Best Actresses...
Some of my favourite, in no particular order
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Linda Darnell, one of five children of a postal clerk, grew up fast. At 11, she was modeling clothes, giving her age as 16. At 13, she was appearing on the stage with little theater groups. Her mother encouraged her to audition when Hollywood talent scouts came to Dallas. She went to California and when the studio found out how young she really was, she was sent home and told to come back when she was 15. Her fourth film, Star Dust (1940), was based on this real life experience. It was Star Dust (1940) that Darnell was watching the night of April 9, 1965, at the home of her former secretary, located in Glenview, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The house caught on fire in the early hours of the next morning and Darnell died that afternoon in Cook County Hospital. The character she played in one of her best known roles, Forever Amber (1947) survived the London fire, the plague and the perils of being the mistress of the English king, Charles II.- Actress
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Davis was educated at Loreto Convent and the Western Institute of Technology and graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1977. She found international success with the role of Adela Quested in A Passage to India (1984). Her performance was nominated an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She went on to receive another Academy Award nomination (this time for Best Actress in a Supporting Role) for her performance as Sally in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives (1992). Davis and Allen would go on to be a longtime collaborators; Allen once described Davis as "one of the most exciting actresses in the world".- Actress
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Ingrid Bergman was one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood's lamented Golden Era. Her natural and unpretentious beauty and her immense acting talent made her one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American cinema. Bergman is also one of the most Oscar-awarded actresses, tied with Meryl Streep and Frances McDormand, all three of them second only to Katharine Hepburn.
Ingrid Bergman was born on August 29, 1915 in Stockholm, Sweden, to a German mother, Frieda Henrietta (Adler), and a Swedish father, Justus Samuel Bergman, an artist and photographer. Her mother died when she was only two and her father died when she was 12. She went to live with an elderly uncle.
The woman who would be one of the top stars in Hollywood in the 1940s had decided to become an actress after finishing her formal schooling. She had had a taste of acting at age 17 when she played an uncredited role of a girl standing in line in the Swedish film Landskamp (1932) in 1932 - not much of a beginning for a girl who would be known as "Sweden's illustrious gift to Hollywood." Her parents died when she was just a girl and the uncle she lived with didn't want to stand in the way of Ingrid's dream. The next year she enrolled at the Royal Dramatic Theatre School in Stockholm but decided that stage acting was not for her. It would be three more years before she would have another chance at a film. When she did, it was more than just a bit part. The film in question was The Count of the Old Town (1935), where she had a speaking part as Elsa Edlund. After several films that year that established her as a class actress, Ingrid appeared in Intermezzo (1936) as Anita Hoffman. Luckily for her, American producer David O. Selznick saw it and sent a representative from Selznick International Pictures to gain rights to the story and have Ingrid signed to a contract. Once signed, she came to California and starred in United Artists' 1939 remake of her 1936 film, Intermezzo (1939), reprising her original role. The film was a hit and so was Ingrid.
Her beauty was unlike anything the movie industry had seen before and her acting was superb. Hollywood was about to find out that they had the most versatile actress the industry had ever seen. Here was a woman who truly cared about the craft she represented. The public fell in love with her. Ingrid was under contract to go back to Sweden to film Only One Night (1939) in 1939 and June Night (1940) in 1940. Back in the US she appeared in three films, all well-received. She made only one film in 1942, but it was the classic Casablanca (1942) opposite Humphrey Bogart.
Ingrid was choosing her roles well. In 1943 she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), the only film she made that year. The critics and public didn't forget her when she made Gaslight (1944) the following year--her role of Paula Alquist got her the Oscar for Best Actress. In 1945 Ingrid played in Spellbound (1945), Saratoga Trunk (1945) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), for which she received her third Oscar nomination for her role of Sister Benedict. She made no films in 1947, but bounced back with a fourth nomination for Joan of Arc (1948). In 1949 she went to Italy to film Stromboli (1950), directed by Roberto Rossellini. She fell in love with him and left her husband, Dr. Peter Lindstrom, and daughter, Pia Lindström. America's "moral guardians" in the press and the pulpits were outraged. She was pregnant and decided to remain in Italy, where her son was born. In 1952 Ingrid had twins, Isotta and Isabella Rossellini, who became an outstanding actress in her own right, as did Pia.
Ingrid continued to make films in Italy and finally returned to Hollywood in 1956 in the title role in Anastasia (1956), which was filmed in England. For this she won her second Academy Award. She had scarcely missed a beat. Ingrid continued to bounce between Europe and the US making movies, and fine ones at that. A film with Ingrid Bergman was sure to be a quality production. In her final big-screen performance in 1978's Autumn Sonata (1978) she had her final Academy Award nomination. Though she didn't win, many felt it was the most sterling performance of her career. Ingrid retired, but not before she gave an outstanding performance in the mini-series A Woman Called Golda (1982), a film about Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. For this she won an Emmy Award as Best Actress, but, unfortunately, she did not live to see the fruits of her labor.
Ingrid died from cancer on August 29, 1982, her 67th birthday, in London, England.- Actress
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Maggie Cheung was born on September 20, 1964, in Hong Kong, and moved at the age of eight with her family to England. After finishing secondary school, she returned to Hong Kong, where she began modeling and appearing in commercials. In 1983 she participated in the Ms. Hong Kong pageant, winning first runner-up, which proved not to be a detriment since she went on to become a star of both Hong Kong television and film.- Actress
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Laura Dern was born on February 10, 1967 in Los Angeles, the daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. Dern was exposed to movie sets and the movie industry from infancy, and obtained several bit parts as a child. Her parents divorced when Dern was two and Dern lost contact with her father for several years as a result.
