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Winona Ryder

2007-09-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T06:58:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T06:56:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T06:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Tia Carrere

2007-09-04T04:22:00.000-07:00

Tia Carrere (born Althea Rae Duhinio Janairo on January 2, 1967) is a Hawaiian actress, model, and singer, most widely known for her role as Cassandra in the feature film Wayne's World and in the TV series Relic Hunter. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii of Filipino heritage, Carrere longed to be a singer as a child. Although she was eliminated during the first round of her 1985 Star Search appearance at the age of 17, she was spotted by the parents of a local producer while shopping at a Waikiki grocery store and was cast in the b-movie Zombie Nightmare.

Carrere divorced her husband Elie Samaha in February of 2000; she married again, this time to photojournalist Simon Wakelin on December 31, 2002. They have a daughter, Bianca, born September 25, 2005. Presently, she lives in Toronto, Canada.

Carrere has continued to nurture her singing career. In 1993, her first solo album, Dream, was released, and went platinum in the Philippines. That same year, she was featured on the soundtrack of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, performing the ending theme, "I Never Even Told You". In August of 2003, Carrere was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Her second album, Hawaiiana, was released in June 2007 and takes Carrere back to her Hawaiian roots with two-time Grammy Award winner Daniel Ho accompanying her on classic solo slack-key guitar and ukulele.

Téa Leoni

2007-09-04T04:20:00.000-07:00

Téa Leoni (born February 25, 1966) is an American actress. Leoni was born Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni 'teːɑ lɛ'oːniː in New York City to Anthony Pantaleoni, a corporate lawyer, and Emily (Patterson), a dietician. Leoni's mother is a native of Texas and her father is of Italian and Polish descent. Leoni's paternal grandmother, Helen "Helenka" Tradusa Adamowska (1901 - 1987), was a film and stage actress who was a member of a family of prominent musicians known as the Adamowski Trio.

Leoni states in the October 27, 2006 Life magazine that she became a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for UNICEF partially because her paternal grandmother was the president of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF for 25 years.

She married her first husband, Neil Joseph Tardio, Jr., a television producer, on June 8, 1991, at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Hope, New Jersey. The couple divorced in 1995. She married her second husband, actor David Duchovny on May 6, 1997, after a nine week courtship. Their first child, daughter Madelaine West Duchovny, was born on April 24, 1999 in Southern California, and their second, son Kyd Miller Duchovny, was born on June 15, 2002 in Los Angeles, California. During a June 14, 2007 interview on The Tonight Show, she commented on her 10 year anniversary and how 10 years in Hollywood is like "fifty years in the real world". She also revealed that she and David got tattoos on their ring fingers to celebrate their tenth anniversary. Like her husband David Duchovny, she is a vegetarian. The family lives in Malibu, California.

An asteroid, 8299 Téaleoni, has been named after her.

Tara Reid

2007-09-04T04:18:00.000-07:00

Tara Reid (born November 8, 1975) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in the films American Pie (1999), American Pie 2 (2001), National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), The Big Lebowski (1998), and My Boss's Daughter (2003). Reid was born in Wyckoff, New Jersey to Donna and Tom Reid, both of whom are teachers and day care center owners. She attended Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School then went to Ramapo High School in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. She has a younger sister, Colleen, and two brothers, Tom and Patrick (who is a twin of Colleen).Reid grew up in New Jersey.

Carson Daly made a cameo appearance in Josie and the Pussycats, in which Reid played the Pussycat Melody. The two began a romantic relationship shortly thereafter. In June 2001, Reid and Daly broke off their engagement. She previously had dated Russian hockey star, Sergei Fedorov. In the late 1990s she dated actor Steve Burton and still is close to him and his family. She briefly dated New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, New York Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey,, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Kyle Boller and tennis player Mark Philippoussis.

On the night of November 4, 2004, Reid was embarrassed by a wardrobe malfunction at a highly-publicized photo shoot at Puff Daddy's 35th birthday party at Cipriani's Restaurant in New York City, when her dress fell, exposing her left breast. Photos of Reid having larger, perkier breasts than before had been circulating the Internet for several months before the incident, igniting rumors of Reid having undergone a breast augmentation. Scar tissue was visible around Reid's nipple, confirming rumors of breast implants. The photographs were widely distributed. In August 2005, she publicly admitted getting breast augmentation surgery. In October 2006, she admitted in an interview with Us Weekly that she also had liposuction.In the interview she also discusses how her plastic surgery "went wrong," and also explains why she decided to have plastic surgery done, saying that her breasts were uneven and that she had saggy skin. In the same interview, Reid's new plastic surgeon, Dr. Steven Svehlak, reported that he performed a procedure called a doughnut mastopexy to correct her original breast augmentation.

On New Year's Eve 2006, at a large celebration in Chicago, Reid made several numerical errors in hosting the minute-long countdown for the year. A video of the incident circled the Internet

Tom Hanks

2007-09-04T04:15:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, Emmy-winning director, voice-over artist and movie producer. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies before achieving notable success as a dramatic actor in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. He is also one of only two actors in the history of film to have seven consecutive US$100 million blockbusters, the other being Tom Cruise.

Hanks was born in Concord, California. His father, Amos Mefford Hanks, was a chef and a relation of President Abraham Lincoln's mother. His mother, Janet Marylyn (née Frager), was a hospital worker; the two divorced in 1960.The family's three oldest children, Sandra, (now Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer), Rufus (now Lawrence M. Hanks, PhD, a renowned entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Tom, went with their father; while the youngest, Jim, now an actor and film maker, remained with his mother in Red Bluff, California. Both parents remarried. The first stepmother for Sandra, Larry (Rufus), and Tom came to the marriage with five children of her own. Hanks once told Rolling Stone magazine: "Everybody in my family likes each other. But there were always about fifty people at the house. I didn't exactly feel like an outsider, but I was sort of outside it". That marriage ended in divorce after just 2 years, and Amos Hanks became a single parent, working long hours and relying on the children to fend for themselves often, an exercise in self-reliance that served the siblings well.

In school, Hanks was unpopular with students and teachers alike, telling Rolling Stone magazine: "I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn't get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible". Amos Hanks remarried in 1965 to the former Frances Wong, a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children, two of whom lived with Tom during his high school years. Tom acted in school plays, including "South Pacific", while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California. Hanks studied theater at Chabot College, and after two years, transferred to Sacramento State University. Hanks told the New York Times: "Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant. I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn't take dates with me. I'd just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat, and read the program, and then get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Henrik Ibsen, and all that."

It was during his years studying theater that Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland. At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the Festival, which stretched into a three-year experience that covered everything from lighting to set design to stage management. Such a commitment required that Hanks drop out of college, but with this under his belt, a future in acting was in the cards. Hanks won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for best actor for his performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times he played a villain.

Hanks was married to Samantha Lewes from 1978 to 1987 . The couple had two children, son Colin Hanks (now an actor in his own right) and daughter Elizabeth. In 1988 Hanks married actress Rita Wilson; raised in several different Christian denominations, Hanks converted from Roman Catholicism to Orthodox Christianity when marrying Wilson.The two first met on the set of Hanks’s television show Bosom Buddies but later developed a romantic interest while working on the film Volunteers. They have two sons, Chester (Chet) and Truman. Hanks is a fan of the Oakland Raiders football team and baseball's Cleveland Indians although he used to be a Oakland Collesium, home of the Oakland Athletics, vendor.

Hanks believes that he is related to James Hanks, possibly the father of Nancy Hanks, mother of United States president Abraham Lincoln. A map of his family tree showing the purported connection can be found in the External links section. If this is true, it would make Hanks a fourth cousin, four times removed, of President Lincoln.

Hanks has stated that his favorite actor is James Stewart, someone with whose talents his are often compared.^{[citation needed]} He has said his favorite film is 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). In interviews he has said that he has seen it around thirteen times in theaters and owns the VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD releases of the film.

Tommy Lee Jones

2007-09-04T04:07:00.000-07:00

Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an Academy Award-winning American actor and director.

Jones was born in San Saba, Texas to Clyde C. Jones, an oil field worker, and Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer, school teacher, and beauty shop owner; the two were married and divorced twice. Jones, an eighth-generation Texan, has a Cherokee Native American grandparent.He was a resident of Midland, Texas and attended the same high school, Robert E. Lee High School, as the First Lady Laura Bush.

Jones graduated from the St. Mark's School of Texas (where he is now on the board of directors) and attended Harvard on a scholarship, where he lived in Mower B-12 as a freshman, across the hall from future Vice President Al Gore. As an upperclassman, he was roommates with Gore and John Lithgow in Dunster House. Jones played offensive tackle on Harvard's undefeated 1968 varsity football team, was nominated as a first-team All-Ivy League selection, and played in the memorable and literal last-minute Harvard sixteen-point comeback blitz to tie Yale in the 1968 Game. Jones graduated cum laude with a degree in English in 1969.

At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, he nominated his college roommate, Al Gore, as the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the United States.

Jones has two children from his second marriage to Kimberlea Cloughey: Victoria Kafka (born 1991) and Austin Leonard (born 1982). He was married to Kate Lardner, the daughter of Ring Lardner Jr. from 1971 to 1978. On March 19, 2001, he married his third wife, Dawn Laurel.

Jones resides in Terrell Hills, Texas, a community in San Antonio.

Tim Allen

2007-09-04T04:05:00.000-07:00

Tim Allen (born Timothy Allen Dick on June 13, 1953) is a Golden Globe-winning American comedian, character actor, voice-over artist, and entertainer perhaps best known for his role in the sitcom Home Improvement and his roles in Disney films, such as The Santa Clause and Toy Story. Allen, one of eight children, was born in Denver to Martha Katherine, a community-service worker, and Gerald Dick, a real estate agent. His father died in a car accident, colliding with a drunk driver, when Allen was eleven. Two years later, his mother married her high school sweetheart. His family moved to Detroit when he was thirteen. Allen attended Seaholm High School in Birmingham, Michigan, and Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. He later received an honorary degree, which was highlighted for the main plot of the fifth season Home Improvement episode "Is There A Doctor In The House?". During college he was arrested for cocaine trafficking and sentenced to eight years, serving 28 months.

On October 2, 1978, Allen was arrested in the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek International Airport for possession of 1.4 pounds of cocaine. He subsequently informed on other drug dealers in order to have his sentence reduced from life imprisonment to three to seven years, of which he served 28 months, in the Sandstone, Minnesota Federal Correctional Institution.

Allen was married to Laura Diebel from April 7, 1984, until their divorce in 2003; they have a daughter, Katherine, born in 1989. Diebel once served as chief executive officer of Allen's tool line. On Saturday October 7, 2006, in Grand Lake, Colorado, Allen married his girlfriend of five years, actress Jane Hajduk.

On May 24, 1997, Allen was arrested for DUI in Bloomfield Township, Oakland County, Michigan. He pleaded guilty on June 16 and was fined, sentenced to a year of probation, and ordered to seek counseling.

Tobey Maguire

2007-09-04T04:02:00.000-07:00

Tobias Vincent Maguire (born June 27, 1975) is an American actor. He began his career in the 1990s, and has since become best known for his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the Spider-Man film series.

Maguire was born in Santa Monica, California. His father, Vincent Maguire, was a construction worker and a cook. His mother, Wendy Brown, is a secretary turned screenwriter and producer.His parents were 18 and 20 years old, and unmarried, at the time of his birth; the two married and subsequently divorced when Maguire was two. Maguire spent much of his childhood moving from town to town, living with each parent and other family members. During his childhood, Maguire entertained the idea of becoming a chef and to that end wanted to enroll in a Home Economics class as a sixth grader. His mother offered him $100 USD to take a drama class instead, and Tobey agreed.

The nomadic nature of his school-age years began to take a toll on Maguire emotionally, and finally, after yet another relocation to yet another school, Maguire dropped out of his freshman year of high school and never returned, deciding to focus himself on his blossoming acting career. By 2000, Maguire had taken the GED to officially graduate from high school, noting that during his high school days, he'd reached a point where "I wasn't doing school. I was showing up, but...not really giving myself."

Maguire has been engaged to jewelry designer Jennifer Meyer, daughter of Universal Studios COO Ron Meyer, since April 2006; the couple met in 2003 while Maguire was working on the movie Seabiscuit at Universal Studios, and soon began dating. They have a daughter named Ruby Sweetheart Maguire (born November 10, 2006). Ruby's middle name comes from a childhood nickname of Meyer's given to her by her grandmother, who died a few months before Ruby's birth.

Maguire has been a vegetarian for over 14 years and is working toward a vegan diet, though he makes vegetarian changes in his diet to either gain or lose weight for movie roles, like dramatically decreasing his calorie intake for Seabiscuit followed by a rapid increase to regain the weight for Spider-Man 2.On the subject of vegetarianism, Maguire notes that "I’m close to being a vegan, but I’m not one, technically. I don’t eat eggs, or nearly any dairy--no cheese or milk. I do eat honey, and a piece of milk chocolate here and there. It’s never really been that hard for me. I’ve never had any desire to eat meat. In fact, when I was a kid I would have a really difficult time eating meat at all. It had to be the perfect bite, with no fat or gristle or bone or anything like that. I don’t judge people who eat meat--that’s not for me to say--but the whole thing just sort of bums me out."

In an article for Premiere Magazine, Sam Raimi confirmed the long-standing rumor that Maguire and his Spider-Man co-star Kirsten Dunst had "a thing" going on during the 2001 shooting of the first film. As Raimi explained for the article, "I'm so dumb, because I met with them for dinner one night during the shooting to talk about the next day's scenes. And I go, 'Okay, well, that's it for the meeting.' And then I ask Kirsten, 'Can I drive you home?' And they look at each other and she goes, 'No, no, I'm going to play a game of Touch 10 with Tobey.' I don't know, it was some game. I thought, 'That's weird. She's got to work tomorrow.'"

In 2004, Maguire took up tournament poker. He has finished in the money in several events and has been tutored by poker professional Daniel Negreanu. Maguire can be seen on ESPN's coverage of the 2005 and 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event Championship. Moreover, professional poker player Phil Hellmuth said during the June 28, 2007 episode of Poker After Dark that Tobey has won $10 million by playing poker in Hollywood. Maguire played in the 2007 World Series of Poker. He survived days 1a, 2a and 3 but was eliminated in 292th place on the fourth day, taking $39,445 in prize money. He actually ended up sitting next to another celebrity, Sully Erna, the singer of Godsmack.

