article about her quickie with Ben Affleck in her trailer while filming her newest movie, A Man About Town, I thought to myself, “Why is Jennifer so popular all of a sudden? Why does Ben like her so much? Why is she lucky enough to be dating Ben, have a new movie coming out, and be on the cover of US Weekly?”

Perhaps it’s her beauty. That seems like an easy enough answer, though there are some who debate it. My girlfriend, for one, thinks Jennifer looks like a man. “Shoulders like a linebacker, a jaw bone like a Tyrannosaurus,” she said the other day when she caught me staring at the poster of Elektra in the theatre lobby. “I can see that,” I agreed, adding mentally, breasts like grapefruits, skin like butter, lips like Twizzlers, an ass like a 10-year-old boy . . .

But there is no shortage of beauty in Hollywood, right? Finding a gorgeous girl in Hollywood is about as difficult as finding a cow on a dairy farm. Maybe it’s her tremendous acting talent. Doubtful. I don’t actually want to scratch my eyes out when I watch her act, but I’d rather see her engage in mortal combat or slip out of her clothes than trade lines with Ben Affleck. No, it must be something else about Jennifer that appeals to all of her fans and to every person I’ve read about who knows her, be they her sisters, librarians from her home town in West Virginia, Hollywood agents, trainers, or even her interviewers.

People just like her. She’s wholesome. She’s sweet. She’s unpretentious. A GQ interviewer described her in a February 2003 interview as “a Lands’ End ad: jeans, black turtleneck, straight brown hair parted down the middle. No makeup. A Volvo sedan, seat belt on. Oatmeal and egg whites.” She makes fun of herself. She jokes about her big face. She doesn’t swear or tell dirty jokes and she blushes and giggles like a schoolgirl when her crew members talk about sex. Her superhero characters are forced to assume normal, secret identities. There is a hint of this off-screen as well: somehow, this mega star at the height of Hollywood fame comes across as a nice, normal girl - and it’s doesn’t seem put-on.

Part of this authenticity derives from her humble background. She was born in Houston, Texas and grew up in West Virginia, the daughter of a chemical engineer. As a child, she took ballet, played the saxophone, and competed on the swim team. She loved reading and writing so much that at one point in her youth she wanted to be a librarian. In college she planned to major in chemistry, but quickly realized her true love was drama and switched her major. She moved to New York, struggled for awhile, then moved to L.A. and scored a part on the WB series Felicity, where she met her husband, Scott Foley. The opportunity to star in Alias came her way shortly after her marriage, and that success led to other Hollywood roles in movies like Dude Where’s My Car, Pearl Harbor, Catch Me if You Can, Daredevil, and 13 Going on 30. Unfortunately, the fast pace of success put strain on her marriage and she left Foley in order to pursue more relaxing relationships, first with her Alias co-star Michael Vartan, and then with her Daredevil co-star, Ben Affleck.

The only crack in the Little House on the Prairie façade I can see is her tendency to jump from man to man like a hermit crab that changes its shell when it outgrows it. Jennifer Garner gets herself a man, then when her fame has outgrown his, moves onto a bigger and better one. Scott Foley was on his way out as soon as she signed on with Alias. Michael Vartan was history as soon as she got a taste of the publicity offered around Ben Affleck during the filming of Daredevil. And now that her new movie is about to come out, what better way to publicize it than to rekindle her romance with Affleck and score a few covers of US Weekly?

But, I’ll be honest - that’s my girlfriend talking again. She’s the one who alerted me to that trend. In my opinion, any person with half a brain knows that anything in Affleck’s orbit is bound to crash and burn. No one could be seeking that kind of exposure for its own sake, especially not a girl as centered as Jennifer seems to be. From what I can tell from the article in US Weekly, she really cares for him and is willing to take a risk because true love is worth . . .

I’ve been reading too many tabloids, clearly. I just hope that however gruesome it gets being in the paparazzi floodlight, Jennifer Garner manages to hang onto her appeal. Not that I am going to run out and rent the first season of Alias tonight or go see Elektra if I’m sober. But as far as heroines go, Jennifer Garner is pretty cool. She’s not as ugly as Linda Hamilton, she’s tougher than Halle Berry, she’s not as insane as Angelina Jolie, and she’s not nearly as annoying as Sarah Michelle Gellar.