FAMOUS FEMALE

Jenny McCarthy

2007-08-15T01:24:00.001-07:00

Born: 1 November 1972
Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
Best Known As: The hostess of MTV's Singled Out

Jennifer McCarthy (born November 1, 1972, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American model and actress.

She is the second oldest of four daughters. A Catholic, Jenny graduated from Mother McAuley Liberal High School and was named MVP (Most Valuable Player) of her softball and field hockey teams.

In 1992, McCarthy was studying nursing at Southern Illinois University. In an attempt to make money for college, she submitted her picture to Playboy magazine. She was chosen to be the centerfold in the October 1993 issue and was subsequently named Playmate of the Year in 1994. Ironically, her success as a model led to her quitting college and moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in show business.

n 1995, McCarthy was hired by MTV to co-host a new series Singled Out. She became a popular success on the series due to her good looks and sense of humor. McCarthy had two short-lived television series; The Jenny McCarthy Show, a variety show, and Jenny, a sitcom. She has also appeared in the movies Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995), The Stupids (1996), BASEketball (1998), and Scream 3 (2000). McCarthy is the author of Jen-X (1997), an autobiography, and Belly Laughs: The Naked Truth About Pregnancy and Childbirth (2004).

McCarthy had a relationship with Ray Manzella who was also her manager. The couple separated and McCarthy married John Mallory Asher on September , 1999. The couple have a son, Evan, who was born May 18, 2002.

McCarthy wrote and starred in the feature film "Dirty Love" which will premiere at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

In an interview in the late 1990s, Jenny stated that when it came to modeling, she was "not all that comfortable with nudity". Nonetheless, ten years after she was featured as a Playmate, she posed again for Playboy and appeared in the January 2005 issue.

Collected from Answers.com

Lindsay Lohan

2007-08-15T01:13:00.001-07:00

Birth name	Lindsay Dee Lohan
Born	July 2, 1986 (age 20) New York City, New York, United States
Official site	www.llrocks.com www.lindsaylohanmusic.com
Notable roles	The Parent Trap (1998) Freaky Friday (2003) Mean Girls (2004) Speak (album, 2004) Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Lindsay Dee Lohan (born July 2, 1986), known professionally as Lindsay Morgan Lohan, is an American actress and pop music singer. Lohan started in show business as a child fashion model for magazine ads and television commercials. At age ten, she began her acting career in a soap opera; at eleven, she made her motion picture debut by playing both twins in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap. Lohan's breakout role as a leading actress came six years later with 2004's Mean Girls, which shone the media spotlight on her professional and personal lives—including her nightlife and her parents' marital and legal struggles.

As an adult, Lohan began to take on more varied roles and projects, including Robert Altman's final film, A Prairie Home Companion. While filming Herbie: Fully Loaded in 2004, Lohan launched her career in music, recording and releasing her first studio album, Speak; her second album, A Little More Personal (Raw), was released in 2005.

Biography and career

Lohan was born in New York City and grew up in Merrick and Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island in New York. She is the eldest child of Michael and Dina (née Sullivan) Lohan, both former actors. She has three younger siblings: brother Michael had a role as "Lost Boy at Camp" in The Parent Trap (1998), sister Aliana is an aspiring model and actress, and brother Dakota (Cody) has modeled fashions. Lohan is of Irish and Italian heritage and was raised Catholic. She originally pronounced her name ˈləʊhæn but later settled on ˈləʊən and, in 2005, explained to a TEENick audience that she had changed her middle name to something that sounded more professional. Lohan and her family have donated time and money to charity projects such as The Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Foundation, Save the Children, The United Cerebral Palsy Associations, and Dream Come True.

Lohan's family was financially comfortable from its inception; her father had inherited his family's pasta business, which he later sold to trade in futures (briefly becoming President of New York Futures Traders). More recently, he worked as an investment banker, securing funding for independent films. Lohan's mother, a former Rockette at Radio City Music Hall, was a Wall Street analyst before becoming her daughter's manager. Despite the family's wealth, Lohan—when she wasn't tutored on film sets—attended public schools on Long Island until just before her high school graduation, finishing her studies at home.

Like most celebrities, Lohan and her family have endured public scrutiny of their private lives. It was revealed in 2004 that Michael Lohan had spent much of his daughter's preteen years in prison for securities fraud. In 2005, he was sent back to prison for "aggravated unlicensed driving" and attempted assault. Later that year, Lohan's parents settled their divorce case; her mother's attorney said, "Dina and the children are delighted that this chapter in their lives is finally over", while her father (through his lawyer) said, "[I] look forward to the opportunity to rebuild my relationship with my children."

In 2004, Lohan shared an apartment in the Los Angeles, California, area with actress Raven-Symoné. The following year, she bought a home in West Hollywood while still spending much of her time at her family's home in New York. She has dated actor Wilmer Valderrama and Pink Taco restaurateur Harry Morton.

Early work

Lohan's first acting scene, on Another World

Lohan began her career with Ford Models at age three and, at a time when blue-eyed blondes were in highest demand, the freckle-faced, auburn-haired child found little work as a fashion model. She persisted, and eventually appeared in more than 100 print ads for Toys "R" Us. She also modeled for Calvin Klein Kids (usually with siblings Michael and Ali) and Abercrombie Kids. Through young adulthood, Lohan was featured in such diverse magazines as Vogue, Elle, Bliss (UK), Хай Клуб (High Club, Bulgaria), and Blenda (Japan).

Lohan's first auditions for television work did not go well; by the time she tried out for a Duncan Hines commercial, she told her mother that she would give up if she did not get the job. She was hired, and Lohan went on to appear in over 60 commercials, including a Jell-O pudding spot with Bill Cosby. Her ad work led to roles in soap operas, and she was already considered a show-business veteran in 1996 when she landed the role of Alexandra "Alli" Fowler on Another World, "where she delivered more dialogue than any other ten-year-old in daytime serials" of the time.

Lohan and Lohan "get together" in The Parent Trap (1998)

Lohan gave up Another World for the big screen when director Nancy Meyers cast her as estranged twin sisters who try to reunite their long-divorced parents (Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson) in The Parent Trap (1998). Hired in 1997 at age 10, Lohan was 11 when filming began in England and California (in Los Angeles and the Napa Valley). "I left school for eight months," she said. "When I came back, my friends [asked], 'Where'd you go?' I said, 'My family and I went on a long vacation.' Then the movie came out, and they were, like, 'Um, Lindsay? That's you in Parent Trap,' and I said, 'Oh, yeah. I also did this movie while we were gone.'" Trap was well-received for a family comedy, bringing in US$92 million worldwide. Film critic Janet Maslin found Lohan's dual performances so forceful "that she seems to have been taking shy violet lessons from Sharon Stone." Critic Kenneth Turan called Lohan "the soul of this film as much as Hayley Mills was of the original, and … she is more adept than her predecessor at creating two distinct personalities".

Signed by Disney to a three-film contract, Lohan was offered the role of Penny in Inspector Gadget but, after seven months' work on The Parent Trap, she turned it down. Later, she starred in two original television movies, Life-Size (2000) (with Tyra Banks) and Get a Clue (2002). She also played Bette Midler's daughter in the first episode of the short-lived series, Bette (2000), but Lohan—then 14—quit when the production moved from New York to Los Angeles. In 2001, she hosted the ABC-TV commercial series commemorating Walt Disney's 100th birthday during a rebroadcast of The Parent Trap.

Following a brief hiatus, Lohan attended her first-ever film audition and won the lead teen role in another Disney remake; Freaky Friday (2003) starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Lohan as a mother and daughter trapped in the other's body. Critic Roger Ebert praised Lohan's "Jodie Foster sort of seriousness and intent focus beneath her teenage persona," while Carrie Rickey—who panned the film—called her performance "unpredictable and inspired." Through 2005, Friday was Lohan's biggest commercial film success, earning US$160 million worldwide.

Actor/producer Ashton Kutcher considered Lohan a sufficient ratings draw in December 2003 to feature her in the second-season finale of Punk'd, his MTV series that plays practical jokes on celebrities (the episode was widely reported as the end of the series—also a practical joke). Eleven months later, Lohan appeared on That '70s Show opposite Kutcher and her then-boyfriend, Wilmer Valderrama.

Breakout role

Lohan in a promotional photo for Mean Girls

Lohan was given the lead in two films, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (her first feature that was not a remake) and Paramount's Mean Girls, both released in 2004. Drama Queen was a moderate success at the box office grossing about 30 million but was a failure with critics; "Though still a promising star," Robert K. Elder wrote, "Lohan will have to do a little penance before she's forgiven for Confessions." That "penance" came with Mean Girls, her first PG-13 (and first non-Disney) film. Her breakout lead performance pushed the critical and commercial hit to grosses of over US$86 million domestically and US$128 million worldwide, "cementing her status as the new teen movie queen," wrote Brandon Gray. "Lohan dazzles us once more," said Steve Rhodes. "The smartly written script is a perfect match for her intelligent brand of comedy."

Mean Girls was scripted by Tina Fey and featured several alumni of Saturday Night Live; Lohan was asked to host the show three times, in 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Lohan returned to Disney for Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), the fifth film in the long-dormant Herbie series. Her rising popularity allowed her to choose from a wider variety of projects and, at age 19, Lohan felt Herbie would help her make the transition into more grown-up roles. "In most of my other films, I was in high school," she said. "Here, [my character is] just out of college. It's nice to be able to do something that I think will be acceptable to the fan base I've accumulated from my Disney movies, but subconsciously they'll see me getting older and maturing." Fully Loaded did well at the box office, earning more in international release than in the United States.

Her next film in wide release, Just My Luck, opened in May 2006 to poor reviews and earned only $33 million worldwide. The following month, A Prairie Home Companion—an ensemble film directed by Robert Altman—fared better, debuting at #7 in limited release and ending its run with nearly $US20 million in domestic box-office receipts. "Lohan rises to the occasion," wrote Peter Travers, "delivering a rock-the-house version of 'Frankie and Johnny'." Lohan completed filming the independent Emilio Estevez film, Bobby, opposite Elijah Wood, in December 2005; the film débuted at the Venice Film Festival on September 5, 2006, and was released in theaters on November 23, 2006. Chapter 27 with Jared Leto began filming in New York on January 9, 2006, and had wrapped by March.

Three new projects were announced in April 2006; Lohan will play a girl molested by her stepfather in Georgia Rule opposite Felicity Huffman and Jane Fonda (filming began in June), and a speech assistant to Adrien Brody in Speechless (she also was set to portray the friend of a rebellious teenage boy in the comedy Bill, but dropped out). In May, Lohan joined Annette Bening and Sean Bean as the announced stars of the film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance. MTV News announced in October that she was signed to play opposite Keira Knightley in The Best Time of Our Lives. Lohan also is set to take part in I Know Who Killed Me and The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond.

Music

Hoping to become a "triple threat" (actor/model/singer) like her idol, Ann-Margret, Lohan began by showcasing her singing talents through her films. For the Freaky Friday soundtrack, she sang the closing theme, "Ultimate"; she also recorded four songs for the Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen soundtrack.

Lohan's début album, Speak

Producer Emilio Estefan, Jr. signed Lohan to a five-album production deal in 2002. "The minute I heard her sing, I knew she was gifted," he said, "and [she] has an incredible ability to connect with her audience. I am very excited to be working with her." Lohan—who said she was "extremely excited"—added, "I am surrounded by a group of very talented people." Two years later, Lohan signed a recording contract with Casablanca Records, headed by "diva-maker" Tommy Mottola. Her début album, Speak, was released in December 2004, and peaked at number four on the Billboard 200. By early 2005, it was certified Platinum. Though primarily a pop-rock album, Speak was introduced with the single "Rumors", described by Rolling Stone as "a bass-heavy, angry club anthem". Its sexually suggestive video reached number one on MTV's TRL and was nominated for Best Pop Video at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards. "Rumors" eventually earned a Gold certification.

"[W]ith just two hit films under her belt", wrote Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide, "Lohan decided it was time to turn [herself] into a multimedia, cross-platform star ... and so Speak was recorded quickly and rushed into the stores". He called her music "a blend of old-fashioned, Britney-styled dance-pop and the anthemic, arena rock sound pioneered by fellow tween stars Hilary Duff and Ashlee Simpson. [However,] Lohan stands apart from the pack with her party-ready attitude and her husky voice".

In December 2005, her second album, A Little More Personal (Raw), débuted at number 20 on the Billboard 200 chart, but fell under the top 100 within six weeks. Reviews were unfavorable; critics wondered why an album in which Lohan poured out her heart came across instead as a "slick pop production." Slant magazine called it "contrived ... for all the so-called weighty subject matter, there's not much meat on these bones." Still, A Little More Personal (Raw) was certified Gold on January 18, 2006. The music video for the album's first single, "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)"—directed by Lohan and featuring the acting début of her sister, Ali—was a dramatization of the pain Lohan says her family has suffered at the hands of her father. She said "It's kind of offensive" but "I hope he sees the positive side of the video rather than the negative."

Universal Music Group moved Lohan from Casablanca to Motown Records in February 2006. In March, she told OK! magazine that she was writing lyrics for her third album, which she called "a little different [from] the last one". The November 2006 edition of In Style reported a Christmas, 2006, release.

Media spotlight

Lohan became a regular subject of tabloid media after reports of a catfight with Hilary Duff in 2003 over their relationships with singer Aaron Carter. Lohan and Duff both later said there was no "feud". Lohan was 17 when she moved in with Valderrama in early 2004, and their breakup that November made the gossip columns; numerous romantic rumors followed, forcing actors such as Bruce Willis to refer to their relationships with Lohan as "purely professional." Lohan was also portrayed as a "party girl" who frequented clubs with Nicole Richie and Paris and Nicky Hilton, among others ("people [say], 'Oh, she goes out and she parties,'" Lohan said. "No, we are just going out and having fun."), while accidental exposures to paparazzi brought repeated rumors of breast enhancement ("they're real though," she asserted). Lohan later lampooned the various rumors on Saturday Night Live.

In July 2005, she participated in the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an effort to help prevent teenagers from smoking cigarettes and to help current smokers quit. Lohan, who began smoking in 2004, was also trying to break the habit as of early 2006.

Lohan on the cover of Vanity Fair

Lohan's three car accidents in 2005 made headlines. The first was a minor rear-ender, though the victims later threatened to sue her. She suffered minor injuries when a paparazzo who was following her for a photograph hit her car (police called the crash intentional, but prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to file criminal charges). Lohan also struck a van in West Hollywood; police ruled that the van's driver made an illegal U-turn. When VH1 named Lohan "Big 'It' Girl" for its 'Big' in '05 Awards in December, it was, Lohan quipped, "because being Big in '05 means getting in three car crashes in one year, people!"

Lindsay Lohan was the first living person to have a "My Scene Goes Hollywood" doll released by Mattel (in 2005). She also voiced herself in the direct-to-DVD feature film based on the dolls.

That same year, Lohan exhibited dramatic weight loss, which she attributed to "old-school working out." Later, Lohan admitted that she "nearly died" and said, "I'm working out with a trainer and eating healthily. I want my boobs back." Lohan spent about two days at a Miami, Florida, hospital after suffering a serious asthma attack in January 2006. That same week, Vanity Fair released an interview in which Lohan admitted using drugs "a little" (she denied ever using cocaine, calling it a "sore subject"). The article said she had recovered from "bulimic episodes", and that her 2005 hospitalization was for "a swollen liver and kidney infection". Lohan later said she was "appalled" that her words were "misused and misconstrued" for the article; the magazine replied, "Every word [was recorded] on tape. Vanity Fair stands by the story."

Lohan was interviewed for the March 2006 issue of Allure magazine; she said she hoped to be taken seriously as an actress, adding, "I hate it when people call me a teen queen." She addressed the numerous romantic rumors ("I know now that I don't need a boyfriend.") and her weight loss ("I will say that I went through a phase. I lost weight when I was in the hospital, and then I wanted to keep it off."). Lohan says 2005 "felt like five lifetimes because I've grown up a lot".

In July 2006, Lohan was taken to a hospital while shooting Georgia Rule, complaining that she was "overheated and dehydrated"; Morgan Creek Productions CEO James G. Robinson had a letter delivered to Lohan in which he accused her of "all night heavy partying" and making up "bogus excuses", and threatened to take action to recover any "monetary damages". Her mother later appeared on Access Hollywood to refute the accusation, saying her asthmatic daughter was working in 105-degree heat. Calling Robinson's letter "way out of line", Dina Lohan said, "I don't know him. I can't judge him. I don't think it was a smart thing to do to a young girl."

The death in 2006 of A Prairie Home Companion director Robert Altman hit Lohan hard, according to a condolence letter she sent to his family. The letter drew widespread criticism for being incoherent and laden with grammatical errors; publicist Leslie Sloane said journalists were wrong to criticize a note "from the heart" that was composed on her Blackberry.

According to court documents published in August 2006, Lohan's mother was sued for fraud by two men who claim they helped cut half of the songs for the Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen soundtrack. The documents outline a claim filed in Nevada and a request "to take a deposition outside the State of Nevada of Lindsey [sic] Lohan, who resides in the State of California."

Lohan was voted #10 on the list of "100 Sexiest Women" by readers of FHM. All of the top ten—except Paris Hilton—gained fame as actresses, including Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry.

By December, People reported that Lohan was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in Los Angeles. Sloane called it a "positive" step and added, "[l]et's hope that the press doesn't turn it into a negative."

Filmography

Films

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1998	The Parent Trap	Hallie Parker/Annie James
2000	Life-Size (TV)	Casey Mitchell
2002	Get a Clue (TV)	Lexy Gold
2003	Freaky Friday	Anna Coleman
2004	Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen	Mary Elizabeth "Lola" Cep
Mean Girls	Cady Heron
2005	Herbie: Fully Loaded	Margaret "Maggie" Peyton
2006	Just My Luck	Ashley Albright
A Prairie Home Companion	Lola Johnson
Bobby	Diane Huber
2007	Chapter 27	Jude	Release: Spring 2007
Georgia Rule	Rachel	Release: Summer 2007
Speechless	Sara	In active development
A Woman of No Importance		Filming scheduled Fall 2006
2008	The Best Time of Our Lives	Caitlin Thomas	Filming scheduled Spring 2007
I Know Who Killed Me	Aubrey Fleming/Dakota Jordan	Filming Starts December 2006
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond	Fisher Willow	Filming Starts April 2007

Television

Another World - 1996–1997
Bette (2000–2001) (appeared October 11, 2000, in pilot episode only)
Punk'd - one episode, December 14, 2003 (see above)
Saturday Night Live - Host, May 1, 2004
2004 MTV Movie Awards - Host, June 10, 2004
That '70s Show - "Mother's Little Helper" episode, November 10, 2004
Saturday Night Live - Cameo for Weekend Update, December 11, 2004
Saturday Night Live - Host of the season finale, May 21, 2005
Saturday Night Live - Host, April 15, 2006
2006 World Music Awards - Host, November 2006

Discography

Albums and singles

Album information
Speak Released: December 7, 2004 (U.S.) Chart positions: #4 U.S. RIAA certification: Platinum U.S. Sales: 1.1 million Worldwide sales: 2.5 million Singles: 2004: "Rumors" 2005: "Over" 2005: "First"
A Little More Personal (Raw) Released: December 6, 2005 (U.S.) Chart positions: #20 U.S. RIAA certification: Gold U.S. sales: 0.7 million Worldwide sales: 1.5 million Singles: 2005: "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)"

Soundtracks

2003: Freaky Friday
2003: Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
2004: Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
2004: That's So Raven
2005: Herbie: Fully Loaded
2006: A Prairie Home Companion

Jennifer Lopez

2007-08-15T00:58:00.001-07:00

Birth name	Jennifer Lynn Lopez
Also known as	J.Lo, Jenny
Born	July 24, 1969 (age 37)
Origin	The Bronx, New York, United States
Genre(s)	Pop, Latin pop, R&B, dance
Occupation(s)	Actress, (HUGE ASS) singer, songwriter, dancer, fashion designer
Years active	1987–present (acting) 1998–present (singing) 2001–present (fashion design)
Label(s)	Epic Records Work Records
Website	JenniferLopez.com

Jennifer Lynn Lopez (born July 24, 1969), popularly nicknamed J.Lo, is an American Golden Globe Award-nominated actress, Grammy Award-nominated singer, songwriter, dancer, and fashion designer. She is the richest Latin American in Hollywood according to Forbes magazine.

Early years

Lopez was born and raised in the Castle Hill neighborhood in the Bronx, New York City, New York to Puerto Rican parents Guadalupe (aka Gabby) Rodríguez and David Lopez. Lopez spent her entire academic career in Catholic schools. She also financed singing and dancing lessons for herself from the age of nineteen. After leaving a one semester-long career at Baruch College, Lopez divided her time between working in a legal office, dance classes, and dance performances in Manhattan clubs at night. After months of auditioning for dance roles, Lopez was selected as a dancer for various rap artists' music videos, and was given a guest spot on the American Music Awards. After being rejected for the gig twice,Ms.Lopez gained her first regular high-profile gig as a "Fly Girl" dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color in 1991. Soon after, Jennifer Lopez became a back-up dancer for famed singer Janet Jackson and made an appearance in her 1993 video "That's the Way Love Goes". Scheduled and contracted to go on Janet's world tour, she asked the superstar to be let out of her contract to pursue her acting career.

Acting

Lopez has appeared on the short-lived television programs South Central, Second Chances, and Hotel Malibu, and the television movie Nurses on the Line: The Crash of Flight 7. Lopez broke into the big screen in 1995, in the drama My Family and then appeared opposite Wesley Snipes in the action film Money Train. Lopez has also played roles in Francis Ford Coppola's 1996 comedy Jack starring Robin Williams, and the 1997 thriller Blood and Wine with Jack Nicholson. Lopez played the lead role in the 1997 film Selena for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy". She also became the first Latina actress to get paid $1 million or more for one film, the role. Some of her critically-acclaimed films include Selena, Out of Sight, The Cell, and An Unfinished Life. Lopez's not so critically-acclaimed (but successful) films include The Wedding Planner, Maid in Manhattan, and Monster-in-Law.

Lopez has finished shooting two new independent films, Bordertown and El Cantante. El Cantante was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival where it got positive to mixed reviews. Bordertown was shown at the Brussels Film Festival.

Lopez also guest-starred in the sixth season finale of Will & Grace in 2004. That episode made history for getting the highest audience numbers during the series' running.

In May 2006, MTV gave the greenlight on her executively produced reality show, Moves. The show will follow the lives of six aspiring dancers as they struggle to make it in the competitive world of professional dance. Lopez, who took an active role in selecting the show's participants, is also slated to make cameo appearances over the course of the season and the show's eight-episode run is scheduled to begin this winter.

Music

On the 6 (1999)

Lopez' debut album On the 6, a reference to the 6 subway line she used to take growing up in Castle Hill, was released on June 1, 1999, and reached the top ten of the Billboard 200. The album featured the multi-week Billboard Hot 100 number-one lead single, "If You Had My Love", as well as the top ten hit "Waiting for Tonight". It also contained the Spanish-language, Latin-flavored duet "No Me Ames" with Marc Anthony. Though "No Me Ames" never had a commercial release, the tropical remix was included on the "If You Had My Love" CD single as a B-side. Despite this, the music video for "No Me Ames" received moderate airplay on the U.S. music channels VH1 and The Box. On the 6 also featured guest artists such as Big Pun and Fat Joe on the track "Feelin' So Good". It failed to make the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100. "Let's Get Loud", the final single, earned Lopez a Grammy Award nomination in the "Best Dance Recording" category in 2001. "Waiting for Tonight" was nominated for the same category the previous year.