Her parents' background and her own early taste of the movie-making world soon convinced the young Dern to pursue acting herself. Like so many young actors, her decision may have been influenced by social awkwardness -- the child of 1960s counterculture parents, she was steeped in Eastern mysticism and political radicalism, and was seen as an oddball by her more conservative classmates. Even before her teens, she had achieved most of her impressive 5' 10" height and was rail-skinny with a slouching posture.. Perhaps the nine-year-old Dern found refuge by studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.
The first success for the young Dern came in 1980, with a role in Adrian Lyne's Foxes (1980), a teen movie starring Jodie Foster. She followed this with several small parts, or parts in small movies, such as Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982) and Teachers (1984), as a student who has an affair with a teacher. (Her mother objected to her active presence on movie sets at age thirteen, which required Dern to sue for emancipation so she could play her role in "The Fabulous Stains"). Her next roles, as the blind girl who befriends the deformed boy in Mask (1985), and as a teen-aged girl whose sexual awakening collides with a mysterious older man in Smooth Talk (1985), gave her career an important boost. Dern appeared to have made it with a leading role in David Lynch's acclaimed Blue Velvet (1986), but it was four years before her next notable film, and this was the bizarre Wild at Heart (1990), also directed by Lynch.
The following year, Dern starred in Rambling Rose (1991), which would become her signature performance, as a sexually-precocious, free-spirited young housemaid in the South in the 1930s. Dern earned an Oscar nomination for her performance, and so did her mother and co-star, Diane Ladd. Dern continues to win prominent roles on the big screen, often in smaller, highly-regarded human dramas such as October Sky (1999), I Am Sam (2001) and We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004), although she is perhaps most widely known for her repeat role as Ellie Sattler in the summer adventure movies Jurassic Park (1993) and Jurassic Park III (2001), or for her guest performance on Ellen (1994), as the woman to whom Ellen finally comes out as a lesbian.
Dern's pre-teen gawkiness matured into lithe beauty, but this doesn't prevent Dern from fearlessly throwing herself into a wide variety of roles which are sometimes unflattering, an excellent example being her unflinchingly comic portrayal of an intensely annoying loser whose pregnancy becomes a social and political football in Citizen Ruth (1996). This results in Dern being one of the most interesting actors working in Hollywood today.
Having previously dated such Hollywood talent as Treat Williams, Renny Harlin, Kyle MacLachlan, Jeff Goldblum and Billy Bob Thornton, Dern eventually married musician Ben Harper in 2005. Early in her career, Dern was roommate to Marianne Williamson, the spirituality guru. Dern attended two days of college at UCLA and one semester at USC.- Actress
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Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer as was his father before him. He emigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's American mother, Volga Margaret (Hayworth), who was of mostly Irish descent, met Eduardo in 1916 and were married the following year. Rita, herself, studied as a dancer in order to follow in her family's footsteps. She joined her family on stage when she was eight years old when her family was filmed in a movie called La Fiesta (1926). It was her first film appearance, albeit an uncredited one. Sotted by Fox studio head Winfield R. Sheehan, she signed her first studio contract, and make her film debut at age sixteen, in Dante's Inferno (1935), followed by Cruz Diablo (1934). She continued to play small bit parts in several films under the name of "Rita Cansino". Fox dropped her after five small roles, but expert, exploitative promotion by her first husband Edward Judson soon brought Rita a new contract at Columbia Pictures, where studio head Harry Cohn changed her surname to Hayworth and approved raising her hairline by electrolysis. She played the second female lead, Judy McPherson, in Only Angels Have Wings (1939). After thirteen minor roles, Columbia lent her to Warner Bros. for her first big success, The Strawberry Blonde (1941); her splendid dancing with Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) made her a star. This was the film that exuded the warmth and seductive vitality that was to make her famous. Her natural, raw beauty was showcased later that year in Blood and Sand (1941), filmed in Technicolor.
Rita was probably the second most popular actress after Betty Grable. In You'll Never Get Rich (1941) with Fred Astaire, was probably the film that moviegoers felt close to Rita. Her dancing, for which she had studied all her life, was astounding. After the hit Gilda (1946) (her dancing had made the film and it had made her), her career was on the skids. Although she was still making movies, they never approached her earlier success. The drought began between The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Champagne Safari (1954). Then after Salome (1953), she was not seen again until Pal Joey (1957). Part of the reasons for the downward spiral was television, but also Rita had been replaced by a new star at Columbia, Kim Novak.
Rita, herself, said, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me". In person, Rita was shy, quiet and unassuming; only when the cameras rolled did she turn on the explosive sexual charisma that in Gilda (1946) made her a superstar. To Rita, though, domestic bliss was a more important, if elusive, goal, and in 1949 she interrupted her career for marriage - unfortunately an unhappy one almost from the start - to the playboy Prince Aly Khan. Her films after her divorce from Khan include perhaps her best straight acting performances, Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) and They Came to Cordura (1959).
After a few, rather forgettable films in the 1960s, her career was essentially over. Her final film was The Wrath of God (1972). Her career was really never the same after Gilda (1946). Perhaps Gene Ringgold said it best when he remarked, "Rita Hayworth is not an actress of great depth. She was a dancer, a glamorous personality, and a sex symbol. These qualities are such that they can carry her no further professionally." Perhaps he was right but Hayworth fans would vehemently disagree with him.