Maguire loves playing basketball; he often plays pick-up games with friends (as described by author James Crotty of the alternative online travel site Monk.Com) and organizes a weekly game on Saturdays when he's both in Los Angeles and not filming a movie that day. He also enjoys watching basketball games, especially the Los Angeles Lakers, and can often be seen with fiancée Jennifer Meyer at courtside for Laker home games. As a baby gift, comedienne Ellen DeGeneres gave Maguire a special basketball motif stroller with Lexan dome to protect Ruby from errant basketballs so that the new family could enjoy the Lakers together.

In the same interview with DeGeneres, Maguire confessed to being a big fan of American Idol and particularly expressed appreciation for the talent of contestant Blake Lewis. Two weeks before the finale, he predicted that the final two would be Blake and Jordin Sparks, who eventually went on to become the final pair.

Tom Cruise

2007-09-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962), more commonly known as Tom Cruise, is an American actor and film producer. He is tied with Tom Hanks as the only actors to have seven consecutive US$100 million plus blockbusters on his résumé, and Forbes magazine ranked him as the world's most powerful celebrity in 2006. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won three Golden Globe Awards. His first leading role in a movie gallery(c) movie was 1983's Risky Business.After that, he starred in many top films and became a Hollywood celebrity. Cruise is also known for his criticism of psychiatry, and for his support of Scientology,which has attracted controversy and media interest.

Born in Syracuse, New York, Cruise has German and Colonial English ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert and Charlotte Louise Voelker; and purportedly Welsh ancestry from his paternal great-great-grandfather, Dylan Henry Mapother, who emigrated from Flint, Wales to Louisville, Kentucky in 1850.His great-great-grandmother Mary Cruise married twice. Her first husband was Dillon Henry Mapother, by whom she had six children. She remarried after Dillon's death, to Thomas O'Mara. Their son Thomas O'Mara, enumerated as such in the 1880 Census, was later known as "Thomas Cruise Mapother". The reason(s) for him changing his name are not entirely clear. Thus, from his and his wife Anna Stewart Bateman, he has Irish and Colonial English ancestry, respectively. His maternal ancestry is half Irish and half German (including Alsatian). Anna Stewart Bateman's great-grandfather was a third cousin of President George Washington and descended seven times from King Jean de Brienne of Jerusalem, once from King Louis VIII of France, once from King Henry III of England, twice from King Edward I of England and three times from King Edward III of England.

When Cruise was twelve, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sister Lee Anne with her. Cities in which Tom lived included Ottawa, Ontario (where he attended Colonel By Secondary School), Louisville, Kentucky, Winnetka, Illinois and Wayne, New Jersey. In all, Cruise attended eight elementary schools and three high schools. He briefly attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati and aspired to become a Catholic priest. He eventually graduated from Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey in 1980.

Cruise has said that he suffered from abuse as a child. He stated that when something went wrong, his father came down hard on him. He told Parade Magazine that his father was "a bully" and "a merchant of chaos." Cruise said he learned early on that his father was - and, by extension, some people were - not to be trusted: "I knew from being around my father that not everyone means me well." Having gone through fifteen schools in twelve years, Cruise, who dropped his father's name at age twelve, was also subject to bullying at school.

Cruise started acting after being sidelined from his high school's wrestling team due to a knee injury. While injured, he successfully auditioned for a lead role in his high school's production of Guys and Dolls and decided to become an actor after his success in the role. His cousin William Mapother is also an actor most known for playing Ethan Rom on Lost.

Cruise was married to Mimi Rogers (married on May 9, 1987, divorced February 4, 1990). Rogers is generally believed to be the one who introduced Cruise to Scientology.

Cruise met Nicole Kidman on the set of their film Days of Thunder. The couple married on December 24, 1990 and divorced on August 8, 2001.He and Kidman adopted two children, Isabella (born 1993) and Connor (born 1995).They separated when Kidman was three months pregnant, just shy of their tenth wedding anniversary; she later miscarried.

Cruise was next romantically linked with Penélope Cruz, the lead actress in his film Vanilla Sky. In March 2004, he announced that their relationship had ended in January.

In April 2005, Cruise began dating Katie Holmes, before announcing on 17 June 2005 that he had proposed to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. She accepted his proposal, and the couple married in Bracciano, Italy on November 18, 2006. Tom was once quoted after the MTV VMA's "I love that bitch" speaking of Katie Holmes on the red carpet.

On April 18, 2006 Katie gave birth to a baby girl named Suri at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California.Cruise stated that the name derives from the Hebrew word for "princess" (which language experts say is not correct), or the Persian word meaning red rose. (See also Sarah.) She is the first child for Holmes and third for Cruise, who (as previously mentioned) has two adopted children with Nicole Kidman.

In March of 2007, it was reported that Holmes had called friend Victoria Beckham to discuss troubles in her relationship with Cruise, and that she may have had to undergo retraining in Scientology techniques.According to one source close to Katie, Tom has told her that she needs to undergo "mommy classes", taught by Scientologists.

Sharon Stone

2007-09-02T05:25:00.000-07:00

Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress, producer, and former fashion model. She came to international attention for her performance in the 1992 Hollywood blockbuster film Basic Instinct. She has been nominated for an Academy Award and has won Golden Globe and Emmy Awards.

Stone was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania, located between Pittsburgh and Erie, Pennsylvania. The second of four children, she is the daughter of Joseph Stone, a tool and die manufacturer, and Dorothy (née Lawson), an accountant and homemaker. She has Irish ancestry,with roots in Galway.

She has described herself as "a nerdy, ugly duckling who sat in the back of the closet with a flashlight, and a set of C cell batteries. I was never a kid. I walked and talked at 10 months. I started school in the second grade when I was five, a real weird, academically driven kid, not at all interested in being social. Recess was a drag until I realized I didn't have to play, that I could lean up against a wall and read." Most of the kids disliked her because she was standoffish and did not play children's games. One day on the playground she announced, "I am the new Marilyn Monroe." Her mother once said: "Sharon has been posing from the day she arrived. She came out posing."

As a young woman, reportedly, her IQ was tested and rated at a high level of 154 points. After skipping a grade in school, she was involuntarily transferred from Saegertown High School to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, enrolling at the age of fifteen years. She returned for a visit to her college in March of 2007 for academic purposes, and there to her surprise she received an honorary doctorate from their president.

Stone lives in Beverly Hills, California, and owns a ranch in New Zealand. In March 2006, Stone traveled to Israel to promote peace in the Middle East through a press conference with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres.

On January 28, 2005, Sharon Stone helped raise $1 million in five minutes for mosquito nets in Tanzania,^[14] turning a panel on African poverty into an impromptu fund-raiser at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Many observers, including UNICEF, criticized her actions by claiming that Stone had reacted instinctively to the words of Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, because she had not done her research on the causes, consequences and methods of preventing malaria; if she had done so, she would have found out that most African governments already distribute free bed nets through public hospitals.

Of the $1 million pledged, only $250,000 was actually raised. In order to fulfill the promise to send $1 million worth of bed nets to Tanzania, UNICEF contributed $750,000. This diverted funds from other UNICEF projects. According to Xavier Sala-i-Martín, officials are largely unaware as to what happened with the bed nets. Some bed nets were delivered to the local airport. These were then reported as stolen, but later resurfaced as wedding dresses on the local black market.

Sala-i-Martín reported that later in 2005 when Stone was travelling in Africa, she was shocked to learn that a majority of African presidents are billionaires themselves. In fact UNICEF officials traveling with her said Mr. Mkapa himself, then Tanzanian president, could have simply written that check if he wanted to. Stone believes that there is no doubt that celebrity involvement in philanthropy can have many positive effects. Stone has vowed to consult with Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, two prominent philantropists, before making another effort to help another African nation. Stone hosted the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Concert.

In 2007, Stone appeared in new television commercial personifying the symptoms of a stroke.

Susan Sarandon

2007-09-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

Susan Sarandon (born October 4, 1946) is an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Sarandon was born as Susan Abigail Tomalin in New York City to Phillip Leslie Tomalin (of English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry) and Lenora Marie Criscione (who was born in Ragusa, Sicily^[2]^[3]). Susan grew up as the eldest of nine children in a large Roman Catholic family. She graduated from Edison High School in 1964, and then attended The Catholic University of America from 1964 to 1968 where she attained a BA in drama.

While in college, she met and married fellow student Chris Sarandon in 1967. They divorced in 1979 and she retained her married name as her stage name.

In the mid-1980s, Sarandon dated actor Franco Amurri, with whom she had a daughter in 1985, actress Eva Amurri.

Since 1988, Sarandon has been in a relationship with actor Tim Robbins, whom she met while filming Bull Durham. The couple have two children: Jack Henry (born 1989) and Miles Guthrie (born 1992). She and Robbins are both involved in liberal social causes.

Sarandon has expressed support for various tolerance and human rights causes. In 1995 she was one of many Hollywood actors, directors and writers who were interviewed for a documentary called The Celluloid Closet which looked at how Hollywood films have depicted homosexuality.

In 1982, she was one of several celebrities to support Jack Henry Abbott (Jack Abbott) in a trial for which he was convicted of killing Richard Adan in Manhattan the previous year.

In 1999, she was appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and in that capacity has actively supported the organization's global advocacy as well as the work of the Canadian UNICEF Committee.

In 2003, Sarandon appeared in a "Love is Love is Love" commercial, promoting the acceptance of gay, lesbian and transgender individuals.

In 2000 she supported Ralph Nader's run for President; and in 2004 she supported efforts to persuade Nader not to run for President.

Sarandon hosted a section of the Live 8 concert in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2005. In 2006, she participated in the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony by carrying the Olympic flag in Turin, Italy.

In 2007, Sarandon appeared at an anti-war rally in Washington, D.C., with people such as Tim Robbins, and Jane Fonda. Her stance was, "Let us resist this war" "Let us hate war in all its forms, whether the weapon used is a missile or an airplane."

Sarandon, and 10 of her relatives (including her significant other Tim Robbins and her son Miles), traveled to Wales to track her family's Welsh genealogy. Their journey was documented by the BBC Wales programme "Coming Home: Susan Sarandon".

Sophie Marceau

2007-09-02T05:22:00.000-07:00

Sophie Marceau /sɔfi maʁso/ (born November 17, 1966) is a French actress.

Born Sophie Danièle Sylvie Maupu in Paris, France, her career started at age 14 when Claude Pinoteau cast her in the starring role of the teenager movie La Boum (1980).

Two years later, she appeared in the sequel La Boum 2. In 1983, she was honoured with a César Award (France's equivalent of an Oscar) for "Most Promising Actress".

At age 18, she appeared in Fort Saganne (1984), in which her co-stars were Gérard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve. During the same year she acted with Jean-Paul Belmondo in Joyeuses Pâques (1984), based on the play by Jean Poiret.

She also appeared in films directed by director Andrzej Żuławski: "L'Amour braque" (1985), "Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours" (1989), "La Note bleue" (1991), and "Fidélité" (2000).

Marceau played the part of Princess Isabelle in Mel Gibson's historical epic Braveheart (1995).

Following this, she appeared in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), and as Bond girl/villain Elektra King in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999).

Marceau wrote a semi-autobiographical novel Telling Lies (2001), and tried directing as well. Making her directorial debut in a feature film, Marceau was awarded Best Director by the jury of the 2002 Montreal World Film Festival for her film Speak to Me of Love starring Judith Godrèche. Prior to this, in 1995, she had made a nine-minute short film, L'Aube à l'envers, which also starred Godrèche.

Sigourney Weaver

2007-09-02T05:20:00.000-07:00

Sigourney Weaver (born Susan Alexandra Weaver on October 8, 1949 in New York City) is an Oscar-nominated American actress. (She may have other names: she once told friends at Stanford that she had several names, two of which were "Susan".)

Weaver is the daughter of late NBC television executive Pat Weaver and Desirée Hawkins Ingles, a British actress. Her uncle, Doodles Weaver, was a comedian and actor.

She began using the name Sigourney Weaver in 1963, after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (in Chapter 3, golfer Jordan Baker tells Nick that her telephone number is listed under her aunt, Mrs. Sigourney Howard, who never appears in the book or movie). She attended the prestigious Ethel Walker School, a prep school in Simsbury, Connecticut, graduated from Stanford University, and studied law at Harvard Law School, then drama at Yale School of Drama, where she appeared in original plays by friend and classmate Christopher Durang. She later appeared in the 1981 off-Broadway production of his comedy Beyond Therapy.

Weaver married theater director Jim Simpson (The Flea Theater) in 1984. They have one child, Charlotte Simpson, who was born in 1990.

After making Gorillas in the Mist, she became a supporter of The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and is now the DFGFI's honorary chairperson.

Weaver is an environmentalist. In October 2006 she drew international attention through a news conference at the start of a United Nations General Assembly policy deliberation. She outlined the widespread threat to ocean habitats posed by deep-sea trawling, an industrial method for harvesting fish. She also narrated the Discovery Channel show Planet Earth, which focuses on the wonders of our world.

Weaver is notable for her stature, standing 6' (1.83 m) tall. She is also notable for her wardrobe: She appears at many awards shows, wearing dresses by famous designers. At one time in the 1990s, two magazines appointed her Best Dressed and Worst Dressed, respectively.

Selma Blair

2007-09-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

Selma Blair (born June 23, 1972) is an American actress. She became known in the late 1990s and has appeared in several supporting and lead roles in Hollywood films. Blair was born Selma Blair Beitner in Southfield, Michigan, to Molly Ann and Elliot Beitner, who divorced when Blair was 23; she subsequently legally changed her surname to reflect that she has "nothing to do" with her father and he is "out of" her life.She has three older sisters, Katherine (a book publicist), Elizabeth, and Marie. Blair had a Jewish upbringing and was given the Hebrew name Batsheva. As a child, Blair attended Hillel Day School in Farmington Hills and Cranbrook Kingswood school in Bloomfield Hills. She studied at Kalamazoo College from 1990–92, then transferred to the University of Michigan, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 1994. She also studied with Stella Adler.

Blair was married to musician Ahmet Zappa on January 24, 2004, in Los Angeles. She filed for divorce at the Los Angeles Superior Court on June 21, 2006, citing irreconcilable differences. In a statement to People, a spokesperson for the couple said, "Selma and Ahmet have decided to divorce but love each other very much and will continue to be close friends (People magazine) In February 2007 she spoke to people about her new relationship with actor and writer Matthew Felker.