Lopez' second album, J. Lo, was released in January 23, 2001 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. The lead single, "Love Don't Cost a Thing", was her first number-one single in the United Kingdom and took her into the top five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Her next two singles were "I'm Real" and "Ain't It Funny" which were quickly rising up the charts. To capitalize on this, Lopez asked The Inc. Records (then known as Murder Inc.) to remix both songs, which featured rap artists Ja Rule (on both) and Caddillac Tah (on the "Ain't It Funny" remix). Both remixes reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for several weeks. She re-released J. Lo on her thirty-second birthday with the remix of "I'm Real" as a bonus track. Following the success of the album re-release, Lopez decided to devote an entire album to the remixing effort, releasing J to tha L-O!: The Remixes, on February 5, 2002. This album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming the first remix album in history to debut at the top on the chart. Featured artists on J to tha L-O!: The Remixes included P. Diddy, Fat Joe, and Nas, and the album also included rare dance and hip-hop remixes of past singles. On November 26, 2002, Lopez released her third studio album, This Is Me... Then, which reached number two on the Billboard 200 and spawned four singles: "Jenny from the Block" (featuring Jadakiss and Styles P), which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100; "All I Have" (featuring LL Cool J), which spent multiple weeks at number one; "I'm Glad"; and "Baby I Love U!". This album included a cover of Carly Simon's 1978 "You Belong to Me". In 2004, Lopez once again participated in a duet with Marc Anthony, called "Escapémonos", this time on his 2004 albums Amar Sin Mentiras and Valió La Pena.

Rebirth (2005)

After a year away from the music scene, Lopez released her fourth studio album, Rebirth, on March 1, 2005, at age of thirty-five. Debuting and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200 to decent sales success, the album quickly fell off the charts. The album spawned one hit in "Get Right", which reached the top fifteen in the U.S. and became her second Platinum hit, after "If You Had My Love". "Get Right" was also a huge hit in the UK, becoming her second number-one single there. The second single, "Hold You Down", which featured Fat Joe, made it into the top seventy-five in the U.S., peaking at number sixty-four. It reached number seventeen in Australia with little promotion and peaked at number six in the UK. Later in 2005, Rebirth was certified Platinum in the U.S. by the RIAA.

Lopez was later featured in the LL Cool J's song, "Control Myself", which was released on February 1, 2006. It reached number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the UK Top 75 Singles.

Lopez is to release her first full Spanish-language album, titled Como Ama Una Mujer, in February 2007. The lead single, the ballad "Qué Hiciste" (Spanish for "What Did You Do"), is scheduled to be released to radio stations sometime in 2006. It is said to be rock-tinged.

She is also working on her fifth English studio album, in which she is working with producer Swizz Beats. "It's coming out incredible", he said. "We're putting together some great things, and not what everyone's expecting. Think a little Jamiroquai, a little Sade. It's real feel-good music". Other producers are Timbaland, Cory Rooney, and Jermaine Dupri. There is no year or date set for this album.

Business

"Glow After Dark", a unisex fragrance coming January 2007

Lopez owns a clothing line, JLO by Jennifer Lopez, whose brand has been licensed for a term by Warnaco Group. Her line includes different types of clothing for young women, including jeans, T-shirts, coats, belts, purses, and lingerie. In 2005, she launched a new clothing line called Sweetface. She is planning to launch a jewelry line, as well as an accessory line that includes hats, gloves, and scarves. Lopez has also done photoshoots to represent the Louis Vuitton Winter 2003 campaign.

Lopez's frequent use of animal fur in her clothing lines and personal wardrobe has brought the scorn of people concerned with animal rights. At the Los Angeles première of Monster-in-Law, more than one hundred protestors from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) held a demonstration to highlight their concerns. Lopez told a radio DJ she was open to being educated on the topic.

On April 12, 2002, Lopez opened an elegant Cuban restaurant in the South Lake district of Pasadena, California named Madre's. A media sensation was creating when during a press shoot for the fancy restaurant, a mysterious man appeared out of the sidelines and gave Lopez a floral arrangement from Ben Affleck, even as then-husband Cris Judd stood next to her. Lopez was widely criticised for what appeared to be infidelity on her part.

Upcoming fragrance called "Live Luxe"

Lopez has also dabbled in the perfume industry, with her debut "Glow by J.Lo" which broke numerous records in sales. In October 2003, Lopez introduced a perfume called "Still". Before launching another completely new fragrance, she revisited 2002 "Glow" by creating a limited edition spin-off entitled "Miami Glow by J.Lo", in homage to her adopted hometown of Miami. Around the same time, Lopez came up with a "Glow" body line, which featured different body lotions and bronzers. For the Christmas season of 2005, she launched another fragrance, "Live by Jennifer Lopez". Most recently, for 2006 Valentine's Day, "Miami Glow" was replaced by yet another "Glow" spinoff – "Love at First Glow by J.Lo". Her latest fragrance is called "Live Luxe" and was released August 2006, with "Glow After Dark" following its release in January 2007. "Glow After Dark" will be her first unisex fragrance. Her fragance line enjoys global sales of more than $500 million.

Lopez is also a spokesperson for Lux shampoo in Japan, appearing in the product's television commercials.

Personal life

She lost her virginity to Juan Xavier Noboa. It is thought that Lopez has been married three times. However, she may have had a brief marriage to long-term boyfriend Ricky Velte. Her first publicized marriage was to Cuban-born Ojani Noa on February 22, 1997. Lopez met Noa while he worked as a waiter at a Miami restaurant. They divorced in March 1998. They remained on such good terms that Lopez employed Noa as the manager of her Pasadena restaurant Madre's in April 2002. However, their friendship soured in October 2002 when Lopez fired Noa from the role.

She then had a two-and-a-half year, stormy relationship with Sean Combs. On December 27, 1999, Lopez and Combs were at Club New York, a midtown Manhattan nightclub, when gunfire erupted between Combs' entourage and another group. Lopez and Combs were being driven away from the scene when they were chased and stopped by the police. A stolen gun was found in the front seat of their vehicle. Lopez was charged with felony gun possession, but the charges were dropped, as she was riding in the back seat at the time. He would eventually completely reconcile with model Kim Porter, mother of his two children and terminate his involvement with Lopez. Lopez had hoped to begin a family with Combs; but they split due to his alleged infidelity.

Her second marriage was to her former backup dancer, Cris Judd. She met Judd while filming the music video for her single "Love Don't Cost a Thing". The two were married on September 29, 2001, at a home in a Los Angeles suburb. Their marriage ended in June 2002, during which time she had reportedly started dating actor Ben Affleck.

Lopez and Affleck's relationship was highly publicized, with the media dubbing them "Bennifer". Lopez announced her engagement to Affleck in November 2002, after Affleck gave her a 6-carat pink diamond ring worth a reported $1,2 million. Lopez promised interviewers that Affleck was indeed "the one", and that they would soon have a family. The marriage, planned for September 14, 2003 in Santa Barbara, California, was called off just hours before the event. During the week before the sceduled nuptials Affleck had been seen by press carousing at a strip club with friends. The media blitz intensified when it was Lopez' own sister who called in live-radio to tell Jennifer where her fiancé had been the previous night. Lopez would only respond by saying it was a terrible way to begin the day, finding out about Affleck's behavior in that manner. Publicists announced a permanent split on January 20, 2004. Affleck has refused to speak of his relationship with Lopez, only giving intense media attention as the cause of the breakup. It has been suggested by Affleck's friends, however, that Affleck was very uncomfortable with Lopez, and that his mother had strongly disapproved of her. Lopez was reportedly heartbroken, while Affleck appeared to recover quickly. Their relationship was parodied on the South Park episode, "Fat Butt and Pancake Head" that aired in April 16, 2003. In this incredible episode Hennifer Lopez recorded her best song ever, "Taco Flavored Kisses". She also essentially had a threesome with Ben Affleck and a fat little eight year old boy. There was a media furor as to whether Lopez would give Affleck back his ring after the breakup. Lopez did belatedly return it, though not eagerly. Ben Affleck has since married and has a daughter, Violet, with actress Jennifer Garner. A former casino buff and playboy, Affleck has become a very devoted husband and father.

Lopez and Marc Anthony at the 2006 Time 100 gala event, as covered by vlog Rocketboom.

Shortly after her breakup with Affleck, Lopez was seen out with singer Marc Anthony, who at that time was still married to his wife, former Miss Universe, Dayanara Torres, with whom he had a toddler and infant. Lopez and Anthony married in a secret wedding on June 5, 2004, less than a week after his divorce from Torres was finalized on June 1. It was reported that Dayanara discovered her ex-husband's new marriage while reading online news reports. Dayanara described a period of severe depression after her divorce from which she has since recovered.

Lopez' guests had been invited to an "afternoon party" at Lopez' house unknown to them that they were actually going to her wedding. Days after the wedding, Anthony refused to comment on it during interviews. Lopez confirmed the marriage in February 2005, but admitted that "everyone knows. It's not a secret". Marc's daughter, Ariana, appeared in Jennifer's music video "Get Right" as her little sister. Marc would not admit to his marriage with Lopez for a very extended period. He maintains a very defensive and private stance regarding his marriage to Lopez. Almost immediately after the surprise wedding, Lopez was dubbed an extremely unflattering nickname by the American as well as Latin American press. Cindy Adams had written in her gossip column that Jennifer Lopez was a "sick pig". The Spanish term for pig, "La Puerca", was used to refer to Lopez. Marc soon issued a statement saying that Jennifer was in no way to blame for the dissolution of his marriage to Dayanara Torres.

Marc himself had been the target of intense media gossip and sensational reports. A Miami woman had sued him with a paternity lawsuit, while he was still married to Torres. However, three separate DNA tests were conducted, all of which showed Marc was not the father.

Throughout her career, she has also been known for her most famous physical attribute, her shapely rear-end which has been reported to be insured for millions.

Accomplishments

Lopez is the first actress and singer to have a film (The Wedding Planner) and an album (J. Lo) at number one in the same week.
Lopez' perfume, "Glow", made history in 2001, by being the number-one perfume in more than nine countries in less than four months.
Lopez is the first woman who has been placed number one two years in a row for FHM magazine's list of the 100 Sexiest Females in the World and the 100 Sexiest Females in the U.S.
Lopez was on the The Hollywood Reporter's list of the top ten actress salaries in 2002, 2003, and 2004.
Lopez made the 2004 Fortune list of the wealthiest entertainers under the age of forty. Her wealth is estimated at $255 million.
Lopez has five number-one hits in the U.S. and a combined 40 weeks at number one.
Lopez' album J to tha L-O!: The Remixes is the first remix album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200. It is also the third all-time biggest-selling remix album in the world, after Madonna's 1987 You Can Dance and Michael Jackson's 1997 Blood on the Dance Floor/HIStory in the Mix.

Discography

Further information: Jennifer Lopez discography

Albums

Release dates and sales certifications are from United States data.

On the 6 June 1, 1999 #8 U.S., #8 U.S. R&B, #6 UK, #11 AUS, #5 CAN 3x Platinum	J. Lo January 23, 2001 #1 U.S., #1 U.S. R&B, #2 UK, #2 AUS, #1 CAN 4x Platinum	J to tha L-O!: The Remixes February 5, 2002 #1 U.S., #1 U.S. R&B, #4 UK, #11 AUS Platinum	This Is Me... Then November 19, 2002 #2 U.S., #5 U.S. R&B, #7 UK, #14 AUS, #5 CAN 2x Platinum
Rebirth March 1, 2005 #2 U.S., #2 U.S. R&B, #8 UK, #10 AUS, #12 CAN Platinum	Como Ama Una Mujer February 2007 TBR

Singles

Year	Single	Chart positions
U.S.	U.S. dance	U.S. Latin	UK	AUS	CAN	MEX	GER
1999	"If You Had My Love"	1	5	27	4	1	1	1	5
"No Me Ames" (with Marc Anthony)	—	—	1	—	—	—	—	—
"Waiting for Tonight"	8	1	—	5	7	13	1	8
2000	"Feelin' So Good" (featuring Big Pun and Fat Joe)	51	1	—	15	11	17	5	39
2001	"Love Don't Cost a Thing"	3	9	—	1	4	1	1	6
"Play"	18	2	—	3	14	5	4	19
"Ain't It Funny"	3	—	—	4	—	12	—	13
"I'm Real"	1	—	—	4	3	6	1	11
"I'm Real" (Murder Remix) (featuring Ja Rule)	1	—	—	4	3	—	—	11
2002	"Ain't It Funny" (Murder Remix) (featuring Ja Rule and Caddillac Tah)	1	8	—	4	—	12	1	18
"Jenny from the Block" (featuring Styles P and Jadakiss)	3	—	—	3	5	1	2	8
2003	"All I Have" (featuring LL Cool J)	1	—	—	2	2	1	1	19
2005	"Get Right"	12	1	—	1	3	3	1	5

Awards and nominations

Selected filmography

Film

Year || Title || Role

1986	My Little Girl	Myra
1990	Lambada	Booker
1995	My Family/Mi Familia	María Sánchez, in the '20s
Money Train	Grace Santiago
1996	Jack	Miss Márquez
1997	Blood and Wine	Gabriela "Gabby"
Selena	Selena Quintanilla-Pérez
Anaconda	Terri Flores
U Turn	Grace McKenna
1998	Out of Sight	Karen Sisco
Antz	Azteca
2000	The Cell	Catherine Deane
2001	The Wedding Planner	Mary Fiore
Angel Eyes	Sharon Pogue
2002	Enough	Slim Hiller
Maid in Manhattan	Marisa Ventura
2003	Gigli	Ricki
2004	Jersey Girl	Gertrude Steiney
Shall We Dance?	Paulina
2005	Monster-in-Law	Charlotte "Charlie" Cantilini
An Unfinished Life	Jean Gilkyson
2006	Bordertown	Lauren Fredericks
El Cantante	Puchi

Upcoming films:

Bridge & Tunnel (2006) playing Sidney Farris [pre-production]
America's Darlings (2006) [in production]
The Governess (2008) [announced]

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1993	In Living Color	"Fly Girl"	Episode 15, season 4 Episode 3, Season 5
Nurses on the Line: The Crash of Flight 7	Rosie Romero	Made-for-television film
Second Chances	Melinda Lopez	Episodes "Pilot", "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Coincidence or Conspiracy", and "I Can't Get No Satisfaxion"
1994	Second Chances	Melinda Lopez	Episodes "Swimming Through Mud" and "Living in Between"
South Central	Lucille	"Co-op" (episode 4)
Hotel Malibu	Melinda Lopez	"The Bed, the Bribe and the Body" (episode 1)

Hilary Duff

2007-08-15T00:45:00.000-07:00

Birth name	Hilary Erhard Duff
Born	September 28, 1987 (age 19)
Origin	Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
Genre(s)	Pop, Pop Rock, Electronic, Dance
Occupation(s)	Actress, singer, spokesperson, fashion designer
Instrument(s)	Vocals
Years active	1997–present
Label(s)	Hollywood, Buena Vista, Walt Disney

Hilary Erhard Duff (born September 28, 1987) is an American actress and singer. After gaining fame for her starring role on the television show Lizzie McGuire, she went on to have a film career, and her most commercially successful pictures include Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), and A Cinderella Story (2004). The 19 year old has expanded her repertoire into pop music, with four successful studio albums and launched a clothing line and exclusive perfume with Elizabeth Arden, "With Love... Hilary Duff". Duff is currently shooting the 2007 action film Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens with John Cusack and recording her fifth album, scheduled for release in April 2007.

Early life and career

Hilary Duff was born in Houston, Texas, the second child of Bob Erhard Duff, owner of a chain of convenience stores, and Susan Colleen Cobb, a homemaker. After Duff's mother encouraged her to take an acting class alongside her older sister, Haylie Katherine Duff, both girls won parts in various local theatre productions. At the age of six, the Duff sisters participated in the ballet The Nutcracker Suite with Columbus Ballet Met in San Antonio. The siblings became more enthusiastic about the idea of acting professionally, and eventually relocated to California with their mother. Bob Erhard Duff stayed at the family home in Houston to maintain their business. After several years of auditions and meetings, the Duff sisters were cast in several television commercials.

Television and film career

Most of Duff's first few acting roles were small, starting off with an uncredited appearance in Hallmark Entertainment's western miniseries True Women (1997). She also served as an extra, again uncredited, in writer-director Willard Carroll's ensemble dramedy Playing by Heart (1998). Her first major part was as the star of the 1998 film Casper Meets Wendy, playing the young witch, Wendy, who encounters the animated character Casper. Like Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997), the second sequel to the successful Casper (1995), the film was released direct-to-video with generally unenthusiastic reviews.

Duff later appeared in a supporting role in the television film The Soul Collector (1999), which was based on a Kathleen Kane novel and starred Bruce Greenwood as an angel who helps out a female farmer (Melissa Gilbert) whose husband has recently died. Duff ended up winning a Young Artist Award for "Best Performance in a TV Movie or Pilot (Supporting Young Actress)".

Duff's first serious shot at fame came when she was cast as one of the children in the pilot episode of the NBC sitcom Daddio (2000). Actor Michael Chiklis, co-star of Daddio stated, "After working with her the first day, I remember saying to my wife, 'This young girl is going to be a movie star'. She was completely at ease with herself and comfortable in her own skin". Before the show had aired, Duff was dropped from its cast lineup and became reluctant to continue her acting career. Her manager and mother spurred her on, and a week later she successfully auditioned for the family comedy show Lizzie McGuire.

Lizzie McGuire, which first aired on the Disney Channel in January 2001, was a ratings hit, drawing in 2.3 million viewers per episode, and became the career breakthrough Duff had been waiting for. Her participation in the show led to her becoming highly popular among children between the ages of seven and fourteen, with critic Richard Huff of the New York Daily News calling her "a 2002 version of Annette Funicello". After Duff fulfilled her entire sixty-five episode contract with Lizzie McGuire, Disney toyed with the idea of continuing the franchise in further films and a prime-time television series to be broadcast on ABC, but the plans deteriorated. A successful feature film spin-off, The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), was produced.

Duff's first role in a theatrical motion picture was in Human Nature (2002), an independent film shot before Lizzie McGuire and first shown at the Cannes and Sundance film festivals. Written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, the film follows a female naturalist, played by Patricia Arquette. Duff played the younger version of Arquette's character.

Duff subsequently starred opposite Christy Carlson Romano and Gary Cole in the Disney Channel television film Cadet Kelly (2002), which became the network's most watched program in its nineteen-year history. Her first major role in a feature film was in Agent Cody Banks with Frankie Muniz in 2003. The film was successful enough to spawn a sequel, in which Duff did not participate. Later that year Duff played one of the twelve children of Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt in the family film Cheaper by the Dozen, which remains her highest grossing film. She reprised her role in the sequel, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005), which failed to repeat the financial success of the original film and was panned by critics.

In 2004 Duff starred in the romantic comedy A Cinderella Story, an update of Charles Perrault's fairy tale Cinderella. The film became a moderate box office hit, and though reviews were mostly negative, some critics were impressed by Duff's performance and her chemistry with co-star Chad Michael Murray. A Cinderella Story earned a total of $66,068,046 worldwide and was a commercial success. Later that year she starred in the film Raise Your Voice. Some critics praised Duff for appearing in a more dramatic role than previously, but the film was heavily panned, with the Las Vegas Weekly writing: "Effortlessly combining Duff's bad acting and bad singing with bad writing and bad direction, Raise Your Voice is an insulting waste of time that begs to be silenced". Reviews were, by and large, negative to Duff's vocals (several critics pointed out what appears to be her digitally enhanced voice ) and indifferent towards her acting performance. Duff received a Razzie Award nomination for "Worst Actress" (in addition to her work in A Cinderella Story). The film received a muted reception at the box office, where it became Duff's least commercially successful film at the time.

In The Perfect Man (2005) she played the oldest daughter of a divorced woman that was played by Heather Locklear, who later moves to New York City as she desperately searches for a man to settle down with. Reviews mostly negative, and the film disappointed at the box office, grossing a mere $16,535,005. That year, Duff was again nominated for a Razzie Award, for both The Perfect Man and Cheaper by the Dozen 2. The 2006 satirical comedy Material Girls was her least commercially successful film to date, earning $11,449,638; the Martha Coolidge-directed film, co-produced by Madonna's independent film production company Maverick Entertainment, starred Duff and her real-life sister Haylie Duff as wealthy siblings who must fight to reclaim their fortune following a scandal.

The Duff sisters are due to lend their voices to the computer animated comedy Foodfight!, which Lions Gate Films is to distribute in 2007. The film's director, Larry Kasanoff, said that he is "absolutely thrilled to have the Duff sisters as part of the cast." Duff is currently slated to star opposite John Cusack in Brand Hauser, due for release in late 2007. The film is set in a futuristic country and Duff and Cusack are currently filiming it in Bulgaria. Duff proved her commitment by pushing back her much anticipated fifth studio album so that she had ample time to work on the movie.

Music career

Duff recorded a cover of Brooke McClymont's "I Can't Wait" for the original television soundtrack for Lizzie McGuire in 2002 (see Lizzie McGuire (soundtrack)), and "The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room" for the first Disneymania compilation album. Her first album was Santa Claus Lane (2002), a collection of Christmas songs which included duets with Lil' Romeo, Christina Milian, and her sister Haylie. Accompanied by the Disney Channel-only single "Tell Me a Story", it peaked well outside of the top 100 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart, but eventually received a gold certification. The album's title track was included on the soundtrack to The Santa Clause 2 and another song, "What Christmas Should Be" was used in Cheaper by the Dozen.

Duff sang several tracks for the soundtrack to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (see The Lizzie McGuire Movie (soundtrack)), including "Why Not", which became a modest top twenty hit in Australia. Duff's second studio album, Metamorphosis (2003), included contributions by songwriter-producers such as The Matrix and reached number one on the U.S. and Canadian charts. It became one of the biggest selling albums of the year in the U.S. and has since gone to sell over 3.7 million copies. The lead single, "So Yesterday", was a top ten hit in several countries and its music video received heavy airplay on MTV, while "Come Clean" became Duff's first top forty U.S. hit and reached the top twenty elsewhere. The third single, "Little Voice", was not released in the U.S. and was a minor hit in Canada and Australia. In late 2003 Duff embarked on her first concert tour, the Metamorphosis Club Tour and later the Most Wanted tour.

The second Disneymania disc was released in January 2004 and contained a duet with her sister, "The Siamese Cat Song". Another song, "Circle of Life", featured Duff and other Disney Channel Stars. Duff and her sister recorded a cover of The Go-Gos' "Our Lips Are Sealed" for the soundtrack to A Cinderella Story, which included two other songs by Duff. The video for "Our Lips Are Sealed" was popular on MTV's TRL but the song itself failed to chart on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Duff co-wrote several of the tracks on her third album, the self-titled Hilary Duff, which she had an edgier, rock feel than Metamorphosis. It was released on her seventeenth birthday (in September 2004) and debuted at number two in the U.S. and number one in Canada. The album has sold over 1.5 million copies in the U.S. to date, but the single "Fly" failed to chart in the U.S. despite a popular video. It and "Someone's Watching over Me" reached the Australian top forty, but because the album was less successful than Metamorphosis, no other singles were released commercially. Duff then continued nine more months of the Most Wanted Tour.

Duff's fourth album, Most Wanted (2005), comprised her favorite tracks from her previous two albums, remixes, and new songs inspired by pop-rock musicians such as The Killers and Muse. Duff stated that it was not a greatest hits album, but that her label told her it was time to release a new album. She had more creative control over Most Wanted compared to her previous releases, co-writing and co-producing all of the new material with boyfriend Joel Madden and his brother Benji, both of the band Good Charlotte. The lead single, "Wake Up", became Duff's highest debut on the Billboard Hot 100 and her highest peaking single in the U.S., and its video received heavy rotation on MTV. The video for the second single, "Beat of My Heart", was also popular, but the single itself did not chart in the U.S. The album itself debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and became her third number-one debut in Canada. By March 2006, it had sold 1.3 million copies in the U.S. An Italy-only compilation, 4Ever, was released in 2006.

Duff recorded new songs for her film Material Girls, including a Timbaland-produced cover version of Madonna's "Material Girl" with her sister. According to Total Request Live, Duff's fourth studio album was to be released in the United States in February 2007 because of her commitment to the film Brand Hauser; it was later pushed back to April. It is preceded by the single "Play with Fire", which was released to U.S. radio stations in August 2006. Duff has co-written material for the album with Kara DioGuardi, and she also worked with producer-songwriter Rhett Lawrence in Toronto, Canada. She said that compared to her previous music it would be "more dancey" and make use of more real instruments. "I don't know exactly how to explain what we're doing, but it's fun and funky and different, something new for me. It's really cool", she said. She has also described the album's sound as "a little less pop-rock and more electronic-sounding". A commercial for Duff's fragrance, "With Love... Hilary Duff", features the song "With Love".