Beginning in 1960 (age 42), early onset of Alzheimer's disease (undiagnosed until 1980) limited Rita's ability. The last few roles in her 60-film career were increasingly small. With 20 years of symptoms, Rita was cared for by her daughter, Yasmin Khan, until Rita's death at age 68 on May 14, 1987, in New York City.- Actress
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Isabelle Huppert was born March 16, 1953, in Paris, France, but spent her childhood in Ville d'Avray. Encouraged by her mother Annick Huppert (who was a teacher of English), she followed the Conservatory of Versailles and won an acting prize for her work in Alfred de Musset's "Un caprice". She then studied at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique and followed an illustrious theatrical career, which includes Ivan Turgenev's "A Month in the Country", Euripides' "Medea" (title role) etc. She made her movie debut in Le Prussien (1971) and soon became one of the top actresses of her generation, giving fine performances in important films, like Claude Goretta's The Lacemaker (1977), as a simple-minded girl who falls in love with - and is betrayed by - a student, Jean-Luc Godard's Every Man for Himself (1980), as a prostitute, and Maurice Pialat's Loulou (1980), as an upper-class woman who is physically attracted by a young vagabond. She made an inconsequential US debut in Otto Preminger's Rosebud (1975) before playing a brothel madam in Michael Cimino's disastrous Heaven's Gate (1980), but she fared better in Curtis Hanson's The Bedroom Window (1987) (as an adulteress who witnesses an attack). Huppert has an extremely productive collaboration with Claude Chabrol, who cast her in several movies, including Violette (1978), in which she played a woman who murders her parents, and Story of Women (1988), in which she gave an excellent performance as a shameless abortionist, the last woman to be executed in France. More recent good films include Patricia Mazuy's Saint-Cyr (2000) and Michael Haneke's controversial The Piano Teacher (2001), as a sexually repressed piano teacher.- Actress
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Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator then as a cabaret singer. In 1923, she married and, although she and Rudolf Sieber lived together only 5 years, they remained married until his death. She was in over a dozen silent films in increasingly important roles. In 1929, she was seen in a Berlin cabaret by Josef von Sternberg and, after a screen test, captured the role of the cabaret singer in The Blue Angel (1930) (and became von Sternberg's lover). With the success of this film, von Sternberg immediately took her to Hollywood, introducing her to the world in Morocco (1930), and signing an agreement to produce all her films. A series of successes followed, and Marlene became the highest paid actress of her time, but her later films in the mid-part of the decade were critical and popular failures. She returned to Europe at the end of the decade, with a series of affairs with former leading men (she had a reputation of romancing her co-stars), as well as other prominent artistic figures. In 1939, an offer came to star with James Stewart in a western and, after initial hesitation, she accepted. The film was Destry Rides Again (1939) - the siren of film could also be a comedienne and a remarkable comeback was reality. She toured extensively for the allied effort in WW II (she had become a United States citizen) and, after the war, limited her cinematic life. But a new career as a singer and performer appeared, with reviews and shows in Las Vegas, touring theatricals, and even Broadway. New success was accompanied by a too close acquaintance with alcohol, until falls in her performance eventually resulted in a compound fracture of the leg. Although the last 13 years of her life were spent in seclusion in her apartment in Paris, with the last 12 years in bed, she had withdrawn only from public life and maintained active telephone and correspondence contact with friends and associates.- Susanne Lothar was born on 15 November 1960 in Hamburg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Funny Games (1997), The White Ribbon (2009) and The Reader (2008). She was married to Ulrich Mühe. She died on 21 July 2012 in Berlin, Germany.
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Born in San Giorgio di Piano, Giulietta Masina spent part of her teenage years living with a widowed aunt in Rome, where she cultivated a passion for the theater and studied for a degree in Philosophy. She began her career on the radio with the program "Terzoglio" (1942), about the adventures of newlyweds Cico and Pallina from scripts written by Federico Fellini. The series brought her great success. The following year she married Fellini and became the inspirational muse for many of his films.
She made her cinema debut in Without Pity (1948), directed by Alberto Lattuada, but really established her reputation with her next few films: Behind Closed Shutters (1951), directed by Luigi Comencini, Variety Lights (1950), which also marked Fellini's debut as director (the film credits both Fellini and Lattuada); and Europe '51 (1952), directed by Roberto Rossellini. Her artistic partnership with her husband really took off with the Oscar-winning The Road (1954), followed by The Swindle (1955) and the widely acclaimed Nights of Cabiria (1957), which again won an Oscar and brought her the award for Best Female Performance at the Cannes Film Festival. Over the following years she played many memorable roles in such films as Fortunella (1958), directed by Eduardo De Filippo; ...and the Wild Wild Women (1959), directed by Renato Castellani; and later in Juliet of the Spirits (1965) and Ginger & Fred (1986), both directed by Fellini.
From 1966 to 1969 she hosted the immensely popular radio show "Lettere aperte a Giulietta Masina" and starred in the television series Eleonora (1973), by Tullio Pinelli, directed by Silverio Blasi, and Camilla (1976), directed by Sandro Bolchi, based on the novel by Fausta Cialente, "Un inverno freddissimo" (1966).
She died in Rome in 1994, just a few months after the death of her husband.- Actress
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Ellen Burstyn was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Correine Marie (Hamel) and John Austin Gillooly. She is of Irish, French/French-Canadian, Pennsylvania Dutch (German), and Native American ancestry.. She worked a number of jobs before she became an actress. At 14, she was a short-order cook at a lunch counter. After graduating from Detroit's Cass Technical High School, she went to Texas to model and then to New York as a showgirl on The Jackie Gleason Show (1952). From there, it was to Montreal as a nightclub dancer and then Broadway with her debut in "Fair Game (1957)". By 1963, she appeared on the TV series The Doctors (1963), but she gained notice for her role in Goodbye Charlie (1964). Ellen then took time off to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.