Sarah Michelle Gellar

2007-09-02T05:17:00.000-07:00

Sarah Michelle Gellar (born April 14, 1977) is an American actress. She is probably best known as Buffy Summers in the acclaimed television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for her role in All My Children.

She has since become known as a film actress, having starred in the family film Scooby-Doo (2002) and the sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), the romantic comedy Simply Irresistible, the independent film Harvard Man (2001), the teen drama Cruel Intentions (1999) and the horror films The Return (2006), The Grudge 2 (2006), The Grudge (2004), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream 2 (1997). She was in the tv movie Beverly Hills Family Robinson (1998).

She also provided the voice of April O'Neil in the film TMNT and Ella (better known as Cinderella) in the film Happily N'Ever After.

She has also starred in several films that have yet to be released, including Southland Tales, The Air I Breathe, Suburban Girl and Addicted which according to some reports has been renamed to Possession.. She is attached to the film version of the video game American McGee's Alice.

Gellar was born in New York City, the only child of Rosellen Greenfield, a nursery school teacher, and Arthur Gellar. Both of her parents were Jewish, though Gellar's family had a Christmas tree during the holidays while she was growing up. In 1984, her parents divorced and she was brought up by her mother on the Upper East Side.

Gellar was estranged from her father from this time until his death from liver cancer on October 9, 2001. She attended New York's Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School and the Professional Children's School. Gellar held a straight-A average and became a competent figure skater. Her best friend was Melissa Joan Hart, who later was the star of the series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.

Gellar met future husband Freddie Prinze Jr. during filming of the 1997 teen horror film I Know What You Did Last Summerbut the two did not begin dating until 2000. They were engaged in April 2001 and married in Mexico on September 1, 2002 in a ceremony officiated by Adam Shankman, a film director and choreographer with whom Gellar had worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In 2004, while filming The Grudge in Japan, Gellar visited the famous Japanese swordsmith Shoji Yoshihara (Kuniie III) and bought a Katana from him as a birthday present for her husband. Gellar realized that she needed clearance from the government to remove the sword from the country, and after eventually succeeding, stated that it was "incredibly difficult" to do.

Gellar has said in interviews that she believes in God but does not belong to an organized religion. Gellar has also said in interviews that she collects rare editions of classic children's literature.

Sandra Bullock

2007-09-02T05:14:00.000-07:00

Sandra Annette Bullock (born July 26, 1964) is an American film actress. She came to fame in the 1990s, after roles in successful films like Speed and While You Were Sleeping, and has since established a career as a well-known Hollywood leading actress, with the box office comedy hit Miss Congeniality and one of her most recent film roles, in 2004's Crash, receiving critical acclaim. She is the 14th richest female celebrity with an estimated fortune of $85 million.

Bullock was born in Arlington County, Virginia to John W. Bullock, a Pentagon contractor and part-time vocal coach from Alabama, and Helga D. Meyer, a German opera singer who died of cancer on April 4, 2000; Bullock's maternal grandfather was a rocket scientist from Nuremberg. Bullock lived in Nuremberg until age twelve, where she sang in the opera's childrens' choir at the Staatstheater Nürnberg. She frequently traveled with her mother on her opera tours, and lived in Germany and other parts of Europe for much of her childhood. Bullock studied ballet and vocal arts as a child, taking small parts in her mother's opera productions.

Bullock attended Washington-Lee High School where she was a cheerleader, participated in high school theater productions and dated a football player. She graduated in 1982 and enrolled in East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. During this time she worked as a waitress at a restaurant. She left school during her senior year (Spring 1986), three credits short of graduating, to pursue an acting career. She went to Manhattan to try to get auditions and supported herself with a variety of odd jobs (bartender, cocktail waitress, coat checker).

Sandra Bullock later completed her coursework and was awarded a bachelor's degree from East Carolina University.She is fluent in German. When appearing on German TV shows, she prefers to speak English (the TV hosts speak German though).

Bullock was once engaged to actor Tate Donovan whom she met while filming Love Potion No. 9. Their relationship lasted four years. She had previously dated football player Troy Aikman, blues guitarist Guy Forsythe, Steve Buscemi, Austin musician Bob Schneider (for two years) and film co-stars, Ryan Gosling and Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey and Bullock met each other while filming A Time to Kill and became friends. They dated for a while. Some notable celebrity friends include Heather Burns and Hugh Grant.

Bullock married motorcycle builder and Monster Garage host Jesse James on July 16, 2005; they met when Bullock arranged for her ten-year-old godson to meet James as a Christmas present. On her husband and her marriage, Bullock has commented:

“

So basically through a courtship of letters... I learned about a human being. It was not something I wanted, needed, or looked for, but because he was a stronger person than I was, spiritually and on a tolerance level, I was lucky enough that he educated me... I always thought of marriage as a death sentence, that there'd be a ball and chain, and you'd be told, 'You need to stop doing these things and become a good little wife.' Now people say 'Oh my God you're going to have sex with one person the rest of your life!' I hope I have sex with him for the rest of my life - because I like it!

”

On December 20, 2000, Bullock survived the crash of a chartered business jet at Jackson Hole Airport. The aircraft hit a snowbank instead of the runway, resulting in both the nose gear and nose cone being ripped off, the right wing partially separated from the aircraft and the left wing bent back. When the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred, Bullock was staying at the Soho Grand hotel, twelve blocks from the World Trade Center. She saw the attacks from her hotel bedroom window and went to a nearby hospital to offer help. As all phone lines in New York City were down, she spent the rest of the day using her Palm Pilot to send e-mails on behalf of patients wanting to contact their families.

Bullock has twice donated $1 million to the American Red Cross, first to its Liberty Disaster Relief Fund and four years later in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis.

In October 2004, Bullock won a multimillion dollar judgment against Benny Daneshjou, the builder of her Lake Austin Texas mansion; the jury ruled the house was uninhabitable. It has since been torn down and rebuilt, and her Porsche 911 Turbo replaced by a Toyota Prius. Bullock also owns a house on Tybee Island, Georgia, which is a few miles from Savannah, Georgia. After four years of preparation, Bullock's first restaurant, Bess, opened in November 2006 in Austin, Texas.

Although she loves horses, she is allergic to them. She has a scar on her head which she received when she fell into a lake and cut her head on a rock.

On April 22, 2007, a woman was lying outside James and Bullock's Southern California home in Orange County. When Jesse James confronted the woman, she ran inside her 2004 silver Mercedes and tried to run him over 3 to 4 times. Jesse James was not hit during the many attempts to be run over. The woman is said to be an obsessed fan of Sandra Bullock. The woman, Marcia Diana Valentine, was arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon. She was released after posting $25,000 bail. A court hearing was scheduled for May 22.

Salma Hayek

2007-09-02T05:13:00.000-07:00

Salma Hayek Jiménez (born September 2, 1966) is an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated Mexican actress, Daytime Emmy-winning director, and an Emmy-nominated tv and film producer. Hayek has appeared in more than thirty films and performed as an actress outside of Hollywood in Mexico and Spain. Hayek's charitable work includes increasing awareness on violence against women and discrimination against immigrants.

In July 2007 The Hollywood Reporter ranked Hayek fourth in their inaugural Latino Power 50, a list of the most powerful members of the Hollywood Latino community. That same month a poll found Hayek to be the "sexiest celebrity" out of a field of 3,000 celebrities (male and female); according to the poll, "65 percent of the U.S. population would use the term 'sexy' to describe" her.

Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico to Sami Hayek, a Mexican oil company executive, and Diana Jiménez, an opera singer. Hayek's paternal grandparents were Mexicans of Lebanese descent, while her mother is of Spanish descent. Reflecting her Arabic heritage, her first name literally means ‘peace’ or ‘calm’ in Arabic. Raised in a wealthy, devoutly Catholic family, she was sent to the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Grand Coteau, Louisiana, at the age of 12. She was also an accomplished gymnast aspiring to compete in the Olympics but her father prevented her from being recruited by the Mexican national team. The religious sisters running the Academy ejected Hayek citing behavioral problems, so she returned to Mexico. She was later sent to live with her aunt in Houston, Texas, where she stayed until she was 17. She attended college in Mexico City, where she studied International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana. To the chagrin of her family, she dropped out to pursue a career as an actress.

At the age of 23, Hayek landed the title role in Teresa (1989), a successful Mexican telenovela that made her a star in Mexico. In 1994, Hayek starred in El Callejón de los Milagros (Miracle Alley), which has won more awards than any other movie in the history of Mexican cinema. For her performance Hayek was nominated for an Ariel Award.

Hayek dated fellow actor Edward Norton between 1999 and 2003, and then Josh Lucas in 2003. She has homes in Los Angeles and Mexico and is best friends with Spanish actress Penelope Cruz. The two co-starred in the 2006 film, Bandidas. Hayek studied at Ramtha's School of Enlightenment.

Sally Field

2007-09-02T05:11:00.000-07:00

Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is a two-time Academy Award winning American actress. She is also a two-time Emmy Award and two-time Golden Globe Award winner who became a household name at age 20 as Sister Bertrille in the 1960s sitcom The Flying Nun. She is currently starring as Nora Holden Walker on the ABC hit drama, Brothers & Sisters, as a grieving matriarch who helps out in the family business. Her newest film, Two Weeks came out in early 2007.

Field was born in Pasadena, California. Her parents, Richard Dryden Field and Margaret Field (a Southern-born actress), divorced in 1950. Her mother subsequently remarried, to actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney.

She attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California. Among her classmates were famed financier Michael Milken and fellow actress Cindy Williams (of Laverne and Shirley fame).

She has a "Feynman Number" (interpreted here as the graph-theoretic relationship "a close acquaintenance of") of two, since her brother, theoretical physicist Richard D. (Rick) Field, collaborated with Richard Feynman in the middle-late 1970s. (See Six degrees of separation.)

Field dated Burt Reynolds for many years. She was first married to Steven Craig from 1968 to 1975. In 1984, she married Alan Greisman. The couple divorced in 1993.

Field has two sons from her first marriage. Her son Peter Craig is a novelist; his brother Eli Craig is an actor and director. Her third son, Sam Greisman, is from her second marriage.

Sylvester Stallone

2007-09-02T05:09:00.000-07:00

Sylvester Stallone (born Michael Enzio Sylvester Stallone on July 6, 1946) is a two-time Academy Award-nominated American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He achieved his greatest successes in a number of action films, notably the Rocky and Rambo series. Stallone was born in Hell's Kitchen/Clinton, Manhattan, New York; the son of Jacqueline "Jackie" (nee Labofish), an astrologer, former dancer, and promoter of women's wrestling, and Frank Stallone, Sr., a hairdresser.Stallone's father was an immigrant from Gioia del Colle (province of Bari, Apulia, Italy), and his mother is of part Eastern European Jewish ancestry (her grandmother, Rosa Rabinovich, was from Odessa, Ukraine). In the 1960s, Stallone attended the American College of Switzerland, Leysin and the University of Miami for three years. He came within a few credit hours of graduation before he decided to drop out and pursue an acting career. After Stallone's request that his acting and life experiences be accepted in exchange for his remaining credits, he was granted a Bachelors of Fine Arts (BFA) degree by the President of the University of Miami in 1999.

Other famous members in Stallone's family are his brother, actor/singer Frank Stallone and his mother, Jacqueline Stallone, who achieved notoriety in the middle 1990s as an astrologer. Stallone's pet Bullmastiff, Butkus, appeared in the first Rocky film as an often-teased favorite pet of Balboa's who lived in Adrian's pet shop. Also Half-Brother: Dante Stallone born in 1997; son of Frank Stallone Sr and his fourth wife. Half-Sister: Toni-Ann Dialto,mother, Jacqueline Stallone

Stallone has been married three times, to Sasha Czack (1974–1985), Brigitte Nielsen (1985–1987), and Jennifer Flavin (1997–present). He has five children, sons Sage Moonblood and Seargeoh, who is autistic (with Czack, born 1976 and 1979 respectively), and daughters Sophia Rose, Sistine Rose and Scarlett Rose (with Flavin, born 1996, 1998, 2002 respectively). He and Flavin, an Irish-American, were married at Winston Churchill's birthplace, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England.

In addition to these marriages, he has had romantic relationships with models Susan Anton, Angie Everhart, Naomi Campbell, and Janice Dickinson. Dickinson once believed that Stallone was the father of her daughter Savannah.

Stallone claims to have been able to bench press 385-400 lbs (174.6-181.4 kg) and squat 500 lbs (226.8 kg) in his prime. While in a bench pressing contest with former Mr. Olympia Franco Columbu, he severely tore his pectoral muscle and needed over 160 stitches on it. This is why one half of his chest is more vascular than the other.

On January 14, 2007, Stallone was at Goodison Park to promote Rocky Balboa, and to watch Everton take on Reading. The match ended as a 1-1 draw. After receiving a brilliant reception from 40,000 fans he now claims to be an official Everton fan.

Steve Martin

2007-09-02T05:08:00.000-07:00

Stephen Glenn Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician and composer.

Steve Martin was born in Waco, Texas to Glenn Vernon Martin, a real estate salesman and aspiring actor and Mary Lee Stewart, a housewife. Martin was raised in Garden Grove, California and is of English, Scottish and Irish descent. As a teenager, Martin started out working at the Magic Shop at Disneyland, where he developed his talents for magic, juggling, playing the banjo and creating balloon animals. He teamed up with friend and Garden Grove High School classmate Kathy Westmoreland to do a musical comedy routine, performing at local coffee houses and at the Bird Cage Theater in Knott's Berry Farm.

Martin majored in philosophy at California State University at Long Beach, and for a while, considered becoming a philosophy professor instead of an actor-comedian. In 1967, he transferred to UCLA and switched his major to theater. Martin soon began working local clubs at night, to mixed notices. At the age of twenty-one, he dropped out of college for good. Martin periodically spoofed his philosophy studies in his 1970s stand-up act, comparing philosophy with studying geology. "If you're studying geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all, but philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life."

While attending college, he appeared in an episode of The Dating Game. His time there changed his life: "It changed what I believe and what I think about everything. I majored in philosophy. Something about non sequiturs appealed to me. In philosophy, I started studying logic, and they were talking about cause and effect, and you start to realize, 'Hey, there is no cause and effect! There is no logic! There is no anything!' Then it gets real easy to write this stuff, because all you have to do is twist everything hard—you twist the punch line, you twist the non sequitur so hard away from the things that set it up, that it's easy... and it's thrilling."Martin's girlfriend in 1967 was a dancer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. She helped Martin land a writing job with the show by submitting his work to head writer Mason Williams. Williams initially paid Martin out of his own pocket. Along with the other writers for the show, Martin won an Emmy Award in 1969. Martin also wrote for John Denver (a neighbor of his in Aspen, Colorado at one point), The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. He also appeared on these shows and several others, in various comedy skits.