Personal life

Duff began dating singer Aaron Carter in 2002. They met on the set of Lizzie McGuire, when Carter had a cameo role on a Christmas episode. The relationship lasted a year and a half. It was reported that Carter left actress Lindsay Lohan for Duff. Carter said he also cheated on Duff with her best friend, that Duff "got her heart broken" and that he is "sorry" for his actions. Duff and Lindsay Lohan were later reported to have been involved in a "feud" with each other, over their relationship with Carter. As of 2006, the two have reportedly still not reconciled.

A backpack from the "Stuff by Duff" line, which Duff launched in 2004. It should be possible to replace this fair use image with a freely licensed one. If you can, please do so as soon as is practical.

Duff dated Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden for 2 years but the couple split mid November 2006 due to the difference in age between the couple (8 years). Madden claimed that Duff dumped him. However, the breakup has yet to be confirmed by Duff's publicists. Duff's mother Susan announced their relationship in the June 2005 interview for Seventeen magazine, after a long period of tabloid speculation. In a June 2006 interview with ELLE magazine, Duff was quoted as saying "(virginity) is definitely something I like about myself. It doesn't mean I haven't thought about sex, because everyone I know has had it and you want to fit in." Duff later told MuchMusic that she didn't say the quotes attributed to her in the article and that the subject was "definitely not something that I would talk about..."

In late 2006 Duff took legal action against an alleged stalker and the stalker's roommate. The police are currently investigating. On November 3, 2006, Duff's stalker, Maksim Miakovsky, was arrested for threatening to kill her that weekend. He was booked on charges of making criminal threats and stalking. He came to the U.S. "for the sole purpose of meeting and becoming romantically involved with Ms. Duff." Miakovsky is currently being held on $200,000 bail at the Manhattan Beach jail. He was arraigned on November 7, 2006.

Duff is involved with several charities, is an animal rights enthusiast, a member of "Kids with a Cause," and has donated US$250,000 to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. She launched a clothing line, "Stuff by Duff", on March 12, 2004, with clothes distributed through Target in the United States, Kmart in Australia, Zellers in Canada and Edgars in South Africa. Playmates Toys released a celebrity doll of her that year.

In August 2005 Duff said she received veneers because she chipped off one of her front teeth on a microphone during a concert. In late 2005 Duff took a month off from work as a belated eighteenth birthday present. She said that she wanted to take a short break after releasing Most Wanted and writing three new songs for it, shooting three films, and embarking on her U.S. "Still Most Wanted Tour". By 2005 Duff appeared to have lost weight, leading the media to speculate that she had developed an eating disorder, although Duff has denied this claim. Duff was interviewed on the Australian current affair show Today Tonight and stated that she lost weight by living a more active lifestyle.

In late August 2006 Duff traveled to a New Orleans elementary school and worked with USA Harvest to distribute meals. In 2005, she donated more than 2.5 million meals to Hurricane Katrina victims in the south. In September 2006 Duff released her perfume, "With Love... Hilary Duff", which she premiered on The View.

Duff and her pet dog Lola made an appearance in the Electronic Arts game The Sims 2: Pets, which was released on October 2006. In console versions of the game Duff's character will visit public areas and players will be able to let their sims socialise with her and Lola, the dog. However, in the PC expansion pack, players must download the Duff sim from the Maxis website before December 31 she and her dog will be fully playable characters, rather than a non-player character.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2007	High School Musical 2	Emily Evans	TV movie
2007	Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens	TBA	Filming
2007	Foodfight!	Sunshine Goodness	U.S. release November 2007
2006	Material Girls	Tanzie Marchetta
2005	Cheaper by the Dozen 2	Lorraine Baker
2005	The Perfect Man	Holly Hamilton
2004	In Search of Santa	Crystal	Direct-to-video
2004	Raise Your Voice	Terri Fletcher
2004	A Cinderella Story	Samantha Montgomery
2004	Cheaper by the Dozen	Lorraine Baker
2004	The Lizzie McGuire Movie	Lizzie McGuire/Isabella Parigi
2003	Agent Cody Banks	Natalie Connors
2002	Cadet Kelly	Kelly Collins	Made-for-television
2001	Human Nature	Young Lila Jute	Theatrical release in 2002
1999	The Soul Collector	Ellie	Made-for-television
1999	Playing by Heart		Bit part; uncredited
1998	Casper Meets Wendy	Wendy	Direct-to-video

Other roles

Duff has made several guest appearances in television shows, her first as a sick child in the medical drama Chicago Hope in March 2000. In a 2003 episode of George Lopez she had a role as a makeup salesperson, and she later reappeared in the show in 2005 as a feminist poet friend of Carmen (Masiela Lusha), a character whose poetry had roots in the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Toril Moi, and Ranjit Hakim. She acted opposite her sister Haylie as the 1960s pop group The Shangri-Las in American Dreams in 2003, and played a classmate and idolizer of the title character of Joan of Arcadia in a 2005 episode. During her Most Wanted tour, she performed in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she filmed a brief appearance on the soap opera Rebelde.

Discography

Albums

Santa Claus Lane

Released: October 15, 2002 (U.S.)
Chart positions: #154 U.S.
RIAA certification: Gold (December 2003)
Singles:
- "Tell Me a Story (About the Night Before)" (November 2002)

Metamorphosis

Released: August 26, 2003 (U.S.)
U.S. sales: 3.7 million copies (as of May 2005)
Chart positions: #1 U.S. (1 week)
RIAA certification: 3x platinum (January 2004)
CRIA certification: 4x platinum – 400,000 copies (December 2004)
Singles:
- "So Yesterday" (July 2003)
- "Come Clean" (January 2004)
- "Little Voice" (April 2004) Released in Australia

Hilary Duff

Released: September 28, 2004 (U.S.)
U.S. sales: 1.5 million copies (as of May 2005)
Chart positions: #2 U.S.
RIAA certification: Platinum (October 2004)
CRIA certification: 3x platinum – 300,000 copies (January 2005)
Singles:
- "Fly" (August 2004)
- "The Getaway" (November 2004) Radio single in North America
- "I Am" (December 2004) U.S. Radio Disney-only single
- "Weird" (December 2004) Radio single in Spain
- "Someone's Watching over Me" (January 2005) Released in Australia

Most Wanted

Released: August 16, 2005 (U.S.)
U.S. sales: 1.3 million copies (as of March 2006)
Chart positions: #1 (debut) U.S. (2 weeks)
RIAA certification: Platinum (September 2005)
CRIA certification: 2x platinum – 200,000 copies (December 2005)
BPI certification: Gold – 100,000 copies (January 2006)
Singles:
- "Wake Up" (July 2005)
- "Beat of My Heart" (November 2005)
- "Supergirl" (February 2006) U.S.-only digital download
- "Fly" (March 2006) Released in Europe

TBA

Release: April 2007 (U.S.)
U.S. sales: n/a
Chart positions: n/a
RIAA certification: n/a
Singles:
- "Play with Fire" (August 2006)

Singles

Year	Title	Album	Chart positions
U.S.	UK	CAN	AUS	BRA	SUI	FR
2003	"Why Not"	The Lizzie McGuire Movie: Soundtrack	—	—	—	14	—	—	—
"So Yesterday"	Metamorphosis	42	9	2	8	—	28	8
"Come Clean"	35	18	7	17	—	78	29
2004	"Little Voice"	—	—	29	29	—	—	—
"Our Lips Are Sealed" (with Haylie Duff)	A Cinderella Story: Soundtrack	—	—	—	8	—	—	—
"Fly"	Hilary Duff	—	20	17	21	—	—	—
2005	"Someone's Watching over Me"	—	—	—	22	—	—	—
"Wake Up"	Most Wanted	29	7	6	15	16	31	24
"Beat of My Heart"	—	—	—	13	—	89	—
2006	"Play with Fire"	TBA	—	—	—	—	—	—	—

Penelope Cruz

2007-08-15T00:34:00.001-07:00

Born:	April 28, 1974 (age 32) Madrid, Spain
Occupation:	Actress

Penélope Cruz Sánchez (born April 28, 1974 in Madrid, Spain), better known as Penélope Cruz (colloquially shortened to Pe), is a Spanish actress. Originally a dancer, she soon moved into Spanish television, and since then she has appeared in a string of films, in Spanish, English, French and Italian, with relative success and some awards.

Biography

Early life

Cruz was born in Madrid and was named after a song by Joan Manuel Serrat. Her parents are Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. She was a dancer as a child and young teen. She completed 2º B.U.P. (2nd year of secondary school), but dropped out of school at the age of 15 after she beat more than 300 other girls in a dance competition. She received nine years of classic ballet training at the Conservatorio Nacional in Madrid, four years of dance performance with several dance courses at the Cristina Rota School in New York, and three years of Spanish Ballet with Ángela Garrido. She also had jazz dance courses with Raúl Caballero.

Career

Cruz first achieved fame when she appeared in the video clip La fuerza del destino for the Spanish synthpop group Mecano. She later started a relationship with Nacho Cano, a member of the group.

She was a TV presenter for the teen-oriented program La Quinta Marcha.

Cruz's first major films were Jamón, Jamón and Belle Epoque, a film which won an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film.

In 1997, she starred as Sofía alongside Eduardo Noriega in Abre los Ojos, directed by Alejandro Amenábar, and in 2000 she appeared with Matt Damon in All the Pretty Horses (film). In 1999, she appeared in Pedro Almodóvar's Todo sobre mi madre, which won an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film.

In early 2001, she appeared in the film Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, which sparked a supposed three-year relationship with the actor. Vanilla Sky was the Hollywood remake of Abre los Ojos ("Open Your Eyes"), and she played the same part in both films.

Personal life

Cruz has a younger brother Eduardo, who is a singer, and a younger sister Mónica Cruz, who closely resembles her: a similarity exploited for some Spanish TV ads. In the 2000s, Mónica left her dancing career and achieved note on her own in the youth-oriented TV series Un Paso Adelante. They are also distant cousins of Alexandra Cruz.

She has been a vegetarian since 2000.

She speaks four languages: Spanish, Italian, French and English. She learned Italian because she wanted a part in the 2004 movie Non ti muovere, and she went on to win the Italian equivalent of the Oscars for Best Actress.

She has donated a considerable amount of money and time to charity. In 1997 she volunteered in Uganda for two months.

After appearing in 2001 in the film Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, they had a three year relationship. Cruise and Cruz split in January 2004.

After filming Sahara in February 2005, she started dating actor Matthew McConaughey. In May 2006, they released a joint statement to People, saying that they "have decided to take time off as a couple. Due to busy work schedules and so much time apart, they mutually decided four weeks ago that separating was the best thing to do at this time."

Spanish press has been linking Cruz to Academy Award winner Adrien Brody, whom she co-stars in the upcoming film Manolete. Cruz herself has denied the rumors.

Cruz is best friends with actress/producer, Salma Hayek. The two co-stared in the 2006 movie Bandidas.

Selected filmography

Passion India (announced) (2006) (announced)
The Loop (announced) (2006) (announced)
The Good Night (2006) (post-production)
Manolete (2006)
Volver (Return)(2006) directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Bandidas (2006) Maria
Chromophobia (2006)
Sahara (2005)
Noel (2004)
Don't Move (2004)
Head in the Clouds (2004)
Gothika (2003)
Fanfan la tulipe (2003)
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
Blow (2001)
Woman On Top (2000)
All the Pretty Horses (1999)
Todo Sobre mi Madre (All About My Mother) (1999)
Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) (1997)
Belle Epoque (1992) Luz (aka Belle époque (France) aka The Age of Beauty)
Jamón, jamón (Ham, Ham) (1992)

Accolades

ALMA Awards

2002 Nominated ALMA Award Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture for: Vanilla Sky (2001)
1999 Nominated ALMA Award Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film for: The Hi-Lo Country (1998)

Blockbuster Entertainment Awards

2001 Nominated Blockbuster Entertainment Award Favorite Actress - Drama/Romance for: All the Pretty Horses (2000)

Cannes Film Festival

2006 Won Best Actress for: Volver (2006)

David di Donatello Awards

2004 Won David Best Actress (Migliore Attrice Protagonista) for: Non ti muovere (2004)

European Film Awards

2004 Won Audience Award Best Actress for: Non ti muovere (2004)
2004 Nominated European Film Award Best Actress for: Non ti muovere (2004)
2003 Nominated Audience Award Best Actress

for: Fanfan la tulipe (2003)

2001 Nominated Audience Award Best Actress for: Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
1999 Nominated European Film Award Best Actress for: La Niña de tus ojos (1998)

Fotogramas de Plata

1999 Won Fotogramas de Plata Best Movie Actress (Mejor Actriz de Cine)

Goya Awards

2005 Nominated Goya Best Lead Actress (Mejor Actriz Principal) for: Non ti muovere (2004)
1999 Won Goya Best Lead Actress (Mejor Actriz Principal) for: La Niña de tus ojos (1998)
1993 Nominated Goya Best Lead Actress (Mejor Actriz Principal) for: Jamón, jamón (1992)

Imagen Foundation Awards

2003 - Creative Achievement Award

MTV Movie Awards

2002 Nominated MTV Movie Award Breakthrough Female Performance for: Blow (2001)

Ondas Awards

1993 Won Film Award Best Acting (Mejor Interpretación) Tied with Javier Bardem (No award category given officially).

Peñíscola Comedy Film Festival

1995 Won Best Actress for: Todo es mentira (1994)

Razzie Awards

2002 Nominated Razzie Award Worst Actress for: Blow (2001)
Also for Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
and Vanilla Sky (2001).

Spanish Actors Union

1999 Won Award of the Spanish Actors Union Film: Lead Performance (Protagonista Cine) for: La Niña de tus ojos (1998)
1998 Nominated Award of the Spanish Actors Union Film: Performance in a Minor Role (Reparto Cine) for: Carne trémula (1997)
1993 Won Award of the Spanish Actors Union Film: Supporting Performance (Secundario Cine) for: Belle epoque (1992)
1993 Nominated Newcomer Award for: Jamón, jamón (1992)

Jennifer Aniston

2007-08-15T00:18:00.001-07:00

Birth name	Jennifer Joanne Linn Anastasakis
Born	February 11, 1969 (age 37) Sherman Oaks, California, USA
Height	5'4"
Notable roles	Rachel Green in Friends

Jennifer Joanne Linn Anastasakis (born February 11, 1969), better known as Jennifer Aniston, is an Emmy and Golden Globe-winning American film and television actress.

Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, California, and grew up in New York City, and began appearing in stage productions in the late 1980s. After several lesser-known film and television roles during the early 1990s, Aniston came to fame playing Rachel Green on the highly popular television sitcom Friends for which she won a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award.

She has since focused heavily on her film career, having starred in several Hollywood films, including Bruce Almighty and Rumor Has It. Aniston has also become known for her marriage to, and eventual divorce from, actor Brad Pitt, and for her relationship with actor Vince Vaughn.

Biography

Aniston is the daughter of actor John Aniston (originally Ioannis Anastassakis) and his then-wife Nancy Dow, who was also an actress; she has two half-brothers, John Melick (older) and Alex Aniston, who is younger. Aniston's Greek father was born in Crete, while her maternal grandfather, Gordon McLean Dow, was of Scottish and English descent and her maternal grandmother, Louise Grieco, was of Italian ancestry. Aniston's godfather was the late Greek American actor Telly Savalas, who was her father's best friend, and Aniston spent some of her childhood in Greece, but most of it in New York City, where her father appeared in the soap operas Love of Life and Search for Tomorrow. In 1985, the family moved to Los Angeles, where Aniston's father starred on the soap opera Days of our Lives. Aniston graduated from Manhattan's School of Performing Arts. Among her high school friends was future human rights activist Chastity Bono. Aniston's desire to become an actress grew as she worked in Off-Broadway productions such as For Dear Life and Dancing on Checker's Grave. During this time, she supported herself with several part-time jobs, including working as a telemarketer and bike messenger.

Career

Aniston appeared as a "Nutri-System" girl on The Howard Stern Radio Show in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She moved to Hollywood and was cast in her first television roles in 1990, starring as a regular on the short-lived series Molloy and in the TV movie Camp Cucamonga. She also co-starred in Ferris Bueller, a television adaptation of the 1986 teen movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the same year; the series was quickly cancelled. Aniston then appeared in two more failed television comedy shows, The Edge and Muddling Through, and guest-starred on Quantum Leap, Herman's Head and Burke's Law. After the string of cancelled shows, along with her appearance in the critically derided 1993 horror film, Leprechaun, Aniston seriously considered giving up acting.

Aniston's plans changed, however, after auditioning for Friends, a sitcom that was set to debut on NBC's 1994-1995 fall line-up. The producers of the show originally wanted Aniston to audition for the role of Monica Geller, but she persuaded them that she was better suited for the role of Rachel Green. She was cast in the role and played the character from 1994 until the show ended in 2004. The program was very successful and Aniston, along with her co-stars, gained wide renown among television watchers. Her hairstyle at the time, which became known as the "Rachel", was widely copied (see also Dido flip). Aniston received a salary of one million dollars per episode for the last three seasons of Friends, as well as five Emmy nominations, including a win for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series".

Aniston has starred in several theatrical films, including the cult hit Office Space. She gained the most critical acclaim for her role in the low-budget 2002 film, The Good Girl, directed by Miguel Arteta, playing an unglamorous cashier in a small town. The film opened in just four theatres - under 700 in total - taking $14M in the U.S. box office. Jennifer's biggest box office success was her appearance in 2003's Bruce Almighty, in which she played the girlfriend of title character (Jim Carrey); the film grossed $243M at the United States box office and almost twice that worldwide. Aniston's 2004 film, Along Came Polly (opposite Ben Stiller), also did well at the box office after opening at the #1 spot. In late 2005, Aniston headlined two major studio films, Derailed and Rumor Has It, both of which performed fairly at the box office, grossing over $35 million each. Derailed earned her much praise for taking a different role and doing it well. In the same year, she appeared in a European Heineken television commercial frequently aired before UEFA Champions League matches.

In 2006, Aniston appeared in the low-budget drama, Friends with Money, which was first shown at the Cannes Film Festival, received a limited release, and grossed over $13 million. Aniston's next film, The Break-Up, which was released on June 2, grossed approximately $39.17 million during its opening weekend, despite lukewarm reviews. It has currently grossed over $118 million at the U.S. box office and over $200 million worldwide.

Aniston has been linked to the upcoming films The Senator's Wife, Wanted, and Diary, but none have yet begun filming. She will also co-direct a hospital emergency room-set short film named Room 10, starring Robin Wright Penn and Kris Kristofferson; Aniston has noted that she was inspired to direct by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who directed a short film in 2006.

Personal life

Aniston has previously dated musician Adam Duritz and was engaged to actor Tate Donovan. Her high-profile relationship with personality Brad Pitt was frequently publicized in the press. She married Pitt on July 29, 2000, in a lavish Malibu wedding. The two separated on January 7, 2005, and Aniston officially filed for divorce on March 25, 2005. The divorce was finalized on October 2, 2005.

Media reports have speculated that the split was due to an affair on Pitt's part (with actress Angelina Jolie) or due to Aniston's refusal to have children. Aniston vehemently denied the latter in an August 2005 Vanity Fair interview, stating, "I've never in my life said I didn't want to have children... I've always wanted to have children, and I would never give up that experience for a career. I want to have it all."

She has also stated that the death of her longtime therapist, whose work helped to make the separation from Pitt easier, more than a year ago was "devastating." Summing up her relationship with Pitt, Aniston has said that their relationship, which she does not regret, was "seven very intense years together" and that "it was a beautiful, complicated relationship."

Since the couple's divorce, Aniston has been romantically linked with well-known actor Vince Vaughn. In August of 2006, Aniston denied rumors that the two were engaged or that Vaughn had proposed. In October 2006, gossip magazine US Weekly quoted sources from Vaughn that the couple had split. "Jen lives in a crazy world with all the press. It's just not his world."

In October 2006, during a guest appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Aniston denied rumours that she and Vaughn broke up. Aniston also shot down rumors of breast implants, chalking it up to having a "couple cheese plates too many" and putting on ten well-placed pounds.

She supported John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, along with then-husband Pitt.

She owns a house in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, in the same town as Brad Pitt.

She is friends with Oprah Winfrey, and Ellen DeGeneres. She is also the godmother to Courtney Cox's and David Arquette's daughter CoCo (who she refers to as the prettiest thing on earth). Even though she had rough years with her mother, they are now on talking terms, and there is no hostility between them.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2007	Wanted	Diane	announced
Diary	Kathryn Fayer	pre-production
The Senator's Wife	Rosalind Mitchell	pre-production
2006	The Break-Up	Brooke Meyers
Friends with Money	Olivia
Room 10		short film; co-director only
2005	Rumor Has It	Sarah Huttinger
Derailed	Lucinda Harris
2004	Along Came Polly	Polly Prince
2003	Bruce Almighty	Grace Connelly
2002	The Good Girl	Justine Last
2001	Rock Star	Emily Poule
1999	The Iron Giant	Annie Hughes	voice only
Office Space	Joanna
1998	The Object of My Affection	Nina Borowski
1997	Picture Perfect	Kate Mosely
'Til There was You	Debbie
1996	She's the One	Renee Fitzpatrick
Dream for an Insomniac	Allison
1993	Leprechaun	Tory Reding

Awards

1995: Screen Actors Guild Award: Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Comedy Series, Friends
2001: People's Choice Award: Favorite Female Television Performer, Friends
2001: Aftonbladet TV Prize, Sweden: Best Foreign TV Personality- Female, Friends
2002: Emmy Award: Best Actress in a Comedy Series, Friends
2002: People's Choice Award: Favorite Female Television Performer, Friends
2002: Hollywood Film Festival: Actress of the Year
2002: Teen Choice Award: Choice TV Actress- Comedy, Friends
2002: Aftonbladet TV Prize, Sweden: Best Foreign TV Personality- Female, Friends
2003: Golden Globe Award: Best Actress in a Comedy Series, Friends
2003: People's Choice Award: Favorite Female Television Performer, Friends
2003: Teen Choice Award: Choice TV Actress- Comedy, Friends
2003: Teen Choice Award: Choice Movie Actress- Drama/Action Adventure, The Good Girl
2003: Aftonbladet TV Prize, Sweden: Best Foreign TV Personality- Female, Friends
2004: Logie Awards: Most Popular Overseas Star, Friends
2004: People's Choice Award: Favorite Female Television Performer, Friends
2004: Teen Choice Award: Choice TV Actress- Comedy, Friends
2004: Aftonbladet TV Prize, Sweden: Best Foreign TV Personality- Female, Friends
2006: Teen Choice Award: Choice Movie Chemistry (shared with Vince Vaughn), The Break-Up

Natalie Portman

2007-08-15T00:05:00.001-07:00

Birth name	Natalie Hershlag (Hebrew: נטלי הרשלג)
Born	June 9, 1981 (age 25) Jerusalem, Israel
Height	5' 3" (160cm)
Notable roles	Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta

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

As a young child, Portman spent her school holidays attending theater camps where she developed her love of acting. After some experience in an off-Broadway musical, she was cast in Léon at age twelve. During the mid-1990s, Portman had roles in films such as Heat, Everyone Says I Love You and Mars Attacks!, as well as having a major role in Beautiful Girls.

In the late 1990s, she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. She placed a priority on her education and pursued tertiary studies at Harvard University even though it had potential to conflict with her acting career. Recent roles include Garden State, Closer, and V for Vendetta. For Closer, she received a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Biography

Early life

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 housewife 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 the 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," her "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; her mother always accompanied pre-adult Portman to filming locations.

Early career

Portman started taking dancing lessons at the age of four, performed in local troupes, and dreamed of dancing on Broadway. At the age of twelve 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, and took "Portman", her grandmother's maiden name, as her professional stage surname.

Starting at age 13, Portman spent her school holidays attending upscale theater camps Stagedoor Manor and Usdan Camp, where she forged her love for acting, playing roles in the camp productions such as the title character in Anne of Green Gables, Dream Laurey in Oklahoma! and Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1993 Portman was handed her first professional role as an understudy for the off-Broadway musical Ruthless!.

Portman at age 12 in Léon

Her inaugural experience in professional theater led her to audition for Luc Besson's 1994 film Léon (aka The Professional). She was initially turned down for the role due to her youth, but further auditioning won her the part. Soon after Portman was given the part, she took Portman as her stage name in the interest of privacy. 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 twelve. That same year she appeared in the short film Developing which aired on television.

