Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder (born October 29, 1971) is a two-time Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning American actress.

Ryder made her screen debut in Lucas (1986) playing a teenage girl with a crush on the film's title character. In 1988, she received attention for her role in Beetlejuice as a Gothic teenager named Lydia. After making various appearances in film and television, Ryder received her breakthrough role in the cult classic black comedy, Heathers (1989) alongside Christian Slater. Her subsequent performances in films such as Edward Scissorhands (1990), Mermaids (1990), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Little Women (1994), The Age of Innocence (1994), and Girl, Interrupted (1999), have won her not only critical acclaim but also many film awards. In 2000, Ryder received her Star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California, certifying her as one of the most successful actresses of her time.. So far she has received a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and two Academy Award nominations in 1993 and 1994, respectively.

Ryder is also known for her high profile romance with Johnny Depp in the early 1990s. Her film career slowed down considerably after her arrest for shoplifting from a Saks Fifth Avenue store on December 12, 2001 — which attracted worldwide media attention. Despite the negative publicity, however, Ryder maintained a moderately successful film career well into the 2000s.

Born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, she was named after the nearby city of Winona. She was given her middle name, Laura, because of her parents' friendship with Aldous Huxley's wife, Laura Huxley. Her mother is Cindy Horowitz (née Istas), a practicing Buddhist and author of 'Shaman Woman, Mainline Lady: Women's Writings on the Drug Experience', and her father is author and editor Michael Horowitz. Her paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Records show her father's family were originally named Tomschin when they arrived on the Kroonland at Ellis Island in 1906, but went under the name Horowitz when they resided in Manhattan. Ryder has one sibling, a younger brother, Yuri (named after Yuri Gagarin), an older half-brother, Jubal, and an older half-sister, Sunyata. Notable family friends include her godfather, LSD guru Timothy Leary, and beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

In 1978, when Ryder was 7 years old, she and her family relocated to Rainbow, a commune near Elk, California, where they lived with seven other families on a 300-acre (1.2 km²) plot of land. As the remote property had no electricity or television sets, Ryder took to reading. Her mother did, however, show her some films on a screen in the barn and consequently, she developed an interest in acting.

At age ten, Ryder and her family moved on again, this time to Petaluma, California. During her first week at the Kenilworth Middle School, she was bullied by a group of her peers who mistook her for an effeminate, scrawny boy. As a result, she ended up being homeschooled that year. In 1983, when Ryder was twelve, she enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater in nearby San Francisco, where she took her first acting lessons. She graduated from Petaluma High School with a 4.0 GPA.

Ryder has also revealed that she suffers from aquaphobia due to the trauma caused by an incident in which she nearly drowned at age 12. This caused problems when she had to act in some of the underwater scenes in Alien: Resurrection in 1997, and the scenes had to be reshot numerous times.

Ryder has had many high profile relationships with actors. She was engaged to actor Johnny Depp for three years beginning in July 1990.During their relationship, Depp had a tattoo placed on his arm reading "Winona Forever," which he had altered to "Wino Forever" after their separation. Ryder later had serious relationships with Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner and actor Matt Damon. Ryder also told W Magazine in a July, 2002 issue that she is close friends with comedian and actor Jimmy Fallon. She was also close friends with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, until they reportedly "grew apart"

Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg (born November 13, 1955) is an American actress, comedian, radio DJ, and author.

Goldberg is one of only ten individuals who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award, counting Daytime Emmy Awards. She is the second African American female performer to win an Academy Award for acting (the first being Hattie McDaniel); she has also won two Golden Globe Awards. On the August 1, 2007 broadcast of The View, Barbara Walters introduced Goldberg as the show's new moderator as of September 4. Meredith Vieira and Rosie O'Donnell previously held the position.

Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in New York City, daughter of Emma (née Harris), a nurse and teacher, and Robert James Johnson. Goldberg's mother was a "stern, strong and wise woman" who raised her as a single mother after Goldberg's father left the family.Her stage name was taken from "whoopie cushion", which she initially wanted as her name; she stated that "If you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from." She chose the surname "Goldberg" after Jewish ancestors of hers who bore the surname, having said that "Goldberg's a part of my family somewhere". A DNA test traced most of her ancestry to the Papel and Bayote peoples of Guinea-Bissau.

