Left-handed celebrities
List of confirmed left-handed/ambidextrous actors, musicians, comedians, politicians, athletes, public figures, etc.
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Jason Bateman is an American film and television actor, known for his role as Michael Bluth on the television sitcom Arrested Development (2003), as well as his role on Valerie (1986).
He was born in Rye, New York. His father, Kent Bateman, from a Utah-based family, is a film and television director and producer, and founder of a Hollywood repertory stage company. His mother, Victoria Bateman, was born in Shropshire, England, and worked as a flight attendant. His sister is actress Justine Bateman. In 1981, at the age of 12, young Bateman made his debut on television as James Cooper Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie (1974): Uncle Jed, appearing in 18 more episodes in one season. Jason also appeared in the original Knight Rider with David Hasselhoff for the season three episode "Lost Knight" (aired Dec 1984) playing the character "Doug" who befriends Kitt when he loses his memory. In the mid-1980s, he became the DGA's youngest-ever director when he directed three episodes of Valerie (1986) at age 18. During the 2000s, Bateman's film career has been on soaring trajectory. In 2005, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy, for Arrested Development (2003), and received other awards and nominations.
Bateman has been enjoying a happy family life with his wife, actress Amanda Anka (daughter of singer Paul Anka), with whom he has two children. The Batemans reside in Los Angeles, California.- Producer
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Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller was born on November 30, 1965, in New York City, New York, to legendary comedians Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. His father was of Austrian Jewish and Polish Jewish descent, and his mother was of Irish Catholic descent (she converted to Judaism).
His parents made no real effort to keep their son away from the Hollywood lifestyle and he grew up among the stars, wondering just why his parents were so popular. At a young age, he and his sister Amy Stiller would perform plays at home, wearing Amy's tights to perform Shakespeare. Ben also picked up an interest in being on the other side of the camera and, at age 10, began shooting films on his Super 8 camera. The plots were always simple: someone would pick on the shy, awkward Stiller ... and then he would always get his revenge. This desire for revenge on the popular, good-looking people may have motivated his teen-angst opus Reality Bites (1994) later in his career. He both directed and performed in the film, which co-starred Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke.
Before he got to Hollywood, he put in several consistently solid years in the theater. After dropping out of UCLA, he performed in the Tony Award winner, "The House of Blue Leaves". While working on the play, Stiller shot a short spoof of The Color of Money (1986) starring him (in the Tom Cruise role) and his The House of Blue Leaves (1987) costar John Mahoney (in the Paul Newman role). The short film was so funny that Lorne Michaels purchased it and aired it on Saturday Night Live (1975). This led to his spending a year on the show in 1989.
Stiller made his big screen debut in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun (1987) in 1987. Demonstrating early on the multifaceted tone his career would take, he soon stepped behind the camera to direct Back to Brooklyn for MTV. The network was impressed and gave Stiller his own show, The Ben Stiller Show (1992). He recruited fellow offbeat comedians Janeane Garofalo and Andy Dick and created a bitingly satirical show. MTV ended up passing on it, but it was picked up by Fox. Unfortunately, the show was a ratings miss. Stiller was soon out of work, although he did have the satisfaction of picking up an Emmy for the show after its cancellation.
For a while, Stiller had to settle for guest appearance work. While doing this, he saved up his cash and in the end was able to scrape enough together to make Reality Bites (1994), now a cult classic which is looked upon favorably by the generation it depicted. Ben continued to work steadily for a time, particularly in independent productions where he was more at ease. However, he never quite managed to catch a big break. His first big budget directing job was Jim Carrey's The Cable Guy (1996). Although many critics were impressed, Jim Carrey's fans were not. In 1998, There's Something About Mary (1998) had propelled Stiller into the mainstream spotlight. He also starred in such hit movies as Keeping the Faith (2000) and Meet the Parents (2000).- Actor
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Terry Crews was born in Flint, Michigan, to Patricia and Terry Crews Sr. He earned an art excellence scholarship to attend Western Michigan University and also earned a full-ride athletic scholarship to play football. Crews was an All-Conference defensive end, and was a major contributor on the 1988 MAC champion WMU Broncos. His college success was rewarded in 1991, when he was drafted by the NFL's Los Angeles Rams.
Crews played six years in the NFL, with stints at the L.A. Rams, San Diego Chargers , Rhein Fire (NFL Europe-Germany), Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles. While in the NFL, used his art talent by painting a line of NFL licensed lithographs for Sierra Sun Editions.
In 1996, Crews co-wrote and co-produced the independent feature film "Young Boys Incorporated" (1996).
Crews retired from the NFL in 1997 and moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Crews's first break came in 1999, when he auditioned for the extreme sports show called Battle Dome (1999), with other actor-athletes from around the country. Crews was chosen to be a series regular, known as the urban warrior T-Money.
In 2000, Crews made his big-screen debut in The 6th Day (2000). Since then, he has landed roles in Serving Sara (2002), Friday After Next (2002), Deliver Us from Eva (2003), Malibu's Most Wanted (2003), Starsky & Hutch (2004), Soul Plane (2004), White Chicks (2004), and the Mike Judge film, Idiocracy (2006).- Producer
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Broderick Stephen Harvey, Sr. is an American television host, actor, writer, producer, and comedian. He hosts The Steve Harvey Morning Show, Family Feud, Celebrity Family Feud, the Miss Universe competition, Family Feud Africa, and the arbitration-based court comedy Judge Steve Harvey.
Harvey began his career as a comedian. He performed stand-up comedy in the early 1980s and hosted Showtime at the Apollo and The Steve Harvey Show on The WB. He was later featured in The Original Kings of Comedy after starring in the Kings of Comedy Tour. His last stand-up show was in 2012.
Harvey is the host of both Family Feud and Celebrity Family Feud, holding this role since 2010. He also hosted Little Big Shots, Little Big Shots Forever Young, and Steve Harvey's Funderdome. As an author, he has written four books, including his bestseller Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, which was published in March 2009.
In 2017, Harvey founded Steve Harvey Global, an entertainment company that houses his production company East 112 and various other ventures. He launched an African version of Family Feud and also invested in the HDNet takeover along with Anthem Sports and Entertainment. He and his wife Marjorie are the founders of The Steve and Marjorie Harvey Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on youth education.
He is a seven-time Daytime Emmy Award winner, two-time Marconi Award winner, and a 14-time NAACP Image Award winner in various categories.- Actor
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Bernard Jeffrey McCollough was born in 1957 in Chicago, the son of Mary McCullough and Jeffery Harrison. He grew up in the city, in a rougher neighborhood than most others, with a large family living under one roof. This situation provided him with a great insight into his comedy, as his family, and the situations surrounding them would be what dominated his comedy. Mac worked in the Regal Theater, and performed in Chicago parks in his younger days. He became a professional comedian in 1977, at the age of 19. He refused to change his image for television and films, and therefore was not very well known for most of the eighties. In 1992 he made his film debut with a small part with Mo' Money (1992). This started a plethora of small parts in a string of movies, mostly comedies, including Who's the Man? (1993), House Party 3 (1994) and The Walking Dead (1995). 1995 proved to be a turning point in his career. He did an HBO Special called Midnight Mac (1995), and took a part as Pastor Clever in the Chris Tucker comedy Friday (1995). Bernie Mac developed a cult following due to the film. In 1996. he starred in the memorable Spike Lee movie Get on the Bus (1996), and was very funny in Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996). About this time he had a recurring role in the TV series Moesha (1996). Bernie Mac's star was slowly rising from this point. His next couple of movie parts were more substantial, including How to Be a Player (1997) and The Players Club (1998). In 1999 Bernie Mac got his most high profile part up to that point in the film Life (1999) starring Eddie Murphy.
The new century started a new era for the brash Chicago comedian. He was a featured comedian in The Original Kings of Comedy (2000). This performance made him more of a household name, and led to many more major parts. In 2001 he played Martin Lawrence's uncle in What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001) and later that year, was in the star studded remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001). However his biggest success was The Bernie Mac Show (2001), which debuted in 2001 to instant acclaim. However, soon after the series ended, Mac's health took a turn for the worse. He developed sarcoidosis, an autoimmune disease which causes inflammation in the lungs. On August 9, 2008, after weeks of unsuccessful treatments, Bernie Mac died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He was 50.