1995–1999

She was cast in the high-budget action film Heat. Although she had a small role, she starred alongside some of the industry's biggest names such as Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Val Kilmer. Following the success of Léon, Portman had gained considerable fame for her performance and was approached for the role of Marty in Ted Demme's Beautiful Girls. Following an audition, she was cast in Woody Allen's comedy-musical Everyone Says I Love You. She was also given a role in Tim Burton's famously star-studded Mars Attacks!. She had been considered for the role of Juliet in the 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, but was eventually turned down because of the age difference between her and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Portman plays Padmé Amidala in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, with Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker and Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

In 1996, to Portman's surprise, casting director for the new Star Wars films Robin Gurland contacted her to see if she was interested in playing the female lead in the new films. Portman, still only 14 years old and having never seen the original three Star Wars films, was speculative at first about the commitment she was making and what impact it would have on her life, as the role would ultimately see her participate in three films over the course of a decade. After meeting with George Lucas and producer Rick McCallum she signed on to the prequel trilogy. Portman then auditioned for the role of Anne Frank in the Broadway revival of The Diary of Anne Frank. The decision to participate in this production caused her to pull out of the film The Horse Whisperer. In mid-1997, production began on the first of the three Star Wars prequel films, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

She returned to complete her junior year in high school; whilst studying she also performed in The Diary of Anne Frank. She did eight shows a week while attending classes full-time. The play was performed for a month at the Colonial Theater in Boston before making its Broadway debut at the Music Box Theater in early December. She would receive a Tony nomination for her role as Anne Frank. She was also offered a role in the film Anywhere But Here, but after reading the script turned down the role as her character was involved in a sex scene. Director Wayne Wang and actress Susan Sarandon rushed to her support and demanded a rewrite of the script, allegedly saying they would not continue their involvement in the film unless the young actress’s wishes were respected. Portman was shown a new script and she happily joined the project. In early 1999, The Phantom Menace opened and became the highest grossing film of the year and the second highest grossing film out of the Star Wars series. Its massive audience and mainstream appeal saw Portman become an instant star. Portman then signed on to play a persevering teenaged mother in Where the Heart Is. Anywhere But Here opened in late 1999; she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Ann August.

2000–2005

Portman as Alice in the 2004 film Closer.

After filming Where the Heart Is, Portman moved into the dorms of Harvard to pursue her bachelor's degree in psychology. She graduated in 2003. In July 2001, Portman opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Mike Nichols, playing the role of Nina alongside co-stars Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The play opened at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. That same year she was one of many celebrities who made cameo appearances in the comedy Zoolander. Attack of the Clones was filmed in Sydney during this time, including additional production in London.

In 2002, Attack of the Clones opened around the world. Portman was cast in a small role in the film Cold Mountain alongside Jude Law and Nicole Kidman. In 2004, Portman had starring roles in the independent movies Garden State and Closer. Garden State was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and won Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. Her role of Alice in Closer saw Portman win a Supporting Actress Golden Globe as well as a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.

In 2005 she filmed Free Zone. The year also saw a close to the Star Wars prequel trilogy, with Revenge of the Sith released worldwide on May 19. The film was the highest grossing film of the year and was voted Favorite Motion Picture at the People's Choice Awards. Shortly before the film's opening, Portman shaved her head for her role in the film adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel, V for Vendetta, released in March 2006. Her shaved head was first seen publicly at the Revenge of the Sith premieres. She kept her hair short for most of 2005, had a fauxhawk mohawk, and briefly sported a full mohawk in late August, saying that it was "kind of wonderful to throw vanity away for a bit". During the latter part of 2005, Portman filmed Goya's Ghosts.

2006–present

Portman and Andy Samberg in an "SNL Digital Short"

Portman appeared on Saturday Night Live on March 4, 2006 , hosting the show with musical guest Fall Out Boy and special guest star Dennis Haysbert. In a now-famous SNL Digital short, she portrays herself as an angry gangsta rapper (with Andy Samberg as her Flava Flav-esque partner in Viking garb) during a faux-interview with Chris Parnell, saying she cheated at Harvard University while high on pot. (Note: NBC edited out all references to Harvard and smoking pot from the the version of the video available on at NBC.com) In another sketch, she portrays a student named Rebecca Hershlag (her actual surname) attending a Bar Mitzvah, and in an installment of the recurring sketch The Needlers (a.k.a. Sally and Dan, The Couple That Should Be Divorced), plays a fertility specialist (her father's profession).

Portman with her shorter hair after it was shaved for her role in V for Vendetta, 2006

V for Vendetta opened in early 2006. Portman portrayed Evey Hammond, a young woman who is saved from the secret police by the main character, V. Portman worked with a voice coach for the role, learning to speak in an English accent. Maxim magazine named Portman #33 on its annual Hot 100 list, citing her V for Vendetta bald head as a huge accomplishment proving "you don't need hair to be hot."

Portman has commented on V for Vendetta's political relevance, and mentioned that her character, who joins an underground anti-government group, is "often bad and does things that you don't like" and that "Being from Israel was a reason I wanted to do this because terrorism and violence are such a daily part of my conversations since I was little," although the film "doesn't make clear good or bad statements. It respects the audience enough to take away their own opinion". Portman's upcoming films include Goya's Ghosts and Free Zone (an Israeli film which received a limited U.S. theatrical release in April 2006). She is set to appear in the children's film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, which began filming in April 2006; Portman has said that she was "excited to do a kids movie."

Portman is currently filming The Other Boleyn Girl, a historical drama in which she will play Anne Boleyn; Eric Bana and Scarlett Johansson will co-star in the film.

Portman recently landed a small role in the 18th season of the Emmy Award winning series, The Simpsons. She will be the voice of Bart Simpson's love interest from a neighboring town.

Personal life

Beliefs

Portman has advocated for environmental causes from a young age, becoming a member of the environmental song and dance troupe The World Patrol Kids at age 12. 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 micro-financing.

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."

Controversy

Portman, who had recently read some of the works by W.E.B. DuBois, was interviewed for the August 2004 issue of Allure magazine where she was quoted as saying, "Oh my God! I'm not black, but I know what it feels like!" This prompted her to follow up with a letter to their editor, in which she wrote: "The 'it' I was referring to when I said, 'I know what it feels like,' was not intended to signify that I know 'how black people feel,' but rather that I know what DuBois’s concept of double-consciousness feels like, in variation. Had my quote included what I actually said preceding that statement, perhaps my meaning would have been clearer."

Portman also made headlines when she was moved away by Israeli Police on February 23, 2005 from Jerusalem's Western Wall after protests by religious Jews who were praying at the holy site. She and Israeli actor Aki Avni were filming a kissing scene near the Wailing Wall for the movie Free Zone. This was deemed to be immodest and men who were praying heckled the pair until police stepped in and suggested they return later. The site is under the authority of Orthodox Judaism, and Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, who is responsible for the site, said the actors' behavior violated the code of conduct.

It was reported that on July 8, 2005, Portman was pulled over by the NYPD while driving in a transit tunnel underneath New York City for looking unusual and having an expired registration. She had a shaven head from playing a freedom fighter in V for Vendetta, and had just arrived back in the United States from Israel and film shooting in Berlin. The policeman told her not to drive in the tunnel, but to take the bridge instead. "I've never had that happen to me before," Portman said. "It's supposedly random... I didn't understand that logic. If you're a suspect, don't take the tunnel, take the bridge?"

Education

Portman held a 4.0 GPA throughout high school. She has said that she was "used to As" but admits to reading about institutional grade inflation in the Ivy Leagues in the New York Times. She reported on a talk show, "I'd rather be smart than be a movie star" and that her goal was to graduate from college even if it ruined her acting career. Despite her high profile and the affluence of her parents, at 13 she switched ("because I couldn't stand it anymore") to the public Syosset High School in Syosset, New York, graduating in June of 1999. Portman reportedly had to miss the premiere of Star Wars: Episode I so she could study for her high school final exams.

After high school, Portman enrolled at Harvard University where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in Psychology on June 5, 2003. In 2005 Portman pursued graduate studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Portman is credited as a research assistant to Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz's The Case For Israel. She was a research assistant to Dr. Stephen M. Kosslyn's psychology lab as well, and made a cameo appearance as a guest lecturer for the Terrorism and Counterterrorism course at Columbia University in early March of 2006, discussing themes from her film V for Vendetta.

In addition to Hebrew and English, Portman has studied and/or can speak (to some degree) French, Japanese, and German. She has recently been learning to speak Arabic.

As a student, Portman co-authored two research papers which were published in professional scientific journals. Her 1998 high school paper on the "Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen" was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search. In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal Lobe Activation During Object Permanence" during her psychology studies at Harvard.

Relationships

Portman keeps her personal life as far away from the media spotlight as possible. She has always had many close male friends and rumored suitors who are frequently named as her boyfriends; the unverified gossip is often repeated as fact in tabloids and biographies. In reality, Portman has dated a couple of her college classmates, and has had alleged romantic links with actors including Liron Levo, Jake Gyllenhaal,, Hayden Christensen, and Gael García Bernal. In the May 2002 issue of Vogue Portman called actor/musician Lukas Haas and musician Moby her close friends. She was linked to Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, but he claims they are friends. Recently, she is reportedly dating Nat Rothschild, of the famous multi-billionaire, Jewish banking family. But despite the rumors of her and Rothschild, Natalie has been spotted lately with Gael again. The two were seen kissing in London and Natalie has stated she has had an "intimate" realtionship with him before.

Trivia

Portman was an understudy in the off-Broadway play, Ruthless!, in which Britney Spears had a role. At a Manhattan hotel in 2003 they co-hosted a carnival-themed New Year's Eve party together.
A number of songs and albums are named after her, by artists such as Intel One, Team Sleep, Sage Francis, and Ozma. The make-up brand Stila has a lip color named after her (a sheer plum titled "Natalie"), and fashion designer Zac Posen has referred to her as his "muse".
She is one of the few people with a finite Erdős-Bacon number, meaning she has both appeared in film (giving her a Bacon number) and co-authored at least one academic paper (giving her an Erdős number). These numbers are 9, 2, and 7, respectively.
In one skit of the March 4, 2006 episode of Saturday Night Live that she hosted, Portman, Maya Rudolph, and Rachel Dratch portray high school classmates. The name of Portman's character is Rebecca Hershlag, an in-joke for those aware that Hershlag is her real last name.
Because of what her role in V for Vendetta called for, she surprised a lot of fans when she turned up at the Revenge of the Sith premiere with her head shaved.
Keira Knightley, as handmaiden Sabé, doubled for Portman's character Queen Amidala in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
Portman also claims that she will never be in a horror movie or any "Jennifer Love Hewitt" movie. She was referring to the hit horror classic I Know What You Did Last Summer
Turned down the title role in Lolita.
She was offered the lead role in Warner Brothers House Of Wax but she turned it down.
She was briefly considered for the role of Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins, though the part was written for Katie Holmes she was considered in case Holmes declined the offer.
She owns a summer home in Sea Cliff, New York.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994	Léon (aka The Professional)	Mathilda
1995	Heat	Lauren Gustafson
1996	Beautiful Girls	Marty
1996	Mars Attacks!	Taffy Dale
1996	Everyone Says I Love You	Laura Dandridge
1999	Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace	Padmé Amidala
1999	Anywhere But Here	Ann August
2000	Where the Heart Is	Novalee Nation
2001	Zoolander	(Herself)	cameo
2002	Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones	Padmé Amidala
2003	Cold Mountain	Sara
2004	Garden State	Samantha
2004	Closer	Alice Ayres/Jane Jones
2005	Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith	Padmé Amidala
2005	Free Zone	Rebecca	Received a limited U.S.theatrical release in April 2006
2006	V for Vendetta	Evey Hammond
2006	Paris, je t'aime	Francine	In post-production as of November 2005
2006	Goya's Ghosts	Ines/Alicia
2007	Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium	Molly Mahoney	post-production
2007	My Blueberry Nights	???	Post-production
2007	The Other Boleyn Girl	Anne Boleyn	Filming
2008	Indiana Jones 4	Indiana Jones' daughter (unconfirmed)	In pre-production

Charlize Theron

2007-08-14T23:47:00.001-07:00

Born	August 7, 1975 (age 31) Benoni, South Africa
Official site	charlizetheron.com
Notable roles	Helga Svelgen in 2 Days in the Valley (1996) Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003) Britt Ekland in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)
Academy Awards	Academy Award for Best Actress (2003) for Monster

Charlize Theron (born August 7, 1975) is a South African actress and former fashion model. She has received an Academy Award for her role in Monster (2004).

She was first featured in 2 Days in the Valley (1996), starring alongside such actors and actresses as Danny Aiello and Teri Hatcher.

Biography

Early life

Theron was born in Benoni, South Africa. Her father, Charles Theron, was a construction company owner of French Huguenot descent; her mother, Gerda, is of German descent and took over her husband's business after his death. Theron's first language is Afrikaans. She is also fluent in English and speaks some Xhosa, as well as having varying levels of fluency in around thirty other African languages and dialects, learned from neighbors and employees on her parents' farm. In the United States, both in her films and while being interviewed, etc., Theron speaks with a typical American accent and style of speech, leading most people to assume she is American.

"Theron" is a French surname pronounced in Afrikaans as "Tronn," although she has said that she prefers the pronunciation "Thrown." The pronunciation commonly used in the United States involves two syllables, with stress on the first.

Theron grew up as the only child on her parents' farm near Johannesburg (Benoni). At the age of thirteen, Charlize was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School Of The Arts in Johannesburg. At fifteen, Theron witnessed the death of her father, an abusive alcoholic; her mother shot him in self-defense when he attacked her. No charges were pressed.

Career

Charlize Theron at the premiere of North Country at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival, photo by Tony Shek

At the age of sixteen, Theron traveled to Milan, Italy, on a one-year modeling contract, after winning a local competition. Her contract ended while she was in New York City, and she decided to remain there, attending the Joffrey Ballet School, where she trained as a ballet dancer. A knee injury closed this career path when she was 18.

Unable to dance, she bought a ticket to Los Angeles. After eight months in the city, she was cast in her first film part, a non-speaking role in the direct-to-video film Children of the Corn III. She followed this with larger roles in widely released Hollywood films, and her career skyrocketed in the late 1990s, with box office successes like The Devil's Advocate, The Cider House Rules, and Mighty Joe Young.

The May 1999 issue of Playboy published nude photos of Theron, taken during the early years of her modeling career. Claiming they had been "for private use", Theron ended up suing photographer Guido Argentini.

After appearing in a few notable films, Theron starred as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the film Monster (2003). Film critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema" , for which Theron won the Best Actress Oscar at the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, as well as the SAG Award and the Golden Globe Award. She is the first South African to win an Oscar for Best Actress.

Having signed a deal with John Galliano in 2004, Theron replaced Estonian model Tiiu Kuik in the J'ADORE advertisements by Christian Dior; she is the current spokeswoman for Dior perfume. On September 30, 2005, she received her own bronze star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the same year, she starred in the financially unsuccessful science fiction thriller Æon Flux and was given positive reviews, as well as a Best Actress Golden Globe nomination, for her lead performance in the drama North Country. Ms. honored her for this performance as well with a feature article in its Fall 2005 issue. She had also been nominated for an Oscar as a lead actress for the role, although she did not win; this was her second nomination.

In 2005, Theron also portrayed Rita, Michael Bluth's (Jason Bateman) love interest on the third season of FOX's critically acclaimed sitcom Arrested Development.

She also received Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for her role in the HBO movie (The Life and Death of Peter Sellers).

Salary & status

-After her Oscar win for Monster, she earned $10,000,000 for both North Country and Aeon Flux. According to The Hollywood Reporter's 2006 list of highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, she ranked 7th, behind Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Renée Zellweger, Reese Witherspoon, and Nicole Kidman.

Personal life

Theron dated the lead singer of Third Eye Blind, Stephan Jenkins, from January 1998 to July 2001. Jenkins broke up with her after failing to take her requests of marriage seriously. Theron now resides in Los Angeles with her long-time boyfriend, Stuart Townsend, with whom she starred in the 2004 film Head in the Clouds, as well as in the 2002 film Trapped; she has said that they will not marry until same-sex couples are able to have their marriages recognized. In October 2005, her mother, Gerda, was married in California. The media thought that Charlize was the one getting married (to Townsend) and the paparazzi got as close as it could for the photos.

While filming Æon Flux in Berlin, Germany, Theron had surgery on a herniated disc in her neck, the result of an injury incurred on the set during a stunt.

In May 2006, Maxim magazine named Theron #25 in its annual Hot 100 issue.

Theron is also involved in women's rights organizations.

In 2006, Theron won GLAAD's Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards for increasing "visibility and understanding in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community."

Theron is a supporter of animal rights and active member of PETA. She recently appeared in a PETA ad for their anti-fur campaign.

Her best friend is another actress Ivana Miličević.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1996	2 Days in the Valley	Helga Svelgen
1997	Trial and Error	Billie Tyler
1997	The Devil's Advocate	Mary Ann Lomax
1998	Celebrity	Supermodel
1998	Mighty Joe Young	Jill Young
1999	The Astronaut's Wife	Jillian Armacost
1999	The Cider House Rules	Candy Kendall
2000	Reindeer Games	Ashley Mercer
2000	The Yards	Erica Stoltz
2000	The Legend of Bagger Vance	Adele Invergordon
2000	Men of Honor	Gwen Sunday
2001	Sweet November	Sara Deever	Razzie Award Nomination for Worst Actress
2002	Trapped	Karen Jennings
2002	Waking Up in Reno	Candy Kirkendall
2003	The Italian Job	Stella Bridger
2003	Monster	Aileen Wuornos	Academy Award for Best Actress
2004	The Life and Death of Peter Sellers	Britt Ekland
2004	Head in the Clouds	Gilda Bessé	limited release
2005	North Country	Josey Aimes	Academy Award Nomination for Best Actress
2005	Æon Flux	Æon Flux
2007	Ice at the Bottom of the World		Pre-production
2007	Ferris Wheel (film)		Filming
2007	Jinx		In talks
2008	The Brazilian Job	Stella Bridger	Pre-production

Eva Mendes

2007-08-14T23:32:00.001-07:00

Born	March 5, 1974 (age 32)
Notable roles	Ajedrez in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Roxanne Simpson in Ghost Rider

Eva Mendes (born March 5, 1974) is an American actress.

Biography

Early life

Mendes was born in Miami, Florida (although many sources incorrectly state her birthplace is Houston, Texas) to Cuban parents and was raised in Los Angeles. She went to Hoover High School in Glendale, California. She later attended California State University, Northridge but dropped out to seek an acting career. Studied with Ivana Chubbuck.

Career

Mendes worked her way up through commercials to music videos (including an appearance in Hitch co-star Will Smith's video "Miami") to guest roles in television soap operas and supporting film roles. She has appeared in such films as Training Day, Stuck on You, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and as the female lead in the comedy Hitch opposite Will Smith. Her role in Once Upon a Time in Mexico also gave her a nomination at the Teen Choice Awards. She has two major movie projects pending, including Ghost Rider, in which she costars along with Nicholas Cage.

Mendes is a spokesmodel for Revlon. She has also worked in interior design and has written children's books. Maxim ranked her #27 in their 2006 Hot 100 issue.

Personal life

Mendes has been in a long-term relationship with Peruvian filmmaker George Gargurevich.

Filmography

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)
A Night at the Roxbury (1998)
My Brother the Pig (1999)
Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
Exit Wounds (2001)
Training Day (2001)
All About the Benjamins (2002)
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
Out of Time (2003)
Stuck On You (2003)
Hitch (2005)
The Wendell Baker Story (2005)
Trust the Man (2005)
3 & 3 (2005)
Clerks 2(2006)
Ghost Rider (2007)
We Own The Night (2007)
Live! (2007)

Mandy Moore

2007-08-14T11:24:00.001-07:00

Birth name	Amanda Leigh Moore
Born	April 10, 1984 (age 22)
Origin	Nashua, New Hampshire, United States
Genre(s)	Dance-pop, dance, Pop/Rock, teen pop, adult contemporary
Occupation(s)	Vocalist, Actress
Years active	1999–present
Label(s)	Epic (1999–2005) Sire (2005–2006) EMI (2006–present)
Website	http://www.mandymoore.com/

Mandy Moore (born Amanda Leigh Moore on April 10, 1984) is an American singer and actress. Moore grew up in Florida and came to fame as a teenager in 2000, after the release of her debut album So Real. Her subsequent albums, including the self-titled Mandy Moore and Coverage, established her as a well-known pop singer in the United States. Moore has branched out into a film career, starring in 2002's successful teen film A Walk to Remember and later appearing in the lead roles of less well-received movies also aimed at teenage audiences. Two of her latest films, American Dreamz and Saved!, were parodies in which Moore portrayed darker characters than in her previous roles.

Moore's private life, including her relationships with tennis player Andy Roddick and actors Wilmer Valderrama and Zach Braff, has been much-discussed in the media. She is scheduled to appear in several films during 2006 and 2007, and is completing work on another album.

Early life

Moore was born in Nashua, New Hampshire to Stacy (a former newspaper reporter) and Don Moore (a pilot for American Airlines). She has Irish and Cherokee heritage on her father's side; her maternal grandfather was Jewish and her English maternal grandmother was a professional dancer at the theater district in the West End of London, as well as a Wren during World War II; the two met and eloped to the United States after Moore's maternal grandfather, an American soldier, was stationed in London during WWII. Moore has two brothers, Scott and Kyle; she grew up in Seminole County, Florida, outside of Orlando, moving there shortly after her birth because of her father's job. She was raised in the Catholic religion (although she is no longer a practicing Catholic) and attended Bishop Moore Catholic High School and Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs.

Moore's interest in singing grew after seeing the musical Oklahoma!; she was also encouraged to perform by her maternal grandmother, who was her inspiration. After she sang the national anthem at several athletic events, a FedEx employee spotted her and sent her demo to Epic Records, where she was subsequently signed to a record deal.

Music career

1999-2002: Early pop albums

Cover for So Real (1999), Moore's platinum-certified debut album

Moore toured with the Backstreet Boys throughout 1999. Her first album, So Real, was released in December of that year and reached number thirty-one on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart. At the time of the album's release, reviewers considered Moore the latest in a series of heavily-marketed female singers described as "pop princesses", akin to Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson. Entertainment Weekly's review noted that Moore's songs, revolving around "not-yet-experienced love", were performed with "suffocating professionalism", and that the album's ballads were "nauseating". Moore was the last and youngest of Simpson, Aguilera and Spears to reach mainstream radio and was initially not as successful as they were, although So Real was certified platinum in the U.S. in early 2000 and sold nearly one million copies. Moore's debut teen pop hit single "Candy", which Yahoo! Movies described as "strangely provocative", peaked just outside the top forty on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and was certified gold. All Music Guide noted the single was "mediocre" and "typical", containing lyrics that described love "in terms of sugar treats".

Moore released I Wanna Be with You, a re-worked version of her debut album, in May 2000. The album, which was mostly completed with synthesizers, bass, guitar, and drums, comprised new songs alongside tracks and remixes from So Real. Several reviewers criticized it on the basis that it was a remix album and not a true followup, with All Music Guide writing that its style was "trashier, flashier, gaudier, and altogether more disposable" than its predecessor. It peaked at number twenty-one on the Billboard 200, was certified gold in the U.S. and sold nearly 792,000 copies. The title track "I Wanna Be with You" was the album's only single and reached number twenty-four on the Hot 100, Moore's highest peak to date. It was also featured on the soundtrack of the film Center Stage (2000).

Moore released the self-titled album Mandy Moore — which included the songs "Saturate Me" (a hip-hop ballad), "You Remind Me" and "In My Pocket" — in June 2001. It contained uptempo tracks and influences from Eastern music and was described as a "lush, layered production" by All Music Guide. It received mixed reviews from critics, although Entertainment Weekly noted that Moore tried out "new sounds" and "a breathy Natalie Imbruglia vibe [on the album] ... as teen pop goes, it could be a lot worse", while Rolling Stone magazine positively described Moore as "more protorocker than R&B wanna-be" and said she was taking the "high road" compared to her first two albums. The album debuted at number thirty-five on the Billboard 200, was later certified gold in the U.S. and sold 443,000 copies. Lead single "In My Pocket", which Entertainment Weekly said contained "pumping, Indian influenced Euro disco", did not appear on the Hot 100; Moore performed the song live several times, including on the 2001 Fox network television special Teenapalooza. The album's follow-up single, "Crush", also failed to appear on the U.S. chart, although MTV aired the music video frequently (it was Moore's first number-one video on TRL). The early 2002 release of the final single, "Cry", tied in with the film A Walk to Remember, Moore's debut as a lead actress.