Martin also performed his own material, sometimes as an opening act for groups such as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and The Carpenters. He appeared at San Francisco's The Boarding House, among other venues. He continued to write, earning an Emmy nomination for his work on Van Dyke and Company in 1976. In the early seventies, Martin embarked on an ill advised comedy tour where he was often booked into seedy venues in the Midwest as either a solo act or an opener for down and out musical groups. His father compiled an account of these awful bookings and frequently alluded to his son's difficulties in his monthly letter to his real estate clients. Occasionally Steve would be booked with other comedians, most of them very bad with ineffectual gimmicks such as ventriloquism dummies, balloons, chaotic animal acts, and musical instruments. Martin borrowed heavily from these unpleasant experiences in many of his future routines. But he states that his biggest influence has been British Television, its mostly the comedies that have inspired him, but he was also inspired by its science fiction and its dramas.

Steve Buscemi

2007-09-02T05:06:00.000-07:00

Steven Vincent Buscemi (born December 13, 1957) is an Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated American actor and film director. Buscemi was born in Brooklyn, New York, to John Buscemi, an Italian American sanitation worker and Korean War veteran, and Dorothy, who is Irish American and worked as a hostess at Howard Johnson's.He has three brothers: Jon, Ken and Michael. Buscemi was raised Catholic. He graduated in 1975 from Valley Stream Central High School in Valley Stream, New York, a school which he attended with writer Edward Renehan and actress Patricia Charbonneau. In high school, Buscemi wrestled for the varsity squad and participated in the drama troupe, at that time directed by Mr. Lynne C. Lappin. (Buscemi's 1996 film Trees Lounge, in which he not only starred but served as screenwriter and director, is set in and was largely shot in his childhood village of Valley Stream, New York.) Buscemi briefly attended Nassau Community College before moving to Manhattan to enroll in the Lee Strasberg Institute. In the early 80's Buscemi also served as a firefighter for four years with the FDNY. On March 4th 2005, Buscemi returned to his old high school where he was presented the Distinguished Alumni Award as part of the school's 75th anniversary celebration.

The day after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Buscemi showed up at his old firehouse to volunteer for recovery work at Ground Zero. That week, he worked 12 hour shifts digging through the rubble to find bodies, while refusing to do interviews or have his picture taken.

In April 2001, while shooting the film Domestic Disturbance in Wilmington, North Carolina, Buscemi was slashed and badly scarred on his face while intervening in a bar fight between his friend Vince Vaughn, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg and a local man, Timothy Fogerty, who allegedly instigated the brawl.

During his profile on the show Inside the Actors Studio, director John Waters said that he and Buscemi bear an uncanny resemblance to each other, to the point where Waters sent out Christmas cards with a picture of "himself" which was actually Buscemi dressed as him. He also (somewhat jokingly) noted that should a movie ever be made about Waters' life, Buscemi has agreed to star as Waters in the film.

Buscemi has one son, Lucian, with his wife Jo Andres.

Sean Connery

2007-09-02T05:04:00.000-07:00

Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is an Academy Award-winning Scottish actor and producer who is perhaps best known as the first actor to portray James Bond in cinema, starring in seven Bond films. Sir Sean Connery was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in July 2000.

Connery is known for retaining his Scottish accent in films, regardless of the nationality of the character played, and rugged good looks. He has repeatedly been named as one of the most attractive men alive by various magazines, though he is older than most sex symbols. He is also a vocal and visible supporter of the Scottish National Party, often campaigning for their cause of Scottish independence.

Connery was born in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh to a factory worker and truck driver father and a charwoman mother. His father, Joseph Connery, was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent with roots in County Wexford, while his mother, Euphamia "Effie" Maclean, was a Protestant. He claims he was called Sean, his middle name, long before becoming an actor, explaining that he had an Irish friend named Seamus and those who knew them decided to call him by his middle name when with Seamus.

His first job was as a milkman, with St. Cuthbert's Co-operative Society. He then joined the Royal Navy, but was later discharged on medical grounds, because of a stomach ulcer. Afterwards, he returned to the Co-op, then worked other jobs, including truck driving, labourer, artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art coffin polisher, and lifeguard.

Under the name Thom Connery, he placed third in the tall man's division of the 1953 Mr. Universe contest. Fellow competitor, Johnny Isaacs, suggested he audition for a stage production of South Pacific, which led to stage, television, and film work. A prominent television role was in Rudolph Cartier's 1961 production of Anna Karenina for BBC Television, in which he co-starred with Claire Bloom. He also acted in Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1956) starring Albert Sharpe; his first American television role was as a porter in an episode of The Jack Benny Show.

Samuel Jackson

2007-09-02T05:02:00.000-07:00

Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American Academy Award-nominated actor. Jackson came to fame in the early 1990s, after a series of well-reviewed performances, and has since become a major film star and cultural icon, having appeared in a large number of high-grossing films.

Jackson has noted that he chooses roles that are "exciting to watch" and have an "interesting character inside of a story", and that in his roles he wants to "do things [he hasn't] done, things [he] saw as a kid and wanted to do and now [has] an opportunity to do". Jackson's most recent roles were in 1408, a psychological thriller released on June 22, 2007, and Resurrecting the Champ, released on August 24, 2007.

Jackson was born in Washington, D.C. He grew up as an only child in Chattanooga, Tennessee with his mother, Elizabeth Jackson (a factory worker and later a supplies buyer for a mental institution), and his maternal grandparents and extended family. His father lived away from the family in Kansas City, Missouri and later died from alcoholism.Jackson attended Riverside High (Now Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences), a segregated school where, between the third and twelfth grades, he played the French horn and trumpet in the school orchestra. ,He later attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where he co-founded the "Just Us Theater". He graduated in 1972. Jackson married actress Latanya Richardson in 1980, whom he met while attending Morehouse College. The couple, who live in Los Angeles, California, have a daughter, Zoe, born in 1982, who is in culinary school.

Jackson is a keen basketball fan, and especially enjoys the Harlem Globetrotters and the Toronto Raptors.He also became a keen Liverpool F.C. fan after filming the movie The 51st State in Liverpool, England. Jackson enjoys playing golf, a game he has been reported to have become very proficient at. He has stated that if he had to choose any other career, he would be "on the PGA [tour] playing golf" and that it is the only place where he "can go dressed as a pimp and fit in perfectly".Jackson has also stated in an interview that he has a clause in his film contracts that allows him to play golf twice a week.

Jackson has revealed in an interview that he sees every one of his movies in theaters with paying customers claiming that "Even during my theater years, I wished I could watch the plays I was in--while I was in them! I dig watching myself work."He also enjoys collecting the action figures of the characters he portrays in his films including Jules Winnfield, Shaft, Mace Windu, and Frozone.

Jackson is bald in real life, but enjoys wearing unusual wigs in his films. For the film Black Snake Moan, he was allowed to choose the hairstyle he wanted for his character. He is a comic book and anime fan and can be seen reading a copy of the comic book 100 Bullets in the music video for Snakes on a Plane (Bring It) by Cobra Starship.

In a recent trip to speak with Head Start students in Shreveport, Louisiana, the city honored Jackson by making March 9 "Samuel L. Jackson Day" in commemoration for the city's appreciation for Jackson.

Rachel Weisz

2007-08-30T02:23:00.000-07:00

Rachel Weisz (born March 7, 1971) is an Academy Award-winning English film and television actress. She became known after her roles in the Hollywood films The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, and has since continued appearing in major film roles.

Weisz (pronounced "Vice") was born in London, England and grew up in Hampstead. Her father, George Weisz, is a Hungarian-born inventor whose family fled to England to escape Nazi persecution. Her mother, Edith Ruth, is a Vienna-born Austrian psychoanalyst and aspiring actress. Weisz's father is Jewish and her mother has been referred to as either Catholic, Jewish, or having Jewish ancestry. Weisz was raised in a cerebral Jewish household and refers to herself as Jewish.Weisz has a sister, Minnie Weisz, who is an artist.

Weisz was educated at North London Collegiate School, from which she was expelled^{[citation needed]}. She was then sent to Benenden School and eventually settled when she was about 13 in St Paul's Girls' School. She then entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she graduated with a 2:1 in English. During her university years she appeared in various student productions, co-founding a student drama group called Cambridge Talking Tongues, which went on to win a Guardian Student Drama Award at the Edinburgh Festival for an improvised piece called Slight Possession.

Weisz is engaged to American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. They have been dating since 2004. They have a son, Henry Chance, born on May 31, 2006 in New York City.^[10]^[11] The couple reside in the East Village in Manhattan. Rachel and Darren are considering to get married in a traditional wedding ceremony at the oldest synagogue in New York.

Weisz previously dated actor Alessandro Nivola, actor Neil Morrissey, director Sam Mendes, and actor/comedian Ben Miller.

Laura Witherspoon

2007-08-30T02:20:00.000-07:00

Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon (born March 22, 1976), simply known as Reese Witherspoon, is an Academy Award-winning American actress. Her first role was in the made for television movie Wildflower (1991), followed by several moderately successful family oriented comedies and dramas in the early to mid 1990s, and then the teenage thriller Fear (1996), where she became something of a teen idol. Witherspoon emerged as a young woman in Election (1999), as an obsessive, stressful, vindictive, and overachieving teenage girl determined to win everything she sets out to do. Witherspoon acquired her breakout role in Legally Blonde (2001), as a fun-loving blonde, a role she reprised in a sequel. Witherspoon received worldwide attention for playing June Carter Cash in Walk the Line (2005), a role that earned Witherspoon critical praise, media attention and an Academy Award for Best Actress. More recently, Witherspoon starred in Penelope, alongside Christina Ricci, set for an early 2008 release date.

Witherspoon was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to John Witherspoon, a Georgia-born lieutenant colonel in the US Army reserves and later an otorhinolaryngologist, and Betty (née Reese), a nurse and college professor from Harriman, Tennessee. Her birth name is Laura Jean Reese Witherspoon. Witherspoon is allegedly a direct descendant of Scotland-born John Witherspoon, who was a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence, the sixth president of Princeton University, and a Presbyterian minister. Witherspoon was raised in the Episcopalian religion. Because her father worked for the US military in Wiesbaden, Germany, she lived there for four years as a small child. After returning to the United States, Witherspoon, an army brat, spent much of her childhood and adolescence in Nashville, Tennessee, where, she says in Interview magazine, "I grew up in an environment where women accomplished a lot. And if they weren't able to, it was because they were limited by society. I grew up with a grandma--my father's mother—who was incredibly intelligent but was limited by the bounds of society and propriety ... She was a voracious reader, and she encouraged me to read a lot as a child ..." a woman whose "depression" and "disconnect between her capabilities and her lack of fulfillment and achievement" continue to motivate Witherspoon in life. After graduating from the prestigious private all-girls' Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, she attended Stanford University as a literature major. After completing a year of her studies, she left Stanford to pursue her acting career.

Witherspoon met American actor Ryan Phillippe at her 21st birthday party in March 1997, where, as she says, "I don't know what came over me – maybe the seven Midori sours – but I told him, 'I think you're my birthday present.' He thought it was so flattering, and now that I think about it... how embarrassing!" The pair got engaged in December of 1998. Soon after, the couple starred together in the box office hit Cruel Intentions. They were married on a plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 5, 1999. They have two children: daughter Ava Elizabeth, born September 9, 1999, and son Deacon Reese, born October 23, 2003.

A self-identified Southerner who has credited her family with fomenting her imagination and love for storytelling and privacy, she has said that her parental philosophy has roots in her upbringing. "We weren't the kind of children that were shadowed. We didn't have nannies. We didn't have housekeepers. This whole L.A. culture is so foreign to me, because when I was growing up you wouldn't watch your children every moment. I'm always confused when people bring their children over and then want to sit with them while they play. I think part of the joy of being a child is privacy. Your fantasies and dreams are so important to you at that moment."

Rene Russo

2007-08-30T02:16:00.000-07:00

Rene Marie Russo (born February 17, 1954) is an American film actress and former fashion model. Russo, an Italian American, was born in Burbank, California to Shirley Jean (a secretary and barmaid) and Nino Russo, a sculptor and mechanic who left the family when Rene was 2. Russo grew up with her sister, Toni, and their single mother. She attended Burroughs High School (where her classmates included director Ron Howard), but eventually dropped out in the tenth grade. Due to financial constraints within the family, she began taking a variety of part-time jobs including working in an eyeglass factory, and as a movie cashier.

In 1972, Russo was spotted at a Rolling Stones concert by a scout and manager John Crosby from International Creative Management. She was signed to the Ford Modeling Agency and began modeling shortly after, appearing on several magazine covers, including that of "Vogue". Russo spent the majority of the 1970's and early 1980's as a successful model, but later began to study acting, and appeared in roles at regional theaters in Los Angeles.

Russo made her television series debut in 1987, with a supporting role in the TV-series Sable. Two years later, she made her debut in film as the girlfriend of the Tom Berenger character in Major League. Her first major breakthrough role is generally considered to be her part as a martial arts-practising internal affairs detective in Lethal Weapon 3.

Throughout the 1990's, Russo appeared in a number of high-profile thrillers that were hugely successful at the box office, including In the Line of Fire, Outbreak, and Ransom. She has starred in at least one major studio film per year from 1992 to 2002.

She recently starred in both Two for the Money and Yours, Mine and Ours.

Russo has been married to screenwriter Dan Gilroy since 1992. They have one daughter, Rose (born August 31, 1993), and the family currently lives in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California. Her sister Toni was married to lyricist Bernie Taupin in the 1980s, and Rene appeared alongside her sister in the 1987 video for Taupin's solo song, "Citizen Jane."