Bernie Mac was a comedian who refused to change his image for Hollywood and said that his life in Chicago was who he was, and there was nothing that could change that. He was a mature comedian who was very intelligent and engaging in his television, film and stand-up appearances.- Actor
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Shawn Mathis Wayans is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. Along with his brother Marlon Wayans, he wrote and starred in The WB's sitcom The Wayans Bros.(1995-1999) and in the comedy films Don't Be a Menace (1996), Scary Movie (2000), Scary Movie 2 (2001), White Chicks (2004), Little Man (2006), and Dance Flick (2009). He made his debut on In Living Color (1990-1993).- Actor
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Self-proclaimed troublemaker Owen Cunningham Wilson was born in Dallas, to Irish-American parents originally from Massachusetts. He grew up in Texas with his mother, Laura (Cunningham), a photographer; his father, Robert Andrew Wilson, an ad exec; and his brothers, Andrew Wilson (the eldest) and Luke Wilson (the youngest). Expelled from St. Mark's School of Texas (Dallas, TX) in the tenth grade, Wilson finished his sophomore year at Thomas Jefferson School and then headed to a military academy in New Mexico. He then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he met his future mentor and friend, Wes Anderson. They wrote a screenplay, Bottle Rocket (1996), and sent it to their family friend, screenwriter L.M. Kit Carson, who sent it to producer Polly Platt, who gave it to James L. Brooks, who gave the Texans $5 million to make it into a feature film. Despite critical praise, Bottle Rocket (1996) only grossed one million dollars. After making the film, Wilson moved to Hollywood, setting up house with his two brothers and Anderson. Fairly quickly, Owen found himself acting in a series of big budget films, such as The Cable Guy (1996), The Haunting (1999), Anaconda (1997) and Breakfast of Champions (1999). This led to more work, such as Shanghai Noon (2000), Meet the Parents (2000) and Behind Enemy Lines (2001). He's known not only for his nose, which has been broken several times, but also for his 'free wheeling ways' with a script. He co-wrote the film The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) with his oft partner Wes Anderson.- Producer
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U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama II was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a white American from Wichita, Kansas. His father, Barack Obama Sr., who was black, was from Alego, Kenya. They were both young college students at the University of Hawaii. When his father left for Harvard, his mother and Barack stayed behind, and his father ultimately returned alone to Kenya, where he worked as a government economist. Barack's mother remarried an Indonesian oil manager and moved to Jakarta when Barack was six. He later recounted Indonesia as simultaneously lush and a harrowing exposure to tropical poverty. He returned to Hawaii, where he was brought up largely by his grandparents. The family lived in a small apartment - his grandfather was a furniture salesman and an unsuccessful insurance agent and his grandmother worked in a bank - but Barack managed to get into Punahou School, Hawaii's top prep academy. His father wrote to him regularly but, though he traveled around the world on official business for Kenya, he visited only once, when Barack was ten. Obama attended Columbia University, but found New York's racial tension inescapable. He became a community organizer for a small Chicago church-based group for three years, helping poor South Side residents cope with a wave of plant closings. He then attended Harvard Law School, and in 1990 became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. He turned down a prestigious judicial clerkship, choosing instead to practice civil-rights law back in Chicago, representing victims of housing and employment discrimination and working on voting-rights legislation. He also began teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, and married Michelle Robinson (now Michelle Obama, a fellow attorney; their daughters are Sasha Obama and Malia Obama. Eventually, he was elected to the Illinois state senate, where his district included both Hyde Park and some of the poorest ghettos on the South Side. In 2004, Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, representing Illinois, and he gained national attention by giving a rousing and well-received keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. In 2008 he ran for President, and despite having only four years of national political experience, he won. In January 2009, he was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, and the first African-American ever elected to that position. Obama was re-elected to a second term in November 2012 - and was sworn in in January 2013. His presidential term ended in January 2017- Actor
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His father, a sales representative, died in a car accident a few months before his birth. His mother then moved to New Orleans. Bill Clinton initially grew up with his grandparents. In 1950 his mother returned to Hope. That same year she married car dealer Roger Clinton. As a member of a student delegation from the patriotic American Legion, Clinton met in Washington D.C. with President John F. Kennedy. Clinton was interested in politics from a young age. After graduating from high school, he studied international relations at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. until 1968. He then studied law at Yale and Oxford Universities on a scholarship until 1973. During his studies, Clinton was already involved in various student organizations. He played saxophone in a jazz band and supported himself as a staffer in the office of Senator J. William Fulbright. In 1968, Clinton received a "Rhodes Scholarship" that allowed him to travel to the University of Oxford, England.
From 1970 he studied law at Yale University. After receiving his doctorate in 1973, he briefly worked for the House Judiciary Committee. From 1973 to 1976 he was appointed to the University of Arkansas School of Law. In 1974 he ran for a seat in the House of Representatives, but was narrowly defeated by the Republican incumbent John-Paul Hammerschmidt. In 1975, Bill Clinton married Hillary Rodham, Hillary Clinton. In 1976, Clinton was elected to the office of Attorney General of Arkansas. Two years later, in 1978, at just 32 years old, he was appointed governor of Arkansas, the youngest head of government of an American state at the time. After two years he resigned from the senatorial office. His daughter Chelsea was born in 1980. From 1980 to 1983, Bill Clinton worked at the law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings in Little Rock. At the end of 1983 he was re-elected as governor of Arkansas. In 1985 he became a co-founder of the "Democratic Leadership Council" and from 1990 its chairman.
From 1986 to 1987, Clinton served as chairman of the National Governors Association. In 1991, Clinton decided to run for president. In July 1991 he was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate. Senator Al Gore, who was running for vice-presidency, went into the election campaign with him. Throughout the entire election campaign, Bill Clinton was in the lead by a clear margin, not least because of his successful connection to the historical myth of former President John F Kennedy. In the presidential election on November 3, 1992, Clinton won over the incumbent George H. W. Bush. He then moved into the White House on January 20, 1993 as the 42nd President of the United States of America. At 46, he was the third youngest president in the history of the United States, after Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Clinton's top priorities during his term in office were the introduction of health insurance, reconciliation with Vietnam, and combating drug abuse, gun violence, and poverty in the United States and the world.
On foreign policy matters, Clinton visited Germany on July 10, 1994. In Berlin he gave a speech in which Clinton, like John F. Kennedy in 1963, said in German "America is at your side - now and forever." In 1994 he received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. In terms of foreign policy, he supported the Israeli-Jordanian peace process, which led to the peace treaty between the two countries. At the CSCE summit in Budapest in 1995, Clinton, Boris Yeltsin and the presidents of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan exchanged views on the instruments of ratification of the START I Agreement. The Treaty on the Reduction of Nuclear Weapons with a Range of More Than 5,500 km, signed in 1991, thus came into force. In the following presidential election in November 1996, Clinton was able to clearly assert himself in office against Bob Dole. The summit meeting between Boris Yeltsin and Clinton in Helsinki ended in March 1997 without an agreement on the dispute over NATO's eastern expansion. In May 1997, Clinton traveled to Mexico on an official visit. It was the first visit by a US president to the neighboring country since 1979.
In May 1997, the "Basic Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between the North Atlantic Organization and the Russian Federation" was signed in Paris. After a long budget dispute between the administration and Congress, an agreement on tax cuts was reached. The US budget was brought out of the red for the first time since 1969. President Clinton's second term was overshadowed by allegations of sexually assaulting government employee Paula Jones in a hotel room in 1991. Clinton denied the accusation.
For the first time in the history of the United States, a sitting president testified under oath on his own behalf on January 17, 1998. On January 26, 1998, Clinton reaffirmed his sworn statement that he had not had an extramarital affair with his intern, Monica Lewinsky. Clinton also rejected the accusation that he had incited Lewinsky to make false statements with an affidavit. For the first time in 130 years, i.e. H. Since the presidency of Andrew Johnson, impeachment proceedings have again been opened against an American president in office.
Clinton later revised his statement. However, at the end of the investigation in 1999, the allegations were not sufficient for either impeachment or indictment. In March 1998, Clinton became the first US president to undertake an extensive tour of southern Africa. As part of this trip, he announced debt relief for African reform states. Paula Jones' lawsuit against Clinton was dismissed by the Arkansas federal court in April 1998. After bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the US fired cruise missiles at six suspected terrorist camps in Afghanistan in retaliation on August 20, 1998. In October 1998, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat signed a peace agreement in Washington at Clinton's initiative. This got the peace process in the Middle East, which had been stalled for almost two years, back on track. Despite protests from the Chinese government, Clinton received the Dalai Lama at the White House in November 1998. As a result of the 2000 hacker attacks on the World Wide Web, a conference on Internet security issues began in Washington. Clinton advocated for a national security center.
On June 2, 2000, during his visit to Germany, Bill Clinton became the first US president to receive the International Charlemagne Prize from the city of Aachen. In his laudatory speech, Gerhard Schröder praised Clinton's commitment to growing together in Europe. That same month, he became the first U.S. president to deliver a speech to the Russian parliament. He offered Russia comprehensive cooperation. During his three-day visit to Moscow, he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and privately visited former President Boris Yeltsin. At the turn of the millennium, Bill Clinton completed his term as one of the most successful presidents of the United States. Above all, his commitment to new companies and technologies gave the USA the longest economic rise in its history. His successor as US President was George W. Bush, who was sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States on February 20, 2001. On June 22, 2004, Bill Clinton published his biography entitled "My Life" in New York. The almost 1,000-page work was pre-ordered two million times before publication.
Bill Clinton underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery in New York on September 6, 2004, but he survived without incident. The former US President is committed to fighting poverty, corruption and climate change worldwide with his "Clinton Global Initiative", which held its first conference in New York in mid-September 2005. For his tireless efforts to help the poorest, Bill Clinton was awarded the German media prize "Bambi" by Hubert Burda Medien in the "Charity" category in Germany in December 2005. In 2007 he was honored with the TED Prize and in 2013 Clinton was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, by Barack Obama.- Producer
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Oprah Gail Winfrey , often known simply as Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African-American of the 20th century, was once the world's only black billionaire, and the greatest black philanthropist in U.S. history. By 2007, she was sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world- Producer
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John William Ferrell was born in Irvine, California, to Betty Kay (Overman), a teacher, and Roy Lee Ferrell, Jr., a musician. His parents were originally from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.
A graduate of the University of Southern California, Ferrell became interested in performing while a student at University High School in Irvine, where he made his school's daily morning announcements over the public address system in disguised voices. He started as a member of the Los Angeles comedy/improvisation group The Groundlings, where fellow cast members Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph and former Saturday Night Live (1975) repertory players such as Laraine Newman, Jon Lovitz and Phil Hartman began their careers. It was there he met Chris Kattan and the two became good friends and both went on to Saturday Night Live (1975) later. He has also appeared on several television programs, including Strangers with Candy (1999), Grace Under Fire (1993) and Living Single (1993) during his time at The Groundlings. Will also lent his voice to the armless and legless dad of cartoon family "The Oblongs".
In 1995 he became a feature cast member at Saturday Night Live (1975) during the show's rapid re-casting. He was declared quite possibly the worst cast member ever during his first season. However, his talents of impersonations and range of characters shot him forward to making him arguably the greatest Saturday Night Live (1975) cast member ever. During his seven year run he is one of the few cast members to ever be nominated for an Emmy for a performance and played George W. Bush during the 2000 elections. He has appeared in every Saturday Night Live (1975) movie since his premiere on the show in 1995. In 2002 he left Saturday Night Live (1975) and was the only cast member to ever receive a farewell from all the current cast members at the end of the season finale show. Since leaving the show Will has pursued a career in films. In 2000, he married Viveca Paulin, and lives in L.A.- Music Artist
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Ne-Yo was born on 18 October 1982 in Camden, Arkansas, USA. He is a music artist and actor, known for Battle Los Angeles (2011), Red Tails (2012) and The Princess and the Frog (2009). He has been married to Crystal Smith since 20 February 2016. They have three children.- Actress
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Goldie Jeanne Hawn was born November 21, 1945 in Washington, D.C. to Laura Hawn, who owned a dance school, and Rut Hawn, a band musician. She has one sister, entertainment publicist Patti Hawn; a brother, Edward, died in infancy before her birth. She was raised in the Jewish religion. Her mother was Jewish and the daughter of Hungarian immigrants. Her father was Presbyterian. At the age of three, Goldie began taking ballet and tap dance lessons, and at the age of ten she danced in the chorus of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo production of "The Nutcracker". At the age of 19 she ran and instructed a ballet school, having dropped out of college where she was majoring in drama. Before going into the film business she worked as a professional dancer.