In 2006, Moore commented on her early albums with ill feelings, noting that although she believed her first was appropriate for her age, she felt it "sucked" and that her first albums were "just awful". Moore also said that she "would give a refund to everyone who bought my first two albums" if she could; during a radio interview in April 2006, the show's co-host (who had seen her comments) asked her for a refund on the first album, a request that Moore fulfilled.

2003-present: Coverage, compilations, and new contract

Coverage (2003), Moore's fourth album, is her personal favorite

In October of 2003, Moore released her fourth album Coverage, which All Music Guide characterised as a "leap to musical maturity" and which Entertainment Weekly called an "effort to shed her bubblegum-blond image". It consisted of covers of 1970s and 1980s songs that influenced Moore as a child; Moore noted that she did not want to "top the original artist[s]", but rather offer her "own interpretation" of their music. Entertainment Weekly described the album's style as "overblown with strings, turntable scratching, and arena-rock pomp", while E! Online said that Moore's voice has grown "stronger" and that she "sounds at home" performing the re-mixes. Coverage peaked at number fourteen on the Billboard 200 (her highest ranking to date), but "Have a Little Faith in Me", its only single, did not perform well on the charts, although it debut within the top forty. Moore's cover of "I Feel the Earth Move" appeared on Love Rocks, a compilation CD of songs from gay rights supporters.

Because of low sales for Coverage, Sony's Epic Records dropped Moore. The company released the hits compilation album The Best of Mandy Moore, which reached number 148 on the Billboard 200, in November 2004 as a final obligation to Moore's contract. Another compilation, Candy, followed in 2005.

Moore stated in early 2006 that she missed her music career and that singing is what she is the "most passionate about". According to her official website, she is collaborating with artists including Chantal Kreviazuk, Michelle Branch, Rachael Yamagata and Lori McKenna on a new album. Moore had signed to Sire Records after her contract with Epic Records ended, but left the company in May 2006. She reportedly signed with a new EMI Music-owned record company, The Firm, in July of that year. Moore had described her new contract as "especially exciting" and specified that she plans to release her next album in 2007.

Television and film career

During the summer of 2000, Moore hosted a half-hour MTV talk show, The Mandy Moore Show, which resumed in the summer of 2001 under the title Mandy. Moore was also a Neutrogena spokesperson, appearing in commercials and print ads for the product. She has modelled for Coach handbags in Japan and was a spokesperson for the School and Youth Programs of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Moore in a scene from A Walk to Remember (2002). It remains her highest-grossing lead role to date.

In 2001, Moore appeared in a small part as the mean and popular cheerleader Lana Thomas opposite actresses Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews in the film The Princess Diaries. During the film, Moore's character performs "Stupid Cupid", a song from the film's soundtrack. In 2002 Moore had her first starring role in a major feature film in A Walk to Remember, which co-starred Shane West. Based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, the film revolves around the developing romance between a Protestant minister's daughter (played by Moore) and an unruly teenager (played by West). The film was moderately successful, bringing in $41 million in the United States, and establishing Moore's status as a lead actress. Although critics received it negatively, Moore received several positive notices for her performance, with critic Roger Ebert calling her "quietly convincing". At that summer's MTV Movie Awards, Moore won an award for "Breakthrough Female Performance" for her role. The same year, she voiced the Final Fantasy VII character Aerith Gainsborough in the Square Enix-Disney crossover video game Kingdom Hearts, was featured in the music video for Elton John's "Original Sin", and was ranked number sixty-seven in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World".

In 2003, Moore starred in the romantic comedy film How to Deal, which failed to draw in the teenage crowds in the U.S. and grossed a total of $14 million domestically. Her next film was 2004's Chasing Liberty, a romantic comedy that grossed approximately $12 million. Both films received negative reviews; critic Ebert once again singled Moore's performances out, noting in his review of How to Deal that Moore has "an unaffected natural charm" and "almost makes the movie worth seeing", and adding that she has "undeniable screen presence and inspires instant affection" in his Chasing Liberty review. Other critics described her as an "actress of limited range", though one review of Chasing Liberty noted that she is the "most painless of former pop princesses". Later that summer, Moore appeared in a lead role in the religion satire Saved!, in which she played Hilary Faye, a proper and popular girl at a Christian school. The film was positively reviewed, though it did not receive a wide release. Moore received praise for her performance, with one critic calling her a "demented delight" and another naming it her best performance to date.

In 2005, Moore lent her voice to the film Racing Stripes; she was also originally scheduled to star in the films Cursed, Havoc and The Upside of Anger, all of which were eventually released in 2005 without Moore's involvement. Moore has appeared on the television series Entourage and guest-starred in two episodes of Scrubs in 2006. The same year, she lent her voice to The Simpsons, playing Tabitha Vixx in an episode aired in May.

Moore next appeared in the parody American Dreamz, which opened in April of 2006. In the film, she played a deranged contestant on a television series modelled after American Idol. Director Paul Weitz said he had Moore in mind for the role even before she was cast, explaining that "there's something inherently sweet about Mandy; it makes it all the more interesting to see her in a villainess role". Moore has said that she enjoys playing mean-spirited characters but fears being typecast as a villain. American Dreamz opened at number nine at the U.S. box office and received mixed reviews; critic Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, however, wrote that Moore and co-star Hugh Grant have a "wicked barbed chemistry" in their roles, while Variety's Robert Koehler said Moore's role was a "pitch-perfect study of a woman for whom a reality show is reality". In the same year, in what ComingSoon.net's review described as a "surprisingly good performance", Moore voiced Nita, a bear, in the animated sequel Brother Bear 2, which was released directly-to-DVD on August 29.

Moore on the cover of Cosmopolitan in May 2006. She has expressed dissatisfaction with the cover's "racy" headlines

Moore, citing her conservative upbringing, has expressed dissatisfaction with her appearance on a May 2006 cover of Cosmopolitan; the magazine's headline is "orgasms unlimited", which refers to an article unrelated to her. Her upcoming films are Southland Tales and Dedication, which are slated for release in 2006, and Because I Said So, co-starring Piper Perabo and Diane Keaton and scheduled to be released in February 2007. Moore was originally supposed to appear in the ensemble film Bobby, but was replaced by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. In May 2006, Moore began filming the romantic comedy License to Wed, in which she portrays a young bride who has to complete a two-week prenup course before her wedding. Co-starring John Krasinski as her fiance and Robin Williams as a minister, the film was shot in Mexico and Los Angeles and will be released on July 4, 2007.

Personal life

Moore dated actor Wilmer Valderrama for eighteen months between 2000 and 2002; in 2006, Valderrama appeared on the Howard Stern Show and detailed that he and Moore were each other's "first loves", although he did not claim that their relationship was sexual, as was alleged by several media sources who had misquoted his exact comments. Moore later referred to Valderrama as a "good guy" and a "gentleman", although she has stated that his comments about their relationship were "utterly tacky". Moore began dating tennis star Andy Roddick in 2002; Roddick ended the relationship in March of 2004. Moore also dated Philippines-born singer/actor Billy Crawford for a "few months" when she was younger.

In 2004, Moore began dating Scrubs actor Zach Braff, whom she met at a fundraising event for the Democratic Party around November 2004. Referring to Braff, Moore said that she likes "good Jewish boy(s)... with a sense of humor". Both parties denied rumors that they were engaged. In early June 2006, tabloids reported unconfirmed rumors that Braff and Moore had ended their relationship; During the same period, the couple reportedly arranged a week-long trip to Israel together, scheduled for July 2006. In September of 2006, Braff confirmed that his relationship with Moore had ended.

Moore's favorite musicians are Elton John, Janet Jackson, Switchfoot and Bette Midler; Midler is also Moore's favorite actress, and her film Beaches was Moore's favorite film when she was a teenager. Moore also enjoys Annie Hall and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and has described herself as a "glass-half-full kind of person". She currently lives in her Hollywood Hills house with her brother, Kyle. Moore considers herself spiritual, and has said that she does not think of herself as distinctly Catholic nor Christian.

Discography

For full details including singles and chart positions, please see Mandy Moore's discography.

Albums

1999	So Real
2000	I Wanna Be with You
2001	Mandy Moore
2003	Coverage
2004	The Best of Mandy Moore
2005	Candy
2007	TBA

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	The Princess Diaries	Lana Thomas
2002	A Walk to Remember	Jamie Sullivan
Kingdom Hearts	Aeris	Voice only, video game
2003	How to Deal	Halley Martin
Try Seventeen or All I Want	Lisa	Direct-to-video
2004	Chasing Liberty	Anna Foster
Saved!	Hilary Faye
2005	Racing Stripes	Sandy	Voice only
2006	American Dreamz	Sally Kendoo
Brother Bear 2	Nita	Voice only; direct-to-video on August 29, 2006
Romance & Cigarettes	Baby	TBA
Southland Tales	Madeline Frost Santaros	TBA
Dedication	Lucy	TBA
2007	Because I Said So	Milly	Scheduled for February 2, 2007
License to Wed	Sadie Jones	Scheduled for July 4, 2007

Salma Hayek

2007-08-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

Birth name	Salma Hayek Jiménez
Born	September 2, 1966 (age 40) Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico
Height	5' 2"
Notable roles	Frida Kahlo in Frida

Salma Hayek Jiménez (born September 2, 1966) is an Academy Award-nominated actress. Also an Emmy winning director, a film and television producer. The most successful Latin American actress in Hollywood since Carmen Miranda, Hayek has appeared in more than thirty films and worked 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.

Biography

Early life and career in Mexico

Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico to Sami Hayek, an oil company executive, and Diana Jimenez, an opera singer. Hayek's paternal grandparents were Lebanese, while her mother is of Spanish background. 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, with aspirations of becoming an Olympic competitor.

After leaving the school due to alleged behavioral problems with the religious sisters who ran the school, Hayek returned to Mexico for a period, but then she was sent to Houston, Texas, to live with her aunt, where she stayed until she was 17. She subsequently moved to Mexico City for college, where she studied International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana. To the chagrin of her family, she decided to drop out in order to pursue a career as an actress.

At the age of 23, Hayek landed the title role in Teresa (1989), a successful telenovela (Mexican soap opera) which earned her star status in her native country. Later, in 1994, Hayek starred in El Callejón de los Milagros ("The Alley of Miracles"), which has won more awards than any other movie in the history of Mexican Cinema. For her performance Hayek was nominated to an Ariel Award.

Career in Hollywood

Hayek at the Cannes Film Festival

Despite limited fluency in English, Hayek moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991 to study acting under Stella Adler with the hopes of starting a career in Hollywood. Robert Rodriguez and his producer wife Elizabeth Avellan soon gave Hayek the break she needed, starring opposite Antonio Banderas in 1995's Desperado. This movie brought Hayek to Hollywood's attention, as moviegoers proved to be as dazzled with Hayek as Rodriguez had been.

She followed her success in Desperado with a brief but memorable role in From Dusk Till Dawn. In 1999 she co-starred in Will Smith's big-budget Wild Wild West and played a supporting role in Kevin Smith's Dogma. In 2000 she had an uncredited acting part opposite Benicio Del Toro in Traffic.

Around this time Hayek founded production company Ventanarosa through which she produces film and television projects.

Frida, co-produced by Hayek, was released in 2002. Starring Hayek as Frida Kahlo, and Alfred Molina as her unfaithful husband, Diego Rivera, the film also featured an entourage of stars in supporting roles, including Antonio Banderas, Ashley Judd, Geoffrey Rush, Edward Norton and Valeria Golino and was directed by Julie Taymor. She earned a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her performance.

In 2003 she reprised her role from Desperado by appearing in the final film of the Mariachi Trilogy, Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

In that same year she directed the The Maldonado Miracle, a Showtime movie which won her a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Children/Youth/Family Special.

In December 2005 she directed a music video for Prince, titled "Te Amo Corazon" ("I love you, sweetheart") that featured Mia Maestro, with whom she is good friends.

In September 2006 Hayek added another accomplishment, that of executive producer of Ugly Betty, an American television series that has attracted a lot of attention and critical acclaim. Hayek adapted the series for American Television with Silvio Horta who aquired the rights and scripts from the Colombian Telenovela Yo Soy Betty La Fea in 2001. Originally intended for NBC in 2004, the project would later be picked up by ABC as a 2006-2007 Fall TV season entry thanks in part to the buzz and feedback Hayek's contribution has generated.

Other work

Spokesperson for Avon Products, Inc. since 2004.

Personal life

Hayek dated fellow actor Edward Norton for four years, between 1999 and 2003, and then Josh Lucas from 2003 until 2004.

Concerning marriage Hayek has said, "Women have been taught that in order to have a place in the world, an identity, they must marry and have children. If that's the life you truly want, great. But for many women, marriage is only about needing the world to know that someone desires them enough to say, 'Here's a contract to prove that I love you and will commit to you for the rest of my life.' For these women, no contract equals no validation - and, thus, no reason for existing." As of 2006, Hayek is single and has homes in Los Angeles and Mexico. She is best friends with Spanish actress, Penelope Cruz. The two co-starred in the 2006 film, Bandidas.

She is a student of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment.

Honors

Recipient of Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year Award in October 2001.
Recipient of Producers Guild of America Celebration of Diversity Award in 2003.
Recipient of Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year Award in February 2006.

Trivia

Is dyslexic.
Is (alongside Katy Jurado) one of only two Mexican actresses to have been nominated for an Academy Award.
Recorded with band Los Vega song "La Bruja" featured in Frida and included in the film's soundtrack. Also recorded song "Siente mi amor" for Once Upon a Time in Mexico soundtrack.
Declined playing the role Catherine Zeta-Jones eventually took in The Mask of Zorro after director Robert Rodriguez abandoned the project.

Filmography

Film

Lonely Hearts (2006)
Bandidas (2006)
Ask the Dust (2006)
Sian Ka'an (voice) (2006)
After the Sunset (2004)
The Maldonado Miracle (2003) (Director)
Once Upon A Time In Mexico (2003)
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
Frida (2002)
In the Time of the Butterflies (2001)
Hotel (2001)
Traffic (2000)
La Gran Vida (2000)
Chain Of Fools (2000)
Living it Up (2000)
Timecode (2000)
Wild Wild West (1999)
El Coronel No Tiene Quien le Escriba (No One Writes to the Colonel, 1999)
Dogma (1999)
The Faculty (1998)
The Velocity Of Gary (1998)
54 (1998)
Sistole Diastole (1997)
Breaking Up (1997)
The Hunchback (TV) (1997)
Fools Rush In (1997)
Fled (1996)
Follow Me Home (1996)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Fair Game (1995)
Desperado (1995)
El Callejón de los Milagros (Midaq Alley, 1995)
Roadracers (TV) (1994)
The Sinbad Show (series) (1993)
Mi Vida Loca (1993)

Television

Ugly Betty (2006; Executive producer and series creator)

Telenovelas

El Vuelo del Águila ("The Flight of the Eagle")(1996)
Teresa (1989)
Un Nuevo Amanecer ("A New Dawn") (1988)

Other appearances

She was the guest host on Saturday Night Live on March 15, 2003 with musical guest Christina Aguilera.
She co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert with Julianne Moore in Oslo, Norway on 11 December 2005.

Elisha Cuthbert

2007-08-14T09:10:00.001-07:00

Born	November 30, 1982 (age 24) Calgary, Alberta
Height	5 ft 4 in (1.63 m)
Notable roles	Kim Bauer in 24 Danielle in The Girl Next Door Carly Jones in House of Wax

Elisha Ann Cuthbert (born November 30, 1982) is a Canadian actress. She is known as a former host of the Canadian children's television series Popular Mechanics for Kids and had roles in numerous other Canadian productions before moving to Los Angeles at the age of 17. She made her American television debut in the action-thriller 24. Cuthbert began her Hollywood career with small roles in Old School and Love Actually in 2003 and went on to star in her first feature film, The Girl Next Door, in 2004. Over the course of her career, Cuthbert has participated in a wide range of works spanning multiple genres and media.

Early life

Cuthbert was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the first child of Kevin and Patricia Cuthbert. Her family moved to Greenfield Park, near Montreal, learning a few words in French as a result of her surroundings.

She began her career in 1989 by modeling for various lines of children's clothing and also became a foot model. She made her first televised appearance in the horror-themed series for children, Are You Afraid of the Dark? as a young girl in the episode "The Tale of the Nightshift" (she would later become a series regular) and landed her first role in a feature film in the family drama Dancing on the Moon. She went on to star in several family-themed movies and an airplane thriller, Airspeed, and also hosted Popular Mechanics for Kids with Jay Baruchel. Cuthbert's role as host of Popular Mechanics sometimes required her to act as a foreign correspondent, and she was required to fly around the world despite her aversion to plane travel. Her reporting captured the attention of then First Lady, Hillary Clinton, who invited her to visit the White House.

Career

Cuthbert as Kim Bauer

In 2000, Cuthbert graduated from Centennial Regional High School and journeyed to Los Angeles, California to pursue a Hollywood acting career. Soon after, she was cast in the role of Kim Bauer, daughter of CTU agent Jack Bauer in the television series 24. Cuthbert had given herself a deadline of six months to make something of her trip and was about to return home when she was offered the part during the last week. The show drew continual critical praise, though Cuthbert did not appear at all in the show's 4th season and guest-starred in only two episodes from the 5th. She also reprised her role as Kim Bauer in 24: The Game.

Other roles

Cuthbert starred in the Canadian television movie Lucky Girl in 2001 and was awarded a Gemini Award for her performance. She auditioned for the role of Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man film, though the role eventually went to Kirsten Dunst. Cuthbert took a pair of minor roles early in her Hollywood career as young, desirable women in Old School and Love Actually. Cuthbert's next film, The Girl Next Door, cast her in her first lead role as a burgeoning porn star, Danielle, alongside Emile Hirsch. Cuthbert had initial reservations about taking the part, but was persuaded by director Luke Greenfield into accepting. She researched the role, speaking to actual adult actresses from Wicked Pictures and Vivid Entertainment. Upon its release the film received comparisons to Risky Business — although Cuthbert claims her character was not directly based on De Mornay's character — and was noted for Cuthbert's sex appeal. Critics were divided; some praised the film for its boldness, while others, notably Roger Ebert, decried it for being gimmicky and exploitative. Ebert wrote that he saw Cuthbert's character Danielle as "quite the most unpleasant character I have seen in some time."

Cuthbert as Carly Jones in House of Wax (2005).

In her next big-screen outing, Cuthbert starred with Paris Hilton and Chad Michael Murray in the 2005 remake of the classic horror film House of Wax. Cuthbert, along with the rest of her cast mates, was made up to look haggard and frightened. In one scene, her character was to attempt to open her mouth while her lips were sealed with glue. For the sake of realism, Cuthbert opted for real superglue over prosthetics. Despite her efforts, House of Wax was largely panned, with critics citing a range of flaws. It was called "notable for having some of the most moronic protagonists ever to populate a horror film," though out of those characters reviews tended to think Cuthbert "fares the best". Others noted Cuthbert as an "exception" playing her role "earnestly" and "fine".

Following House of Wax, Cuthbert became involved in her third project where she took on the duties of co-star and co-producer of the indie film The Quiet, contributing to its US$900,000 budget. She played Nina, a temperamental cheerleader who suffered from sexual abuse. Playing the character disturbed Cuthbert, who described the role as "dark and heavy." Cuthbert studied her younger sister, Lee-Ann, to further understand the character. The Quiet, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and received a limited release in Los Angeles and New York City on August 25, 2006, before expanding regionally on September 1.

Recent career

Cuthbert appeared in the music video for Weezer's "Perfect Situation" in early 2006, where she played the group's fictional original singer who threw a tantrum that led to Rivers Cuomo, the unlikely roadie, becoming the frontman of the band. Previously, Cuthbert was featured in the music video for Bon Jovi's "Have A Nice Day." Cuthbert also features a small role in Paris Hilton's music video for the song "Nothing In This World". As of September 2006, Cuthbert is scheduled to appear in three feature films. The first, Captivity, is a thriller centered around a fashion model and her chauffeur being taunted by a psychopath who has imprisoned them in a cellar.^[20] In He Was a Quiet Man, Cuthbert's character, Vanessa, will be a quadriplegic. The film will contain comedic and dramatic elements; the cast includes Christian Slater and William H. Macy. The third film, Cat Tale, is an animated film set in a civilized world of cats and dogs. Cuthbert will voice Cleo, "the feline daughter of a wealthy kitty litter baron." Cat Tale is scheduled for release in 2007 by Walt Disney Pictures. Reports indicated that Cuthbert would be collaborating with Babbit and Belle again in the upcoming comedy Itty Bitty Titty Committee; however, neither Cuthbert nor Belle are listed in the IMDb entry for the film.

Cuthbert also screened along with Brandon Routh for the role of Lois Lane in Superman Returns but eventually she lost out to Kate Bosworth.

As of now she is filming My Sassy Girl along with Jesse Bradford.

Personal life

Cuthbert, who enjoys painting, is a devoted hockey fan and Los Angeles Kings season ticket holder, as are her mother and brother, Jonathan, who are active in the sport. She maintained her own blog on the NHL's web site. She began a relationship with Justin Timberlake's personal assistant, Trace Ayala, and became engaged to him in June 2004. Sometime in November 2005, Ayala remarked, "Neither one of us is in a hurry to get married." Since then, she has reportedly been dating L.A. King Sean Avery., and appeared on an MTV Cribs episode at Avery's house. The status of the engagement with Ayala remains uncertain.

Cuthbert regularly secures a place in FHM and Maxim's annual Top 100 Sexiest/Hottest lists. Her highest ranking was #5 in the 2005 UK Edition of FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World list. She was ranked #14 in 2003, #10 in 2004, and #22 in 2006. The U.S. Edition ranked her #53 in 2003, #63 in 2004, and #54 in 2006. She was not listed in the U.S. 2005 list. Maxim magazine named her #92 in its 2006 Hot 100 list and features her in their Girls of Maxim Gallery. As of 2006, Cuthbert has stated that she would refuse to be photographed nude in film roles or magazines, and uses body doubles whenever necessary, specifying that she "like to keep some things to [herself]".

Cuthbert has expressed an interest in returning to live in Montreal once she has reached her "higher goals" and "feel[s] content" about her career.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2008	Cat Tale	Cleo (voice)	In-production
2007	My Sassy Girl		Pre-production
2006	Captivity	Jennifer	Post-production
He Was a Quiet Man	Vanessa	Post-production
2005	The Quiet	Nina Deer	In theatres
House of Wax	Carly Jones	Won Multiple Awards
2004	The Girl Next Door	Danielle
2003	Love Actually	American Goddess Carol-Anne
Old School	Darcie Goldberg
2001	Lucky Girl (TV)	Katlin Palmerson	Won a Gemini Award
2000	Who Gets the House?	Emily Reece
1999	Believe	Katherine Winslowe
Time at the Top	Susan Shawson
1998	Airspeed	Nicole Stone
1997	Mail to the Chief	Madison Osgood
Nico the Unicorn	Carolyn Price
1996	Dancing on the Moon	Sarah

Television

Year	Show	Role	Notes
2001	24	Kim Bauer	2001-2004 (guest appearances in 2006)
1999	Are You Afraid of the Dark?	Megan	1999-2000
1997	Popular Mechanics for Kids	Herself	1997-2000

Jessica Simpson

2007-08-14T08:52:00.001-07:00

Birth name	Jessica Ann Simpson
Born	10 July 1980 (age 26)
Origin	Abilene, Texas, United States
Genre(s)	Dance-pop, dance, Adult Contemporary, Urban contemporary, Rhythm and blues
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter, actress,
Years active	1996–present
Label(s)	Columbia (1999–2005) Epic (2006–present)
Website	JessicaSimpson.com

Jessica Ann Simpson (born July 10, 1980 in Abilene, Texas) is an American pop singer and actress who rose to fame in the late 1990s. She has so far achieved 7 Billboard Top 40 hits and has five gold and two multi-platinum RIAA certified albums. She also starred with her then-husband Nick Lachey in the MTV reality show Newlyweds and released her own line of beauty products. She also began a career as an actress and is the older sister of Ashlee Simpson, a popular pop rock singer.