Renée Zellweger

2007-08-30T02:13:00.000-07:00

Renée Kathleen Zellweger (born April 25, 1969) is an Academy Award-winning American film actress. Zellweger was born in Baytown, Texas and moved to Katy, Texas at the age of nine with her family. Her father, Emil Erich Zellweger, is a Swiss-born engineer who worked in the oil refining business, and her mother, Kjellfried Irene (Andreassen), is a Norwegian-born nurse and midwife.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] Zellweger was raised in a family of "lazy Catholics and Episcopalians". In high school, she was a cheerleader and gymnast, and participated in the drama club. She graduated from Katy High School in Katy, a suburb of Houston in 1987. After high school, she went to the University of Texas at Austin to major in English. Though she took a drama class only because she needed a fine arts credit to complete her degree, it made her appreciate how much she loved acting. During this time, she supported herself by taking a series of waitressing jobs in Austin, Texas.

Zellweger dated Sims Ellison while studying at the University of Texas, but the couple broke up after graduation. She also dated Josh Pate, whom she began seeing in November 1996 after the filming of "Deceiver". She also was rumoured to have dated George Clooney. Her first high-profile romance was with actor/comedian Jim Carrey. The relationship ended in a broken engagement in December 2000. Zellweger notably poked fun at the prior relationship when she ended her opening monologue on Saturday Night Live by reading an entry from her own "diary", marked "Dear Diary, I can't believe I am dating Jim Carrey".

For two years, Zellweger dated The White Stripes singer Jack White, who is six years her junior. However, it was felt that White didn't want to settle down, and they broke up.

On May 9, 2005, Zellweger married singer Kenny Chesney in a ceremony at the island of St. John. They had met in January at a tsunami relief benefit concert. Zellweger missed out on the engagement ring since the wedding was planned over a short span of time. On September 15, 2005, after only four months of marriage, they announced their plans for an annulment. Zellweger cited fraud as the reason in the related papers.After media scrutiny of her use of the word "fraud", she released the following statement: "(The term is) simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny's character. I would personally be very grateful for your support in refraining from drawing derogatory, hurtful, sensationalized or untrue conclusions. We hope to experience this transition as privately as possible." The annulment was finalized in late December 2005. When interviewed on Late Show with David Letterman in December 2006, she was still reluctant to answer questions over the relationship. Since her marriage annulment, she been linked to various personalities, including actor Luke Perry of Beverly Hills, 90210 fame.

Zellweger sold her home in the Hollywood Hills, and after renting for a while she now again owns a home in Bel Air. She admits that she gets scared at home alone, and has considered buying a gun for reasons of personal security.

Rosie O Donnell

2007-08-30T02:10:00.000-07:00

Roseann Theresa "Rosie" O'Donnell (born March 21, 1962 in Bayside, Queens, New York) is an 11-time Emmy Award-winning American talk show host, television personality, comedienne, celebrity blogger, film, television, and stage actress.

O'Donnell was the third of five children born to Edward and Roseann O'Donnell. Four days before her 11th birthday on March 17, 1973, O'Donnell's mother died of breast cancer She was raised in Commack, New York.

In high school, she began exploring her comic interest beginning with a high school skit in which she imitated Gilda Radner’s character Roseanne Rosannadanna.

After graduating, O'Donnell briefly attended Dickinson College, later transferring to Boston University but dropped out.

On February 26, 2004, O'Donnell married Kelli Carpenter, a former Nickelodeon marketing executive, in San Francisco two weeks after SF's Mayor Gavin Newsom authorized the granting of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Her decision to go to San Francisco to marry Carpenter was intended as a show of defiance against President George W. Bush over his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment. The license was voided by the California Supreme Court.

The couple are parents to adopted children Parker Jaren (born May 25, 1995), Chelsea Belle (born September 20, 1997), and Blake Christopher (born December 5, 1999). Their fourth child, Vivienne Rose (who was conceived through sperm donation) was born November 29, 2002 to Carpenter.

Rosie and her family currently reside in Nyack, New York, a suburb of New York City that is located in Rockland County.

O'Donnell's brother Daniel, who is also gay, represents the Upper West Side of Manhattan as a member of the New York State Assembly. O'Donnell and fellow actress Bridget Moynahan are 3rd cousins.

Russell Crowe

2007-08-30T02:08:00.000-07:00

Russell Ira Crowe (born April 7, 1964) is a New Zealand-Australian actor. Crowe is a recipient of an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in 2000's Gladiator. Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand to Jocelyn Yvonne Wemyss and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom were caterers. His maternal grandfather, Stan Wemyss, was a cinematographer who, according to Crowe, produced the first film by New Zealander Geoff Murphy,and was also named an MBE for filming footage of World War II. Crowe's maternal great-great-great grandmother was Māori, and as a result Crowe is registered on the Māori electoral roll in New Zealand; Crowe also has Norwegian, Scottish, Irish and Welsh ancestry.Two of Russell Crowe's cousins, Martin and Jeff Crowe are former New Zealand national cricket captains.

When Crowe was four years old, his family moved to Australia, where his parents pursued a career in filmset catering. The producer of the Australian TV series Spyforce was his mother's godfather, and Crowe at age five or six was hired for a line of dialogue in one episode, opposite series star Jack Thompson, who years later played Crowe's father in The Sum of Us and who coincidentally had been educated at the same school which Crowe was to attend for two years: Sydney Boys High School.

When he was 14, however, Crowe's family moved back to New Zealand, where he attended Auckland Grammar School with his cousins Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe. He did not complete secondary school, leaving early to help his family financially. In the mid-1980s Russell, under guidance from his good friend Tom Sharplin, performed as a rock 'n' roll revivalist, under the stage name Russ Le Roq, and had a New Zealand single with "I Wanna Be Marlon Brando."

Crowe returned to Australia at age 21, intending to apply to the National Institute of Dramatic Art. "I was working in a theater show, and talked to a guy who was then the head of technical support at NIDA," Crowe recalled. "I asked him what he thought about me spending three years at NIDA. He told me it'd be a waste of time. He said, 'You already do the things you go there to learn, and you've been doing it for most of your life, so there's nothing to teach you but bad habits.'" In 1987 Crowe spent a six-month stint as a busker when he couldn't find other work.

After appearing in the TV series Neighbours and Living with the Law, Crowe was cast in his first film, The Crossing (1990), a small-town love triangle directed by George Ogilvie. Before production started, a film-student protege of Ogilvie's, Steve Wallace, hired Crowe for the film Blood Oath (1990) (a.k.a. Prisoners of the Sun) which was released a month earlier, although actually filmed later. In 1992, Crowe starred in the first episode of the second series of Police Rescue. Also in 1992 Crowe starred in Romper Stomper, an Australian film which follows the exploits and downfall of a racist skinhead group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne, directed by Geoffrey Wright.

On April 7, 2003, his 39th birthday, Crowe married Australian singer and actress Danielle Spencer. Crowe met Spencer while filming The Crossing (1990). Crowe and Spencer have two sons: Charles "Charlie" Spencer Crowe (born December 21, 2003) and Tennyson Spencer Crowe (born July 7, 2006).

Most of the year, Crowe resides in Australia. He has a home in Sydney at the end of the Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo and also a 320 hectare rural property in Nana Glen near Coffs Harbour, New South Wales.

It is believed Russell is looking for an upmarket home in the Townsville or Thuringowa area for his niece to live in, so she can study at James Cook University.

Rupert Everett

2007-08-30T02:06:00.000-07:00

Rupert James Hector Everett (born May 29, 1959) is an English actor and a former singer. He first came to attention in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent movie Another Country playing an openly homosexual student at an English public school in the 1930s. He has since starred in many other film roles and works, including My Best Friend's Wedding, The Next Best Thing and the Shrek sequels.

Everett was born in Norfolk, England to Major Anthony Michael Everett and Sara Maclean, who was Scottish, and descended from the baronets Vyvyan of Trelowarren and the German Schmiedern barons. He has an older brother, Simon Anthony Cunningham Everett (b. 1956). He's also a grand-nephew of Donald Maclean, the (in)famous spy, with whom he shares a striking resemblance. They are also both bisexual. From the age of 7 he was educated at Farleigh School, Hampshire, and later was educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire, but he dropped out of school aged 15 and ran away to London to become an actor. In order to support himself, he worked as a male prostitute, or "rent boy", as he later admitted to US magazine in 1997. After being dismissed from the Central School of Speech and Drama for insubordination, he travelled to Scotland and got a job in the avant-garde Citizens' Theatre of Glasgow.

Robin Williams

2007-08-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

Robin McLaurim Williams (born July 21, 1952) is an Academy Award-winning American actor and comedian who has done television, stage, and film work.

Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams (September 10, 1906 - October 18, 1987) was a senior executive at Ford in charge of the Midwest area. His mother, Laura McLaurin Smith (1922-2001), was a former model from Jackson, Mississippi. Williams was raised in the Episcopal church (although his mother practiced Christian Science) and grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Marin County, California. While in California, Robin attended Redwood High School in Larkspur and grew up in the Marin County suburb of Tiburon. In Michigan, he attended Detroit Country Day School, an exclusive college-preparatory school which boasts other famous alumni, including Steve Ballmer from Microsoft and Courtney Vance from Law and Order: Criminal Intent. In an interview with Michael Parkinson, Williams stated that when he saw Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb he was immediately inspired to become an actor.

He has two half-siblings: McLaurin, on his mother's side, and the late Todd (deceased 8/14/07) on his father's side. Robin delivered tribute to his brother Todd (known as Dr. Toad) at Todd's Celebration of Life on August 25, 2007.

Robin has described himself as a quiet child whose first imitation was of his grandmother to his mom. He did not overcome his shyness until he became involved with his high school drama department. In high school, he won an award for "Most Likely To Not Succeed".

Every year, two thousand students audition for twenty places in the freshman class at Juilliard. Only two or three are accepted into the Advanced Program. Williams and Christopher Reeve were the only students accepted by John Houseman into the Advanced Program in 1973. Reeve and Williams had several classes together in which they were the only two students. In their dialects class, Williams had no trouble mastering all dialects naturally, whereas Reeve was more meticulous about it. Williams' manic comedy did not impress all of his teachers, but his dramatic performances impressed everyone. Williams and Reeve developed a close friendship, and they remained good friends for the remainder of Reeve's life. Williams visited Reeve after the horseback riding accident that paralyzed him from the neck down and cheered him up by arriving as an eccentric Russian doctor (similar to his role in Nine Months). Williams claimed that he was there to perform a colonoscopy. Reeve stated that he laughed for the first time since the accident and knew that life was going to be okay.

His first marriage was to Valerie Velardi on June 4, 1978, with whom he has one child, Zachary Pym (Zak) (born April 11th, 1983). The marriage ended in 1988. On April 30, 1989, he married Marsha Garces. They have two children, Zelda Rae (born July 31, 1989) and Cody Alan (born November 25, 1991). Williams currently resides in a large house in the upper-income Sea Cliff neighborhood of San Francisco. Incidentally, Williams is good friends with film director Chris Columbus who is also a San Francisco resident. He also has a summer house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Williams has starred in Columbus' films Mrs. Doubtfire, Nine Months, and Bicentennial Man.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams had a serious addiction to cocaine; he has since kicked the habit. One quote attributed to him: "Cocaine is God's way of telling you that you are making too much money." Williams was a close friend and frequent partier alongside John Belushi. Williams says the death of his friend and the birth of his son prompted him to quit drugs: "Was it a wake-up call? Oh yeah, on a huge level. The grand jury helped too". (Inside the Actors Studio, Episode 94, Season 7).

On August 9, 2006, Williams entered himself into a rehabilitation center for alcoholism. His publicist has confirmed, saying "After 20 years of sobriety, Robin Williams found himself drinking again and has decided to take proactive measures to deal with this for his own well-being and the well-being of his family. He asks that you respect his and his family's privacy during this time. He looks forward to returning to work this Fall to support his upcoming film releases."

Robert De Niro

2007-08-30T02:01:00.000-07:00

Robert Mario De Niro Jr., credited professionally as Robert De Niro (born August 17, 1943), is a two-time Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning American film actor, director, and producer. He is noted for his method acting and portrayal of conflicted, troubled characters, for his enduring collaboration with director Martin Scorsese and for his early work with director Brian De Palma. He is best known for his roles in The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino.

De Niro was born in New York City, to Robert De Niro, Sr., an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor, and Virginia Admiral, a painter. De Niro's father was Catholic and of Irish and Italian descent and his mother a Presbyterian-raised atheist of French, Dutch, and German descent. His Italian great-grandparents had emigrated from Ferrazzano, in the province of Campobasso, Molise in the early 20th century.His parents, who had met at the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, divorced when he was two years old. De Niro grew up in the Little Italy area of Manhattan. His childhood nickname was "Bobby Milk" due to his pale complexion.

De Niro first attended the Little Red School House and was then enrolled by his mother at the High School of Music and Art in New York. He dropped out at the age of 13 and joined a Little Italy street gang. He then had a falling-out with his father, though they were eventually reconciled when, at 18, he flew to Paris to bring home his father, who had been suffering from depression.

De Niro attended the Stella Adler Conservatory, as well as Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio (though De Niro conflicted with Strasberg's methods, and used his membership there mostly as a professional advantage). At the age of 16 he toured in Chekhov's The Bear.

De Niro has been married twice. He has a stepdaughter, Drena and son Raphael with first wife Dianne Abbott, as well as twin sons Julian Henry and Aaron Kendrick (conceived by in vitro fertilization) from a long-term live-in relationship with former model Toukie Smith. Raphael, a former actor, now works in New York real estate.

Since 1989, De Niro has been investing in the TriBeCa neighborhood in lower Manhattan. His capital ventures have included co-founding the film studio TriBeCa Productions, the hugely popular TriBeCa Film Festival, and finally the TriBeCa Grill, Nobu, and now-defunct Layla restaurants that usually need advance reservations.

In February 1998, during a film shoot in France, he was taken in for questioning for nine hours by French police and questioned by a magistrate, over a prostitution ring. De Niro denied any involvement saying that he had never paid for sex, "and even if I had, it wouldn't have been a crime". The magistrate wanted to speak to him after his name was mentioned by one of the call girls. In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, he said, "I will never return to France. I will advise my friends against going to France", and he would "send your Legion of Honour back to the ambassador, as soon as possible". French judicial sources say that the actor is regarded as a potential witness, not a suspect. In 2003, Robert De Niro, with film director Woody Allen, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis and writer George Plimpton joined a pro-French tourism campaign as a direct response to anti-French sentiment in the US related to the Iraq invasion.

In 2003, De Niro was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The prognosis for De Niro, who was 60 at the time, was good, according to his publicist, Stan Rosenfield.