Hawn made her feature film debut in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), with a small role as a giggling dancer. Her first big role came in 1969, where she played opposite Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman in Cactus Flower (1969), a role which earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. After the Oscar win her career took off and she followed with roles in successful comedies such as There's a Girl in My Soup (1970) and Shampoo (1975), and more dramatic roles in The Girl from Petrovka (1974) and The Sugarland Express (1974). In 1978, she starred alongside Chevy Chase in the box office hit, Foul Play (1978). In 1980 she starred in another box office hit, Private Benjamin (1980), where she also served as producer. During the 1980s she starred in hit movies such as Best Friends (1982), Protocol (1984) and Wildcats (1986). In 1987, she appeared with her boyfriend Kurt Russell in Overboard (1987), which became both a critical and box office disappointment. Her career slowed down after that until 1990 when she starred alongside Mel Gibson in Bird on a Wire (1990). In 1992 she starred in the successful film, Death Becomes Her (1992), with Meryl Streep and Bruce Willis, which was followed by another successful film HouseSitter (1992), which co-starred Steve Martin. In 1996 she played the role of an aging alcoholic actress in the comedy, The First Wives Club (1996), with Diane Keaton and Bette Midler; it became a critical and financial success. She also starred in the Woody Allen film Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and The Out-of-Towners (1999), which reunited her with Martin. In 2001 and 2002 she starred in Town & Country (2001) with Warren Beatty, and The Banger Sisters (2002) with Susan Sarandon.
Goldie has been married twice. First to dancer/director Gus Trikonis from 1969 to 1973. In 1976 she married musician Bill Hudson and became a mother for the first time that year, when she gave birth to their son Oliver Hudson. In 1979, she had her second child with Hudson, daughter Kate Hudson. The marriage ended in divorce in 1980. Since 1983, she has been having a relationship with actor Kurt Russell. Their son Wyatt Russell was born in 1986. Goldie is also a de-facto stepmother to Kurt's son Boston Russell. She has eight grandchildren.- Actor
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Highly influential, and always controversial, African-American actor/comedian who was equally well known for his colorful language during his live comedy shows, as for his fast paced life, multiple marriages and battles with drug addiction. He has been acknowledged by many modern comic artist's as a key influence on their careers, and Pryor's observational humor on African-American life in the USA during the 1970s was razor sharp brilliance.
He was born Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor III on December 1, 1940, in Peoria, Illinois, the son of Gertrude L. (Thomas) and LeRoy "Buck Carter" Pryor. His mother, a prostitute, abandoned him when he was ten years of age, after which he was raised in his grandmother's brothel. Unfortunately, Pryor was molested at the age of six by a teenage neighbor, and later by a neighborhood preacher. To escape this troubled life, the young Pryor was an avid movie fan and a regular visitor to local movie theaters in Peoria. After numerous jobs, including truck driver and meat packer, the young Pryor did a stint in the US Army between 1958 & 1960 in which he performed in amateur theater shows. After he left the services in 1960, Pryor started singing in small clubs, but inadvertently found that humor was his real forte.
Pryor spent time in both New York & Las Vegas, honing his comic craft. However, his unconventional approach to humor sometimes made bookings difficult to come by and this eventually saw Pryor heading to Los Angeles. He first broke into films with minor roles in The Busy Body (1967) and Wild in the Streets (1968). However, his performance as a drug addicted piano player in Lady Sings the Blues (1972), really got the attention of fans and film critics alike.
He made his first appearance with Gene Wilder in the very popular action/comedy Silver Streak (1976), played three different characters in Which Way Is Up? (1977) and portrayed real-life stock-car driver "Wendell Scott" in Greased Lightning (1977). Proving he was more than just a comedian, Pryor wowed audiences as a disenchanted auto worker who is seduced into betraying his friends and easy money in the Paul Schrader working class drama Blue Collar (1978), also starring Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel. Always a strong advocate of African-American talent, Pryor next took a key role in The Wiz (1978), starring an all African-American cast, including Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, retelling the story of The Wizard of Oz (1939). His next four screen roles were primarily cameos in California Suite (1978); The Muppet Movie (1979); Wholly Moses! (1980) and In God We Trust (or Gimme That Prime Time Religion) (1980). However, Pryor teamed up with Gene Wilder once more for the prison comedy Stir Crazy (1980), which did strong box office business.
His next few films were a mixed bag of material, often inhibiting Pryor's talent, with equally mixed returns at the box office. Pryor then scored second billing to Christopher Reeve in the big budget Superman III (1983), and starred alongside fellow funny man John Candy in Brewster's Millions (1985) before revealing his inner self in the autobiographical Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986). Again, Pryor was somewhat hampered by poor material in his following film ventures. However, he did turn up again in See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) with Gene Wilder, but the final product was not as sharp as their previous pairings. Pryor then partnered on-screen with two other very popular African-American comic's. The legendary Redd Foxx and 1980s comic newcomer Eddie Murphy starred with Pryor in the gangster film Harlem Nights (1989) which was also directed by Eddie Murphy. Having contracted multiple sclerosis in 1986, Pryor's remaining film appearances were primarily cameos apart from his fourth and final outing with Gene Wilder in the lukewarm Another You (1991), and his final appearance in a film production was a small role in the David Lynch road flick Lost Highway (1997).
Fans of this outrageous comic genius are encouraged to see his live specials Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin' (1971); the dynamic Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979); Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982) and Richard Pryor... Here and Now (1983). In addition, The Richard Pryor Show (1977) is a must-have for any Richard Pryor fans' DVD collection.
Unknown to many, Pryor was a long time advocate against animal cruelty, and he campaigned against fast food chains and circus shows to address issues of animal welfare. He was married a total of seven times, and fathered eight children.
After long battles with ill health, Richard Pryor passed away on December 10th, 2005.- The 41st President of the United States of America, George Herbert Walker Bush (known colloquially as "Bush 41" to distinguish him from his son, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the U.S., who is known as "Bush 43"), was born on June 12, 1924 in Milton, Massachusetts, a suburb south of Boston. His parents were Dorothy (Walker) and Prescott Bush, who was then the president of sales for the Stedman Products Co. of South Braintree, Massachusetts. In 1925, Prescott joined the United States Rubber Co. (New York, NY) as their foreign division manager, necessitating a move to Greenwich, Connecticut.
Prescott Bush (Yale 1917) made his fortune and name as an investment banker on Wall St., eventually becoming a partner of the white shoe brokerage Brown Bros. Harriman. He was a member of the Yale Corp., the principal governing body of Yale University, from 1944 to 1956 and was on the board of directors of the Columbia Broadcasting System (C.B.S.), after having been introduced to C.B.S. Chairman William Paley in 1932 by his friend and business partner Averell Harriman, a major Democratic party power-broker.
George Bush was educated at the exclusive Greenwich Country Day School in Greenwich, Connecticut before moving on to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he matriculated from 1936 to 1942. At Phillips Andover, he captained the baseball and soccer teams and was a member of an exclusive fraternity called the A.U.V, or "Auctoritas, Unitas, Veritas", Latin for "Authority, Unity, Truth". Like his father before him, Bush was on schedule to attend Yale College and would have in the fall of 1942, but for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941 that necessitated the entry of the United States into World War II.
Upon his graduation from Phillips Andover, George Bush enlisted in the U.S. Navy on June 12, 1942, his 18th birthday, with the intent on becoming an aviator. After completing the 10-month naval aviation course, he was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve three days before his nineteenth birthday, which made him the youngest naval aviator ever at the time.
George Bush married the former Barbara Pierce on January 6, 1945, and after he was demobilized, they moved to New Haven, Connecticut so that he could attend Yale, where he proved a fine student and captained the baseball team, which made it to the first College World Series. They had their first of six children, future President George Walker Bush, two days after the Fourth of July, 1946. In his senior year, George Bush was tapped for the exclusive secret society Skull & Bones, as had been his father (and as his son would be).
Using his father's connections and $2 million in seed money from his relatives (approximately $17 million in 2006 terms), George Bush prospered in the oil industry after graduating from Yale in 1949. Through his father's business and social relationship with a fellow Skull & Bones member, George Bush secured a position with Dresser Industries, on whose board of directors Prescott had served for 22 years.
As the son of a moderate Republican senator, it was natural that George Bush would stand for office. At the time, the "Solid South" was solidly Democratic, with the Republican Party of Civil War winner (and Civil Rights champion) Abraham Lincoln anathema below the Mason-Dixon line.Good Republican candidates were hard to come by (though John Tower later proved that a Republican could win in the Deep South when he took a Senate seat in 1966). One year after his father left the Seante, his son George stood won the Republican nomination to oppose Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough, an ally of President 'Lyndon Johnson (I)' (QB), who was on his way to defeating Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in an electoral landslide in 1964. Riding the coat-tails of favorite son Johnson, Yarborough handily won reelection, keeping George Bush in the private sector for two more years.
Bush stood for a House seat in 1966 and won, then won reelection in 1968. In Congress, he established a reputation as a liberal Republican and was known as a supporter of contraception services (his father, Prescott, had been a mainstay of Planned Parenthood). At the request of President Richard Nixon, Bush gave up his seat voluntarily in 1970 to seek the Senate seat of Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough, who was a fierce Nixon critic. It was felt that Yaborough's liberalism made him vulnerable to a challenge from the right, and it did; however, it was the right-wing of the Democratic Party. Lloyd Bentsen won the Democratic nomination and, endorsed by Yarborough, beat Bush handily in the November general election. (Ironically, Bentsen would one day be the running mate of Bush's 1988 rival for the presidency, Michael Dukakis.) One of the reason for Bush's defeat was that with Yarborough out of the race, Nixon's support for Bush's campaign was only half-hearted.
As a payback to Bush, Nixon appointed him Ambassador to the United Nations, and he later served Nixon as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee during the Watergate crisis. Nixon's successor in the Oval Office, Gerald Ford, briefly considered appointing Bush as his replacement as vice president before going with liberal Republican stalwart Nelson Rockefeller, the four-term governor of the State of New York, but Ford eventually appointed Bush as the first American plenipotentiary to Communist China, then later director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
After losing the 1980 Republican nomination to Ronald Reagan, Bush was chosen as Reagan's running mate and elected Vice President of the United States in Reagan's victory over incumbent President Jimmy Carter in November. In 1988, Bush as vice president was Reagan's heir apparent, and he won the Republican nomination handily, though personally he was not very popular. Bush was perceived as "weak" due to his social liberalism, which included support for abortion rights and contraception. As a "Rockefeller Republican" (that is, an Eastern Establishment pro-business Republican who is moderate or liberal on social issues), Bush, unlike Reagan, was out-of-step in an increasingly conservative party dominated by voters from the South and West. The well-educated, thoughtful Bush, according to Reagan biographer Edmund Morris, was a genuinely nice and gracious person, and more importantly: sincere. However, he was perceived as not standing for anything, at least not in the stark black & white terms that had inspired the conservative if not reactionary Republican Party faithful during the two terms of the "Great Communicator".