Biography

Early life

She started singing in her Baptist church. In 1992 she made an unsuccessful audition for The New Mickey Mouse Club, that also starred future pop stars Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. She attended J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas and was discovered at a church camp by a head of a small contemporary Christian record label. She recorded an album over the next three years; however, the label folded before the record could be released. She dropped out in her senior year to tour and promote her demo album, which was funded by her grandmother, Joyce (thus the reason for the name of her 2004 holiday album, ReJoyce: The Christmas Album). She later earned her GED. During this time, she also toured with the Christian Youth Conference circuit performing with Kirk Franklin, God's Property and CeCe Winans. She and her father sold copies of the album after these performances.

Tommy Mottola of Columbia Records later obtained a copy of the album and, thinking she had potential as a pop singer, signed her to a recording contract.

2002: Marriage to Nick Lachey and TV success

On October 26, 2002, at age 22, Jessica Simpson married Nick Lachey. She famously announced that she remained a virgin until her wedding night.

During the summer of 2003, the reality show, Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica, starring Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey began airing on MTV. Though she was moderately successful before the series began, the show quickly became a pop culture phenomenon and is credited with making her a household name, even among those who did not follow pop music or MTV. Later that summer, Simpson won three Teen Choice Awards; Female Fashion Icon, Choice Hottie Female, and Female Reality/Variety TV Star for Newlyweds.

Throughout the run of four seasons, Simpson epitomized the stereotypical dumb blonde, most notably when she asked Lachey whether the Chicken of the Sea tuna she was eating was in fact chicken or fish. She also indicated that she believed that buffalo wings were made from actual buffalo. Moments like these helped turn the show into a huge hit, making the average rating for each episode about 1.4 million viewers while reaching a series peak of about 4 million viewers.

Simpson's third album, In This Skin, was released in August of 2003 to coincide with the series premiere of Newlyweds. It debuted at #10 on The Billboard 200 album chart with sales of just 64,000 in its first week. It rebounded after a special collectors' edition was released in April of 2004 and subsequently reached a peak of #2. It was eventually certified triple platinum, fueled largely by the couple’s television success on Newlyweds. It contained the hits “With You” (#14, 2004) and a cover of the Berlin song “Take My Breath Away” (#20, 2004).

The couple appeared in the television special The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour that aired in 2004 and drew comparisons to Sonny and Cher. Simpson released ReJoyce: The Christmas Album in late 2004 which peaked at #14 on the album chart and was later certified gold.

In 2005, Newlyweds won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Reality Show before wrapping shortly after.

Film debut

In the summer of 2005, at age 25, Simpson made her first appearance in a motion picture as Daisy Duke in the movie-remake of The Dukes of Hazzard. The film debuted at #1 at the U.S. box-office.

Simpson also appeared on the film’s soundtrack, releasing "These Boots Are Made for Walkin” (#14, 2005) a cover of the 1966 Nancy Sinatra hit. The song peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Song from a Movie in 2006.

Divorce from Nick Lachey

In November 2005, after months of tabloid speculation, such as adultery with Bam Margera (confirmed by Margera), Simpson and her husband Nick Lachey officially announced their separation. Simpson filed for divorce on December 16, 2005, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple's divorce was highly publicized worldwide and was reportedly finalized in June 2006.

Jessica Simpson reportedly told Jane in October of 2006, that she knew her marriage to Nick Lachey was over when he refused to join her on a charity trip to Africa, even though it was on their third wedding anniversary.

The couple reportedly sold their Calabasas, California mansion in which Newlyweds was filmed to Malcolm in the Middle star Justin Berfield for about $3.75 million.

2006: Back To Business

On June 30, 2006, Jessica and Nick's divorce was finalized. Simpson hosted the Teen Choice Awards in August of 2006 and appeared on The View in September of 2006 as the first choice of new co-host Rosie O'Donnell.

After a hard year Jessica looked forward to going back in the studio to record her fourth album but Columbia did not re-sign her to the company only to move her to Epic Records

Her fourth album, A Public Affair, was released on August 29, 2006 via Epic Records. The album saw lower-than-expected sales, debuting at #5 on the Billboard 200 with 101,000 copies sold in its first week and, as of November 4, 2006, has sold only a little over 240,000 copies in the United States which is less than half of what her 2001 album Irresistible sold. Public Affair dropped down to the lower part of the charts after only a few weeks out. Week number four saw the album slip down from number five to the sixties. Only after 10 weeks on the Billboard 200, it fell off the chart. The first single, "A Public Affair" (#14, 2006), reached the Top 20 of the Hot 100 but quickly fell off the charts. The music video for "A Public Affair" featured Eva Longoria, Christina Applegate, Christina Milian, Maria Menounos, Andy Dick and Ryan Seacrest. A second single, "I Belong To Me", was also released through her website and is now included on the CD itself. To date, it has not yet appeared on the Billboard Hot 100, making this Simpson's 4th single to not enter the top 100.

Her second movie, Employee of the Month, co-starring Dane Cook and Dax Shepard was released in American cinemas in October 2006.

At the Kennedy Center Honors of Dolly Parton in 2006, Simpson sung Parton's hit "Nine to Five". Simpson seemed to forget the last few lines of the song, finishing with, "Dolly, I'm so nervous". Unsatisfied with her performance, Simpson has retaped the show - the later will be aired on December 26th.

Personal life

Jessica has received a good deal of publicity in the aftermath of her marriage to Nick Lachey. Following their break-up and pending divorce, She was reportedly linked to her Employee of the Month co-star Dane Cook, singer John Mayer, and, from The Dukes of Hazzard actor/comedian Johnny Knoxville. During the marriage several reports of a one night stand with Bam Margera surfaced which both denied at the time. Recently Bam Margera went on Howard Stern's radio show to "admit the truth" of those rumors.

Nick has never stood up against reports that Jessica cheated, saying that he didn't know whether the rumors were true, and he chose not to ask her about them. This indirectly reinforced the truth behind the rumors, and has tarnished Jessica's once innocent image.

Jessica's rep has repeatedly denied that she has dated anyone since her break-up with Nick. Magazines have also speculated that she was jealous of her ex-husband's growing stardom and relationship with television personality Vanessa Minnillo, though she has publicly denied this to be true.

According to British Esquire, Jessica has befriended actress Liv Tyler, and is planning a new joint album pending release in 2007, featuring songs and sound tracks dubbed from the epic movie trilogy Lord of the Rings.

Adam Green wrote a song about her called "Jessica".

When Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo gained the starting job for the team, it was reported he admitted that Jessica Simpson was his dream date. Afterward it was rumored that Simpson's agent arranged a date for the two. This has since been denied by Romo .

Discography

Album cover	Album information
	Sweet Kisses Released: November 23, 1999 Chart positions: #25 US, #36 UK, #52 AUS RIAA certification:2x Platinum(2 100 000 copies)UW:3 500 000 Singles: "I Wanna Love You Forever", "Where You Are", "I Think I'm in Love with You"
	Irresistible Released: May 29, 2001 Chart positions: #6 US, #13 CAN, #81 AUS RIAA certification: Gold (825 000) UW: 2 500 000 Singles: "Irresistible", "A Little Bit"
	This Is the Remix Released: July 2, 2002 Chart positions: #18 US (28 000 COPIES SOLD) RIAA certification: Uncertified Singles: "Irresistible (Remix) feat. Bow Wow"
	In This Skin Released: August 19, 2003 Chart positions: #2 U.S., #36 UK, #13 AUS RIAA certification: 3x Platinum WW:5 100 000 Singles: "Sweetest Sin", "With You", "Take My Breath Away", "Angels"
	Rejoyce: The Christmas Album Released: November 23, 2004 Chart positions: #14 US RIAA certification: Gold WW:1 100 000 Singles: "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow", "O Holy Night"
	A Public Affair Released: August 29, 2006 Chart positions: #5 US, #6 CAN, #33 AUS US Sales: 500,000 - Worldwide Sales: 870,000 RIAA certification: Gold Singles: "A Public Affair", "I Belong to Me" "Fired Up"

Tours

Dream Chaser Tour (2001)
Reality Tour Live (2004)
Tour of Duty (2005)
A Public Affair With Jessica Simpson (2007)

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
2005	The Dukes of Hazzard	Daisy Duke	Major Supporting Role
2006	Employee of The Month	Amy Renfro	Major Supporting Role
2007	Blonde Ambition	Tess McGill	Leading Role

Awards and nominations

The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) — Daisy Duke
- 2005 People's Choice Awards
  - Favorite Song from a Movie: Jessica Simpson - These Boots Are Made For Walkin, (Won) (January 9th, 2006)
- 2006 MTV Movie Awards
  - Sexiest Performance: Jessica Simpson (Nominated) (June 8th 2006)
  - Best On-Screen Team: Johnny Knoxville, Sean William Scott, Jessica Simpson (Nominated) (June 8th, 2006)
- 2006 Teen Choice Awards
  - Choice Breakout Movie Star-Female: Jessica Simpson, (Won) (August 20th 2006)
- 2006 VH 1 Big
  - Big Entertainer: Jessica Simpson (Nominated) (December 3rd 2006)

Jennifer Love Hewitt

2007-08-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

Born:	February 21, 1979 (age 27) Waco, Texas
Occupation:	Film actress (1989–present), Singer (1992–present)
Salary:	Heartbreakers (2001) $4,000,000
Website:	www.jenniferlovehewittonline.com

Jennifer Love Hewitt (born February 21, 1979) is an American actress and singer. She is well-known for her roles in the Fox television series Party of Five, as Sarah Reeves, from (1995-1999), and also starred in the I Know What You Did Last Summer films, as Julie James. Hewitt can currently be seen on the CBS television series Ghost Whisperer, as Melinda Gordon, a young newlywed who communicates with the dead. As a singer, her single "How Do I Deal" reached twenty-six on the American charts.

Biography

Early life and career

Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas to Herbert Daniel Hewitt and Patricia Mae Shipp (who are of mostly English descent). she moved to Garland, Texas in 1987, Her father is a technician and her mother worked as a speech pathologist. Hewitt grew up in Harker Heights, Texas. After the divorce of her parents, Hewitt and her only sibling, Todd Hewitt, were brought up by her mother. Her first name was given to her by her brother, after a girl of whom he was fond as a youngster, while her middle name, "Love", was given to her by her mother after her best friend in college.

As a young girl, Hewitt was attracted to music which led to her first encounters with the entertainment industry. At the age of three, she sang "The Greatest Love of All" (as recorded by Whitney Houston) at a livestock show. Just a year after that, at a restaurant-dance hall, she entertained an audience with her version of "Help Me Make It Through the Night". By the time she was five, Hewitt already had tap dancing and ballet in her portfolio. At nine, she became a member of the Texas Show Team (which also toured in the Soviet Union). At the age of ten, at the suggestion of talent scouts, she moved to Los Angeles, California, with her mother to pursue a career in both acting and singing.

After moving to Los Angeles, Hewitt appeared in more than twenty television commercials. Her first break came as a child actor on the Disney Channel variety show Kids Incorporated (1989–1991). In 1992, she played Pierce Brosnan's daughter in a pilot for NBC called Running Wilde, which featured Brosnan as a reporter for Auto World magazine whose stories cover his own wild auto adventures, but the series wasn't picked up and the pilot never aired. She later played on television in several short-lived series, such as Fox's Shaky Ground (1992–1993), ABC's Byrds of Paradise (1994), and McKenna (1994–1995). Finally, Hewitt became a young star after landing the role of Sarah Reeves on the popular Fox Television show Party of Five (1995–1999), joining the cast during its second season. She continued the same role in the short-lived Party of Five spinoff, Time of Your Life (1999). Hewitt was also one of the producers, but the show was cancelled after only half a season. Her mother is very dear to her. She won sexiest woman of the year in 1997.

Film and music career

She made her film debut in the independent film Munchie (1992). Hewitt became a film star after a lead role in the horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The film had great box-office appeal (125,000,000 U.S. dollars worldwide), and Hewitt became one of the most popular young stars in the USA (together with her co-stars: Freddie Prinze Jr., Ryan Phillippe, and Sarah Michelle Gellar). She also played in the sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). Other notable film roles included the high-school comedy flop Can't Hardly Wait (1998) and a starring role with Sigourney Weaver in the romantic comedy hit Heartbreakers (2001).

In 2000, Hewitt appeared in The Audrey Hepburn Story. That same year, she was the "most popular actress on television" due to her Q-rating (a measurement of a celebrity's popularity) of thirty-seven. For that reason, Nokia chose her to become its spokesperson, because of her "fresh image", and her being "a symbol of youthfulness and wholesomeness". In 2002, she was paired with Jackie Chan in the action comedy The Tuxedo which was a box office bomb.

Since September 2005, Hewitt has starred in the television series Ghost Whisperer. In Australia, Ghost Whisperer has been popular since its introduction; in the United States, the show averages 9-10 million viewers for each new episode.

To date, she has released four albums with some success, most notably in Europe and Japan. Her first album was released in Japan, where she is widely considered a pop star. Her explanation for her success in Japan is that the Japanese "love perky music. The poppier the music, the better."

In March 2005, Hewitt was featured in Maxim magazine and their Girls of Maxim gallery. In May 2006, the magazine named her #29 in their Hot 100 list.

Trivia

Apparently a big fan of Sizzler restaurants. On a September 21, 2006 appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, she expressed her desire to be a spokesperson for Sizzler.

She has been dating actor Ross McCall since January 2006.

According to talkshow interviews, she never learned to ride a bicycle.

Awards

Blockbuster Entertainment Award — Favorite Female Newcomer (I Know What You Did Last Summer) (1998)
Blockbuster Entertainment Award — Favorite Actress (I Know What You Did Last Summer) (1998)
People's Choice Award — Favorite Female Television Performer in a New Series (Time of Your Life) (2000)
Family TV Awards — Favorite Female Actress (Ghost Whisperer) (2006)

Filmography

She Had Brains, a Body, and the Ability to Make Men Love Her (2007) (announced)
Streetlight (2007) .... Mena
Delgo (2006) .... voice of princess Kyla
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006) .... Liz
Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber (2005)
The Truth About Love (2004) .... Alice Holbrook
Garfield: The Movie (2004) .... Liz
If Only (2004) .... Samantha Andrews
The Tuxedo (2002) .... Del Blaine
The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2001) .... voice of Madelaine
The Adventures of Tom Thumb & Thumbelina (2001) .... voice of Thumbelina
The Devil and Daniel Webster (2001) .... The Devil
Heartbreakers (2001) .... Page Conners/Jane Helstrom
The Suburbans (1999) .... Cate
Zoomates (1998) .... voice of Helen
Can't Hardly Wait (1998) .... Amanda Beckett
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) .... Julie James
Telling You (1998) .... Deb Freidman
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) .... Julie James
Trojan War (1997) .... Leah Jones
House Arrest (1996) .... Brooke Figler
Sister Act 2 (1993) .... Margaret
Little Miss Millions (1993) .... Heather Lofton
Munchie (1992) .... Andrea Kurtz

Television

Ghost Whisperer (2005–present)
Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber (2005)
Family Guy episode Stuck Together, Torn Apart (2001) (voice)
The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000)
Time of Your Life (1999)
Party of Five (1995–1999)
Boy Meets World (1998) (Guest Appearance)
McKenna (1994–1995)
Byrds of Paradise (1994)
Shaky Ground (1992–1993)
Kids Incorporated (1989–1991)

Ghost Whisperer (2005)
Bunny (2000)
The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000)
Time of Your Life (1999)

Discography

Albums

1992 Love Songs — released in Japan only
1995 Let's Go Bang
1996 Jennifer Love Hewitt
2002 BareNaked – 37 U.S., 31 AUS
2006 Cool With You: The Platinum Collection

Singles

From Jennifer Love Hewitt
- 1996: "No Ordinary Love"
From I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (soundtrack)
- 1999: "How Do I Deal" — 59 U.S.
From BareNaked
- 2002: "Barenaked" — 6 AUS (gold)
- 2003: "Can I Go Now" — 12 AUS (gold)
- 2003: "Hey Everybody"

Soundtracks

From Disney's Superstars Hits
- 2002: "I'm Gonna Love You"

From If Only
- 2003: "Love Will Show You Everything", "Take My Heart Back"

Kate Beckinsale

2007-08-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

Born	July 26, 1973 London, England
Height	5' 8" (1.73 m)
Notable roles	Selene (Underworld) Evelyn {Pearl Harbor)

Kate Beckinsale (born July 26, 1973 in London, England) is an English actress.

Biography

Early life

Beckinsale was born Kathryn Bailey Beckinsale in London to Judy Loe, a stage and television actress, and Richard Beckinsale, a well-known television actor who died in 1979 at the age of 31. She has a paternal half-sister, Samantha, who is also an actress. Beckinsale's paternal great-grandfather was Burmese, and Beckinsale claims that she was "very oriental-looking" as a child.

Beckinsale attended the private Godolphin and Latymer School, and in her teens twice won the W. H. Smith Young Writers' competition — once for three short stories and once for three poems. After a rebellious adolescence, including a period of anorexia and starting a smoking habit, she followed in the footsteps of her parents and began her acting career. Her first role was in One Against the Wind, a television film about World War II that was first aired in 1991. Having gained three language A levels, Beckinsale studied French and Russian literature at New College, Oxford University, though she did not finish her degree. She thought that having an academic background studying foreign language and literature would broaden her range of acting roles.

Career

During her first year at Oxford, Beckinsale was offered a part in Kenneth Branagh's big-screen film, Much Ado About Nothing, adapted from the Shakespeare play. She spent her last year of studies in Paris, after which she decided to quit the university and concentrate on her acting career. She subsequently appeared in a few low-profile films, including Shooting Fish and The Last Days of Disco (both in 1998). During this time, Beckinsale also appeared in television films and in stage roles, including the well-received Cold Comfort Farm, opposite British silver and small screen notables Rufus Sewell, Eileen Atkins, and Joanna Lumley.

Her first major American film, Brokedown Palace (1999), was not a commercial success. Soon after, Beckinsale was cast in the 2001 film, Pearl Harbor, which was one of the highest grossing films of its year. In the years following, she appeared in a series of American films that were high-profile, but were given a somewhat poor critical reception, including Serendipity (2001), Underworld (2003) and Van Helsing (2004). Notably, she appeared as Ava Gardner in The Aviator, a role for which she gained 20 pounds.

In 2006, Beckinsale was placed at #78 in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World", after being #71 in 2005. She has also been placed at #16 in Maxim's "HOT 100" (2003), #63 in Stuff's "100 Sexiest Women in the World" (2002), and was chosen by the English magazine Hello! as "England’s #1 Beauty", also in 2002.

In January 2006, Beckinsale reprised her role as a vampire in the movie Underworld: Evolution, a sequel to her 2003 film, Underworld, again directed by her husband, Len Wiseman. The film opened at the #1 spot at the box office, grossing over $26 million in its first weekend of release. On January 24, 2006, Beckinsale was featured on the MTV series, Punk'd. The set-up for the segment took place at the Avalon Hotel in Los Angeles.

Beckinsale's most recent role was in the Adam Sandler starring comedy, Click, which opened on June 23, 2006. Her next film will be Snow Angels, which is currently in post-production and will be released in 2006. A September 2006 article in the Hollywood Reporter announced that Beckinsale has signed on to replace Sarah Jessica Parker in the film Vacancy.

Personal life

Beckinsale dated Welsh actor Michael Sheen for a long period of time, and the two have a daughter, Lily Mo Sheen (born 31 January 1999). Sheen co-starred with Beckinsale in Underworld, and had a flashback appearance in its sequel.

In June 2003, a few months after she had separated from Sheen, Beckinsale became engaged to the director of Underworld, Len Wiseman, and the two were married on 9 May 2004 in Bel-Air, California.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2007	Vacancy	Amy Fox	post-production
April 23	Melinda	pre-production
2006	Snow Angels	Annie Marchand	post-production
Click	Donna Newman
Underworld: Evolution	Selene
2004	The Aviator	Ava Gardner
Van Helsing	Anna Valerious
2003	Underworld	Selene	Nominated for Best Actress by Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films
Haunted
Tiptoes	Carol	direct-to-video
2002	Laurel Canyon	Alex
2001	Serendipity	Sara Thomas
Pearl Harbor	Nurse Lt. Evelyn Johnson	Nominated for Best Female Performance by MTV Movie Awards Nominated for Worst Screen Couple (with Ben Affleck) by Razzie Awards Nominated for Best Film Chemistry (with Ben Affleck) by Teen Choice Award
The Golden Bowl	Maggie Verver
1999	Brokedown Palace	Darlene Davis
1998	The Last Days of Disco	Charlotte Pingress
Shooting Fish	Georgie
Alice Through the Looking Glass	Alice	made-for-television
1995	Cold Comfort Farm	Flora Poste
1994	Uncovered	Julia
1993	Much Ado About Nothing	Hero

Mayra Veronica

2007-08-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

BIOGRAPHY

As Featured on Extra's Star Profile on Dec.2/06, One of FHM's "top 100 Sexiest Women In the World" three years straight, Mayra Veronica has graced the covers of magazines from FHM to Maxim as well as Men's Edge, Smooth, King, Smoke, Maxim En Espanol, Open Your Eyes, Cosmo Fl, Urban Male and many others. She has been featured in countless commercials including Nike's own television campaign opposite Lebron James and EA video games has created a new video character after her in their Def Jam 3 video game which is scheduled to be released in March of '07. Mayra has recently been voted by the US Military Troops as their "Favorite Pin UP Girl" after being one of the nation's top-selling calendars in '04,'05,'06.
After her release in the popular magazine FHM on Aug 2003, Mayra became a household name. The feedback on this layout got her on FHM's 2004 calendar and landed her a spot on their A-list top 100 sexiest women in the world issue for 2004, 2005 and again in 2006. This notoriety made her own calendar one of the top selling calendars in US bookstores for the Hispanic market and made her site one of the top 30 celebrity sites hit with over 3.7 million hits bi weekly to date. Her name continues to be one of the top keywords for Web surfers.
Now Mayra's musical passion arrives unbounded with her debut Latin Internationally Distributed Album: "Vengo Con To'" produced by Roy Tavares and Kike Santander.
Making the transition from television as a regular on the national Univision Networks "Don Francisco Presenta" during her three year run, to a recording artist, Mayra has had music in her soul almost from birth. As a very small girl, Mayra Veronica can recall sitting by her father's side as he played "Cenicienta", a Cuban song about Cinderella. Now she's found a glass slipper of her own two decades later with almost fairy-tale success as an in-demand entertainer.
Born Mayra Veronica Aruca Rodriguez on August 20 in Havana Cuba, Mayra's family moved to the US when she was 5 years old and they settled in one of Miami, Florida's Cuban communities. Mayra studied ballet for 12 years in all, taking a break when adolescence took over and she grew "voluptuous" she laughs now. She also won various honors in a number of beauty pageants, including second runner-up as Miss Miami and Miss Hispanic America. When it became clear that a career in dance was not to be, Mayra turned to acting, but not before graduating from Florida International University with a major in psychology and a minor in business, applying those skills later as her entertainment career blossomed.