Her big break came when she was cast as the female lead in The Last Picture Show (1971). For this role, she received nominations for the Golden Globe and Academy Award. Next, she co-starred with Jack Nicholson in The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), giving a chilling performance. Then came The Exorcist (1973). She was again nominated for the Golden Globe and Academy Award. In 1974, she starred in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), for which performance she won the Oscar and BAFTA awards as Best Actress. For the Golden Globe, she was nominated but lost to Marsha Mason. The same year, she made history by winning a Tony Award for the Broadway play "Same Time, Next Year". She won praise and award nominations for her performances in the film versions of Same Time, Next Year (1978) and Resurrection (1980).
In "Resurrection", she played a woman with the power to heal. A succession of TV movies resulting in two Emmy nominations kept her going as did the series The Ellen Burstyn Show (1986). The TV movies continued through the 1990s. Also in the 1990s, she was cast in the supporting role in such movies as The Cemetery Club (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), The Baby-Sitters Club (1995) and The Spitfire Grill (1996). In addition to her acting, She was the first woman president of Actor's Equity (1982-85).- Actress
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Born in Denmark, she came to Paris at 18. She met Coco Chanel and Pierre Cardin and started as a top model. She met Jean-Luc Godard about a cameo in Breathless (1960), but she had to be naked and she refused to play in the movie. One year later, they wed and she became famous with the "Nouvelle Vague" movies directed by him, Jacques Rivette, and Agnès Varda.
In 1967, Serge Gainsbourg wrote his only film musical Anna (1967) for her, with the hit "Sous le soleil exactement". Then, she went to Hollywood for a few movies and came back to Paris. She wrote and directed Vivre ensemble (1973) after her divorce from Pierre Fabre. She later remarried, to Dennis Berry.- Actress
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This beautiful, dark-haired French actress made a hit with a supporting role in her first film, as the piano teacher in Louis Malle's "Au revoir, les enfants" (1987). Educated in London and Geneva, and a Paris resident since the age of 18, Jacob became a promising starlet with her Malle success and followed up with another small role in Jacques Rivette's "La bande des quatre/The Gang of Four" (1989). 5Stardom (and a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress award) arrived with Jacob's dual role as two women whose lives are mysteriously linked in Krzysztof Kieslowski's psychological drama "The Double Life of Veronique" (1991). She ventured to the US for a ronantic comedy, "Trusting Beatrice" (1991), fittingly, about a young French woman's arrival in the US. After the small film "The Van Gogh Wake" (1993), she played the ill-fated mother in Agnieszka Holland's touching and acclaimed "The Secret Garden" (1993). Several more small French films followed, but it took a reunion with Kieslowski to jump-start Jacob's career again. In his "Red/Rouge" (1994), the final segment of his "Three Colors" trilogy (and his swan song), Jacob starred as a Swiss fashion model who meets a cynical aging ex-judge (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) after she runs over his dog. In the film, she served as an emotional and spiritual curative for the old man; the second time, Kieslowski employed Jacob as a woman who offers a man consolation and mystery. Jacob followed up as a religious devotee in Michaelango Antonioni's episodic "Beyond the Clouds/Par-dela les nuages" (1995), then ventured to England to play Desdemona to Laurence Fishburne's "Othello" (also 1995). Jacob has several foreign-made films in the can which have not yet been released in the US: she plays an East Indian beauty with Willem Defoe and Sam Neill in "Victory" (filmed in 1994), an ill-fated vacationer in "Fugueuses/Runaway" and a French actress in 1948 who befriends a mysterious tramp (Stephen Rea) in "All Men Are Mortal" (both shown at Cannes in 1995).- Actress
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Naomi Ellen Watts was born on September 28, 1968 in Shoreham, England to Myfanwy Edwards "Miv" (Roberts), an antiques dealer and costume/set designer, and Peter Watts (Peter Anthony Watts), Pink Floyd's road manager. Her maternal grandfather was Welsh. Her father died when she was seven and she followed her mother and brother around England until she was 14 and they finally settled in Australia, homeland of her maternal grandmother. When they arrived, she coaxed her mother to let her take acting classes. After bit parts in commercials, she landed her first role in For Love Alone (1986). Naomi met her best friend Nicole Kidman when they both auditioned for a bikini commercial and shared a taxi ride home. In 1991, Naomi starred with Kidman in the sleeper hit Flirting (1991), directed by John Duigan. Naomi continued her career by starring in the Australian Brides of Christ (1991) co-starring Oscar-winners Russell Crowe and Brenda Fricker.
In 1993, she worked with John Duigan again in Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) and director George Miller in Gross Misconduct (1993). Tank Girl (1995), in 1995, an adaptation of the comic book was a cult hit, starred Naomi as "Jet Girl", but it didn't do at the box-office or do much for her career. Watts continued to take insignificant parts in movies including the much forgotten film Children of the Corn: The Gathering (1996). It wasn't until David Lynch cast her in the critically acclaimed film Mulholland Drive (2001) that she began to become noticed. Her part as an aspiring actress showed her strong acting ability and wide range and earned her much respect, as much as to say by some that she was overlooked for a Oscar nomination that year. Stardom finally came to Naomi in the surprise hit The Ring (2002), which grossed over $100,000,000 at the box-office and starred Watts as an investigative reporter hunting down the truth behind several mysterious deaths seemingly caused by a video tape. While the movie did not fare well with the critics, it launched her into the spotlight. In 2003, she starred in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (2003) which earned her - what some say is a much overdue Oscar nomination and brought others to call her one of the best in her generation of actors. The same year, she was nominated for 21 Grams (2003), Naomi was chosen to play "Ann Darrow" in director Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) which took her to New Zealand for a five month shoot. Watts completed her first comedy in I Heart Huckabees (2004) for director David O. Russell, playing a superficial spokes model - a break from her usual intense and dramatic roles she is known for.