As president, Bush saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he soared to unprecedented levels of public approval after his firm handling of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait pushed the Iraqi army out of the invaded kingdom with a minimum amount of U.S. casualties. However, his popularity plummeted by the time the campaign rolled around in 1992 due to his seeming inability to cope with a recession caused by economic dislocations linked to the end of the Cold War.
After the presidency, George Bush prospered financially as a corporate speaker, reportedly making as much as $10 million from the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Bush's business ventures through the Carlyle Group, a private equity fund with close ties to the government of Saudi Arabia, have proved very remunerative. Most importantly, he achieved a sort of personal vindication when his son, George Walker Bush, defeated Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, and was elected the 43rd President of the United States.
In the twilight of his years, comfortably retired from the political wars, Bush teamed with fellow ex-President Bill Clinton for a uniquely close relationship in which the two jointly led campaigns to help the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2005 devastation of the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina via private sector fund-raising.
George Herbert Walker Bush died on November 30, 2018, in Houston, Texas. He joined his wife Barbara, who had passed in April of that year. - Gerald Rudolph Ford was the 38th President of the United States from August 1974 until January 1977.
Ford was born on July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska as Leslie Lynch King, Jr., being the son of Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner King. His parents separated two weeks after his birth and his mother took him to Grand Rapids, Michigan to live with her parents. On February 1, 1916, his mother Dorothy married Gerald R. Ford, a paint salesman. The Fords began calling their son Gerald R. Ford, Jr. but the name became legal only on December 3, 1935. Aged 13, Ford knew that Gerald Sr., was not his biological father, but it wasn't until 1930 he met his biological father Leslie King, who had made an unexpected stop in Grand Rapids.
Ford grew up in a family with three younger half-brothers, Thomas, Richard, and James. He attended South High School in Grand Rapids, where he already showed his athletics skills, being named to the honor society and the "All-City" and "All-State" football teams. As a scout he was ranked Eagle Scout in November 1927. He earned money by working in the family paint business and at a local restaurant.
Ford attended The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor from 1931 to 1935. He majored in economics and political science and graduated with a B.A. degree in June 1935. He played on the University's national championship football teams in 1932 and 1933 and was voted MVP of Wolverine in 1934. He also played in All-Star and benefit football games. He denied offers from two professional football teams, (Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers), but chose to become boxing coach and assistant varsity football coach at Yale hoping to attend law school there. Ford earned his law degree in 1941.
After returning to Michigan and passing his bar exam, Ford set up a law partnership in Grand Rapids with Philip Buchen, a University of Michigan fraternity brother (who later served on Ford's White House staff as Counsel to the President).
In April 1942 Ford joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and became a physical fitness instructor at a flight school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In the spring of 1943 he began service in the light aircraft carrier USS Monterey. Ford spent the remainder of the war ashore and was discharged as a lieutenant commander in February 1946. He returned to Grand Rapids to become a partner in the locally prestigious law firm of Butterfield, Keeney, and Amberg.
His first political experience was in the summer of 1940 when he was working in the presidential campaign of Wendell Willkie. Six years later he decided to challenge Bartel Jonkman for the Republican nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1948 election. Ford won the nomination and after that was elected to Congress on November 2, 1948, receiving 61% of the vote.
On October 15 1948, the height of the campaign, Ford married Elizabeth ('Betty') Anne Bloomer Warren, a department store fashion consultant. Betty was born on April 8, 1918 in Chicago, Illinois, but grew up in Grand Rapids. They subsequently had four children: Michael Gerald (March 14, 1950), John Gardner (March 16, 1952), Steven Meigs (May 19, 1956) and Susan Elizabeth (July 6, 1957).
Ford served in the House of Representatives from January 3, 1949 to December 6, 1973. He was re-elected twelve times, winning each time with more than 60% of the vote. As his ambition was to become Speaker of the House already in the early 1950s, he denied offers to run for both the Senate and the Michigan governorship in these years. In 1961 he became chairman of the House Republican Conference. In 1963 President Johnson appointed Ford to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He was the last living member of the Warren Commission.
In 1965 Ford was chosen as the House minority leader, a post he held until 1973. As minority leader Ford made more than 200 speeches a year all across the country, which made him nationally known. He was not only a close friend of Richard Nixon for many years, but also a loyal supporter in both the 1968 and 1972 presidential elections. As in 1960, Ford was again considered as a vice presidential candidate in 1968. Because the Republicans did not attain a majority in the House, Ford was unable to reach his ultimate political goal, Speaker of the House. Instead, he became President of the Senate.
Late in 1973 Spiro Agnew pleaded no contest to a charge of income tax evasion and resigned as Vice President. President Nixon was empowered by the 25th Amendment to appoint a new vice president and chose Ford. He was sworn in on December 6, 1973.
On August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign from the office under the threat of impeachment in the Watergate scandal. The same day Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office as 38th President of the United States on August 9, 1974. Also in August 1974, Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller for vice president, which nomination was confirmed by Congress on December 19, 1974.
One month after taking office President Ford faced one of the toughest decisions in his career. He decided to grant Nixon a full, free and absolute pardon for all offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in. The public opinion was mostly negative about the pardon and there was even suspicion Ford and Nixon had made a deal to grant a pardon if Nixon would resign. Although this happened on September 8, 1974, it might have cost the re-election of Ford two years later.
On November 24, 1974, in the conference hall of the Okeansky Sanitarium, Vladivostok, USSR, President Ford and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT-treaty, following talks on the limitation of strategic offensive arms.
In March 1975, during the final days of the Vietnam War, Ford ordered the airlift of about 237,000 Vietnamese refugees to the United States. Two months later, on May 14, 1975, Ford ordered U.S. forces to retake the S.S. Mayaguez after its seizure by Cambodia, an action Ford characterized as an "act of piracy." The operation saved the ship's 39-member crew, but sadly 41 Americans were killed and 50 more wounded during the preparation and execution of the rescue.
President Ford was twice the target of assassination attempts. Both took place in on two separate trips to California in September 1975 and both were 'performed' by women. On September 5, 1975 he survived an assassination attempt in Sacramento, California, by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of a cult once led by convicted mass murderer Charles Manson. On September 22, 1975, in San Francisco, California, Sara Jane Moore fired a shot at the president, but a bystander diverted the shot.
Despite his former athletics skills, Gerald Ford tumbled several times during his presidency. No cause was ever communicated. At the Republican National Convention in August 1976, Ford fought off a serious challenge from Californian Governor Ronald Reagan to be nominated as his party's presidential candidate. He chose Senator Robert Dole of Kansas as his running mate.
Although he succeeded in closing in on Democrat Jimmy Carter's large lead in the polls, President Ford finally lost one of the closest elections in history in November 1976. After leaving office, Gerald and Betty Ford returned to private life and moved to California where they built a new house in Rancho Mirage, which became his last residence.
President Ford continued to actively participate in the political process and to speak out on important political issues. He lectured at hundreds of colleges and universities. In 1981, the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, were dedicated.
President Ford was the recipient of numerous awards and honors by many civic organizations, like the recipient of many honorary Doctor of Law degrees from various public and private colleges and universities.
In August 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Ford with the nation's highest civilian award, the Medal of Freedom. Two months later, in October 1999, Senate and House leaders presented Ford and his wife, Betty, with the Congressional Gold Medal. Together with former President Carter, he served as honorary Co-Chair of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform in 2001. In May 2001 he was presented with the Profiles in Courage award for his controversial decision to pardon former President Nixon.
In August 2000 Ford suffered a mild stroke while attending the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On May 16, 2003 following fluctuations in blood pressure and hot weather, Ford suffered dizzy spells on the golf course and taken to hospital. He was released the next day.
Although President Ford cut back on his travel and public appearances in recent years, he attended funeral services for President Ronald Reagan at Washington's National Cathedral, sitting with former Presidents Clinton, Bush and Carter, and their wives in June 2004.
In August 2006, he was discharged from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, after doctors tried to reduce or eliminate blockages in his coronary arteries. They also implanted a pacemaker to improve his heart performance. In the fall of 2006 Ford spent several days at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage for medical tests. He was released on October 16.
On November 12, 2006, Ford officially became the longest-lived president, surpassing Ronald Reagan. Ford would extend the record by 45 days.
On December 26, 2006 at 6:45 p.m., President Ford died in his house in Rancho Mirage, California. He was aged 93 years and 165 days old, making him the longest-lived United States President. No cause of death was communicated. A state funeral and memorial services were held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on January 2, 2007. President Ford was buried at his presidential museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
President Gerald Ford was survived by his wife Betty, after more than 58 years of marriage, and by their four children, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He was also survived by his brother, Richard, of Grand Rapids, Michigan. - Actor
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Ronald Reagan had quite a prolific career, having catapulted from a Warner Bros. contract player and television star, into serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild, the governorship of California (1967-1975), and lastly, two terms as President of the United States (1981-1989).
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, to Nelle Clyde (Wilson) and John Edward "Jack" Reagan, who was a salesman and storyteller. His father was of Irish descent, and his mother was of half Scottish and half English ancestry.
A successful actor beginning in the 1930s, the young Reagan was a staunch admirer of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (even after he evolved into a Republican), and was a Democrat in the 1940s, a self-described 'hemophiliac' liberal. He was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947 and served five years during the most tumultuous times to ever hit Hollywood. A committed anti-communist, Reagan not only fought more-militantly activist movie industry unions that he and others felt had been infiltrated by communists, but had to deal with the investigation into Hollywood's politics launched by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, an inquisition that lasted through the 1950s. The House Un-American Activities Committee investigations of Hollywood (which led to the jailing of the "Hollywood Ten" in the late '40s) sowed the seeds of the McCarthyism that racked Hollywood and America in the 1950s.