"Doctors say the condition was detected at an early stage because of regular checkups," Rosenfield says. "Because of the early detection and his excellent physical condition, doctors project a full recovery." Rosenfield declined to give further details about the actor's condition or course of treatment. De Niro's father, painter Robert De Niro Sr., died of cancer in 1993 at age 71.

De Niro is among a number of celebrities who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer. They include Yankees manager Joe Torre, former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, comedian Jerry Lewis, former senator Bob Dole and retired general Norman Schwarzkopf. Rosenfield credited the early discovery of De Niro's cancer to the actor's "proactive personal health-care program".

In 1997, De Niro married his second wife, Grace Hightower, a former flight attendant, at their estate near Marbletown in upstate New York (De Niro also has residences on the east and west sides of Manhattan). Their son Elliot was born in 1998 and the couple filed for divorce shortly after his birth, although the action was never officially finalize

De Niro, whose paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Ferrazzano, in the region of Molise, Italy, was due to be bestowed with honorary Italian citizenship at the Venice Film Festival in September 2004. However, the Sons of Italy lodged a protest with Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, claiming De Niro had damaged the image of Italians and Italian-Americans by frequently portraying them in criminal roles. Culture Minister Giuliano Urbani dismissed the objections and the ceremony was rescheduled to go forward in Rome in October. Controversy flared again when De Niro failed to show for two media appearances in Italy that month, which De Niro blamed on "serious communication problems" that weren't "handled properly" on his end, and stating, "The last thing I would want to do is offend anyone. I love Italy." The citizenship was conferred to De Niro on October 21, 2006, during the Rome Film Festival finale.

De Niro is a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, and vocally supported Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 includes a clip of De Niro standing next to Gore at a rally; Moore identifies him as "that Taxi Driver guy". De Niro publicly supported John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. In 1998, he lobbied Congress against impeaching President Bill Clinton, and in August 2004 announced he would not collect his honorary Italian citizenship in person so as to avoid discouraging Italians living in America from voting for Kerry, following controversy over the earlier citizenship protest. (See above.) De Niro also narrated a documentary about the September 11, 2001 attacks, shown on CBS and centering on video footage made by Jules Naudet and Gedeon Naudet, which focused on the role of firefighters following the attacks. De Niro was a supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq but hasn't made any comments about it since then. While promoting his movie The Good Shepherd with co-star Matt Damon on the December 8, 2006 episode of Hardball with Chris Matthews, De Niro was asked who he would like to see as president of the United States. De Niro responded, "Well, I think of two people: Hillary Clinton and Obama".

Rick Moranis

2007-08-30T02:00:00.000-07:00

Frederick Alan "Rick" Moranis (born April 18, 1953) is a Canadian actor, comedian and musician best known for his comedy work on SCTV and appearances in several Hollywood films, including Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Spaceballs, and My Blue Heaven. He is known in the movie business as "Slick Rick," due to his ability to play the lovable dork to perfection in every movie.

Moranis was born Frederick Alan Moranis in Toronto, Ontario. In the 1970s, he worked (using the stage name Rick Allen) as a disc jockey at various radio stations in Toronto, including CFTR, CKFH, and CHUM-FM. Together with Ken Finkleman, he tried his hand at stand-up and did some comedy for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He followed that with his work at SCTV, enjoying particular success portraying "Bob" of Bob and Doug McKenzie. Doug was played by Canadian actor Dave Thomas.

His other memorable SCTV characterizations include motor-mouthed film producer Larry Siegel, terminally-ill rock star Clay Collins, smooth-voiced video deejay Gerry Todd, cool Leutonian pop star Linsk Minyk, kid-brother amateur comic Skip Bittman, head cheese butcher Carl Scutz, and morning homily intellect Rabbi Karlov.

After his SCTV work, Moranis had a busy film career which lasted over a decade. In an August 2004 interview with Sound & Vision magazine, Moranis talked about the kinds of films he enjoyed the most:

“

On the last couple of movies I made — big-budget Hollywood movies — I really missed being able to create my own material. In the early movies I did, I was brought in to basically rewrite my stuff, whether it was Ghostbusters or Spaceballs. By the time I got to the point where I was "starring" in movies, and I had executives telling me what lines to say, that wasn’t for me. I’m really not an actor. I’m a guy who comes out of comedy, and my impetus was always to rewrite the line to make it funnier, not to try to make somebody’s precious words work.

Richard Gere

2007-08-30T01:58:00.000-07:00

Richard Tiffany Gere (born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He first became famous during the 1980s, after appearing in several successful Hollywood films, including An Officer and a Gentleman, and has since retained his status as a leading man. During the 1990s and 2000s, he starred in several well-received films, Pretty Woman, Primal Fear, and Chicago for which he won a Golden Globe award as Best Actor.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gere is a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims Francis Eaton, John Billington, George Soule, Richard Warren, Degory Priest, William Brewster and Francis Cooke.Gere's father, Homer George Gere, was an insurance agent for the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. His mother, Doris Anna Tiffany, was a homemaker. He has three sisters, and a brother. In 1967, Gere graduated from North Syracuse Central High School, where he excelled at gymnastics and music, playing the trumpet. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, on a gymnastics scholarship, majoring in Philosophy, but did not graduate, leaving after two years to pursue acting.

Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995. In 2002, he married actress Carey Lowell. They have a son, Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in 2000, and is named after Gere's father. They live in Pound Ridge, New York.

Richard Dreyfuss

2007-08-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (born October 29, 1947) is an Academy Award-winning American actor. Dreyfuss was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Norman, an attorney and restaurateur, and Geraldine, a peace activist. Dreyfuss is Jewish and his surname is of Yiddish origin, a variant spelling meaning tripod. His surname is pronounced "DRAY-fuss". For years, though, the public mispronounced it as "DRY-fuss" until he corrected them. He has said that according to family tradition, he is either a direct descendant or at least a relative of Alfred Dreyfus. This is disputed by others. Dreyfuss spent his early childhood in Brooklyn and in Bayside, Queens, until he moved to Los Angeles with his family at the age of nine. In 1965, he graduated from Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California.

From 1983 until 1995, Dreyfuss was married to Jeramie Rain, with whom he had three children. In 1999, he married Janelle Lacey. After divorcing Lacey, he married Russian-born Svetlana Erokhin on March 16, 2006, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, while there to speak at James Madison University. Dreyfuss and Erokhin now live in San Diego.

He suffers from bipolar disorder. In 2006, he appeared in Stephen Fry's documentary, Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, in which Fry (who also has the disorder) interviewed him about his life with manic-depression.

Ralph Fiennes

2007-08-30T01:54:00.000-07:00

Ralph Nathaniel Fiennes, (IPA: [ˈreɪf ˈfaɪnz], born 22 December 1962) is a Tony Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated and Genie Award-nominated English actor.

Fiennes was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, the son of Mark Fiennes, a farmer and photographer, and Jennifer Lash, a writer.He is a third cousin of the adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. The eldest of six children, he was raised a Roman Catholic. His siblings are actor Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love, Luther), Martha Fiennes, a director (in her film Onegin, he acted the title role), Magnus Fiennes, a composer, Sophie Fiennes, a filmmaker, and Jacob Fiennes, a conservationist. His foster brother, Michael Emery, is an archaeologist.

The Fiennes family moved to Ireland in 1973, living in West Cork and County Kilkenny for some years, where Fiennes and his siblings were home schooled. They moved to Salisbury in England where Fiennes finished his schooling at Bishop Wordsworth's School before attending Chelsea College of Art.

Fiennes is a UNICEF ambassador.

He married actress Alex Kingston (Dr. Corday from ER) in 1993, but they divorced in 1997.^{[citation needed]} In 1995, Fiennes started dating Francesca Annis, who had played his mother in Hamlet. In February 2006, the couple separated. This came after tabloid reports that said Fiennes had had an affair with Romanian singer Cornelia Crisan. In late 2006, sources reported that Fiennes is dating American actress Ellen Barkin.

On February 11, 2007, Lisa Robertson, a Qantas flight attendant, was suspended and subsequently fired from Qantas for having sex with Fiennes in a business class toilet during a flight from Darwin to Mumbai on January 24, 2007 while on duty. Robertson admitted to the encounter in an interview with the Daily Mail along with her work as an undercover policewoman.Fiennes has not denied the incident took place but his spokesperson said on his behalf he claimed he was not the "aggressor" in the relationship. Because the story was not widely reported, and he wasn't married at the time, the controversy was only minor.

Pierce Brosnan

2007-08-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE (born May 16, 1953) is an Irish actor and producer best known for portraying James Bond in four films from 1995 to 2002: GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. Since leaving the role, Brosnan has gone on to star in films such as Evelyn and Seraphim Falls. In 1996, he also formed, along with Beau St. Clair, a Los Angeles-based production company named Irish DreamTime.Born an only child to Thomas and May (née Smith) in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland Brosnan was brought up in nearby Navan, County Meath. He was educated in the local school, which was run by the De La Salle Brothers. Brosnan's mother moved to London, England for work after his father abandoned the family; in 1964, at the age of eleven, he joined her. His mother subsequently divorced his father and married a British World War II veteran (William Charmichael) who was quickly embraced as a father figure by his young stepson. It was Charmichael who took Brosnan to see his first Bond film, Goldfinger. Brosnan was educated at Elliott School, a state secondary modern school in Putney, West London. Brosnan would have his first 'crush' on his geography teacher during his time at school. When he attended high school, his nickname was 'Irish'.After school, Brosnan desired to be an artist and started training in commercial illustration at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.When he was 16, a circus agent saw him busking as a fire eater and hired him. He later trained for three years as an actor at the Drama Centre, London.

Brosnan married Australian actress Cassandra Harris in 1980 and adopted her two children, Charlotte (b. 1971) and Christopher (b. 1972) after their father died in 1986. Brosnan and Harris had one son together, Sean (b. 1983). Harris died of ovarian cancer in 1991, after eleven years of marriage. In 2001, Brosnan married American journalist Keely Shaye Smith, and they have two sons, Dylan Thomas (b. 1997) and Paris Beckett (b. 2001).In February 2007, Brosnan pulled out of attending the IFTA Awards ceremony in Dublin due to his stepfather's serious illness.

On September 23, 2004, Brosnan became a naturalized citizen of the United States, but he has retained his Irish citizenship. Brosnan has said that "my Irishness is in everything I do. It's the spirit of who I am, as a man, an actor, a father. It's where I come from."Brosnan was asked by a fan if it annoyed him when people get his nationality confused. He said: "It amuses me in some respects that they should confuse me with an Englishman when I'm dyed-in-the-wool, born and bred Irishman...I don't necessarily fly under any flag. But no, it doesn't bother me." He currently resides primarily in Malibu, California and has homes in Hawaii and North Dublin.

Owen Wilson

2007-08-27T02:30:00.000-07:00

Owen Cunningham Wilson (born November 18, 1968) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor and writer. Wilson was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the screenplay of The Royal Tenenbaums, but he is perhaps best known for his successful comedic roles such as John Beckwith in Wedding Crashers and as Hansel in Zoolander. Owen is considered a part of the Frat Pack, a set of actors including Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson and Steve Carell who often work in each other's movies. Owen and Ben Stiller have become best friends from their onscreen performances in movies together.

Wilson was born in Dallas, Texas to Laura Wilson (née Cunningham), a photographer, and Robert Andrew Wilson, an advertising executive and operator of a public television station.He is left handed. His family is Irish American and Catholic.While living in Dallas, Wilson attended The Lamplighter School, which he later visited in 2005, and St. Mark's School of Texas, but was expelled for supposedly cheating on a test. Owen also attended New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico where he was a Colonel in the Young Bucks Extraterrestrial Explorers Club. Later, Wilson moved to Los Angeles with his brothers Luke and Andrew to pursue acting careers.

Orlando Bloom

2007-08-27T02:18:00.000-07:00

Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom (born 13 January 1977) is an English actor. He had his break-through role in the early 2000s as the elf-prince Legolas in The Lord of the Rings and blacksmith Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy of films, and subsequently established himself as a lead in Hollywood films, including Troy, Elizabethtown, and Kingdom of Heaven. Bloom most recently appeared in the sequels Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Bloom has recently started rehearsals for his West End debut in In Celebration at the Duke of Yorks Theatre, St Martins Lane, which previews from the 5th July 2007.

Bloom was born in Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom. His mother, Sonia Constance Josephine Copeland, was born in Calcutta, India, the daughter of Betty Constance Josephine Walker and Francis John Copeland, a physician and surgeon. Bloom's maternal grandmother's family has lived in Tasmania, Australia and India, and are of English descent, some of them having originally come from Kent.Bloom had thought that his father was South African-born Jewish anti-Apartheid novelist Harry Saul Bloom, but when he was thirteen (nine years after Harry's death), Bloom's mother revealed to him that his biological father was actually Colin Stone, his mother's partner and family friend, and the principal of the Concorde International language school. Stone was made Orlando Bloom's legal guardian after Harry Bloom's death. Bloom, who is named after the 17th century composer Orlando Gibbons,has one sister, Samantha Bloom, who was born in 1975.

Bloom was not academic or athletic as a child, and managed to struggle through St Edmund's School in Canterbury despite his dyslexia. He was encouraged by his mother to take art and drama classes. In 1993, he moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre, spending two seasons there and earning a scholarship to train at the British American Drama Academy. Bloom began acting professionally with television roles in episodes of Casualty and Midsomer Murders, and subsequently made his film debut in Wilde (1997), opposite Stephen Fry, before entering the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied acting, sculpture and photography. In 1998, he fell three stories while trying to reach the roof of terrace of a friend's house, and was told he would not regain the ability to walk.However, he made a recovery and was able to walk out of the hospital on crutches within twelve days. Bloom had steel plates inserted into his backbone to support it, which have since been removed, except for a single screw. He regularly practices yoga and Pilates to strengthen his back.

Bloom has said that he tries "not to exclude [himself] from real life as much as possible". He is a Manchester United fan and lives in London. During filming in Morocco for Kingdom of Heaven, Bloom rescued and adopted a dog, Sidi (a black Saluki mix with a white mark on his chest). Bloom is a practising Buddhist; In 2004, he became a full member of Soka Gakkai International, a lay Buddhist association affiliated with the teachings of Nichiren. Bloom has also been a part of Global Green, an environmental company, since the early 2000s. As part of his environmental involvement, he has renovated his London home to use solar panels, incorporate recycled materials, and utilize energy efficient lightbulbs. Bloom has been approached by UNICEF to act as an international ambassador.