Traveling back and forth from the Big Apple to home in Florida, Mayra studied at the famed Strassberg Institute for acting, earned roles in stage plays, and was also signed as a spokes model for the giant Univision television network. At home in Florida, she became a host for the Miami television entertainment magazine, “Miami Hoy,” writing, producing and editing her own segments as she interviewed a roster of celebrities, ranging form Donald Trump and Hugh Hefner to Burt Reynolds, Oscar de la Renta ,Tim Allen and Marc Anthony. Mayra also starred in feature film roles, in PBS productions, independent films such as “Tumbe”, and appeared in nationwide Spanish language ads for a wide array of companies including Loreal, Ford, Colgate, Burger King, Coca Cola, and Allstate. She then landed the role on Univision’s “Don Francisco Presenta”, in which viewers embraced her nationwide, making Mayra one of their top female personalities (Mayra is also the #1 most downloaded female personality on the Univision website).
The launching of Mayra's music career continues the stunning rise of this star who has been named "the sexiest woman alive on Latin television" by FHM magazine as she prepares for her world promotional tour and her debut American Album created by top industry producers. What’s her motto? “Fear Nothin' and if you do...stare fear back in the eye and tell it: Just Watch Me! “

Maria Sharapova

2007-08-14T07:12:00.000-07:00

In the highly competitive sport of professional tennis, Maria Sharapova's journey to become one of the top players in the world symbolizes her determination, grit and champion's desire to win. Her story is one of sacrifice, focus and extraordinary talent. An only child, Maria was born on April 19, 1987, in the Russian industrial town of Nyagan in western Siberia. Her parents had relocated from Gomel, Russia, to escape the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In 1989, the Sharapovas moved again to the Black Sea resort town of Sochi; it was here that Maria developed a love of tennis. Watching her father Yuri on the courts, four-year-old Maria learned to play using a second-hand racket. Yuri quickly recognized and nurtured his daughter's exceptional talent. In October 1993, her gift was confirmed from an unexpected source. Maria and Yuri were attending tennis clinics held in Moscow during the Kremlin Cup when Martina Navratilova happened to spot the six-year-old hitting balls on the court. Maria's form and shots stood among the mostly older children. "She has talent," the legendary champion commented to Yuri - and he took her words to heart. Struggling with how to help Maria reach her potential, Yuri and his wife Yelena decided to take a chance and seek world-class coaching for their daughter. In pursuit of this dream, Maria and Yuri boarded an airplane to the United States in March 1995, leaving Yelena behind in Russia to finish college and await a visa. The odds were against the two from the moment they touched down in Miami: neither spoke English and Yuri had just $700 in his pocket, money he had borrowed from Maria's grandparents. Several days and many bus rides later, six-year-old Maria and Yuri arrived uninvited at IMG's Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Although the Academy's coaches immediately recognized Maria's talent, she was too young to be enrolled as a full-time student. Yet Yuri was not discouraged. Believing in his daughter's talent, he settled in nearby Venice and coached Maria on public and private tennis courts. For two difficult years, Yuri worked odd jobs while Maria competed in local tournaments and began to accumulate victories. In December 1995, perseverance paid off -- Maria received a scholarship to the Academy and became a full-time student. The nine-year-old lived on the prestigious campus for seven months, seeing her father only on weekends. Her separation from him, combined with constant teasing by dorm-mates nearly twice her age, forever impacted Maria but also intensified her resolve to succeed. After obtaining a U.S. visa, Yelena finally reunited with Maria and Yuri in June 1996. Maria moved out of the dorms and into an apartment with her parents while she continued to perfect her tennis skills at the academy. In November 2000, 13-year-old Maria exploded onto the world tennis stage with an impressive win in the Girls' 16-and-under Eddie Herr Championships. Her first professional tournament quickly followed in April 2001 and her first WTA tournament in 2002. In a highly competitive sport where many try but few succeed, Maria Sharapova's drive and determination will inspire young girls for years to come. From her 2004 Wimbledon championship, to being the first Russian female to ever claim the #1 ranking in the world, to being the fifth youngest female to ever hold the #1 spot, to her growing list of corporate endorsements, Maria symbolizes what hard work, world-class training and unwavering commitment can achieve: a front-row seat on the world's stage.

Keira Knightley

2007-08-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

Birth name	Keira Christina Knightley
Born	March 26, 1985 (age 21) Teddington, Middlesex, England
Height	5' 7" (1.70 m)
Notable roles	Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Pride & Prejudice (2005) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Keira Christina Knightley (born March 26, 1985) is an Academy Award-nominated English actress. She began her career as a child actress, and came to international fame in 2003, after major roles in the films Bend It Like Beckham and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Knightley has since become a notable lead actress, having starred in several Hollywood films. In 2005 she received a "Best Actress" Academy Award nomination for Pride & Prejudice. Her most recent film is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Biography

Early life

Knightley was born in Teddington, Middlesex, England to Sharman Macdonald, a Scottish actress turned award-winning playwright, and Will Knightley, an English theatre and television actor. She has an older brother, Caleb (b. 1979). Knightley lived most of her life in Richmond upon Thames, attending Teddington School and Esher College. Knightley suffers from dyslexia, but nevertheless achieved good grades in school to please her parents, and was thus permitted to have an agent and pursue an acting career. Knightley has noted that she was "so single-minded about acting" during her childhood. She performed in a number of local amateur productions including After Juliet (written by her mother) and United States (written by her then drama teacher, John McShane).

Career

Knightley began her acting career at the age of seven, making her television debut in Royal Celebration (1993) and also appearing on the television series, The Bill (1995). She appeared in several more made-for-television films in the mid to late 1990s, before being cast as Sabé, Padmé Amidala's decoy, in the 1999 science fiction blockbuster Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. Knightley was cast in the role due to her close resemblance to Natalie Portman, who played Padmé; the two actresses' mothers had difficulty telling their daughters apart when they were heavily made up. Knightley's first starring role followed in 2001, when she played the daughter of Robin Hood in a made-for-television Walt Disney Productions feature, Princess of Thieves. During this time period, Knightley also appeared in The Hole, a thriller that received a direct-to-video release in the United States, and in a mini-series remake of Doctor Zhivago that was first aired in 2002.

Knightley's breakthrough role was in the English football-themed film, Bend It Like Beckham, which was a major success in its August 2002 UK release, and did fairly well at the box office upon its United States release in March 2003, grossing $32 million. After Bend It Like Beckham's UK release raised her profile, she was cast in the big budget action film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and opened in July 2003 to positive reviews and a high box office gross, becoming one of the biggest hits of summer 2003 and cementing Knightley as a leading actress. Knightley had a role in the British romantic comedy Love Actually, which opened in November 2003. Her next film, King Arthur, opened in July 2004 and received mixed reviews, but was praised by critic Roger Ebert for "the considerable production qualities and the charisma of the actors, who bring more interest to the characters than they deserve", Knightley being described as looking "simultaneously sexy and muddy". In the same month, Knightley was voted by readers of Hello! magazine as the movie industry's most promising teen star. Additionally, Time magazine noted in a 2004 feature that Knightley seemed dedicated to developing herself as a serious actress rather than a film star.

Knightley starred in three 2005 films; The Jacket, a dark thriller that opened in March; director Tony Scott's film Domino, which opened in October, was an action film inspired by the life of bounty hunter Domino Harvey; and finally Pride and Prejudice, an adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, in which Knightley played regency Englishwoman Elizabeth Bennet. The Jacket and Domino received mixed critical receptions and performed poorly at the box office, but Pride and Prejudice did well in the U.S. and opened at No. 1 in the UK box office, and is Knightley's sixth film to do so. She received a Best Actress - Comedy/Musical Golden Globes nomination and an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for the role, though she did not win either.

Knightley's most recent film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, was released on July 7, 2006.

She recently completed filming on Silk (an adaptation of the novel by Alessandro Baricco) and Atonement, a feature film adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel of the same name, also starring James McAvoy, Vanessa Redgrave and Brenda Blethyn.

Knightley has completed work on parts of Pirates of the Caribbean 3, which is due for release in May of 2007; she will continue to film scenes during the last part of 2006. She was also recently cast in a film entitled The Best Time of Our Lives, about the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, from a screenplay by her mother.

Celebrity

Knightley (right) poses nude on the March 2006 cover of Vanity Fair with Scarlett Johansson and Tom Ford

As a result of her rapid rise to fame, Knightley has been the subject of significant media attention, being described by press reports as "famously open with media" regarding her personal life. She was voted the sexiest movie star of all time by the readers of Empire magazine, was ranked #79 by FHM in the magazine’s UK Edition 2004 100 Sexiest Women in the World list, #18 in 2005, and was ranked the sexiest woman in the world in 2006. The U.S. Edition ranked her #54 in 2004, #11 in 2005 and #5 in 2006. Knightley appeared nude on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine's March 2006 'Hollywood' issue, with Scarlett Johansson, and was voted the World's Sexiest Woman by FHM (UK) in their FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2006 poll. In May of 2006, Knightley was #9 on Maxim's 2006 Hot 100. However Knightley herself has stated "I don't talk about my private life."

Knightley was the celebrity face for the luxury goods brand Asprey, as well as Lux haircare products in Japanese TV commercials. In April of 2006, she was confirmed as the new celebrity face of Chanel's perfume "Coco Mademoiselle".

Her Valentino gown at the 2006 Golden Globe Awards won her much acclaim and even landed her the top spot on Steven Cojocaru's "Best Dressed List" on Entertainment Tonight, while the dress she wore to the 2006 Academy Awards was recently donated to the charity Oxfam, where it raised £4,300.

Personal life

Knightley, who currently lives in Central London, is dating her Pride and Prejudice co-star, Rupert Friend. She has previously dated Irish male fashion model Jamie Dornan, as well as actor Del Synnott, who according to some reports, attempted suicide after their relationship ended, although Synnott and Knightley deny these claims.. Knightley has stated that she feels uncomfortable dressing up and that she prefers British men over Americans, because she feels that British men are less concerned about their own appearance.

She has denied rumours she is anorexic, although she has noted that her family has a history of anorexia, after her appearance at the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest premiere led to media speculation that her extremely slender figure was due to an eating disorder.

In July of 2006, Knightley noted that she believes that she has become a workaholic, detailing that "the last five years have blended into one. I can't tell you what was last year and what was the year before" and specifying that she is "working too much" and is "quite frightened that if I continue at this rate I will start to hate what I love." As a result, Knightley may take a one year break from acting to travel and focus on her personal life. Knightley is also a devoted supporter of West Ham United.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1999	Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace	Sabé (queen's decoy)
2001	Princess of Thieves	Gwyn, daughter of Robin Hood	First starring role
2001	The Hole	Frances 'Frankie' Almond Smith
2002	Bend It Like Beckham	Juliette 'Jules' Paxton
2003	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	Elizabeth Swann
Love Actually	Juliet
2004	King Arthur	Guinevere
2005	The Jacket	Jackie
Domino	Domino Harvey
Pride and Prejudice	Elizabeth Bennet	Academy Award nomination - "Best Actress"
2006	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	Elizabeth Swann
Silk	Helene Joncour	Post-production
2007	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End	Elizabeth Swann	In production
Atonement	Cecilia Tallis	In production
2008	The Best Time of Our Lives	Vera Phillips

Angelina Jolie

2007-08-14T07:09:00.000-07:00


Birth name	Angelina Jolie Voight
Born	June 4, 1975 (age 31) Los Angeles, California, United States
Academy Awards	Best Supporting Actress, Girl, Interrupted

Angelina Jolie (born Angelina Jolie Voight on June 4, 1975) is an American film actress, a former fashion model and a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency. She is often cited by popular media as one of the world's most beautiful women and her off-screen life is widely reported. She has received three Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and an Academy Award.

Jolie's acting career began with the low budget production Cyborg 2 (1993) and she played her first leading role in a major film in Hackers (1995). She appeared in the critically acclaimed biographical films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999). She achieved international fame as a result of her portrayal of videogame heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and since then has established herself as one of the best known and highest paid actresses in Hollywood. She had her biggest commercial success with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005).

Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie currently lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship that has attracted worldwide media attention. Jolie and Pitt have two adopted children, Maddox and Zahara, and a biological child, Shiloh. Jolie has promoted humanitarian causes throughout the world, and is noted for her work with refugees through UNHCR.

Early life and family

Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She is the niece of Chip Taylor, sister of James Haven and the god-daughter of Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. People often assume that Jolie's mother is French, because of her name, but Jolie's grandparents were French-Canadian. She is of Czech (Sudeten German) descent on her father's side, and French-Canadian and Iroquois on her mother's side.

After her parents' divorce in 1976, Jolie and her brother were raised by their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions and moved with them to Palisades, New York. As a child Jolie collected snakes and lizards and had a crush on Mr. Spock. She regularly saw movies with her mother and later explained that this had inspired her interest in acting; she had not been influenced by her father. When she was 11, the family moved back to Los Angeles and Jolie decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions. She later recalled her time as a student at Beverly Hills High School (later Moreno High School), and her feeling of isolation among the children of some of the area's more affluent families. Jolie's mother survived on a more modest income, and Jolie often wore second-hand clothes. She was teased by other students who also targeted her for her distinctive features, for being extremely thin, and for wearing glasses and braces. Her self esteem was further diminished when her initial attempts at modeling proved unsuccessful. As her despondency grew, she started to cut herself; later commenting during an appearance on CNN, "I collected knives and always had certain things around. For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me." At 14, she dropped out of her acting classes and dreamed of becoming a funeral director. Her self-loathing led her to embark on a rebellious period in her life; she wore black, dyed her hair purple and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend. Two years later, after the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's home. She returned to theatre studies and graduated from high school, though in recent time she has referred to this period with the observation, "I am still at heart just a punk kid with tattoos".

Jolie has been long estranged from her father, blaming his infidelity for the break-up of the family, though a reconciliation was attempted, and he appeared with her in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. In July 2002, Jolie filed a request to legally change her name to "Angelina Jolie", dropping Voight as her surname; the name change was made official on September 12, 2002. In August of the same year, Voight claimed that his daughter had "serious emotional problems" on Access Hollywood. In the October 2004 issue of Premiere Magazine, Jolie indicated that she no longer wished to pursue a relationship with her father, and said, "My father and I don’t speak. I don’t hold any anger toward him. I don’t believe that somebody’s family becomes their blood. Because my son’s adopted, and families are earned." She stated that she did not want to publicize her reasons for her estrangement from her father, but because she had adopted her son Maddox, she did not think it was healthy for her to associate with Voight. Voight has not met his grandchildren.

Career

Early work, 1993–1997

Jolie began working as a fashion model at 14. She was signed with Finesse Model Management and modeled in both the United States and Europe, working mainly in Los Angeles, New York and London. She also appeared in numerous music videos, including those of Meat Loaf ("Rock'n'Roll Dreams Come Through"), Antonello Venditti ("Alta Marea") and Lenny Kravitz ("Stand by My Woman"). At the age of 16 Jolie returned to theatre, and played her first role as a German dominatrix. She began to learn from her father, as she noticed his method of observing people to become like them. Their relationship during this time was less strained, with Jolie realizing that they were both "drama queens".

Jolie with her first husband Jonny Lee Miller in Hackers.

Jolie appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, but her professional movie career began in 1993, when she played her first leading role in the low budget film Cyborg 2, as Casella "Cash" Reese, a near-human robot, designed to seduce her way into a rival manufacturer's headquarters and then self-detonate. Following several undistinguished projects she starred as Kate "Acid Burn" Libby in her first Hollywood picture, Hackers (1995), where she met her first husband Jonny Lee Miller. The New York Times wrote, "Kate (Angelina Jolie) stands out. That's because she scowls even more sourly than [her co-stars] and is that rare female hacker who sits intently at her keyboard in a see-through top. Despite her sullen posturing, which is all this role requires, Ms. Jolie has the sweetly cherubic looks of her father, Jon Voight." The movie failed to make a profit at the box-office, but developed a cult following after its video release.

She appeared as Gina Malacici in the 1996 comedy Love Is All There Is, a modern-day loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set among two rival Italian family restaurant owners in Bronx, New York. In the road movie Mojave Moon she was a youngster, named Eleanor Rigby, who falls for Danny Aiello, while he takes a shine to her mother, Anne Archer. Still in 1996 she played Margret "Legs" Sadovsky, one of five teenage girls who form an unlikely bond in the film Foxfire after they beat up a teacher who has sexually harassed them. The Los Angeles Times wrote about Jolie's performance, "It took a lot of hogwash to develop this character, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to overcome the stereotype. Though the story is narrated by Maddy, Legs is the subject and the catalyst."

In 1997 Jolie starred with David Duchovny in the thriller Playing God, a film portraying a famed L.A. surgeon who is stripped of his medical license and is lured deep into the criminal world where he meets Jolie’s character, Claire. The movie was not received well by critics and Roger Ebert noted that "Angelina Jolie finds a certain warmth in a kind of role that is usually hard and aggressive; she seems too nice to be [a criminal's] girlfriend, and maybe she is." She then appeared in the TV movie True Women, a historical romantic drama set in the West, and based on the book by Janice Woods Windle.

Breakthrough, 1997–2000

Jolie's career prospects began to improve after her performance as Cornelia Wallace in the 1997 biopic George Wallace for which she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy. The film was highly praised by critics and, among other awards, received the Golden Globe for "Best Miniseries/Motion Picture made for TV". She played the second wife of the segregationist Governor of Alabama who was shot and paralyzed while running for President. The film starred Gary Sinise and was directed by John Frankenheimer.

In 1998 Jolie starred in HBO's Gia, as the supermodel, Gia Carangi. The film depicted a world of sex, drugs and emotional drama, and chronicled the destruction of Carangi's life and career as a result of her drug addiction, and her decline and death from AIDS. Vanessa Vance from Reel.com noted, "Angelina Jolie gained wide recognition for her role as the titular Gia, and it's easy to see why. Jolie is fierce in her portrayal – filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation – and her role in this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed." For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award. In accordance with Lee Strasberg's method acting Jolie reportedly prefers to stay in character in between scenes during many of her films, and as a result has gained a reputation for being difficult to deal with. While shooting Gia, she told her then-husband Jonny Lee Miller that she wouldn't be able to phone him. "I'd tell him: 'I'm alone; I'm dying; I'm gay; I'm not going to see you for weeks.'"

Following Gia, Jolie moved to New York and stopped acting for a short period of time, because she felt that she had "nothing else to give". She enrolled at New York University to study filmmaking and attended writing classes. She described it as "just good for me to collect myself" on Inside the Actors Studio.

Jolie returned to film as Gloria McNeary in the 1998 gangster movie Hell's Kitchen, and later that year was part of an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe and Jon Stewart in Playing by Heart. The drama tells the story of several seemingly unconnected characters, with Jolie playing a young club-scene hipster, Joan. The film received predominantly positive reviews and Jolie was praised in particular. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble." Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award by the National Board of Review.

In 1999 she starred in the Mike Newell's comedy-drama Pushing Tin, about two air traffic controllers who engage in macho conflict, co-starring alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. Jolie played Thornton's seductive wife Mary Bell. The film received a lukewarm reception from critics and Jolie's character was particularly criticized. The Washington Post wrote, "Mary (Angelina Jolie), a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of turquoise rings and gets real lonely when Russell spends entire nights away from home." She then worked with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector, an adapted crime novel written by Jeffery Deaver. Jolie played Amelia Donaghy, a police officer haunted by her cop father's suicide, who is reluctant to help Washington tracking down a serial killer. The movie grossed $151 million worldwide, but was a critical failure; the Detroit Free Press concluded, "Jolie, while always delicious to look at, is simply and woefully miscast."

Jolie as Lisa in Girl, Interrupted.

Jolie next took the supporting role of Lisa Rowe alongside Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted, a film that tells the story of a mental patient Susanna Kaysen, and which was adapted from Kaysen's original memoir Girl Interrupted. The movie was supposed to be a return to dramatic form for Ryder, but instead became the "welcome-to-Hollywood coronation" for Jolie. Jolie won her third Golden Globe, her second Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Variety noted, "Jolie is excellent as the flamboyant, irresponsible girl who turns out to be far more instrumental than the doctors in Susanna's rehabilitation" and Roger Ebert wrote about her performance:

Jolie is emerging as one of the great wild spirits of current movies, a loose cannon who somehow has deadly aim.

In 2000 Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster Gone In 60 Seconds, in which she played Sarah "Sway" Wayland, ex-girlfriend of car-thief Nicolas Cage. The role was small, and the Washington Post criticized that "all she does in this movie is stand around, cooling down, modeling those fleshy, pulsating muscle-tubes that nest so provocatively around her teeth." She later explained that the film was a welcome relief after the heavy role of Lisa Rowe, and it became her highest grossing movie up until then, with $237 million internationally.

International success, 2001–present

Although highly regarded for her acting abilities, Jolie's films to date had often not appealed to a wide audience, but Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) made her an international superstar. An adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider videogame, Jolie was required to master a British accent and undergo extensive martial arts training to play the title role of Lara Croft. She was generally praised for her physical performance, but the movie generated mostly negative reviews. Slant Magazine commented, "Angelina Jolie was born to play Lara Croft but [director] Simon West makes her journey into a game of Frogger." The movie was a huge international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide, and started her reputation as a female action star.

Jolie then starred alongside Antonio Banderas as the mail-order bride Julia Russell in Original Sin, a thriller based on the novel Waltz into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich. The film was a major critical failure, with The New York Times noting, "The story plunges more precipitously than Ms. Jolie's neckline." In 2002 she played Lanie Kerrigan in Life or Something Like It, a film about an ambitious TV reporter who is told that she will die in a week. The film was poorly received by critics, though Jolie's performance received positive reviews. CNN's Paul Clinton wrote, "Jolie is excellent in her role. Despite some of the ludicrous plot points in the middle of the film, this Academy Award-winning actress is exceedingly believable in her journey towards self-discovery and the true meaning of fulfilling life."

Jolie as Lara Croft.

Jolie reprised her role as Lara Croft in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life in 2003. The sequel, while not as lucrative as the original, earned $156 million at the international box-office. Later that year Jolie starred in Beyond Borders, a film about aid workers in Africa. Although reflecting Jolie's real-life interest in promoting humanitarian relief, the film was critically and financially unsuccessful. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Jolie, as she did in her Oscar-winning role in Girl, Interrupted, can bring electricity and believability to roles that have a reality she can understand. She can also, witness the Lara Croft films, do acknowledged cartoons. But the limbo of a hybrid character, a badly written cardboard person in a fly-infested, blood-and-guts world, completely defeats her."

In 2004 Jolie starred alongside Ethan Hawke in the thriller Taking Lives, as Illeana Scott, an FBI profiler summoned to help Montreal law enforcement hunt down a serial killer. The movie received mixed reviews and The Hollywood Reporter concluded, "Angelina Jolie plays a role that definitely feels like something she has already done, but she does add an unmistakable dash of excitement and glamour." She also provided the voice of Lola, an angelfish in the animated DreamWorks movie Shark Tale; the cast included Will Smith, Martin Scorsese, Renée Zellweger, Jack Black and Robert De Niro. Also in 2004, Jolie had a brief appearance as Franky in Kerry Conran’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a science fiction adventure film shot with actors entirely in front of a bluescreen, with all the sets and nearly all of the props computer-generated. Jolie then played Olympias in Alexander, Oliver Stone’s biopic about the life of Alexander the Great. The film failed domestically, with Stone attributing its poor reception to disapproval of the depiction of Alexander’s homosexuality, but it succeeded internationally, with revenue of $139 million outside the United States. Newsday wrote of Jolie's performance, "Jolie is the only one in the picture who seems to be having any fun with her role, and one misses her whenever she's off-screen."

Jolie's only movie of 2005, the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, is also her biggest commercial success to date. The film, directed by Doug Liman, tells the story of a bored married couple who find out that they're both secret assassins. Jolie starred as Jane Smith alongside Brad Pitt. The film was well received and was generally lauded for the chemistry between the two leads. The Star Tribune noted, "While the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry." The movie earned over $478 million worldwide, one of the biggest hits of 2005.

During the second half of 2005, Jolie filmed her part in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd, a movie about the early history of the CIA, as seen through the eyes of Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon. Jolie co-stars as Clover Wilson, Wilson's wife, who becomes an alcoholic during the course of the movie. The film is set for release in December of 2006.

Jolie's confirmed future projects include the animated movies Beowulf (playing Grendel's mother) and Kung Fu Panda as well as A Mighty Heart, a film based on the life of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan; she will star as Pearl’s wife, Mariane Pearl. She will also appear in the movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged and is rumored to be involved in Sin City 2.

Humanitarian work

Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in poverty-stricken and widely mined Cambodia. According to Jolie, "I discovered things about what's happening in the world... Cambodia was really eye opening for me." Deeply affected by these experiences, she eventually turned to UNHCR for more information on international trouble spots. In the following months she agreed to visit different refugee camps around the world to learn more about the situation and the conditions in these areas. In February 2001, Jolie went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania; she later expressed her shock at what she had witnessed. In the coming months she returned to Cambodia for two weeks and later visited Afghan refugees in Pakistan where she donated $1 million for Afghan refugees in response to an international UNHCR emergency appeal. She insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits. Impressed by her interest and devotion in the subject, UNHCR named her a Goodwill Ambassador on August 27, 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, despite her warning that her controversial public image might shed a negative light on the U.N. In a press conference Jolie explained her motives for joining the refugee agency:

We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.

Jolie talking to displaced children in Ardamata camp, West Darfur.