In 1950, U.S. Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas (D-CA), the wife of "Dutch" Reagan's friend Melvyn Douglas, ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate and was opposed by the Republican nominee, the Red-bating Congressman from Whittier, Richard Nixon. While Nixon did not go so far as to accuse Gahagan Douglas of being a communist herself, he did charge her with being soft on communism due to her opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Nixon tarred her as a "fellow traveler" of communists, a "pinko" who was "pink right down to her underwear." Gahagan Douglas was defeated by the man she was the first to call "Tricky Dicky" because of his unethical behavior and dirty campaign tactics. Reagan was on the Douglases' side during that campaign.
The Douglases, like Reagan and such other prominent actors as Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, were liberal Democrats, supporters of the late Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, a legacy that increasingly was under attack by the right after World War II. They were NOT fellow-travelers; Melvyn Douglas had actually been an active anti-communist and was someone the communists despised. Melvyn Douglas, Robinson and Henry Fonda - a registered Republican! - wound up "gray-listed." (They weren't explicitly black-listed, they just weren't offered any work.) Reagan, who it was later revealed had been an F.B.I. informant while a union leader (turning in suspected communists), was never hurt that way, as he made S.A.G. an accomplice of the black-listing.
Reagan's career sagged after the late 1940s, and he started appearing in B-movies after he left Warner Bros. to go free-lance. However, he had a eminence grise par excellence in Lew Wasserman, his agent and the head of the Music Corp. of America. Wasserman, later called "The Pope of Hollywood," was the genius who figured out that an actor could make a killing via a tax windfall by turning himself into a corporation. The corporation, which would employ the actor, would own part of a motion picture the actor appeared in, and all monies would accrue to the corporation, which was taxed at a much lower rate than was personal income. Wasserman pioneered this tax avoidance scheme with his client James Stewart, beginning with the Anthony Mann western Winchester '73 (1950) (1950). It made Stewart enormously rich as he became a top box office draw in the 1950s after the success of "Winchester 73" and several more Mann-directed westerns, all of which he had an ownership stake in.
Ironically, Reagan became a poor-man's James Stewart in the early 1950s, appearing in westerns, but they were mostly B-pictures. He did not have the acting chops of the great Stewart, but he did have his agent. Wasserman at M.C.A. was one of the pioneers of television syndication, and this was to benefit Reagan enormously. M.C.A. was the only talent agency that was also allowed to be a producer through an exemption to union rules granted by S.A.G. when Reagan was the union president, and it used the exemption to acquire Universal International Pictures. Talent agents were not permitted to be producers as there was an inherent conflict of interest between the two professions, one of which was committed to acquiring talent at the lowest possible cost and the other whose focus was to get the best possible price for their client. When a talent agent was also a producer, like M.C.A. was, it had a habit of steering its clients to its own productions, where they were employed but at a lower price than their potential free market value. It was a system that made M.C.A. and Lew Wasserman, enormously wealthy.
The ownership of Universal and its entry into the production of television shows that were syndicated to network made M.C.A. the most successful organization in Hollywood of its time, a real cash cow as television overtook the movies as the #1 business of the entertainment industry. Wasserman repaid Ronald Reagan's largess by structuring a deal by which he hosted and owned part of General Electric Theater (1953), a western omnibus showcase that ran from 1954 to 1961. It made Reagan very comfortable financially, though it did not make him rich. That came later.
In 1960, with the election of the Democratic President John F. Kennedy, the black and gray lists went into eclipse. J.F.K. appointed Helen Gahagan Douglas Treasurer of the United States. About this time, as the civil rights movement became stronger and found more support among Democrats and the Kennedy administration, Reagan - fresh from a second stint as S.A.G. president in 1959 - was in the process of undergoing a personal and political metamorphosis into a right-wing Republican, a process that culminated with his endorsing Barry Goldwater for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964. (He narrated a Goldwater campaign film played at the G.O.P. Convention in San Francisco.) Reagan's evolution into a right-wing Republican sundered his friendship with the Douglases. (After Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, Melvyn Douglas said of his former friend that Reagan turned to the right after he had begun to believe the pro-business speeches he delivered for General Electric when he was the host of the "G.E. Theater.")
In 1959, while Reagan was back as a second go-round as S.A.G. president, M.C.A.'s exemption from S.A.G. regulations that forbade a talent agency from being a producer was renewed. However, in 1962, the U.S. Justice Department under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy successfully forced M.C.A. - known as "The Octopus" in Hollywood for its monopolistic tendencies - to divest itself of its talent agency.
When Reagan was tipped by the California Republican Party to be its standard-bearer in the 1965 gubernatorial election against Democratic Governor Pat Brown, Lew Wasserman went back in action. Politics makes strange bedfellows, and though Wasserman was a liberal Democrat, having an old friend like Reagan who had shown his loyalty as S.A.G. president in the state house was good for business. Wasserman and his partner, M.C.A. Chairman Jules Styne (a Republican), helped ensure that Reagan would be financially secure for the rest of his life so that he could enter politics. (At the time, he was the host of "Death Valley Days" on TV.)
According to the Wall Street Journal, Universal sold Reagan a nice piece of land of many acres north of Santa Barbara that had been used for location shooting. The Reagans sold most of the ranch, then converted the rest of it, about 200 acres, into a magnificent estate overlooking the valley and the Pacific Ocean. The Rancho del Cielo became President Reagan's much needed counterpoint to the buzz of Washington, D.C. There, in a setting both rugged and serene, the Reagans could spend time alone or receive political leaders such as the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, and others.
Reagan was known to the world for his one-liners, the most famous of them was addressed to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall" said Reagan standing in front of the Berlin Wall. That call made an impact on the course of human history.
Ronald Reagan played many roles in his life's seven acts: radio announcer, movie star, union boss, television actor-cum-host, governor, right-wing critic of big government and President of the United States.- Gavin Newsom is the son of an appellate court judge and came from an old, privileged San Francisco family. He graduated from Santa Clara University in 1989, and with a loan from the wealthy Getty family, he started the PlumpJack Wine Shop in 1992. The business eventually grew to a multi-million dollar empire with over 700 employees, including restaurants, theaters, a wine label, and a hotel/ski resort. He served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1996 to 2004, where he became well-known for his "Care Not Cash" initiative, which reformed the city's homeless policy by slashing cash benefits to the homeless. Newsom was elected the 42nd mayor of San Francisco in 2004, the youngest mayor of that city in over a century. In February 2004, he made national headlines when he allowed same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses.
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John Felix Anthony Cena was born on April 23, 1977 in West Newbury, Massachusetts to Carol Cena and John Joseph Cena. He is of Italian (father) and French-Canadian and English (mother) descent, and is the grandson of baseball player Tony Lupien. When he was in college, he played football. He then continued on to be a bodybuilder and a limousine driver. The 6-foot-1 tall star weighs exactly at 240 pounds and is a very successful superstar in the WWE.
The Dr. of Thuganomics started training to be a wrestler at Ultimate Pro Wrestling where he also created the character, The Prototype. Cena first appeared on WWE in a match against Kurt Angle on the 27th of June, 2002 which ended up with him losing.
In 2004, John Cena's status as a celebrity began to develop. Cena won the United States Championship from Big Show. Not too long later, Cena lost the title but he gained it back soon. Cena then lost the title again to fellow WWE superstar, Carlito. During that time, Cena apparently got stabbed in the kidney by one of Carlito's bodyguards. This resulted in staying out of action for a month.
In 2005 and 2006 respectively, Cena was involved in controversies. He had a feud with champion John Bradshaw Layfield, manager Eric Bischoff and fellow wrestler Chris Jericho. Cena also had feuds with Edge and Umaga at that time. But even so, some friendships were formed. Cena is said to be friends with Carlito after they won a match with Jeff Hardy against Edge, Randy Orton and Johnny Nitro.
The year 2007 was a big year for Cena as he was involved in a wrestling match with Britney Spears' ex and rap star, Kevin Federline. John ended up losing that match thanks to some assistance from Umaga to Kevin Federline. Later that night, Cena took revenge by body slamming Kevin Federline backstage. The year 2007 also started pretty well for John Cena as he became the first person to defeat the Samoan Bulldozer, Umaga that year. The Chain Gang Soldier also teamed up with Shaun Michaels defeating the RKO tag team, Randy Orton and Edge. The match ended up with Cena and Michaels winning.
As of October 2007, Cena lost his WWE Championship title because of an injury. While wrestling against Mr. Kennedy, Cena tore his pectoral muscle while executing a hip toss. Although he finished the match and completed the rest of the scripted event, a check-up the next day showed that John's pectoral major muscle was torn completely from the bone, requiring seven months to a year rehabilitation. Not able to perform, WWE's CEO, Vince McMahon stripped him off the title and ended his reign.
In 2008, Cena made an unannounced return to action on January 27 as the final participant of the Royal Rumble match. He won the match, and the traditional WrestleMania title shot. Cena also had a match against JBL, which he defeated at Judgment Day and then at One Night Stand in a First Blood match. However, JBL defeated him at the New York City Parking Lot Brawl. In the month of August, Cena was replaced by Rey Mysterio after it was announced Cena had suffered a herniated disk in his neck which required surgery and he would be out of action indefinitely. According to reports, Cena underwent successive surgery to repair the herniated disk in his neck with Doctor Joseph Maroon on August 25.
Aside from wrestling, John has also made a name in the movie business. In 2006, a WWE franchise movie titled The Marine was released with John playing the lead character, John Triton. The movie received mixed reviews due to the poor story-line and discrimination to the US Marines. Even so, fans queued up to watch the movie as this was John's first big screen appearance.
The WWE wrestler also added recording artist to his resume as he released his debut rap album "You Can't See Me" which debuted at #15 on the US Billboard 200 chart. The album was recorded with his cousin Tha Trademarc. The album featured his entrance theme song, 'The Time Is Now' & a host of other singles performed by Cena. One of the songs he performed with popular rap band Estoric and a number of other songs Cena performed with famous rapper Bumpy Knuckles. Cena is the only professional wrestler to ever perform on BBC Two's long running TV show Top of the Pops.
While still active with WWE, Cena made a couple of guest appearances: Jimmy Kimmel Live! twice to promote his album. He has also appeared on popular shows like Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Fuse's Celebrity Playlist, Fox Sports Net's The Best Damn Sports Show Period, MADtv, G4's Training Camp and two appearances on MTV's Punk'd. He also served as a co-presenter, with Hulk Hogan, at the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, as a guest judge during the third week of the 2006 season of Nashville Star, and appeared at the 2007 Nickelodeon UK Kids Choice Awards 2007.