Goldberg's on-screen talent first emerged in 1981-82 in Citizen : I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away, an avant-garde ensemble feature by San Francisco filmmaker William Farley. Goldberg created The Spook Show, a one-woman show devised of different character monologues, in 1983. Director Mike Nichols was instantly impressed and offered to bring the show to Broadway. The self-titled show ran from October 24, 1984 to March 10, 1985 for a total of 156 sold-out performances. While performing on Broadway, Goldberg's performance caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg. He was about to direct the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple written by Alice Walker. Having read the novel, she was ecstatic at being offered a lead role in her first motion picture. Goldberg received compliments on her acting from Spielberg, Walker, and music consultant [[Quincy Jones. The Color Purple was released in the late autumn of 1985 and was a critical and commercial success. It was later nominated for 11 Academy Awards including a nomination for Goldberg as Best Leading Actress. The movie did not win any of its Academy Award nominations, but Goldberg won the Golden Globe Award.

At age 18, following Goldberg's marriage to Alvin Martin who was 16, their first and only child Alexandrea was born c.1973. After Goldberg's failed marriage to Martin, she moved to California and helped found the San Diego Repertory Company, where she used the name, Whoopi Cushion. Before making it as an actress, she worked as a bank teller, a bricklayer and in a mortuary. Goldberg later went on to marry David Claessen but they divorced in 1988. Goldberg's daughter, Alexandrea, gave birth to a baby girl named Amarah Skye, born on November 13, 1989, Goldberg's birthday. Whoopi later married Lyle Trachtenberg, but their marriage lasted only one year. In 2000, Whoopi broke up with her boyfriend of five years, Frank Langella. Alvin Martin also has 2 other children from her marriage.

Goldberg was briefly involved with Ted Danson, who was married at the time and caring for his wife following her stroke. There was controversy following his stint at a comedy club, performed in blackface, despite the fact that his script was written by Goldberg.

Goldberg is the godmother of the Royal Caribbean International cruise ship Serenade of the Seas, and is currently a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Woody Harrelson

Woodrow Tracy "Woody" Harrelson (born July 23, 1961) is an American Emmy Award winning and Academy Award nominated actor.

Although best known for his role as Woody Boyd in the 1980s sitcom Cheers, he has also earned acclaim for his roles in films such as as Natural Born Killers, The People vs. Larry Flynt, and A Prairie Home Companion.

Harrelson was born in Midland, Texas, to contract killer Charles Voyde Harrelson and Diane Lou Oswald, who divorced in 1964; he has two brothers, Jordan and Brett, the latter of whom is a professional motorcycle racer. Harrelson grew up in Lebanon, Ohio, with his mother. Harrelson attended Lebanon High School and later Hanover College in Indiana, becoming a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Theater Arts and English in 1983.

In 1985, Harrelson married Nancy Simon, daughter of playwright Neil Simon, in Tijuana. The two intended to divorce the following day, but the storefront marriage/divorce parlor was closed when they had returned to it, and the two remained married for ten months. On January 11, 1998, Harrelson married Laura Louie, his former assistant and a co-founder of Yoganics, an organic food delivery service. The couple, who have been together since 1990, have three daughters, Deni Montana (born March 5, 1993), Zoe Giordano (born September 22, 1996), and Makani Ravello (born June 3, 2006). When announcing Makani's birth, the couple referred to the three as their "goddess trilogy."

Harrelson's father, Charles Harrelson, was a freelance hitman. He was accused of murdering a Texas businessman when Woody was just seven years old and was convicted of the crime six years later. When Harrelson was in college, his father received two life term sentences for the killing of a federal judge. His father died in prison of a heart attack on March 15, 2007.