In 2005, she reprized her role as the protective-mother-reporter "Rachel Keller" in The Ring Two (2005). The movie, released in March, opened to $35,000,000 at the box office in the first weekend and established her as a box-office draw. Also in 2005, it was decided that her independent movie Ellie Parker (2001) would be re-released in late 2005 after its success at resurfacing at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie, which Naomi also produced, features her in the title role and is a bit biographical, but yet exaggerated take of the life of a struggling actress as she comes to Hollywood and encounters nightmares of the profession (it also features Watts' own beat-up Honda which she travels around in). In 2006, she starred with Edward Norton in The Painted Veil (2006). In July of 2007, Naomi gave birth to a boy, Alexander Pete (Sasha Schreiber) in Los Angeles with Liev Schreiber. Since then her career choices have gathered even more critical acclaim with starring roles roles in German director Michael Haneke's American remake of his thriller Funny Games (2007), David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (2007), and the action-thriller, The International (2009), released in February 2009. In mid-2008, Watts announced she was expecting her second child with Schreiber and gave birth to second son Samuel Kai Schreiber, in New York on December 13.- Actress
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Isabelle Yasmine Adjani was born in Gennevilliers, Hauts-de-Seine, a suburb of Paris, to Emma Augusta "Gusti" (Schweinberger) and Mohammed Adjani. Her father was a Kabyle Algerian, from Iferhounène, and her mother was a Bavarian German. She grew up speaking German fluently. After winning a school recitation contest, she began acting in amateur theater by the age of twelve. At the age of 14, she starred in her first motion picture, Le Petit Bougnat (1970). Adjani has appeared in 30 films since 1970. She holds the record for most César Award for Best Actress (5), which she won for Possession (1981), One Deadly Summer (1983) (aka "One Deadly Summer"), Camille Claudel (1988), Queen Margot (1994) (aka "Queen Margot") and Skirt Day (2008) (aka "Skirt Day"). She was also given a double Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award in 1981. She also received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She performs in French, English, Italian and German. Adjani was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2010.- Actress
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Discovered at age 20 by celebrated director Ingmar Bergman, she became part of Bergman's regular stable of performers; in fact, he wrote Summer with Monika (1953) especially for her breakthrough. Extraordinary and versatile as an actress, her roles have ranged from the naive young wife in Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) to the mad visionary in Through a Glass Darkly (1961). Andersson also appeared in Fanny and Alexander (1982), Bergman's last film. After that she has appeared in a number of feature films and TV series in Sweden. Her autobiography was published in 2005.- Actress
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Julianne Moore was born Julie Anne Smith in Fort Bragg, North Carolina on December 3, 1960, the daughter of Anne (Love), a social worker, and Peter Moore Smith, a paratrooper, colonel, and later military judge. Her mother moved to the U.S. in 1951, from Greenock, Scotland. Her father, from Burlington, New Jersey, has German, Irish, Welsh, German-Jewish, and English ancestry.
Moore spent the early years of her life in over two dozen locations around the world with her parents, during her father's military career. She finally found her place at Boston University, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) degree in acting from the School of the Performing Arts. After graduation (in 1983), She took the stage name "Julianne Moore" because there was another actress named "Julie Anne Smith". Julianne moved to New York and worked extensively in theater, including appearances off-Broadway in two Caryl Churchill plays, Serious Money and Ice Cream With Hot Fudge and as Ophelia in Hamlet at The Guthrie Theatre. But despite her formal training, Julianne fell into the attractive actress' trap of the mid-1980's: TV soaps and miniseries. She appeared briefly in the daytime serial The Edge of Night (1956) and from 1985 to 1988 she played two half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina on the soap As the World Turns (1956). This performance later led to an Outstanding Ingénue Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. Her subsequent appearances were in mostly forgettable TV-movies, such as Money, Power, Murder. (1989), The Last to Go (1991) and Cast a Deadly Spell (1991).
She made her entrance into the big screen with 1990's Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), where she played the victim of a mummy. Two years later, Julianne appeared in feature films with supporting parts in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and the comedy The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (1992). She kept winning better and more powerful roles as time went on, including a small but memorable role as a doctor who spots Kimble Harrison Ford and attempts to thwart his escape in The Fugitive (1993). (A role that made such an impression on Steven Spielberg that he cast her in the Jurassic Park (1993) sequel without an audition in 1997). In one of Moore's most distinguished performances, she recapitulated her "beguiling Yelena" from Andre Gregory's workshop version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in Louis Malle's critically acclaimed Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). Director Todd Haynes gave Julianne her first opportunity to take on a lead role in Safe (1995). Her portrayal of Carol White, an affluent L.A. housewife who develops an inexplicable allergic reaction to her environment, won critical praise as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination.
Later that year she found her way into romantic comedy, co-starring as Hugh Grant's pregnant girlfriend in Nine Months (1995). Following films included Assassins (1995), where she played an electronics security expert targeted for death (next to Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas) and Surviving Picasso (1996), where she played Dora Maar, one of the numerous lovers of Picasso (portrayed by her hero, Anthony Hopkins). A year later, after co-starring in Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), opposite Jeff Goldblum, a young and unknown director, Paul Thomas Anderson asked Julianne to appear in his movie, Boogie Nights (1997). Despite her misgivings, she finally was won over by the script and her decision to play the role of Amber Waves, a loving porn star who acts as a mother figure to a ragtag crew, proved to be a wise one, since she received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Julianne started 1998 by playing an erotic artist in The Big Lebowski (1998), continued with a small role in the social comedy Chicago Cab (1997) and ended with a subtle performance in Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho (1960). 1999 had Moore as busy as an actress can be.