In fashion, The Champ has also made a few trademarks. Cena is often seen with knee-high denim jeans and throwback jerseys when he first started on WWE. Lately, Cena has been wearing a lot of Chain Gang merchandise. When his movie, The Marine was released, John was seen to be adding more military-inspired clothing to his outfit to promote his movie.
Cena graduated from Springfield College, Massachusetts with degrees in exercise physiology and human anatomy. He applied to 60 colleges and he got accepted by 58 of them but in the end, he chose Springfield College. He is the second eldest of five brothers and is said to be a family guy when he is not wrestling. His good friends are fellow wrestlers, John Hennigan, Batista, Randy Orton, Carlito, Jeff and Matt Hardy, whom he will have to fight.
John Cena is definitely going to be a big inspiration to all, whether in wrestling, fashion, music or even movies as his participation in the industry is already more than regular celebrity. With all he has achieved, fans can definitely expect to see more of this WWE superstar in the coming future.
Also, recently he has completed his new movie 12 Rounds produced by WWE Films. This movie was said to have finished filming when John suffered from his injury in 2007.- Music Artist
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Eminem was born Marshall Bruce Mathers III in St. Joseph, Missouri, to Deborah R. (Nelson) and Marshall Bruce Mathers, Jr., who were in a band together, Daddy Warbucks. He is of English, as well as some German, Scottish, and Swiss-German, ancestry. Marshall spent his early childhood being shoved back and forth from Kansas City and Detroit. He settled on the Eastside of Detroit when he was 12. Switching schools every two to three months made it difficult to make friends, graduate and to stay out of trouble. Marshall attended Lincoln High School in Warren, Michigan, 1986-1989.
Being a rap fan for most of his life, Marshall began rapping at the early age of 4. Rhyming words together, battling schoolmates in the lunchroom brought joy to what was otherwise a painful existence. At the age of 14, he began to get very serious about his rapping but it wasn't until he was 17 that he actually made a name for himself, becoming M&M, which he would later respell as "Eminem". Being rejected by most fellow rappers because of his race, Marshall grew an anger that flows through his music to this day. After failing the 9th grade for three times in a row, he quit school, but has remarked that he does not consider himself stupid and does not advise that people should follow his example. He says that it just wasn't for him. Forcing himself on radio shows, freestyle battles, Marshall threw himself head first into the rap game, where he was swallowed up most of the time. His very first album was titled "Infinite" and, while the album sold less than a thousand copies, it was the gearing up stages for the rapper who became a millionaire. It was then that his daughter, Hailie Jade Scott, was born on December 25th of 1995 with long time girlfriend Kim Scott.
Having nothing to lose at all, flat broke and not knowing where he would be living the next week, Marshall set out to rant about life in general, the set quickly caught the ear of hip-hop's difficult-to-please underground. What came out of this was the Slim Shady EP, the early work for the later Dr. Dre revised Slim Shady LP. Down to nearly his last dime, he went into the 1997 Rap Olympics in Los Angeles, basically hoping to win the $1,500 cash prize which he badly needed. After battling for an hour and throwing back every race diss thrown at him, Marshall made it to second place losing in a slip up. Furious that he had lost, Marshall didn't even notice that he had been spotted. In the crowd were a few producers from Interscope, and they were handed a copy of the "Infinite" tape by way of a demo.
Dr. Dre got to hear it and eventually tracked him down. The two instantly hit it off, recording four songs in their first six hours of working - three which made it to his first LP. After the album was finished, Dr. Dre asked Marshall to come work with him on his new album. He helped produce several tracks and was on the best songs of the album. Now officially making it, Marshall and Dre set to make his second LP. The album became the Marshall Mathers LP and won 3 Grammies and was the first rap album ever to be nominated "Album of the Year", selling more than 8 million records in the United States alone. He also stunned critics when he shot down all homophobic remarks by performing "Stan" with Elton John. Eminem made a movie, 8 Mile (2002). Though 2001 was a rough year for the rapper, being charged with weapon offenses, divorcing his wife, and almost going to prison, Marshall has explained his life in one word: "Claimer".- Actor
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John McCain was born on 29 August 1936 in Canal Zone, Panama. He was an actor and writer, known for Parks and Recreation (2009), John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls (2018) and Saturday Night Live (1975). He was married to Cindy McCain and Carol Shepp. He died on 25 August 2018 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.- Perot was born on June 27, 1930, in Texarkana, Texas, to an impoverished family. He was the son of Lula May (Ray), a secretary, and Gabriel Ross Perot, who worked in cotton contracts. He started working various odd jobs at age seven. In 1949, Perot was admitted to the United States Naval Academy (serving in several positions, including class president). Upon his graduation in 1953, he was commissioned as a Naval officer and served on a destroyer and aircraft during the Korean War for four years. In 1956, Perot married Margot Birmingham. In 1957, he was honorably discharged from the Navy and started to work for IBM as a salesman. In 1962, Perot started his own business, Electronic Data Systems, with money given to him by his wife. Today, the company is worth billions of dollars and has more than 70,000 employees. Perot has worked closely with the U.S. government over the past three decades, helping to conduct several rescue missions and prisoner negations with foreign nationals. In 1992, he split from the Republican Party to create the Reform Party. He lost the election then and again in 1996. The Reform Party eventually disbanded.
Perot remained a philanthropist and often donated to charity. He and his wife had five children and numerous grandchildren. - Music Artist
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James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 - December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer, and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honorific nicknames "Godfather of Soul", "Mr. Dynamite", and "Soul Brother No. 1". In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. Brown was one of the first 10 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural induction in New York on January 23, 1986.
Brown began his career as a gospel singer in Toccoa, Georgia. He first came to national public attention in the mid-1950s as the lead singer of the Famous Flames, a then-only Rhythm and blues vocal group founded by Bobby Byrd. With the hit ballads "Please, Please, Please" and "Try Me", Brown built a reputation as a dynamic live performer with the Famous Flames and his backing band, sometimes known as the James Brown Band or the James Brown Orchestra. His success peaked in the 1960s with the live album Live at the Apollo and hit singles such as "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "It's a Man's Man's Man's World".
During the late 1960s, Brown moved from a continuum of blues and gospel-based forms and styles to a profoundly "Africanized" approach to music-making, emphasizing stripped-down interlocking rhythms that influenced the development of funk music. By the early 1970s, Brown had fully established the funk sound after the formation of the J.B.s with records such as "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" and "The Payback". He also became noted for songs of social commentary, including the 1968 hit "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud". Brown continued to perform and record until his death from pneumonia in 2006.
Brown recorded 17 singles that reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts. He also holds the record for the most singles listed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that did not reach No. 1. Brown was inducted into the first class of the Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2013 as an artist and then in 2017 as a songwriter. He also received honors from several other institutions, including inductions into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In Joel Whitburn's analysis of the Billboard R&B charts from 1942 to 2010, Brown is ranked No. 1 in The Top 500 Artists. He is ranked seventh on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.- Music Artist
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Grammy-winning band Maroon 5's frontman Adam Noah Levine was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He is the son of Patsy (Noah), an admissions counselor, and Fredric Levine, who founded the retail chain M. Fredric. Adam's father's family is Jewish, while Adam's mother is of half Jewish (her own father) and half German and Scottish (her own mother) ancestry. His uncle, Timothy Noah, is a journalist. Adam began playing music with his junior-high friends guitarist, rather than the keyboardist (for which he is known in the band Maroon 5) Jesse Carmichael and bassist Mickey Madden. Their first gig was at a school dance and Levine was terribly shy so he played with his back to the audience. Ryan Dusick joined the band as drummer and the alternative rock band Kara's Flowers were born (1994). They released an album called "The Fourth World" (1997). Then, he headed to New York City with Carmichael to study music at Five Towns College on Long Island. While they were there, he was surrounded by new music scenes and influences which give him whole new perspective on songwriting and singing. He dropped out of school after a semester and headed back to California with Carmichael to reunite with their pals and develop their band. He began writing a bunch of songs that were inspired by his recently failed relationship. After adding in new guitarist James Valentine (moving Carmichael over to keyboards) Maroon 5 was officially born. The band released their debut album "Songs About Jane", which included international hits "This Love", "Sunday Morning" and "She Will Be Loved" (2002).- Producer
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Jerry Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Betty (Hesney) and Kalman Seinfeld. His father was of Hungarian Jewish descent, while Jerry's maternal grandparents, Salha and Selim Hosni, were Syrian Jewish immigrants (from Aleppo). He moved with his family, including sister Carolyn, to suburban Massepequa, Long Island, at a young age. Jerry's dad, who had a terrific sense of humor, was a commercial sign maker.
Jerry attended Oswego College in upstate New York however transferred to Queens College back in New York City. Developed an interest in stand-up comedy after brief stints in college productions. Went straight from college graduation to amateur night tryout at New York's Catch a Rising Star, 1976.
Continued to perform in local clubs and Catskill Mountain resorts until his career was boosted by an appearance on a Rodney Dangerfield HBO special, 1976. Career took off after first successful spot on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), May 1981, at age 27. Appearances on [error] and The Merv Griffin Show (1962) followed. Also appeared four times as Frankie on Benson (1979) sitcom. After he was abruptly fired from the show, he swore never to do another sitcom unless he had greater control. This opportunity emerged when he was invited to create a sitcom for NBC in 1989 and teamed with one-time stand-up colleague Larry David.
Progression of "The Seinfeld Chronicles" into the long-running Seinfeld (1989) series phenomenon was ended by its co-creator and co-executive producer, Larry David. Still unmarried, he moved back to New York City into a new multimillion-dollar, multilevel apartment on Central Park West just down the street from his small bachelor studio on West 81st.- Actor
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Jay Scott Greenspan, known professionally as Jason Alexander, is an American actor, comedian, film director, and television presenter. An Emmy and Tony winner, he is best known for his role as George Costanza in the television series Seinfeld (1989), for which he was nominated for seven consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. His other well-known roles include Phillip Stuckey in the film Pretty Woman (1990), comic relief gargoyle Hugo in the Disney animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and the title character in the animated series Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man (1994). He has also made guest appearances on shows such as Dream On (1994), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2001, 2009), and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2019). For his role in Dream On, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. He won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Song in 2020 for "The Bad Guys?" on Brainwashed By Toons.- Actor
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Hannibal Buress was born on 4 February 1983 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Tag (2018), Neighbors (2014) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).- Actress
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Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in international charity projects, especially those involving refugees. She often appears on many "most beautiful women" lists, and she has a personal life that is avidly covered by the tabloid press.