During her first three years as Goodwill Ambassador Jolie concentrated her efforts on field missions, visiting refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) all around the world. Asked what she hoped to accomplish, she stated, “Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon.” In 2002, Jolie visited Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand and Colombian refugees in Ecuador to take a closer look at the “Western Hemisphere's most severe humanitarian crisis”. She and US Secretary of State Colin Powell opened events to celebrate World Refugee Day 2002 on June 20 in Washington, D.C. Jolie then went to various UNHCR facilities in Kosovo and paid a visit to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with refugees mainly from Sudan. UNHCR's Representative to Kenya, George Okoth-Obbo, praised her “presence, just to bring some joy into what is undoubtedly a hard life for many of the people here”. She also visited Angolan refugees while she was filming Beyond Borders in Namibia.

In 2003, Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania where she traveled to western border camps, hosting Congolese refugees and she paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka, where she saw the post–war conditions in northern Sri Lanka. Jolie again attended World Refugee Day on June 20 in Washington, D.C., and later concluded a four-day mission to Russia as she traveled to North Caucasus to learn about all aspects of UNHCR's operations in the region. Concurrently with the release of her movie Beyond Borders in October 2003 she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions (2001-2002). All her proceeds from the book went to UNHCR. During a private stay in Jordan in December 2003 she asked to visit Ruwaished camp in Jordan's remote eastern desert, 70 km from the Iraqi border. The camp hosted some 800 people who had fled Iraq during the U.S.-led invasion and later that month she visited Sudanese refugees near the Egyptian capital in Kilo Arbaa We Nus.

On her first U.N. trip within the United States, Jolie went to Arizona in 2004, visiting detained asylum seekers at three facilities and the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix. With the humanitarian situation in Sudan worsening, she flew to Chad in June 2004, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. Four month later she returned to the region, this time going directly into West Darfur to learn about the situation of thousands of IDPs. She stressed the need for security and access to displaced people's home villages at a press conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. On June 18, 2004 she and US Secretary of State Colin Powell met again in Washington to launch the three day events of World Refugee Day. Also in 2004 Jolie visited Afghan refugees in Thailand and on a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays she visited UNHCR's regional office in Beirut, as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital.

Jolie and Condoleezza Rice attending World Refugee Day 2005.

With increasing experience, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. Since 2005 she has attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, announcing the formation of a Council of Business Leaders with UNHCR's Deputy High Commissioner, Wendy Chamberlin, in 2005, and participated in the panel discussion Human Rights: Reduced to Charity? in 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests in Washington, D.C. where she met with congressmen and senators at least 20 times from 2003. She explained in Forbes:

As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball.

Among others, she pushed for The Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act in reaction to her previous visit to facilities for asylum seekers in Arizona. On March 8, 2005 Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon in Washington, D.C. where she promoted the bill and in support of it announced the founding of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal representation which Jolie personally funded with a donation of $500,000 for its first two years. The Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act eventually passed in December 2005. Jolie also pushed for a bill to aid 70 million vulnerable children in the Third World which was signed by President Bush in November 2005, but so far no funding has been granted. In addition to her political involvement, Jolie began using the public’s interest in her to promote humanitarian causes through the mass media. In May 2005 Jolie filmed a MTV special, The Diary Of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on their trip to Sauri, a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. There, Sachs's United Nations Millennium Project team is working with locals to end poverty, hunger and disease. In September 2005 Jolie was named the new spokesperson for the clothing line St. John starting in the Spring of 2006. The deal includes the start-up of a charity headed by Jolie which will focus on children's issues and causes. On October 24, 2005 Jolie attended the First Annual Benefit Gala for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO), where she pledged to partner with the WWO to treat children in Ethiopia who have been orphaned by AIDS and are HIV positive. She also announced her plan to support the WWO's Pediatric HIV/AIDS Clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and pledged an initial grant. In September 2006 Jolie announced the founding of the Jolie/Pitt Foundation which made initial donations to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders of $1 million each.

Jolie visited Pakistani camps containing Afghan refugees, in May 2005 and she also met with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. She returned to Pakistan with Brad Pitt during the Thanksgiving weekend in November to see the impact of the October 8 Kashmir earthquake. They met many quake victims as well as President Musharraf. In 2006 Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean. Jolie also arranged a deal with People allowing them to print the first picture showing her visibly pregnant in exchange for a $500,000 donation to Yéle Haïti. During a two-month stay in Namibia, as she awaited the birth of her daughter, Jolie promoted the Global Education Week in an interview with NBC and she also took part in a conference call with UK Chancellor Gordon Brown who has pledged an extra $16 billion towards universal free education. Jolie has worked with Senator Hillary Clinton since 2005 to get the Education for All bill approved by the U.S. Congress. In November 2006, while filming A Mighty Heart in India, she visited Afghan and Burmese refugees in New Delhi and met the Minister of State for External Affairs, Anand Sharma, praising India's longstanding hospitality to refugees.

Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. On October 24, 2003 she was the first recipient of the new created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association. Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country on August 12, 2005; she has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there. On October 12, 2005, Jolie was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA.

Relationships

On March 28, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film Hackers. She attended her wedding in black leather trousers and a white shirt, which had her groom's name painted in her blood on the back. Jolie and Miller separated one year later and subsequently divorced on February 3, 1999. They remained on good terms and Jolie later explained, "It comes down to timing. I think he's the greatest husband a girl could ask for. I'll always love him, we were simply too young."

She then married American actor Billy Bob Thornton, who she had met on the set of Pushing Tin, on May 5, 2000. As a result of their frequent public declarations of passion and gestures of love (most famously wearing one another's blood in vials around their necks), their relationship became a favorite topic of the entertainment media. Jolie and Thornton divorced on May 27, 2003. Asked in Vogue about the sudden dissolution of their marriage, Jolie stated, "It took me by surprise, too, because overnight, we totally changed. I think one day we had just nothing in common. And it's scary but... I think it can happen when you get involved and you don't know yourself yet."

Jolie and Brad Pitt in the Dominican Republic, in January 2006.

Jolie has said in interviews that she is bisexual and has long acknowledged that she had a sexual relationship with her Foxfire co-star Jenny Shimizu, "I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband. I fell in love with her the first second I saw her." In an interview with Barbara Walters in 2003, asked if she was bisexual, Jolie responded, "Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it's okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely! Yes!" Jolie also had a brief affair with french ex fashion model turned writer Ann Scott.

In early 2005, Jolie was involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal when she was accused of being the "other woman" in the divorce of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The allegation was that she and Pitt had started an affair during filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, however she has denied this in several interviews. In an interview with Ann Curry in 2005, she explained, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife."

While Jolie and Pitt never publicly commented about the nature of their relationship, speculations continued throughout 2005. The first intimate paparazzi photos emerged in April, one month after Aniston had filed for divorce; they show Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya. During the summer Jolie and Pitt were seen together with increasing frequency and most of the entertainment media considered them a couple, dubbing them "Brangelina". On January 11, 2006 Jolie confirmed to People that she was pregnant with Pitt's child and thereby confirmed their relationship for the first time in public.

Children

On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child, Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt (originally Maddox Chivan Thornton Jolie). He was born on August 5, 2001 as Rath Vibol in Cambodia and he initially lived in a local orphanage in Battambang. Jolie decided to apply for adoption after she had visited Cambodia twice, while filming Tomb Raider and on a UNHCR field trip in 2001. After her divorce from her second husband, Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie received sole custody of Maddox.

Jolie and her son Maddox.

Maddox's name is Celtic in origin, usually translated as "beneficent". Jolie developed several nicknames for him, normally she calls him "Mad". Maddox, like Jolie's two other children, has gained a considerable celebrity and appears regularly in the tabloid media; he was named the "cutest celebrity kid", his clothes have been described as trendsetting for children's wear and he is known for this Mohawk hairstyle, which Jolie gave him because "he had this crazy hair that stuck straight up. I had to do something with it."

On July 6, 2005, Jolie adopted a six-month-old girl from Ethiopia, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt (originally Zahara Marley Jolie), who was orphaned by AIDS. Zahara was born on January 8, 2005 as Tena Adam. Jolie picked her up at a Wide Horizons For Children orphanage in Addis Ababa. Shortly after they returned to the United States Zahara had to spend time in a hospital for dehydration and malnutrition. Jolie stated that "she was six months and not nine pounds. Her skin, you could squeeze it, it stuck together." Zahara's name means "flower" in Swahili, the second name "Marley" comes from late Jamaican reggae superstar Bob Marley. Zahara's nickname is "Zee".

In the months following Zahara's adoption news reports emerged in which several women either claimed to be her birth mother or her grandmother. While making an appearance on CNN's The Situation Room Jolie stated that her daughter is an "AIDS orphan." By that she means her birth mother died from AIDS, but her daughter does not have the disease. The birth father of Zahara is not known. Her statement made it clear that the birth mother is indeed dead. In late October 2005, an Ethiopian judge ruled that there is no evidence to suggest that Jolie would have to file for re-adoption of her daughter. The judge also ruled that a woman claiming to be her mother is not the birth mother.

Brad Pitt was reportedly present when Jolie signed the adoption papers and collected her daughter; later Jolie indicated that she and Pitt made the decision to adopt Zahara together. In December 2005 it was confirmed that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children. In support of this bid (and as part of legal requirements), Jolie took out classified advertisements in the Los Angeles paper Daily Commerce announcing the name change request, and on January 19, 2006, a judge in California approved this request. The children's legal surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt".

On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to a daughter named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, at night at the Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia. Shiloh was born by a scheduled caesarean section, due to breech presentation, and Pitt was there to cut her umbilical cord. The couple's Los Angeles obstetrician was assisted by local staff. Shiloh, according to a long-standing translation from the Bible, has come to mean "the peaceful one."

Pitt confirmed that their newly-born daughter will have a Namibian passport while speaking to local journalists. Jolie decided to offer the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images herself, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these extremely valuable snapshots. People paid more than $4.1 million for the North American rights, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for roughly $3.5 million; the total rights sale earned up to $10 million worldwide – the most expensive celebrity image of all time. All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity by Jolie and Pitt. On July 26, 2006 Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it is the first infant re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds. In August 2006, 41 percent of all 18- to 24-year-old American adults knew Shiloh's correct first name according to an Ad Council survey.

Jolie in the media

Jolie appeared in the media from an early age due to her famous father Jon Voight. At 7 she had a small part in Lookin' to Get Out, a movie co-written by and starring her father, and in 1986 and 1988 she attended the Academy Awards as a teenager with him. However, when she started her acting career, Jolie decided not to use “Voight” as a stage name, because she wished to establish her own identity as an actress. Jolie was never shy about controversy and integrated her teenage "wild girl" image into her public persona in the first years of her career. During her acceptance speech at the 2000 Academy Awards, Jolie declared "I'm so in love with my brother right now" which, combined with her affectionate behavior towards him that night, sparked rumors in the tabloid media of an incestuous relationship with her brother James Haven. She has denied those rumors and said while appearing on Inside the Actors Studio “the world is a lot sicker than I thought”. Jolie and Haven later explained in interviews that after their parents' divorce they relied on one another and because of that they hold on to each other as a means of emotional support.

Jolie is noted as "the one A-list celebrity without a publicist", and she quickly became a tabloid's favorite, since she presented herself as very outspoken in interviews, once claiming to be "most likely to sleep with a female fan." Her love life, especially her interest in sadomasochism, has often been featured in the media. In 2004 she stated in Allure, "S&M sex can be misinterpreted as violence. It's really about trust. I like to push boundaries, both emotional and sexual, with another person. That's when I've felt the sexiest. I've been in both submissive and dominant roles because I want more." As one of her most distinctive physical features, Jolie's lips have attracted notable media attention. Her lips were mentioned among the "world's sexiest things" in a 2006 FHM poll. Despite the speculation that exists that her famous lips are either the product of simple genetics or from some type of cosmetic enhancement, they top the list of body parts most wished for by plastic surgery patients. She also created headlines with her much publicized marriage to Billy Bob Thornton and her subsequent change into an advocate for global humanitarian problems. As she took on the role of UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador she started to use her celebrity to highlight humanitarian causes worldwide, e.g. promoting World Refugee Day 2006 in a two hour CNN interview with Anderson Cooper which attracting more than double the audience of his typical newscast. Jolie has been taking flight lessons since 2004 and she has a student pilot and private pilot (UK based) license. The media speculated that Jolie is a Buddhist, but she said that she teaches Buddhism to her son Maddox because she considers it part of his culture. Jolie has not stated definitively whether or not she believes in God. When asked in an interview with The Onion A.V. Club in 2000 if there was a God, she said, "For the people who believe in it, I hope so. There doesn't need to be a God for me."

Starting in 2005, her relationship with Brad Pitt became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After Jolie confirmed her pregnancy in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding them "reached the point of insanity" as Reuters described it in their story "The Brangelina fever"; among others, there were several false wedding rumors including an alleged imminent wedding in Laglio, Italy that was even further ignited by the local mayor and was picked up by many noted news services like the Associated Press and the BBC. Trying to avoid the media attention, the couple went to Namibia for the birth of “the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ”, as it has been described.

Today, Jolie is one of the best known celebrities around the world. According to the Q Score survey by Marketing Evaluations Inc., in 2000, subsequent to her Oscar win, 31% of respondents in the United States said Jolie was familiar to them, by 2006 she was familiar to 81% of Americans. In a 2006 global industry survey by ACNielsen in 42 international markets Jolie, together with Brad Pitt, was found to be the favorite celebrity endorser for brands and products worldwide. Also in 2006, Jolie was among the Time 100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time, she was featured on the cover of Forbes "The Celebrity 100" edition, ranking at No. 35, and she was described as the world's most beautiful woman in the "100 Most Beautiful" issue of People.

Tattoos

Jolie's inventory of tattoos has become the subject of much media attention and has often been addressed by interviewers. Jolie stated that, while she is not opposed to film nudity, the large number of tattoos on her body has forced filmmakers to become more creative when planning nude or love scenes. Make-up has been used to cover up the tattoos in many of her productions. She frequently adds or even changes existing tattoos and has said that all the tattoos she possesses have a special meaning. Jolie currently has twelve known tattoos, such as a Tennessee Williams quote "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages" which she got together with her mother, the Arabic phrase "العزيمة" (strength of will), the Latin proverb "quod me nutrit me destruit" (what nourishes me also destroys me) and a prayer consisting of Buddhist Sanskrit symbols for her son Maddox. Over time she covered or lasered several of her tattoos, including "Billy Bob", the name of her former husband Billy Bob Thornton, a Chinese character for death (死) and a window on her lower back; she explained that she removed the window, because, while she used to spend all of her time looking out through windows wishing to be outside, she now lives there all of the time.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1993	Cyborg 2	Casella "Cash" Reese
1995	Hackers	Kate "Acid Burn" Libby
1996	Mojave Moon	Eleanor "Elie" Rigby
Love Is All There Is	Gina Malacici
Foxfire	Margret "Legs" Sadovsky
1997	Playing God	Claire
True Women (TV)	Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods
George Wallace (TV)	Cornelia Wallace	Golden Globe - Best Supporting Actress
1998	Gia (TV)	Gia Marie Carangi	Golden Globe, SAG Award- Best Leading Actress
Hell's Kitchen	Gloria McNeary
Playing by Heart	Joan	National Board of Review Award - Breakthrough Performance Actress
Pushing Tin	Mary Bell
1999	The Bone Collector	Amelia Donaghy
Girl, Interrupted	Lisa Rowe	Golden Globe, SAG Award, Academy Award - Best Supporting Actress
2000	Gone in Sixty Seconds	Sara 'Sway' Wayland
2001	Lara Croft: Tomb Raider	Lara Croft
Original Sin	Julia Russell/Bonnie Castle
2002	Life or Something Like It	Lanie Kerrigan
2003	Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life	Lara Croft
Beyond Borders	Sarah Jordan
2004	Taking Lives	Illeana Scott
Shark Tale	Lola	(voice)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow	Franky
Alexander	Olympias
2005	Mr. & Mrs. Smith	Jane Smith
2006	The Good Shepherd	Clover Wilson
2007	Beowulf	Grendel's Mother	(voice)
A Mighty Heart	Mariane Pearl
2008	Atlas Shrugged	Dagny Taggart
Kung Fu Panda	Tigress	(voice)

Preceded by:
Judi Dench
for Shakespeare in Love

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1999
for Girl, Interrupted

Succeeded by:
Marcia Gay Harden
for Pollock

Scarlett Johansson

2007-08-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

Born	November 22, 1984 (age 22) New York City, New York, USA
Height	5' 4" (1.63 m)
Notable roles	Rebecca in Ghost World Griet in Girl with a Pearl Earring Charlotte in Lost in Translation

Scarlett Johansson (born November 22, 1984) is an American actress. She rose to fame with her role in 1998's The Horse Whisperer and subsequently gained critical acclaim for her roles in Ghost World, Lost in Translation and Girl with a Pearl Earring, the latter two earning her Golden Globe Award nominations in 2003. She has been named the "sexiest" or "most beautiful" woman alive by several publications.

Biography

Early life

Johansson was born in New York City. Her father, Karsten Johansson, is a Danish architect, and her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was a screenwriter and director. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, comes from a Bronx-bred Jewish American family, and met Karsten Johansson while living in Denmark with Scarlett Johansson's maternal grandmother, Dorothy, a former bookkeeper and schoolteacher. Johansson has an older sister, Vanessa, who is also an actress; an older brother, Adrian; a twin brother Hunter, also an actor; and a half-brother, Christian.

Johansson began her theater training by attending and graduating from Professional Children's School in Manhattan in 2002.

Career

After appearing in several films during the late 1990s, Johansson garnered praise and widespread attention for her performance in 1998's The Horse Whisperer and 2001's Ghost World. She won a Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival for her performance as Charlotte in 2003's Lost in Translation. The same year, she was nominated for two best actress awards at the Golden Globes, one for drama (Girl with a Pearl Earring) and one for comedy (Lost in Translation). She was also nominated for best actress for both films at the BAFTAs, and won best actress for Lost in Translation.

Johansson in Lost in Translation, 2003

Johansson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June of 2004. In the same year, she starred in the films The Perfect Score, In Good Company and A Love Song for Bobby Long, the last of which earned her a third Golden Globe Award nomination. Johansson was involved for a short time with the film Mission: Impossible III, but was not officially cast because of scheduling conflicts, although a falling out with the film's star, Tom Cruise, had been both widely reported and publicly denied. She was replaced by Keri Russell.

In July 2005, Johansson starred with Ewan McGregor in the Michael Bay-directed The Island, making her debut as a female lead in a mainstream action film. She drew attention to both the film and herself when she proposed to appear topless in the film's sex scene, but director Bay disapproved, wanting to keep the film at a PG-13 rating. In the same year, she starred in the Woody Allen-directed drama Match Point, which opened in December. Johansson received her fourth Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the role but lost to Rachel Weisz. Johansson's next film, Scoop, another collaboration with Woody Allen, was released on 28 July 2006. The same year, she appeared in director Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, a film noir shot in Los Angeles and Bulgaria. Johansson has noted that she was a fan of De Palma and had wanted to work with him on the film, despite her belief that she was "physically wrong" for the part. Her reviews were mixed, CNN.com positively noted that Johansson "takes to the pulpy period atmosphere as if it were oxygen", whereas another reviewer referred to Johansson as "miscast".

Johansson's most recent role is in the thriller The Prestige, which opened on October 20, 2006. She has also completed filming on the yet be released film version of The Nanny Diaries, and has been cast opposite Natalie Portman and Eric Bana in The Other Boleyn Girl, playing Mary Boleyn, the sister of Portman's character. Filming is scheduled to begin in London in October 2006 for a 2007 release. Johansson will also play Mary, Queen of Scots, in a film scheduled to begin production by the end of summer 2007.

Other works

Scarlett Johansson, Tom Ford and Keira Knightley on the February 2006 cover of Vanity Fair

Johansson endorsed the Calvin Klein perfume "eternity Moment" and was featured in several commercials and printed advertisements for the product. One of the commercials was featured in her 2005 film The Island. Further establishing her position in Hollywood, she became the face and spokesperson for the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton in early 2005 and in January 2006 was named the spokesperson of L'Oreal.

In early 2006, Johansson appeared on the controversial cover of the February 2006 issue of Vanity Fair in nude with other Hollywood it girl Keira Knightley and world-renowned fashion designer Tom Ford. In March of 2006, she topped the U.S. edition of FHM's poll of the sexiest women alive (in the UK edition Johansson was third). In May of 2006, Maxim named Johansson #6 in their Hot 100 issue, and in July of 2006, Reebok signed a deal with Johansson to co-create "Scarlett 'Hearts' Rbk", athletic footwear scheduled for a debut in the spring of 2007. Johansson will also be featured in Reebok's global women's advertising campaign, also in the spring of 2007. The company's press releases described Johansson as a "world renowned style icon" and an "inspiration for today's young women". In November 2006, Johansson was named "Sexiest Woman Alive" by Esquire magazine.

In 2006, Johansson starred in a short film directed by Bennett Miller and set to Bob Dylan's "When the Deal Goes Down...", released to promote Dylan's album, Modern Times. Between 2005 and 2006, she also sang the track "Summertime" for Unexpected Dreams - Songs from the Stars, a non-profit collection of songs recorded by Hollywood actors, and was in talks to appear in a stage version of The Sound of Music.

In October 2006, FoxNews reported that Johansson has signed to record a music album with Rhino Entertainment's Atco Records, with a possible release date of spring 2007. The album, entitled Scarlett Sings Tom Waits, will consist entirely of Johansson's cover versions of Tom Waits songs.

Personal life

Johansson is a Democrat and campaigned for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. Johansson has also taken part in an anti-poverty campaign which was organized by U2 lead singer Bono.

Johansson has previously stated that she has a connection to older men and could not see herself dating anyone under the age of thirty. She has also noted that she does not discuss "any part" of her personal life with the press, specifying that she feels "it's nice to have everybody not know your business". Johansson's ex-boyfriend, Jack Antonoff, has included negative lyrics that refer to Johansson in his band's song "Better Love". Antonoff also references Johansson in the song 2 O'clock. She has been linked to many famous men, including Derek Jeter, Benicio Del Toro and Jared Leto.

As of October 2006, Johansson is still dating her The Black Dahlia co-star Josh Hartnett after one year together. Johansson has said that "contrary to popular belief... [she is] not promiscuous" and that she believes "on some basic level we are animals, and by instinct we kind of breed accordingly". She has also stated that she works "really hard" when she is in a relationship "to make it work in a monogamous way".

Johansson gets tested for HIV twice a year, and has specified that she feels "it's part of being a decent human" and that she finds it "disgusting" and "irresponsible" when people do not do so. She has claimed to be addicted to cheese, saying: "My greatest vice is cheese. Nothing else reigns over my life". She has criticized the media and Hollywood for promoting an image that causes unhealthy diets and eating disorders among women, saying that she thinks "that being ultra-thin is not sexy at all. Women shouldn't be forced to conform to unrealistic and unhealthy body images that the media promote".

When asked about her current religious affiliation, Johansson has answered: "That's a very personal question. I would rather not answer". She has, however, specified that she celebrates a "little of both" Christmas and Hanukkah. She has noted that she dislikes it when celebrities thank God or Jesus in their award acceptance speeches and has said that her parents are atheists. She has been photographed wearing a Star of David, the traditional symbol of Judaism, around her neck.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
	Brilliant		pre-production[1]
2008	Mary Queen of Scots	Mary I of Scotland	pre-production
2007	The Other Boleyn Girl	Mary Boleyn	filming
The Nanny Diaries	Nan	post-production
2006	The Prestige	Olivia Wenscombe
The Black Dahlia	Kay Lake
Scoop	Sondra Pransky
A Good Woman	Meg Windermere	limited release
2005	Match Point	Nola Rice
The Island	Jordan Two Delta/Sarah Jordan
2004	In Good Company	Alex Foreman
A Love Song for Bobby Long	Pursy Will	Golden Globe Nomination; limited release
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie	Mindy	voice
The Perfect Score	Francesca Curtis
2003	Girl with a Pearl Earring	Griet	Golden Globe Nomination
Lost in Translation	Charlotte	Golden Globe Nomination
2002	Eight Legged Freaks	Ashley Parker
2001	The Man Who Wasn't There	Rachael 'Birdy' Abundas
An American Rhapsody	Zsuzsi/Suzanne Sandor (at 15)
Ghost World	Rebecca
1998	The Horse Whisperer	Grace MacLean
1997	Home Alone 3	Molly Pruitt
1996	Manny & Lo	Amanda	limited release
If Lucy Fell	Emily
1995	Just Cause	Kate Armstrong
1994	North	Laura Nelson

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