As the century closed, Julianne starred in a number of high-profile projects, beginning with Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune (1999) , in which she was cast as the mentally challenged but adorable sister of a decidedly unhinged Glenn Close. A portrayal of the scheming Mrs. Cheveley followed in Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband (1999) with a number of critics asserting that Moore was the best part of the movie. She then enjoyed another collaboration with director Anderson in Magnolia (1999) and continued with an outstanding performance in The End of the Affair (1999), for which she garnered another Oscar nomination. She ended 1999 with another great performance, that of a grieving mother in A Map of the World (1999), opposite Sigourney Weaver.- Actress
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When people gave Louis Malle credit for making a star of Jeanne Moreau in Elevator to the Gallows (1958) immediately followed by The Lovers (1958), he would point out that Moreau by that time had already been "recognized as the prime stage actress of her generation." She had made it to the Comédie Française in her 20s. She had appeared in B-movie thrillers with Jean Gabin and Ascenseur was in that genre. The technicians at the film lab went to the producer after seeing the first week of dailies for Ascenseur and said: "You must not let Malle destroy Jeanne Moreau". Malle explained: "She was lit only by the windows of the Champs Elysées. That had never been done. Cameramen would have forced her to wear a lot of make-up and they would put a lot of light on her, because, supposedly, her face was not photogenic". This lack of artifice revealed Moreau's "essential qualities: she could be almost ugly and then ten seconds later she would turn her face and would be incredibly attractive. But she would be herself".
Moreau has told interviewers that the characters she played were not her. But even the most famous film critic of his generation, Roger Ebert, thinks that she is a lot like her most enduring role, Catherine in François Truffaut's Jules and Jim (1962). Behind those eyes and that enigmatic smile is a woman with a mind. In a review of The Clothes in the Wardrobe (1993) Ebert wrote: "Jeanne Moreau has been a treasure of the movies for 35 years... Here, playing a flamboyant woman who nevertheless keeps her real thoughts closely guarded, she brings about a final scene of poetic justice as perfect as it is unexpected".
Moreau made her debut as a director in Lumiere (1976) -- also writing the script and playing Sarah, an actress the same age as Moreau whose romances are often with directors for the duration of making a film. She made several films with Malle.
Still active in international cinema, Moreau presided over the jury of the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.- Actress
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Setsuko Hara became one of Japan's best-loved stars over her 30-year film career. Her signature character type, variations on a daughter devoted to her parents and home, inspired the nickname that stayed with her until retirement: the Eternal Virgin. To some extent, reality mirrored her roles in these films. In a society that considers marriage and parenting almost obligatory, she remained single and childless, something of a controversy in Japan in the 1950s. Fortunately she was popular enough to avoid criticism, but the 1950s were still a hard decade. She was plagued by ill health, missing out on several top roles as a result, and she witnessed the death of her camera-man brother in a freak train accident on set.
In 1963, shortly after the death of her mentor, director Yasujirô Ozu, she suddenly walked away from the film industry. At age 43, and at the height of her popularity, she bluntly refused to perform again, angering her fans, the industry, and the press. She implied acting had never been a pleasure and that she had only pursued a career in order to provide for her large family; this explanation is seen as the cause of her popularity backlash. She moved to a small house in picturesque Kamakura where she remained, living alone (though apparently sociable with friends), and refusing all roles offered.
She is undoubtedly known mostly for her work with Yasujiro Ozu, making six films with the great director, including the so-called Noriko trilogy, of which Tokyo Story (1953) is probably the best-known. She also worked with Akira Kurosawa, Mikio Naruse, Hiroshi Inagaki, and many others.- Actress
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Isabella Rossellini, the Italian actress and model who has made her home in America since 1979 and holds dual Italian and American citizenship, was born cinema royalty when she made her debut on June 18, 1952 in Rome. She is the daughter of two legends, three-time Oscar-winning Swedish-born actress Ingrid Bergman and neo-realist master Italian director Roberto Rossellini. She was also the third wife of Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese from 1979 to 1982 and the partner of legendary director David Lynch.
She made her movie debut in Vincente Minnelli's A Matter of Time (1976), which starred her mother. She then made a couple of Italian pictures and worked as an American correspondent for Italian television network RAI before appearing in Taylor Hackford's Cold War drama White Nights (1985) in 1985. She followed that up with her most memorable role, as the abused chanteuse in Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet (1986), she earned an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She then went on to win a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Lisle, the mysterious socialite, forever in her youth in Death Becomes Her (1992). In 1997, she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for a guest appearance on Chicago Hope (1994).- Actress
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Emily Watson was born and raised in London, the daughter of Katharine (Venables), an English teacher, and Richard Watson, an architect. After a self-described sheltered upbringing, Watson attended university for three years in Bristol, studying English literature. She applied to drama school and was rejected on her first attempt.
After three years of working in clerical and waitress jobs she was finally accepted. In 1992, she took a position with the Royal Shakespeare Company where she met her future husband, Jack Waters. Continuing stage work, Watson landed her first screen role as Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves (1996) after Helena Bonham Carter pulled out of the role. For this initial foray into movies, Watson was nominated for an Academy Award. She continued to gain success in Britain in the leading roles in Metroland (1997) and The Mill on the Floss (1997), but her first popular film in the United States came in 1997 when she played Daniel Day-Lewis's long-suffering love interest in The Boxer (1997).
