CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, (AFP) - Hollywood starlets Eva Longoria, Scarlett Johannson and Kerry Washington took to the convention stage Thursday to try to persuade American voters to re-elect Barack Obama.
The trio laid out ordinary early lives far from the bright lights of Hollywood with Longoria using her previous existence as a server at fast-food chain Wendy's to have a dig at Obama's Republican rival Mitt Romney.
''The Eva Longoria who worked at Wendy's flipping burgers; she needed a tax break. But the Eva Longoria who works on movie sets does not,'' she said, pressing the charge that Romney is only interested in protecting the rich.
Washington, the 35-year-old star of ''Ray'' and ''The Last King of Scotland'' was first up.
''I'm here not just as an actress but as a woman, an African-American, a granddaughter of immigrants,'' she said.
''A person who could not have afforded college without the help of student loans and as one of millions of volunteers working to re-elect President Obama!''
Next was 27-year-old Johansson, who told of her hard-scrabble childhood in New York City far from the bright lights of Hollywood.
''My father barely made enough to get by. We moved every year, and we finally settled in a housing development for lower middle income families. We went to public schools and depended on programs for school transport and lunches, as did most of my friends,'' she said.
