Denise grew up in Downers Grove, a middle-class suburb of Chicago, where she attended Pierce Downer Elementary School and Herrick Middle School until she completed the eighth grade. Then she went to Tinley Park High School for her freshman year until at the age of 12, when her parents, Joni and Irv, moved to the San Diego area, where they still currently own a chain of coffee shops called Jitters.

She graduated from El Camino High School in Oceanside, California in 1989. She did some modeling as a teenager and briefly moved to New York where she lived in a model apartment with six other girls.
After a while she became a make-up girl for Bonné Bell. During this time she appeared in a lot of swim suit magazine articles. But being a short 5ft 6in, Denise knew that she was never going to get much further than the J Crew catalog so she moved to Los Angeles and started taking acting classes. Before long she was landing small roles in shows like Doogie Howser, MD and Saved By The Bell. more....