In the next two years she won critical acclaim for her portrayal of cellist Jacqueline du Pré in Hilary and Jackie (1998) and landed a small part in the ensemble cast of Tim Robbins's Cradle Will Rock (1999). Critical acclaim and North American success came together for Watson in 1999 with the release of Angela's Ashes (1999), the film adaptation of Frank McCourt's bestselling book of the same name. She achieved top billing as Angela McCourt, the hardworking mother of several children and wife of a drunken husband in depression-era Ireland. After less-celebrated roles in 2000's Trixie (2000) and The Luzhin Defence (2000), Watson again returned to an ensemble cast in Robert Altman's Gosford Park (2001).
Watson's status as a leading actress in major Hollywood productions was cemented in 2002 with her roles in Red Dragon (2002), the third installment of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lechter series; the futuristic Equilibrium (2002); and, most notably, in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (2002), playing opposite Adam Sandler. While returning to the stage in 2002 and 2003 on both sides of the Atlantic, Watson has expressed interest in again working with Anderson. Emily Watson lives in London, England, UK, with her husband, Jack Waters.- Actress
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Charlotte Gainsbourg was born in London, England in 1971. She is an Anglo-French actress and singer. The daughter of English singer and actress Jane Birkin and French songwriter, singer and actor Serge Gainsbourg, she was raised in Paris. Charlotte made her motion picture debut in 1984. In 1986, Charlotte won a César Award for "Most Promising Actress", and, in 2000, she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the film The Log (1999). In 1993, Charlotte made her English speaking debut in The Cement Garden (1993), written and directed by her uncle, Andrew Birkin. She made her stage debut in 1994 in David Mamet's Oleanna at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse. In 1996, Charlotte starred as the title character in Jane Eyre (1996), a film adaption of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel. In 2006, Charlotte appeared alongside Gael García Bernal in Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep (2006). In 2007, she appeared as Claire in the Todd Haynes directed Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There (2007), also contributing a cover of the Dylan song "Just Like a Woman" to the film soundtrack. In 2009, she won the award for Best Actress at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for the film Antichrist (2009). Charlotte starred in the French/Australian production, The Tree (2010), released in 2010, and in Lars von Trier's science fiction disaster film, Melancholia (2011).- Actress
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Shelley Alexis Duvall was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the first child to Bobbie Ruth (Massengale, 1929-2020), a real estate broker, and Robert Richardson Duvall (1919-1994), a lawyer. At the time of her birth, her mother was visiting her grandmother in Fort Worth, though Duvall was raised in Houston. During her childhood, Shelley's mother humorously gave Shelley the nickname "Manic Mouse", because she would often run around her house and tip over furniture. Shelley however was more than a mouse, but rather quite the little artist. Her favorite thing to do when she was very young was draw. She also has three brothers: Scott, Shane, and Stewart.
Shelley graduated from Waltrip High School in Texas and at first became a cosmetics salesperson. It was in 1970 when Shelley was discovered by talent scouts at a local party. Director Robert Altman wanted to cast Shelley in a film that he was making during the time. Shelley had experience in acting in high school plays at the time and took Altman's offer and she appeared in her first film Brewster McCloud. Altman was so fascinated by her performance that she appeared in his next films including: McCabe and Mrs. Miller in 1971, Thieves Like Us in 1974, and Nashville in 1975. Aside from these three successful films, Duvall's acting blossomed in her leading role as Mille Lammoroux in 3 Women in 1977. Duvall's acting was so superb that she won Best Actress at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. Shelley also starred as Bernice in Joan Micklin Silver's Bernice Bobs Her Hair in 1976, and had a cameo in Woody Allen's Annie Hall in 1977. In the same year, Shelley also hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live.
When the 1980s hit, Duvall's career was just beginning. She is famously known for playing the role of "Wendy Torrance" in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining with Jack Nicholson. During the making of this film, Kubrick psychologically tormented Duvall, causing her immense stress and affecting her mental state. He would often ignore her entirely during filming or would put in her situations which caused her immense fear and distress. The most obvious example is when Kubrick shot the famous "baseball bat scene" with Duvall and Nicholson 127 times, which is the world record for most number of takes in any film set.
In January of 1979, Robert Altman would offer Duvall yet another role in one of his films. Only the role was a certain role that Altman believed she was born to play. That certain role was "Olive Oyl" in the real life version of Popeye. Shelley was skeptical at first on accepting the role, due to bad memories as a child of negatively being called "Olive Oyl" in grade school. She fortunately decided to take the role and performed admirably. Shelley also sings several songs in this film. The most famous ones would be "He's Large" and "He Needs Me" which also appeared in the film Punch Drunk Love.