Will Smith

Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. (born September 25, 1968) is a Golden Globe and a two time Academy Award-nominated American actor, and a multiple Grammy Award-winning hip hop artist. He is one of a small group of people who have enjoyed success in three major entertainment media in the United States: feature films, television, and the music industry. Newsweek has named him the most powerful actor on the planet.

Smith's most notable television role was that of "Will" Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In his film work, his notable roles include Agent J in Men in Black and Men in Black II, Muhammad Ali in Ali, as well as his role in the blockbuster Independence Day and more recently as Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness with his son Jaden Smith.

Will Smith was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His charming and sly demeanor in school resulted in the nickname "Prince" which eventually turned into the "Fresh Prince." While still in his teens, Smith began rapping and eventually began collaborating with Jeff Townes (a.k.a. D.J. Jazzy Jeff) whom he met at a party. He attended Overbrook High School in West Philadelphia. D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince was born with Smith handling the rhymes and Townes overseeing the mastery of mixing and scratching — the combination were a pop and hip-hop hit during the '80s and early '90s.

Smith married Sheree Zampino in 1992. They had a son, Willard Christopher III, also known as "Trey", but divorced in 1995. Trey appeared in his father's music video for the 1997 single, "Just The Two Of Us." Smith married actress Jada Pinkett in 1997. Together they have had two children: Jaden Christopher Syre (born 1998), his co-star in The Pursuit of Happyness, and Willow Camille Reign (born 2000). Along with his brother, Harry Smith, he owns Treyball Development Inc., a Beverly Hills-based company named after his first son. He has been consistently listed in Fortune Magazine's "Richest 40" list of the forty wealthiest Americans under the age of 40. Smith and his family reside on Star Island (Florida) in Miami, Florida, Los Angeles, Stockholm, Sweden and in Philadelphia. He helped the community by giving money to Katrina victims. Smith is politically liberal and has made several large donations to the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama.

On July 2, 2005, Smith served as host for the Live 8 concert in his native Philadelphia in front of an enormous crowd, and later performed a set with DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Smith also produced All of Us, a program loosely based on his love, life, and family in 2005.

Smith is an enthusiast for the games of chess, bingo and rummoli. He is also quite fond of video games.

Once every year Will takes his mother to Canyon Ranch spa in Tucson, Arizona for a week.

Smith remains good friends with Tatyana Ali, former co-star on Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Will was the one that mainly convinced her to enter the field of music, due to her singing shown on some episodes of the show. He also has taken credited for kick starting the career of Sam Phillips in the film business.

Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith are good friends of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, which has led to rumors that Will Smith is a believer in Scientology. He has denied that he has joined the Church of Scientology but has said:

I just think a lot of the ideas in Scientology are brilliant and revolutionary and non-religious.

Valeria Golino

Valeria Golino (October 22, 1966) is an Italian film and television ऐक्ट्रेस. Golino was born in Naples, Italy to an Italian father who was a Germanist and scholar and a Greek mother who was a painter. She grew up in an "artistic household"and was partly raised in Athens. Golino is the niece of L'Espresso journalist Enzo Golino; her brother is a musician. Golino grew up between Athens and Naples. She started work as a model in Athens and then dropped out of high school after herfirst movie, after having been discovered by the movie's director, Lina Wertmuller.

Golino obtained her first starring role in 1985's (Little Fires) and won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival for Storia d'amore in 1986. She began to work in Hollywood in 1988 with the movie Big Top Pee-wee and received roles in such prominent films such as Rain Man as the love interest of Tom Cruise and the comedy films Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux co-starring with Charlie Sheen. She had also been considered for the starring role in Pretty Woman but the role went to Julia Roberts because Golino still had a very thick Italian accent.

She performed the song "The Man I Love" in the movie Hot Shots!. More recently, she had a supporting role in the succesful French thriller 36, Quai des Orfèvres.

At various times she has been involved with director Peter del Monte (1985–87), actor Benicio del Toro (1988–92), actor Fabrizio Bentivoglio (1993–2001), and actor Andrea Di Stefano (2002–?). She currently is involved with Riccardo Scamarcio.

She speaks Italian, English, French, and Greek.