Jolie was born Angelina Jolie Voight in Los Angeles, California. In her earliest years, Angelina began absorbing the acting craft from her actor parents, Jon Voight, an Oscar-winner, and Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg. Her good looks may derive from her ancestry, which is German and Slovak on her father's side, and French-Canadian, Dutch, Polish, and remote Huron, on her mother's side. At age eleven, Angelina began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she was seen in several stage productions. She undertook some film studies at New York University and later joined the renowned Met Theatre Group in Los Angeles. At age 16, she took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos.
In the mid-1990s, Jolie appeared in various small films where she got good notices, including Hackers (1995) and Foxfire (1996). Her critical acclaim increased when she played strong roles in the made-for-TV movies True Women (1997), and in George Wallace (1997) which won her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. Jolie's acclaim increased even further when she played the lead role in the HBO production Gia (1998). This was the true life story of supermodel Gia Carangi, a sensitive wild child who was both brazen and needy and who had a difficult time handling professional success and the deaths of people who were close to her. Carangi became involved with drugs and because of her needle-using habits she became, at the tender age of 26, one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS. Jolie's performance in Gia (1998) again garnered a Golden Globe Award and another Emmy nomination, and she additionally earned a SAG Award.
Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in the successful feature The Bone Collector (1999), starring alongside Denzel Washington. In that same year, Jolie gave a tour de force performance in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Jolie's role was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), the role which won Nicholson his first Oscar. Unlike "Cuckoo", "Girl" was a small film that received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box office. But when it came time to give out awards, Jolie won the triple crown -- "Girl" propelled her to win the Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role.
With her newfound prominence, Jolie began to get in-depth attention from the press. Numerous aspects of her controversial personal life became news. At her wedding to her Hackers (1995) co-star Jonny Lee Miller, she had displayed her husband's name on the back of her shirt painted in her own blood. Jolie and Miller divorced, and in 2000, she married her Pushing Tin (1999) co-star Billy Bob Thornton. Jolie had become the fifth wife of a man twenty years her senior. During her marriage to Thornton, the spouses each wore a vial of the other's blood around their necks. That marriage came apart in 2002 and ended in divorce. In addition, Jolie was estranged from her famous father, Jon Voight.
In 2000, Jolie was asked to star in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). At first, she expressed disinterest, but then decided that the required training for the athletic role was intriguing. The eponymous character was drawn from a popular video game. Lara Croft was a female cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond. When the movie was released, critics were unimpressed with the final product, but critical acclaim wasn't the point of the movie. The public paid $275 million for theater tickets to see a buffed up Jolie portray the adventuresome Lara Croft. Jolie's father Jon Voight appeared in the movie, and during filming there was a brief rapprochement between father and daughter.
One of the Lara Croft movie's filming locations was Cambodia. While there, Jolie witnessed the natural beauty, culture and poverty of that country. She considered this an eye opening experience, and so began the humanitarian chapter of her life. Jolie began visiting refugee camps around the world and came to be formally appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Some of her experiences were written and published in her popular book "Notes from My Travels" whose profits go to UNHCR.
Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by her actress salary. She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one third to charity. In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy named Maddox, and in 2005, adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named Zahara. Jolie's dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003) parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance between two westerners, many of the movie's images were too depressingly realistic -- the movie was not popular among critics or at the box office.
In 2004, Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with co-star Brad Pitt. The movie became a major box office success. There were rumors that Pitt and Jolie had an affair while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jolie insisted that because her mother had been hurt by adultery, she herself could never participate in an affair with a married man, therefore there had been no affair with Pitt at that time. Nonetheless, Pitt separated from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and, in the months that followed, he was frequently seen in public with Jolie, apparently as a couple. Pitt's divorce was finalized later in 2005.
Jolie and Pitt announced in early 2006 that they would have a child together, and Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh that May. They also adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pax. The couple, who married in 2014 and divorced in 2019, continue to pursue movie and humanitarian projects, and now have a total of six children. She was appointed Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George at the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to United Kingdom foreign policy and the campaign to end warzone sexual violence.- Osama bin Laden was the founding General Emir and NATO-FVEY designated criminal mastermind behind his militarist forces under the umbrella of Al-Qaeda, and the world's most sought-after militiaman since the 1998 raids on U.S. embassies in parts of East Africa accused by FBI at him, and then accused of single-handedly masterminding series-of-suicide-aircraft-piracies-colloquially-dubbed-as September 11 attacks by the CIA. He claimed indirect-liability for instigating suicide-hijackers in an exclusive interview later on but nevertheless, refuted the charges of being the mastermind by CIA & others. He used to release tapes endorsing militant acts by framing them as retaliatory, self-defense resistance-operations. Almost 10 years after the execution of 9/11 operation, on a late May 1, 2011 evening according to North American Eastern Daylight Time, 44th US President Barack Obama made an announcement that Osama had been summary-executed by US commandos in a hideout under a covert-op codenamed Operation Neptune Spear with OPTASK (operation task) to assassinate him.
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Annie Lennox was born on 25 December 1954 in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK. She is a music artist and actress, known for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Scrooged (1988) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). She has been married to Mitch Besser since 15 September 2012. She was previously married to Uri Fruchtmann and Radha Raman.- Actor
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A slight comic actor chiefly known for his boyish charm, Matthew Broderick was born on March 21, 1962 in New York City, to Patricia Broderick (née Biow), a playwright and painter, and James Broderick, an actor. His father had Irish and English ancestry, and his mother was from a Jewish family (from Germany and Poland).
Matthew initially took up acting at New York's upper-crust Walden School after being sidelined from his athletic pursuits (football and soccer) by a knee injury. His father got him his stage debut at age 17 in a workshop production of the play "On Valentine's Day". Matthew's career then accelerated with parts in two Neil Simon projects: the play "Brighton Beach Memoirs" (1982-83) and the feature film Max Dugan Returns (1983). Broderick reprised the role of Eugene in "Biloxi Blues" (1988), the second installment of the Simon trilogy, for both the Broadway production and the film adaptation (Biloxi Blues (1988)). For the third and final installment of the trilogy, he was replaced by Jonathan Silverman. In 1983, the same year as Max Dugan Returns (1983), Broderick had his first big-screen success in the light comedy WarGames (1983). Since then he has had his fair share of hits and misses, with some of his better films including Project X (1987) also starring Helen Hunt, whom he subsequently dated; Addicted to Love (1997); and Inspector Gadget (1999). Other films he has appeared in which may be known but not so much respected include Out on a Limb (1992) with his Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) co-star Jeffrey Jones; The Night We Never Met (1993); The Road to Wellville (1994); and The Cable Guy (1996) with Jim Carrey, which got him an MTV "Best Fight" award nomination; and the MTV film Election (1999) with Reese Witherspoon. In 1985 he was involved in a controversial car crash while driving in Ireland with his then fiancée Jennifer Grey. The crash killed a woman and her daughter. Broderick paid a small fine to the family of the victims. He broke his leg in the accident, which happened just as Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), his biggest hit, was coming out in the US. The box office success (but critical flop) and special effects blockbuster Godzilla (1998) gave Broderick his first action role (should any "Godzilla" sequels be planned, he is under contract for two more). He has occasionally returned to the stage in New York, either in revivals of old musical warhorses such as "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" or in revivals of old "show people"plays, such as "Night Must Fall". In 1996 Broderick attempted to wear three hats as co-producer/director/actor in Infinity (1996), working very closely with his mother, who also wrote the screenplay. It was not a critical or commercial success, and he has not directed or produced since. Since May 1997 he has been married to actress Sarah Jessica Parker. He was previously engaged to both Helen Hunt and dated Lili Taylor. In 1999 he donned a trenchcoat for the children's film Inspector Gadget (1999), alongside Rupert Everett as the evil villain Claw. In March 2001 Broderick returned to Broadway in the musical smash "The Producers" (based on the 1968 Mel Brooks film of the same name). He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, which he lost to his co-star, Nathan Lane.- Producer
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An actor, comedian and writer, Seth Rogen has come a long way from doing stand-up comedy as a teen.
Rogen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Sandy (Belogus), a social worker, and Mark Rogen, who worked for non-profits. His father is American-born and his mother is Canadian. He is of Russian Jewish descent. He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah Elementary School and Point Grey Secondary School (although he dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles) and was known for the stand-up comedy he performed at Camp Miriam, a Habonim Dror camp. At sixteen, Rogen placed second in the 1998 Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest.
Soon after that he landed his first role in Judd Apatow's short-lived but well regarded TV series Freaks and Geeks (1999), taking on the role of Ken Miller. Though the show only lasted one season, it was the launching pad for many careers, including Rogen, Apatow, James Franco, and Jason Segel. This early work sharpened Rogen's keen improvisational skills, which he's used on many projects since.
Following Freaks and Geeks (1999), he participated in a few unsuccessful television projects, and then joined the American television version of Da Ali G Show (2000) as a writer during its second and last season, along with his childhood friend and writing partner Evan Goldberg. The writing team received an Emmy nomination. As a huge fan of the first season, Rogen was thrilled to get the chance to work with Sacha Baron Cohen.
Continuing his work with Apatow, he joined the cast of Apatow's debut film The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and is credited as co-producer. After that he took the lead in Knocked Up (2007), Apatow's second movie and a huge success. He's since been a frequent collaborator with Apatow, in projects such as Superbad (2007), Pineapple Express (2008) and Funny People (2009). He co-wrote Superbad (2007), with Goldberg; the pair started the project when they were teens. They won the Canadian Comedy Award for Best Writing in a Film in 2008. They later wrote Pineapple Express (2008) and The Green Hornet (2011), also starring Rogen.
A talented voice artist, Rogen is in the animated films Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Kung Fu Panda (2008), and Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), and has voiced characters for The Simpsons (1989) and American Dad! (2005).
Rogen was named the Canadian Comedy Person of the Year by the Canadian Comedy Awards in both 2008 and 2009.
Rogen lives in Los Angeles with Lauren Miller Rogen, whom he met in 2004. They became engaged in September 2010 and married in October 2011.- Actor
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Jason Sudeikis was born on September 18, 1975 in Fairfax, Virginia as Daniel Jason Sudeikis. His father is Daniel Joseph Sudeikis, a Vice President of a business development and his mother is Kathryn (née Wendt), a travel agent at Brennco and President of the American Society of Travel Agents. He is of Lithuanian, Irish and German ancestry. He has two younger sisters, Lindsay, a high school teacher and basketball coach, and, Kristen Sudeikis, an actress and dancer in New York City. His maternal uncle is actor George Wendt.
