JEWEL BELAIR STAITE was born in White Rock, British Columbia. However, she grew up in Maui. Jewel broke into modelling via a local Sears portrait studio when her family moved to Vancouver. The young actress learned her craft at Vancouver Youth Theatre, and commercials quickly lead to guest sports and recurring roles on BC television series such as The Odyssey and The X-Files. Jewel was in high demand, according to her first agent, Robert Carrier, largely in part due to her consummate professionalism at such a young age. "Jewel landed her first few big roles because she was a complete and total professional who could cry on cue, knew all her technical skills and had a dedicated and impressive work ethic." Her guest appearance at the tender age of 13 on The X-Files as kidnapped teen Amy Jacobs in the second season episode "Obliette" made her the envy of Fox Mulder fans everywhere. "It was a tough job getting mouth to mouth from David Duchovny," Jewel said of the gig, "but somebody had to do it."

"I love acting because it allows me to be as many different people as my imagination can conceptualize," Jewel said in an interview with TeenHollywood.com, "and I can spill my guts, bare my soul and be a bitch without actually offending anyone in the real world."

Jewel was cast as rainbow-haired engineer Catalina on Peter David and Bill Mumy science fiction kids series Space Cases for cable channel Nickelodeon in 1996, however she left the series after only one season to co-star as Becca in acclaimed Disney series Flash Forward (which earned her a 1998 Gemini Award nomination), which was shot on location in Toronto and aired on Disney-owned ABC network, as well as Disney Channel and Fox Family Canada. Jewel co-stared with future Sith Lord Hayden Christenson in Higher Ground, another family-friendly cable series starring Dr. Quinn alum Joe Lando, and Canadian actress Anne Marie Loder (Due South). "Jewel is one of our most interesting characters," Lando said of his young co-star. "And probably the most adult of all of us on the show. She's an old soul and very interesting and I think she brings a lot to Daisy." Ann Marie Loder concurred. "Jewel is a 30 year old woman in a 17 year old body. She's very smart and a lovely personality. Definitely an old soul."

Kaywinnit Lee Frye, Serenity's mechanic, was described in the pilot script as "young, zaftig, as cheery as she is sexy." According to fellow Canadian co-star Nathan Fillion, Staite was actually asked—in a nice reversal of the usual Hollywood mentality—to gain weight. "They have contractually asked her to keep weight on," Fillion explained in a January interview with Starlog. "They want [Kaylee] to be a little heavier, like maybe 10 pounds, because they don't want Kaylee to look like a skinny waif. But she's a little girl, so she has the right to work on that. She has started eating. I remember coming up to her on set one time and she was chowing down on a big doughnut. I said, 'Hey, how you doing?' She just said [dejectedly], 'Full!' and kept chowing down on the doughnut."

Fillion went on to say that "Kaylee represents those things that Mal has lost: hope, a wide-eyed wonder at life, the ability to see beauty and happiness everywhere. He has lost all that, and I think that's one of the reasons he keeps Kaylee around. She keeps it alive for him."

"Kaylee is not your typical mechanic or engineer; she's very much a girly-girl, has her crushes just like every other young girl," Staite told fans in an interview at Fireflyfans.net in July. "The only difference is, she's has to wear the jumpsuit so she can do her work, and she's always got grease on her face. I like that she's so good at her job, but she maintains this femininity."

When asked to describe the series in a brief interview for the official Firefly website, Staite was pensive. "The newest thing I've discovered about this show is that it's a family drama. And you wouldn't know it, you know, from the first episode, and the second episode, even the third episode. But now we're getting into this real family attitude--as actors, we're working together like a family--and it's really coming across on film. It's really interesting, you know? It's very much a family drama, I would say. Except we're up in space and we have guns and stuff."

An accomplished singer, Staite had a steady gig singing swing and jazz at The Marquee Grill in Vancouver, between acting gigs. She relocated to Los Angeles while Firefly was in production, however rumour has it she has headed back up to Hollywood North since production wrapped and the show went on hiatus. After losing an uncle to AIDS, Staite serves as National Youth Spokesperson for the Children With Aids Project of America (CWA) which offers a variety of services for children infected with or affected by AIDS or drug-exposed infants who will require foster or adoptive families. She is engaged, and plans to marry in Hawaii in spring, 2003.