As the 1980s rolled on, Shelley's career never slowed down. She appeared as a supporting actress in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits in 1981; she played "Susan Frankenstein" in Tim Burton's Frankenweenie (1984) , and co-starred in the hit comedy film Roxanne in 1987 starring Steve Martin. From 1982 to 1986, Shelley continued her filming career but from a different aspect. Since Shelley was 17, she had a collection of a variety of illustrated classic fairy tale books. During the making of Popeye, she showed her collection to Robin Williams. One particular fairy tale she showed Robin was "The Frog Prince". Picturing Robin as the real life Frog Prince, Shelley created Platypus Productions, her own production company. Shelley went to Showtime with the idea for airing a television program that was based on fairy tales. She produced Fairy Tale Theater which Showtime aired that was a hit television series that was based on several classic fairy tales. Fairy Tale Theatre was on television from 1982-1987. Each episode was a one-hour series and there were a total of twenty six episodes, all hosted by Shelley Duvall. Shelley also starred in four out of the twenty six episodes. In 1985, Ms. Duvall created Tall Tales and Legends that was aired for three years until it ended in 1988. Similar to Fairy Tale Theatre, Tall Tales and Legends was also a one-hour series hosted, produced, and guest starred by Duvall. Although it only consisted of nine episodes, Shelley was nominated for an Emmy from the series. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Shelley discovered Think Entertainment; another production company which helped Shelley create more programs and movies that were made for television that aired on common cable channels. Shelley produced three more programs from these production companies that aired on Showtime: Nightmare Classics, Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories, and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. Her Bedtime Stories program earned her a 2nd Emmy Nomination. Shelley sold Think Entertainment in 1993 and retired as a producer.
In 1989, Shelley met Dan Gilroy while filming the Disney Channel movie Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme (1990), the two fell in love and they have been together ever since.
Shelley Duvall's later career found her a number of different roles. She appeared in the family comedy Home Fries in 1998 playing "Mrs. Jackson", Drew Barrymore's character's mother. Other comedic films Shelley appeared in were Suburban Commando in 1991, and Changing Habits in 1997. She also had cameos in several TV series' such as: Frasier, L.A. Law, The Ray Bradbury Theater, Wishbone, and several others. Shelley returned to the horror genre when she played "Martha Stewart" in The 4th Floor in 1999 and played the role of "Mrs. Stein" in Big Monster On Campus in 2000; which consisted of both the comedy and horror genre.
Since 2002, Shelley Duvall has not acted in any films, but lives a quiet and peaceful life in Blanco, Texas. She has lived in Blanco since 1994, after her home in Los Angeles got damaged by an earthquake. For the last couple years, there have been several rumors about Duvall being a "recluse" and not being in touch with reality. However, a recent interview in 2010 was conducted by MondoFilm VideoGuide that had heavy proof that Shelley is as normal and aware of reality as ever. She has also noted in this interview that she takes care of several animals at her home in Texas and writes a lot of poetry, and that returning to acting is always a possibility.- Doona Bae was born in Seoul, South Korea. Her mother, Hwa-Young Kim, is a stage actress. Bae started out as a model. She soon moved to T.V. and movies, and it proved the right move. Her first movie was The Ring Virus (1999). Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) (aka "Barking Dogs Never Bite") and Take Care of My Cat (2001) (A.K.A. "Take Care of My Cat") not only made Doona a household name in Korea but also won her critical acclaim as a serious young actress. Doona Bae is now busy making movies and T.V. shows.
- Carina Lau moved to Hong Kong with her family at the age of 14 and at the the time could not speak the local Cantonese and was often teased by other people the "Mainland Girl". She would eventually gave her best effort to learn the language and then was re-accepted at the TVB actors training program when she had improved her speaking ability. It was 1983 the year when she had graduated from the program and launched her acting career as contract basic actress for TVB, and her now boyfriend Tony Leung (Happy Together) was graduated one year earlier. Her acting career for TVB was limited to playing ornamental parts in series for the first several years and she didn't get a major challenging starring role until the hit series Looking Back in Anger. That series had established her status as a strong leading lady, but she was aiming to abandon the small screen for films.
She had been in tabloid headlines for her near-marriage romance with a handsome billionaire in the late 80s, and she was considering giving up acting to marry him but the wedding got cancelled the last minute, and Carina was devastated. Shortly after she started dating Tony after partnering to do a stage play called "Happy Lemon Husband". It was "I Am Sorry" (a low-budget dramedy) that first garnered her the HK best actress nomination in 1989, and she had previously been sent out by TVB to do some films but nothing significant enough to turn her into a film star. Since leaving TVB, she had been approached by film jobs consistently. She found the dream role when Wong Kar Wai let her play a sexy and volatile showgirl in Days of Being Wild opposite Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung, and she was in the spotlight and became the "It" girl of the year during film festivals and awards. She once told the press that it was WKW who taught her how to bring out the best of her acting skills and how to use body language to convey emotions.
Over the course the 90s, Carina was constantly working mostly on dramas and comedies and had many box office hits. She subsequently chose very daring dramatic roles and she has a reputation for playing troubled women and prostitutes very well. For instance, her bisexual role in Intimates was one of the most challenging roles of her career and it was very provocative that it was entirely accepted by mainstream audiences. Towards the late 90s, she cut reduced her working in films since there was lesser good scripts and the industry was in decline. She even participated in a period dramatic series in Taiwan and a HK theatrical play when films didn't excite her. With more than 60 starring roles in films, TV series and plays, she was not desperate to work just for work, so the recent years she's still one of the highest earning actress in Asia because she's the spokesperson for numerous big fashion and cosmetic labels. It was unfortunate that her five year involvement in making the most lavish sci-fi epic 2046 had reduced her to a supporting role. She was frustrated that she didn't know what she was playing since Wong Kar Wai had not issued a script and was working from his head the whole time. Finally, a fellow actor recommended her to read a script called Curiosity Kills the Cat, a low-budget Chinese thriller, and insisted that she should do the film because it was clear that the leading role was perfectly suitable for her and she's never played anything like it before. Her performance garnered her the best reviews of her career. In this film, she turned in a multi-layered and unpredictable performance and for the first time she was willing to be made up to look very middle-aged and unattractive, and she was welling to do 3 takes of paint splattering all over her like Sissy Spacek in Carrie.