Bloom met American actress Kate Bosworth outside a coffee shop in 2002, where he was introduced to her by a mutual friend, soon after he met her again at the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers later in that year. The two had an "on-and-off relationship" from 2002 until splitting up in September of 2006.Bloom has also been linked to model Miranda Kerr, and actresses Uma Thurman, Kirsten Dunst, Sienna Miller, Jessica Biel and Penélope Cruz. Bloom is currently dating Pirates of the Caribbean co-star Naomie Harris.

Bloom has a tattoo of the Elvish word for "nine" on his right wrist, a reference to his involvement in the Lord of the Rings and the fact that his character was one of the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of "The Fellowship" (Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood) got the same tattoo with the exception of John Rhys-Davies who sent his stunt double to get the tattoo.

Bloom has sustained several injuries: he broke his left arm and cracked his skull while falling out of a tree, broke his nose while playing rugby, broke his right leg skiing in Switzerland, broke his left leg in a motorbike crash, broke his right wrist while snowboarding.He also broke his back when he slipped trying to reach a roof terrace of a friend's house and fell three floors.

Nicole Kidman

2007-08-26T05:22:00.000-07:00

Nicole Mary Kidman AC (born June 20, 1967), is an Australian Academy Award winning actress. In 2006, she became the highest paid actress in the film industry. That same year, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia

(AC), Australia's highest civilian honour.

After making various appearances in film and television, Kidman received her breakthrough role in the thriller Dead Calm. Since then, Kidman's acting career has developed greatly. Her performances in several films, such as To Die For, Moulin Rouge!, and The Hours, have won her not only critical acclaim but also many film awards. In 2003, Kidman received her Star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California. Kidman is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, a singer and a successful recording artist.

She is also well-known for her former marriage to Tom Cruise, as well as her current marriage to singer Keith Urban. Because she was born to Australian parents in Honolulu, Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship of Australia and the United States.

Nicole Mary Kidman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Janelle Ann MacNeille Kidman and Dr. Anthony David Kidman. Her father is a biochemist and a clinical psychologist in Lane Cove, Sydney and author, who is also heavily involved with the labour movement. Her mother is a nursing instructor and edits her husband's books. At the time Nicole Kidman was born, her father was a Visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C. The family returned to Australia when Kidman was four years old, when her father took on a lectureship at the University of Technology, Sydney. She attended Lane Cove Public School in her primary years.

Kidman has a younger sister, Antonia, born in 1970. Kidman's parents and sister both reside in Greenwich, a suburb on Sydney's North Shore. Kidman, a Catholic,attended Mary Mackillop Chapel in North Sydney with her sister and attended North Sydney Girls' High School, also on the North Shore.

Kidman started taking ballet lessons when she was four. This led to studies at Sydney's Australian Theatre for Young People, where she is now Patron, then at the Phillip Street Theatre, where she majored in voice production and theatre history. Living in Longueville she studied at St Marys, but dropped out when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer; Kidman concentrated on her family responsibilities until her mother's recovery.

Kidman met Tom Cruise on the set of their 1990 movie, Days of Thunder. Cruise was married to actress Mimi Rogers at the time, and later divorced her. Kidman and Cruise were married on Christmas Eve 1990 in Telluride, Colorado. The couple adopted two children, daughter Isabella Jane Cruise (b. December 22, 1992) and son Connor Anthony Cruise (b. January 17, 1995), and lived in Los Angeles, Australia, Colorado, and New York City. They separated just before their 10th wedding anniversary. At the time she was 3 months pregnant and subsequently had a miscarriage.^[14] Tom Cruise filed for divorce in February 2001. The marriage was dissolved in 2001, with Cruise citing irreconcilable differences as the cause of the divorce. The reasons for the dissolution have never been made public. In an interview in the June 2006 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, Kidman reported that she still loved Tom Cruise. Kidman told the magazine: "He was huge; still is. To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was lovely to me. And I loved him. I still love him." In addition, she has expressed shock about their divorce.

The 2003 film Cold Mountain was plagued by rumours that an on-set affair between Kidman and co-star Jude Law was responsible for the breakup of his marriage. Both vehemently denied the allegations, and Kidman eventually won an undisclosed sum from the British tabloids that published the story. She donated the money to a Romanian orphanage in the town where the movie was filmed.. There were also rumours of her and Jim Carrey going out after the two were spotted at restaurants together, but they both denied it explaining they are just the best of friends. Shortly after her Oscar win, there were unconfirmed rumours of a relationship between her and fellow Oscar winner Adrien Brody. She met musician Lenny Kravitz in 2003 and dated him into 2004.

Kidman met country singer Keith Urban at G'Day USA an event honouring Australians in January 2005. Kidman and Urban were married on Sunday June 25, 2006, at the Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel in the grounds of St Patrick's Estate, Manly in Sydney. They maintain homes in Sydney and Nashville, Tennessee.

Nia Long

2007-08-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

Nia Long (born Nitara Carlynn Long on October 30, 1970) is an American actress and occasional music video director. She is best known for her roles in Big Momma's House, Soul Food, and Are We There Yet?.

Long was born in Brooklyn, New York to Talita and Doughtry "Doc" Long, an Afro-Trinidadian couple. Her father was a high school teacher and her mother was an art teacher and a bus driver. Her stage name, Nia, is one of the seven days of Kwanzaa, which means "purpose" in Swahili. Her parents divorced when Long was two years old, and she and her mother moved to Iowa City, Iowa, where her mother studied fine arts. They subsequently moved to a South Los Angeles neighborhood when Long was seven. Long's father currently resides in nearby Trenton, New Jersey in the township of Ewing.Long also has a step sister which is Sommore star of Queens of Comedy.

Long attended Christian school and studied ballet, tap, jazz, gymnastics, guitar and acting. She graduated from Westchester High School in 1989. Due to the lack of employment opportunities in the Arts in Los Angeles when Long and her mother first arrived there, Long's mother took various low-paying jobs (despite having two master's degrees). The family suffered through financial struggle for years, which motivated Long's desire for success.

For fifteen years, Long was instructed by acting coach Betty Bridges, better known as the mother of Diff'rent Strokes child star Todd Bridges. Her first notable role was a three-year contract role as Kathryn "Kat" Speakes on the soap opera Guiding Light. Long portrayed Kat from 1991 to 1994. From 1994 to 1995, she played Will Smith's love interest on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In 2003, she joined the cast of the drama Third Watch where she played Officer Sasha Monroe until the series ended in 2005. In 2005 and 2006, Long appeared on Everwood as Cassie, daughter of Irv Harper. Long is slated to appear on Boston Legal during its 2006-2007 season.

Long has had a prolific film career. She appeared in supporting roles in a number of movies such as Boyz N the Hood, Friday, and Made in America. Long played a leading role, or a member of the primary ensemble, in several films, including Soul Food, Love Jones, Boiler Room, Big Momma's House and Are We There Yet?. Ice Cube has starred with her in four films, while Regina King has starred with her in two. Long starred alongside actor Michael Beach in the movie Soul Food and in the TV series Third Watch.

Long appears in the video for Kanye West's "Touch The Sky". She directed Yolanda Adams's music video for "This Too Shall Pass". Long was voted one of the 50 most beautiful people in the World 2000 by People magazine. She also took 3rd place in a poll by the readers of Black Men's Magazine for "The 10 Sexiest Women of the Year" in 2000. She won a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series in 2004 for her performance on Third Watch. Long co-directed and appeared in Ashanti's music video, "Baby". She also made a guest appearance as Stacey during season one of the sitcom Living Single.

In regards to being a working-mom, Long is up for the challenge so long as it does not require disturbing her family's well-being. "If I’m gonna hustle, I want to hustle in one place...I uprooted everything, moved to New York for two years, moved back and it was great but I really, I’m enjoying the stability."

The actress's long-time friend and fellow actor Massai Z. Dorsey have a son, Massai Zhivago Dorsey II, born on November 26, 2000. Dorsey and Long were engaged and had planned a wedding for 2001, but ended their relationship before then.

Neve Campbell

2007-08-26T05:17:00.000-07:00

Neve Adrianne Campbell (born October 3, 1973) is a Canadian actress. Beginning her career on stage, she came to fame on the 1990s television series Party of Five (1994–2000), and subsequently appeared in leading roles in several Hollywood films, including Scream (1996–2000), The Craft (1996) and Wild Things (1998). She has since appeared in smaller roles.

Campbell was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Her father, Gerry Campbell, emigrated to Canada from Glasgow, Scotland. After studying theatre in university, he taught high school drama classes in Mississauga, Ontario—first at Westwood Secondary School (Now Lincoln Alexander Secondary School) and later at Lorne Park Secondary School.

Campbell's mother, Marnie Neve, is a psychiatrist from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Campbell's maternal grandparents ran a theatre company in the Netherlands and her paternal grandparents were also performers.

Campbell is Catholic, but also identifies as Jewish because of her mother's Sephardic Jewish ancestry, specifying that her "lineage is Jewish, so if someone asks me if I'm Jewish, I say yes".

Her first name means "snow" in Italian and Portuguese; and "oasis" in Hebrew.

Campbell's parents divorced when she was two years old. She and brother Christian Campbell resided largely with their father, with regular periods at their mother's home, until Neve moved into residence at the National Ballet of Canada at age nine. She trained at the National Ballet School of Canada at the age of nine, and appeared in performances of The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. Campbell moved from dancing into acting at the age of fifteen, performing The Phantom of the Opera at the Pantages Theatre in Toronto. Her original goal was to make it professionally as a ballerina, but accumulating injuries (shin splints, fallen arches, cracked ribs, a bunion removed from her big toe, snapping hip syndrome, tendonitis, bursitis, etc. and the final straw was her hair began falling out due to advanced stress, leading to acupuncture to rectify the problem), she finally left dance in favor of a full-time acting career.

Her first starring role was on the short-lived Canadian television series Catwalk.

Campbell attended Earl Haig Secondary School in Toronto, Ontario.

Campbell married Canadian actor Jeffrey Colt on April 3, 1995; they divorced on May 8, 1998. She has also dated actors John Cusack, Matthew Lillard, and Pat Mastroianni. Campbell appears in campaign literature and videos for the Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada and the Tourette Syndrome Association, (a similar organisation in the United States). Her younger half-brother, Damian McDonald, has Tourette syndrome. She also has an elder brother, Christian Campbell, and another brother, Alex, both of whom are actors.

In 2005, Campbell began dating John Light, an English actor who she met while filming the movie Investigating Sex. The couple became engaged in December 2005 and live in London, England. When Light proposed, he got down on one knee and recited Shakespeare to Campbell. They married in Malibu on May 5, 2007 Her father, Gerry Campbell "gave away" the bride.

Natalie Portman

2007-08-26T05:15:00.000-07:00

Natalie Portman (Hebrew: נטלי פורטמן), born Natalie Hershlag (Hebrew: נטלי הרשלג) on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel is a Golden Globe-winning, Academy Award-nominated Israeli-American actress.

Portman was born in Jerusalem, Israel. Her father, Avner Hershlag, is an Israeli medical doctor specializing in the research and treatment of human fertility and reproduction (reproductive endocrinology). Her mother, Shelley Stevens, is a Jewish American homemaker who now works as her agent (she is an artist by hobby and not profession). Portman's father's family members are descendants of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Romania, while her mother's family members were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Russia; her paternal grandfather's parents died in Auschwitz and her Romanian-born great-grandmother was a spy for the British during World War II.

Portman's parents met at a Jewish student center at Ohio State University, where Portman's mother was selling tickets. Portman's father returned to Israel, but the two corresponded and were married when Portman's mother visited Israel a few years later. When Portman was three years old, her family moved from Israel to her mother's native United States, where her father pursued his medical training. The family lived in Washington, D.C. in 1984 (she attended the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School), and then Connecticut in 1988, before finally settling down in Syosset, New York in 1990.

Portman has said that although she "really love[s] the States... my heart's in Jerusalem. That's where I feel at home."Portman is an only child and very close to her parents, who are often seen with her at her film premieres; when Portman was young, her mother always accompanied her to filming locations.

Portman started taking dancing lessons at the age of four. She performed in local troupes, and dreamed of dancing on Broadway. At the age of 12 Portman was discovered in a pizza parlor by an agent for Revlon, who offered her an opportunity to model. She asked to be introduced to acting talent scouts instead of modeling agents, however. Referring to her discovery in an interview with Blender Magazine, Portman says, "I was definitely different from the other kids. I was more ambitious, I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and I worked very hard. I was a very serious kid." . She then took "Portman", her grandmother's maiden name, as her professional stage surname.

As a child, Portman spent her school holidays attending theater camps. In 1993, Portman was cast in her first professional role, as an understudy for the off-Broadway musical Ruthless!.^{[citation needed]} The following year, she auditioned for Luc Besson's film Léon (aka The Professional). She was initially turned down, but through further auditioning won the part. Soon after getting the part, she took Portman as her stage name in the interest of privacy (in the Director's Cut of the film found on DVD she is credited as Natalie Hershlag). In the film, Portman plays an orphaned girl who befriends a much older assassin. Léon opened on November 18, 1994, and marked her feature film debut at age 12. That same year she appeared in the short film Developing, which aired on television. Starting at age 13, Portman spent her school holidays attending upscale theater camps Stagedoor Manor and Usdan Camp, where she fell in love with acting, playing roles in camp productions such as the title character in Anne of Green Gables, Dream Laurey in Oklahoma!, and Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Portman has advocated for environmental causes from a young age, becoming a member of the environmental song and dance troupe at age twelve. She is a self-proclaimed "animal lover," and has been a vegetarian since she was eight years old.

Portman has spent some of her free time involved in causes such as the Democrats' 2004 U.S. presidential campaign and ending poverty. In 2004 and 2005 she traveled to Uganda, Guatemala, and Ecuador as the Ambassador of Hope for FINCA International, an organization that promotes micro-lending to help finance women-owned businesses in poor countries. In an interview conducted backstage at the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia and appearing on the PBS program Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria she discussed microfinance. Host Fareed Zakaria said that he was "generally wary of celebrities with fashionable causes", but included the segment with Portman because "she really knew her stuff".In the "Voices" segment of the April 29th, 2007 episode of the ABC Sunday Morning Program This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Portman discussed her work with FINCA and how it can benefit women and their children in third world countries.

Portman commented in an interview that "I'm much more like the product of a doctor than I am a Jew." On the concept of the afterlife, she comments "I don't believe in that. I believe this is it, and I believe it's the best way to live."