Viggo Mortensen

Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (born October 20, 1958) is an American-Danish theater and movie actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He may be best known for his role as Aragorn in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy।

Mortensen was born in New York. His Danish father, Vigo Mortensen (a farm manager),and American mother, Grace Gamble Atkinson, met in Norway. His maternal grandfather was Canadian. When he was two years old, he moved with his family to Argentina. They remained there until Viggo was age eleven, when his parents divorced and his mother moved back to New York. Viggo moved with his father to Copenhagen, Denmark. Viggo and his father eventually went back to the United States, and Viggo finished High School at Watertown High School. After high school, he returned to Denmark, and became a truckdriver in Esbjerg, Denmark, before, again, returning to to the United States to pursue an acting career. He attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, earning a degree in Spanish. He chose that subject because could get good grades without a lot of study, leaving him free to be in a lot of plays. At his commencement, he refused to wear an academic gown because they were made by sweatshop workers. However, after the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when he was granted an Honorary Doctorate by his alma mater, he did appear in the appropriate robes.

Mortensen has a son, Henry Mortensen, with ex-wife Exene Cervenka of the band X. Henry and Viggo have done public father/son poetry reading together as recently as April 2006. A polyglot, Mortensen is fluent in English, Danish, and Spanish, and conversant in Norwegian. He also speaks French, Italian, and Swedish reasonably well. Mortensen has dual citizenship in the US and Denmark.

Mortensen is an ice hockey fan, particularly of the Montreal Canadiens. He also loves football, and is a big fan of all time Argentinean star Diego Maradona and both the Argentine and Danish national teams, as well as Argentine club San Lorenzo de Almagro.In 1993 Mortensen went to Ireland during a break in shooting, without the consent of the production company, to watch Denmark play in an important match. He is also a fan of the New York Mets.

He has spoken out against militarism and U.S. foreign policy. In continuing with his opposition to the Bush administration's foreign policy he participated in a series of fundraisers for the Northern New York Congressional candidate from the Watertown, New York area, Bob Johnson, in September 2006.

Val Kilmer

Val Edward Kilmer(born December 31, 1959) is an American actor. A trained stage actor, Kilmer became well-known in the mid 1980s, after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! (1984), then the cult classic Real Genius (1985), as well as blockbuster action films, including a role in Top Gun and a lead role in Willow.

During the 1990s, Kilmer gained critical respect after a string of commercially successful and well reviewed films, including his roles as Jim Morrison in The Doors, Doc Holliday in 1993's Tombstone, and Batman in 1995's Batman Forever. During the early 2000s, Kilmer appeared in several well-received roles, including The Salton Sea, Spartan, and an acclaimed supporting performance in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang।

Kilmer, the second of three sons, was born in Los Angeles, California to Gladys (Ekstadt) and Eugene Kilmer, an aerospace equipment distributor and real estate developer. Kilmer has Scottish, Irish, Sephardic Jewish, Cherokee Native American (from a paternal great-grandmother), Swedish, German and distant Mongolian ancestry.Kilmer's paternal grandfather was a gold miner in New Mexico;the poet Joyce Kilmer is a second cousin of Kilmer's. Kilmer grew up in the San Fernando Valley with his two siblings, older brother Mark and younger brother Wesley, but says that even as a child growing up in California he did not like it there.

Kilmer, who was raised a Christian Scientist,attended Chatsworth High School, where he attended with Kevin Spacey, and Mare Winningham as well as Hollywood's Professional's School. He also attended Berkeley Hall School, a Christian Science school, from elementary school up until 9th grade. At the age of seventeen, he was at the time the youngest person to be accepted into Juilliard's drama program।

Kilmer was married to Joanne Whalley, an actress and former lead singer of Cindy & the Saffrons, from March 1988 to February 1996. The two met while working together on the film Willow. They share two children, daughter Mercedes, born in 1991, and son Jack, born in 1995.