Naomi Watts

2007-08-26T05:13:00.000-07:00

Naomi Ellen Watts (born September 28, 1968) is a British actress known for her roles in Mulholland Drive, the film remakes of The Ring and King Kong, as well as her Academy Award-nominated role in the film 21 Grams.

Watts was born in Shoreham, Kent, England, and lived there until the age of eight. Her parents, Peter and Myfanwy Watts, separated when she was four years old, and when she was seven, her father died. She has one brother, Ben Watts, a year older and now a photographer in the United States (Watts confessed that they fought like cats and dogs as children). Following her father's death, her mother relocated the family to the town of Llangefni (more specifically Llanfawr Farm), on the Isle of Anglesey in North Wales, where they lived with Naomi's grandparents, Hugh and Nikki Roberts. Although her mother occasionally moved the family around Wales and England, usually to follow boyfriends, she always ended up returning to Llangefni. Watts lived there until she was 14. Then, during a trip to Australia, her mother became convinced it was "the land of opportunities" and moved the family to Sydney in 1982 . Her grandmother Nikki was Australian, which made it easier to obtain the documentation necessary, since Naomi and her family were entitled to Australian citizenship. Of her nationality, she has said, "I consider myself British and have very happy memories of the UK. I spent the first 14 years of my life in England and never wanted to leave. When I was in Australia I went back to England a lot."

Her father was a sound engineer with Pink Floyd (his manic laugh is featured in The Dark Side of the Moon) and her mother (who also contributed lines to Dark Side of the Moon's "The Great Gig in the Sky" and "Money") is described by Watts as a hippie "with passive-aggressive tendencies" and no money, who used to threaten to send her and her brother to foster care in order to get her parents to provide for them. Watts is pictured, in her mother's arms, with her father, brother, Pink Floyd, and other crew members, in the hardback edition of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason' autobiography Inside Out.

In Sydney, Watts attended several acting schools (and in the very first lesson in the first school, she met Nicole Kidman, with whom she shared a taxi home from class and are still best friends). In 1986 she took a break from acting and went to Japan to work as a model, but the experience, which lasted for about four months, was fruitless as Watts did not have the physical requirements for a professional runway model and could only hope to be working in promotions, which did not excite her. Watts describes it as one of the worst periods of her life. Upon returning to Australia, she went to work for a local department store and from there she went to work as assistant fashion editor with an Australian fashion magazine. She only returned to acting when a casual invitation from a colleague to participate in a small play rekindled her passion for the scenic arts and prompted her to quit her job and dedicate herself completely to making it as an actress.

Watts previously dated director Daniel Kirby, playwright Jeff Smeenge, director Stephen Hopkins and most famously^{[citation needed]} actor Heath Ledger for a couple years, with whom she starred in the film Ned Kelly. Since spring 2005, Watts has dated actor Liev Schreiber. They co-starred in The Painted Veil, and had a baby boy named Alexander on July 26, 2007.

Watts is a close friend of Benicio Del Toro, with whom she co-starred in 21 Grams. After filming her most recent movie, The Painted Veil, she converted to Buddhism, claiming, "I have some belief but I am not a strict Buddhist or anything yet. There was a lot of excitement and energy there."

Nancy Travis

2007-08-26T05:11:00.000-07:00

Nancy Travis (born September 21, 1961) is an American actress. She is known for supporting roles in both movies and television.

Travis's first job after graduating high school was a play, "It's Hard to be a Jew" at The American Jewish Theatre in NYC. After that, Travis appeared in a stage version of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs and was a founding member of the Off-Broadway theater company "Naked Angels." She appeared in their Frank Pugliese play "Aven U-Boys", as well as in "King of Connecticut". Another Broadway play Travis appeared in was "I'm Not Rappaport". She has also starred in Athol Fugard's "My Children, My Africa".

During the 1990s, Travis appeared in several film roles, including 1990s Internal Affairs. She appeared in the television sitcom Becker from 2002 to 2004, replacing Terry Farrell, and starting in 2007, she will play Susan Pearson in the Bill Engvall Show.

In 1994, Travis married former President and CEO of Savoy Pictures Robert N. Fried.

Nicolas Cage

2007-08-26T05:08:00.000-07:00

Nicolas Cage (born Nicholas Kim Coppola on January 7, 1964) is an Academy Award-winning American actor. He has also worked as a director and producer, through his production company Saturn Films.As of 2007, Cage has been nominated twice for an Academy Award as Best Actor in a Leading Role, winning the award for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas.

Cage was born in Long Beach, California. His father, August Floyd Coppola, is a writer, comparative literature professor and a pioneer of studies for the blind, while his mother, Joy Vogelsang, is a choreographer and ballet dancer who suffered from chronic depression;the two divorced in 1976. Cage's mother is of part German descent and his father is Italian American, with his paternal grandparents being Carmine Coppola and Italia Pennino, an actress. Through his father, Cage is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, as well as the cousin of director Sofia Coppola and actors Robert Carmine and Jason Schwartzman. Cage's two brothers are Christopher Coppola, a director, and Marc "The Cope" Coppola, a New York radio personality. Cage was raised Catholic.

Cage, who went to Beverly Hills High School (the same high school as fellow entertainers Albert Brooks, Angelina Jolie, Lenny Kravitz, Slash, Rob Reiner, and David Schwimmer), aspired to act from an early age. His first (non-cinematic) acting experience was in a school production of Golden Boy. He is also good friends with fellow actor Johnny Depp whom he advised to get into acting.

In his early 20s, he dated E.G. Daily for two years, and was later involved with Uma Thurman. In 1988, Cage began dating Christina Fulton, mother of their son, Weston Coppola Cage (b. 26 December 1992); Weston appeared in Cage's film Lord of War as Vladimir, a young Ukrainian mechanic who quickly disarms a Mil Mi-24 helicopter. Christina is raising their son in Los Angeles CA.

Cage has been married three times:

Patricia Arquette (married on April 8, 1995 – divorce finalized May 18, 2001) Cage proposed to her on the day he met her in the early 80s. Arquette thought he was strange, but played along with his antics by creating a list of things Cage would have to do to "win her hand", including obtaining the autograph of reclusive author J.D. Salinger. However, when he seriously started working through the list of demands, Arquette became scared and avoided him. They met again many years later and went on to marry.
Lisa Marie Presley (married on August 10, 2002 and separated after four months in December 2002; their divorce was finalised on May 16, 2004) — the daughter of Elvis Presley, of whom Cage is a fan and based his performance in Wild at Heart on. He later said they shouldn't have been married in the first place.
His third (and current) wife, Korean-American Alice Kim, is a former sushi restaurant waitress, with whom he has a son, Kal-El (born October 3, 2005). She had a minor role in the 2007 movie Next which he produced.

Cage had a Malibu home where he and Kim lived, but in 2004 he bought a property on Paradise Island, Bahamas. In 2005, he sold his Malibu home for $10 million. In May 2006, he bought a 40-acre island in the Exuma archipelago which had been on the market for $3 million, some 85 miles southeast of Nassau and close to a similar island owned by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.

On July 19, 2006, Cage bought the old medieval castle of Schloss Neidstein (see de:Schloss Neidstein) in the Oberpfalz region in Germany. His grandmother was German, living in Cochem an der Mosel.^[9]

In August, 2007, Cage purchased a home in Middletown, Rhode Island. The 24,000-square foot, brick-and-stone country manor, on 26 secluded acres, has 12 bedrooms, 10 full bathrooms and sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean from its perch bordering the Norman Bird Sanctuary. Cage sale ranks in the state’s most expensive residential purchases, eclipsed by the $17.15 million sale last December of the Miramar mansion on Bellevue Avenue in Newport.

The name of his second child, Kal-El, is also the birth name of Superman in the DC Comics universe. Nicolas said in a radio interview with Ryan Seacrest that he liked the name Kyle, but his wife wanted a more unique name. Cage is a long-time fan of comics and considers them to be the modern equivalent of mythology. He was once attached to play Superman in a film to be directed by Tim Burton. Cage even did costume fittings, but the project died due to budget and screenplay concerns. Nicolas was director Sam Raimi's first choice to play Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in the movie Spider-Man. (Apparently this was before he met Willem Dafoe.) Cage has a tattoo of Ghost Rider on his body (which, in an ironic twist, had to be covered with makeup when he played the character in a big-budget film adaptation). He has even created a comic book, with his son Weston, called Voodoo Child, which is published by Virgin Comics.

He is an ambassador and a spokesperson for the luxury items manufacturer Mont Blanc. He appears in many of its posters and attends many events.

Michelle Pfeiffer

2007-08-26T03:19:00.000-07:00

Michelle Marie Pfeiffer (born April 29, 1958) is a three-time Academy Award-nominated and internationally known American actress. In a career spanning more than 25 years, she has starred in films such as Scarface, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Batman Returns, Hairspray, Stardust and Grease 2 .

Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California to Donna (née Taverna), a homemaker, and Richard Pfeiffer, a heating and air conditioning contractor.She was raised in Midway City, Orange County, California, about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Pfeiffer is the second of four siblings: an older brother, Rick Pfeiffer, and two younger sisters, Dedee Pfeiffer (b. 1964, also an actress) and Lori Pfeiffer (b. 1965). Pfeiffer attended Fountain Valley High School, graduating in 1976. She briefly pursued a career as a court reporter at local Golden West Community College before dropping out to pursue a career in acting. In 1978, Pfeiffer entered and won the Miss Orange County beauty pageant, and then entered the statewide competition for Miss California USA. Although unsuccessful in winning the title, the young Pfeiffer acquired an agent, who helped her secure TV commercial parts and small movie and television roles before making her mark in Hollywood.

In 1981 Pfeiffer married Thirtysomething actor Peter Horton, but they divorced in 1988 at the height of her career. She has been romantically linked with actors Val Kilmer, John Malkovich, Michael Keaton and Fisher Stevens. In 1993 Pfeiffer married writer-producer David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Public, and Boston Legal).

Earlier that year, before meeting Kelley, Pfeiffer adopted a daughter, Claudia Rose, who was then adopted by Kelley following their marriage. The adopted baby was the daughter of a African-American nurse living in New York, who already had four children. At the time of the adoption, there were rumours that money was exchanged for the baby, but Michelle has vigorously denied these claims stating that the adoption was private. In 1994 Pfeiffer gave birth to a son, John Henry. Pfeiffer and Kelley divide their time between homes in Los Angeles and Northern California.

In an August 2006 In Style interview (her first in many years), Pfeiffer discussed her return to making movies, stating that she is "a better mother if I also work... It empowers them [her children] without me hovering, making everyone feel inadequate". Pfeiffer discussed plastic surgery, stating that she hopes she is "courageous enough to age gracefully". Pfeiffer also referred to her beauty as a "curse", as she believes that it often stunted her ability to get serious roles and eclipsed her acting ability.

Monica Bellucci

2007-08-26T03:17:00.000-07:00

Monica Anna Maria Bellucci (born September 30, 1964) is an Italian actress and former fashion model.

Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy, to Luigi Bellucci and Maria Gustinelli. Monica started modelling at 16, when she was attending to the Liceo Classico. Initially pursuing a career as a lawyer, by modeling Bellucci helped finance her tuition while at the University of Perugia, but the glamorous lifestyle tempted Monica away from her law studies.

She speaks Italian, French, and English fluently and has acted in each of these languages, as well as Aramaic.

She is married to fellow actor Vincent Cassel, with whom she has appeared in several films and had a daughter, named Deva (born September 12, 2004). In 2004, while pregnant with her daughter, Bellucci posed nude for the Italian Vanity Fair Magazine in protest against Italian laws that allow only married couples to use in-vitro fertilization and that prevent the use of donor sperm.

In 1988, Bellucci moved to one of Europe's fashion centers, Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. By 1989, she was becoming prominent as a fashion model in Paris and across the Atlantic, in New York City. She posed for Dolce & Gabbana and French ELLE, among others. In that year, Bellucci made the transition to acting and began taking acting classes. The February 2001 Esquire Magazine's feature on Desire featured Ms. Bellucci on the cover and in an article on the five senses. In 2003, she was featured in Maxim. In 2004, she topped AskMen's 100 Most Beautiful Women in the World annual list. Bellucci's modelling career is managed by Elite+ in NYC. She is considered an Italian sex symbol.

Meryl Streep

2007-08-26T03:15:00.000-07:00

Mary Louise Streep, mostly known as Meryl Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an Academy Award-winning American actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville and her screen debut came in 1977's made-for-television movie The Deadliest Season. Streep made her film debut in 1977's Julia opposite Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave.

Both critical and commercial success came quickly with roles in The Deer Hunter with Robert De Niro and Kramer vs. Kramer with Dustin Hoffman, the former giving Streep her first Oscar nomination and the latter her first win. Streep's work has earned her two Academy Awards, six Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Grammy Award nomination, and a BAFTA award. She is the most nominated actor (both male and female) in Academy Award history with 14 nominations. Streep is widely considered one of the most respected and talented actresses of all time. She is also one of the select actors that has won all three major motion picture acting awards (Oscars, Golden Globes, SAG Awards).

Streep was born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey, the daughter of Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive, and Mary W., a commercial artist. Streep's mother had Swiss, Irish and English ancestry and Streep's father's family was of Dutch descent, with distant Sephardic Jewish ancestors from Spain. She has two younger brothers, Dana and Harry. Streep was raised in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended and graduated from Bernards High School. She received her B.A. in Drama at Vassar College and earned a M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama at Yale University.

In her first feature film, Julia (1977), she had a small but pivotal role during a flashback scene. The Deer Hunter (1978) was her second feature film and it earned Streep her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. The following year, she won an Academy Award for her role opposite Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer (Best Supporting Actress, 1979). In 1982, she would win again for Sophie's Choice (Best Actress, 1982), where she starred alongside Peter MacNicol and Kevin Kline.

In 1978, she won her first Emmy Award, for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie, for the miniseries Holocaust. A year later she appeared in her only Woody Allen film, Manhattan. Streep was engaged to The Deer Hunter co-star John Cazale ("Fredo" in The Godfather) until his death from bone cancer on March 12th, 1978. In September 1978, she married sculptor Don Gummer. They have four children: Henry W. (Hank) (born in 1979), Mary Willa (Mamie)(born in 1983), Grace Jane (born in 1986), and Louisa Jacobson (born in 1991). Mamie Gummer has chosen acting as a career, and made her off-Broadway debut as Lucy in a 2005 production of Mr. Marmalade at the Laura Pels Theatre.