Following their appearance together in Top Gun, Kilmer and co-star Tom Cruise reportedly have taken their on-screen conflict off-screen. Reports have classified the two as holding a vitriolic hatred of one another, with Kilmer even refusing to participate in a charity beach volleyball game starring the movie's cast with Cruise on the grounds that he was "dangerous", after which Tom Cruise and he physically assaulted each other for almost five minutes before it was broken up. Other actors have also noted that he prepares for his roles so extensively and meticulously, it is often done to the chagrin of cast and crew (although many have argued that this should be seen as a tremendous quality rather than a flaw). In addition, on the set of The Island of Dr. Moreau, he and the director, John Frankenheimer, had an explosive argument on-set, after which Frankenheimer stated he would never work with Kilmer again. Moreover, Marlon Brando was reportedly so incensed at Kilmer's behavior onset that he snatched Kilmer's cellphone during a take and threw it away. It was reported that exactly the same was stated by Joel Schumacher, Kilmer's director for Batman Forever (hence Batman being recast with George Clooney).

Warwick Davis, Kilmer's co-star from the 1988 fantasy Willow, defended Kilmer in his audio commentary for the film, describing Kilmer as a very funny man and a hard working, dedicated actor. He has now been cast in Davis' new movie, Agent One-Half. Kilmer is also an avid musician, and will be releasing a CD in the fall of 2007, proceeds of which will go to his charity interests.

Kilmer owns a ranch in New Mexico where he hunts, hikes, fishes, and fly-fishes. Kilmer is also involved with The Wildlife Center of New Mexico and assists in rescuing animals and releasing them on his ranch.

Uma Thurman

Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29, 1970) is an Academy award nominated American actress. She performs predominantly in leading roles in a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action thrillers. She is best known for her films directed by Quentin Tarantino. Her most popular films include Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Pulp Fiction (1994), Gattaca (1997) and the two Kill Bill movies (2003–04).

She is currently the "face" of Virgin Media in the United Kingdom and along with Scarlett Johansson, models handbags and other fashion items for clothes designer Louis Vuitton।

While living in London to avoid the Dangerous Liaisons hype, she began dating director Phil Joanou, who had just produced U2’s movie Rattle and Hum in 1988. While visiting the set of his latest project, State Of Grace, she met English actor Gary Oldman. The two hit it off immediately — even Joanou later said it was obvious that she and Oldman were meant for each other, so he stepped aside. ^{[citation needed]} The two were married in 1990, but the marriage only lasted two years, reportedly caused by the little time they spent together due to their busy acting schedules.

On May 1, 1998, she married actor Ethan Hawke, after the two met at the set of Gattaca; he subsequently dedicated his novel ("To Karuna"), to her. Prior to their engagement, Hawke had proposed twice before she accepted. Thurman herself acknowledged that they married early on because she had become pregnant; at the time of their wedding she was seven months along. The couple have two children, daughter Maya Ray (b. July 8, 1998) and son Levon Roan (b. January 15, 2002).

In 2003, Thurman and Hawke separated, and in 2004 they filed for divorce. Many news outlets reported that the cause of the divorce was because Hawke had cheated on Thurman with Canadian model Jen Perzow, after he had suspected Thurman of cheating on him with Quentin Tarantino. Hawke denied that the cause of the divorce was infidelity, saying that it was caused by their busy work schedules.In a 2004 Rolling Stone cover story, both Thurman and Tarantino denied ever having a romantic relationship, despite Tarantino once having told a reporter, “I’m not saying that we haven’t, and I’m not saying that we have”. When asked on The Oprah Winfrey Show if there was “betrayal of some kind” during the marriage, Thurman said, “There was some stuff like that at the end. We were having a difficult time, and you know how the axe comes down and how people behave and how people express their unhappiness”.

She currently resides in Hyde Park, New York. In 2004, she began dating New York hotelier Andre Balazs. At one point, they lived in a loft apartment in New York City's SoHo neighborhood, down the street from Balazs’s Mercer Hotel. Thurman also owns a townhouse in the New York neighborhood of Greenwich Village.In March 2006, Thurman’s publicist announced that the couple had split. However, they continued dating on-and-off afterwards but split finally in March 2007.