Sudeikis grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, where he attended Brookridge Elementary School, before transferring to Holy Cross Catholic School. In 1990, he attended Jesuit Rockhurst High School, later transferring to Shawnee Mission West High School. He attended Fort Scott Community College on a basketball scholarship, but left before finishing. He began performing improvisational comedy at ComedySportz (now called Comedy City) in Kansas City.
Sudeikis moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he studied at the Annoyance Theatre and ImprovOlympic, and was one of the founding members of the long-form team, J.T.S. Brown (1998). He performed with Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was later cast in The Second City's National Touring Company. In the early 2000s, he became a founding member of The Second City Las Vegas.
In 2003, Sudeikis was hired as a sketch writer for Saturday Night Live (1975) and would occasionally make bit appearances as audience members or extras. In May 2005, he became a featured player and was upgraded to repertory status in 2006. In July 2013, Sudeikis announced that he was leaving SNL, but still occasionally makes appearances.
Sudeikis is known for starring in the films, Horrible Bosses (2011), Hall Pass (2011), We're the Millers (2013), Horrible Bosses 2 (2014), Sleeping with Other People (2015), Mother's Day (2016), Masterminds (2015), The Book of Love (2016), Colossal (2016) and voicing the character of Red in the animated-comedy, The Angry Birds Movie (2016).
From November 2011 until November 2020, Sudeikis was in a relationship with Olivia Wilde. They have two children, Otis Alexander Sudeikis (born April 20, 2014) and Daisy Josephine Sudeikis (born October 11, 2016).
Recently, Sudeikis has starred in the films, Downsizing (2017), Kodachrome (2017), Driven (2018) and The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019).- Actor
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Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for playing wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD.
Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, to a German mother, Marlene Kassel, and an American father, David Andrew Willis (from Carneys Point, New Jersey), who were then living on a United States military base. His family moved to the U.S. shortly after he was born, and he was raised in Penns Grove, New Jersey, where his mother worked at a bank and his father was a welder and factory worker. Willis picked up an interest for the dramatic arts in high school, and was allegedly "discovered" whilst working in a café in New York City and then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions. While bartending one night, he was seen by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role.
After countless auditions, Willis contributed minor film appearances, usually uncredited, before landing the role of private eye "David Addison" alongside sultry Cybill Shepherd in the hit romantic comedy television series Moonlighting (1985). His sarcastic and wisecracking P.I. is seen by some as a dry run for the role of hard-boiled NYC detective "John McClane" in the monster hit Die Hard (1988), in which Willis' character single-handedly battled a gang of ruthless international thieves in a Los Angeles skyscraper. He reprised the role of McClane in the sequel, Die Hard 2 (1990), set at a snowbound Washington's Dulles International Airport as a group of renegade Special Forces soldiers seek to repatriate a corrupt South American general. Excellent box office returns demanded a further sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), this time co-starring Samuel L. Jackson as a cynical Harlem shop owner unwittingly thrust into assisting McClane during a terrorist bombing campaign on a sweltering day in New York.
Willis found time out from all the action mayhem to provide the voice of "Mikey" the baby in the very popular family comedies Look Who's Talking (1989), and its sequel Look Who's Talking Too (1990) also starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Over the next decade, Willis starred in some very successful films, some very offbeat films and some unfortunate box office flops. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) and Hudson Hawk (1991) were both large scale financial disasters that were savaged by the critics, and both are arguably best left off the CVs of all the actors involved, however Willis was still popular with movie audiences and selling plenty of theatre tickets with the hyper-violent The Last Boy Scout (1991), the darkly humored Death Becomes Her (1992) and the mediocre police thriller Striking Distance (1993).
During the 1990s, Willis also appeared in several independent and low budget productions that won him new fans and praise from the critics for his intriguing performances working with some very diverse film directors. He appeared in the oddly appealing North (1994), as a cagey prizefighter in the Quentin Tarantino directed mega-hit Pulp Fiction (1994), the Terry Gilliam directed apocalyptic thriller 12 Monkeys (1995), the Luc Besson directed sci-fi opus The Fifth Element (1997) and the M. Night Shyamalan directed spine-tingling epic The Sixth Sense (1999).
Willis next starred in the gangster comedy The Whole Nine Yards (2000), worked again with "hot" director M. Night Shyamalan in the less than gripping Unbreakable (2000), and in two military dramas, Hart's War (2002) and Tears of the Sun (2003) that both failed to really fire with movie audiences or critics alike. However, Willis bounced back into the spotlight in the critically applauded Frank Miller graphic novel turned movie Sin City (2005), the voice of "RJ" the scheming raccoon in the animated hit Over the Hedge (2006) and "Die Hard" fans rejoiced to see "John McClane" return to the big screen in the high tech Live Free or Die Hard (2007) aka "Die Hard 4.0".
Willis was married to actress Demi Moore for approximately thirteen years and they share custody to their three daughters.- Music Artist
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Cardi B was born Belcalis Marlenis Almanzar on October 11, 1992 in Manhattan, New York City, New York & raised in The Bronx, New York City, New York. She became an Internet celebrity after several of her posts and videos became popular on Vine and Instagram. From 2015 to 2017, she appeared as a regular cast member on the VH1 reality television series, Love and Hip Hop: New York (2010), which depicted her pursuit of her music aspirations. She released two mixtapes: Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1 & Vol. 2, before signing with label Atlantic Records on early 2017. Her debut studio album, Invasion of Privacy (2018) debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, broke several streaming records, was certified triple platinum by the RIAA and named by Billboard the top female rap album of the 2010s. Critically acclaimed, it won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, making Cardi the only woman to win the award as a solo artist, as well as the first female rap artist in 15 years to be nominated for Album of the Year. It spawned two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100; Bodak Yellow, which made her the second female rapper to top the chart with a solo output-following Lauryn Hill on 1998-and I Like It, which made her the first female rapper to attain multiple number-one songs on the chart. Her Maroon 5 collaboration, Girls Like You made her the only female rapper to top the Hot 100 three times. WAP, the lead single of her second album, expanded her record as the female rapper with the most Hot 100 number-one singles as her fourth leader, and made her the only female rap artist to achieve chart-topping singles in 2 decades (2010s and 2020s).
Recognized by Forbes as one of the most influential female rappers of all time, Cardi's known for her aggressive flow and candid lyrics, which have received widespread media coverage. She's the highest-certified female rapper of all time on the RIAA's Top Artists (Digital Singles) ranking, also appearing among the ten highest-certified female artists and having the top certified song by a female rap artist. She's the only female rapper with multiple billion-streamers on Spotify. Her accolades include a Grammy Award, 8 Billboard Music Awards, 5 Guinness World Records, 4 American Music Awards, 11 BET Hip Hop Awards & 2 ASCAP Songwriter of the Year awards. In 2018, Time included her on their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.- Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A lifetime member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a U.S. senator from the state of Missouri from 1935 to 1945. He was chosen as incumbent president Franklin D. Roosevelt's running mate for the 1944 presidential election. Truman was inaugurated as the 34th vice president in 1945 and served for less than three months until President Roosevelt died. Now serving as president, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of communism. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the Conservative Coalition that dominated the Congress.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former waitress/bartender, came to national attention in 2018 when she won her first run for political office, defeating ten-term incumbent Rep. Joseph Crowley in the primary election for the Democratic Party nomination for New York's 14th Congressional District and then won the seat in the general election. She previously worked on the Bernie Sanders campaign during the 2016 US Presidential Election. She was born and raised in the Bronx.- Producer
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American actor Mark Wahlberg is one of a handful of respected entertainers who successfully made the transition from teen pop idol to acclaimed actor. A Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee for The Departed (2006) who went on to receive positive critical reviews for his performance in The Fighter (2010), Wahlberg also is a solid comedy actor, proven by his starring role in Ted (2012).
Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg was born June 5, 1971 in a poor working class district, Dorchester, of Boston, Massachusetts. He is the son of Alma Elaine (Donnelly), a nurse's aide and clerk, and Donald Edward Wahlberg, a delivery driver. Wahlberg is the youngest of nine children. He is of Swedish (from his paternal grandfather), French-Canadian, English, Irish and Scottish, descent. The large Wahlberg brood didn't have a lot growing up, especially after his parents divorced when he was eleven. The kids crammed into a three-bedroom apartment, none of them having very much privacy. Mark's mother has said that after the divorce, she became very self-absorbed with her own life. She has blamed herself for her son's subsequent problems and delinquency. Wahlberg dropped out of high school at age fourteen (but later got his GED) to pursue a life of petty crime and drugs. He'd spend his days scamming and stealing, working on the odd drug deal before treating himself to the substances.
The young man also had a violent streak - one which was often aimed at minorities. At age sixteen, he was convicted of assault against two Vietnamese men after he had tried to rob them. As a result of his assault conviction, he was sentenced to serve 50 days in prison at Deer Island penitentiary. Whilst there, he began working out to pass time and, when he emerged at the end of his sentence, he had gone from being a scrawny young kid to a buff young man. Wahlberg also credits jail time as being his motivation to improve his lifestyle and leave crime behind him.
Around this time, his older brother Donnie Wahlberg had become an overnight teen idol as a member of the 1980s boy band New Kids on the Block. A precursor to the boy-band craze, the group was dominating the charts and were on top of their game. Mark himself had been an original member of the band but had backed out early on - uncomfortable with the squeaky clean image of the group. Donnie used his connections in the music business to help his little brother secure a recording contract, and soon the world was introduced to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, with Wahlberg as a bad-boy rapper who danced in his boxers. Despite a lack of singing ability, promoters took to his dance moves and a physique they knew teenage girls would love.
Donnie scripted some easy songs for Mark, who collected a troupe of dancers and a DJ to become his "Funky Bunch" and "Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch" was born. His debut album, "Music for the People", was a smash hit, which was propelled along by the rapper's willingness to disrobe down to boxer-briefs on stage, not to mention several catchy tunes. Teenage girls thrilled to the rapping "bad boy". Record producer David Geffen saw in Wahlberg a cash-cow of marketing ability. After speaking to designer Calvin Klein, Marky Mark was set up as the designer's chief underwear model.
His scantily clad figure soon adorned billboards across the nation. Ironically, while the New Kids on the Block's fame was dwindling as audiences tired of their syrupy lyrics, "Marky Mark's" bad boy image was becoming even more of a commodity. He was constantly in the headlines (often of the tabloids) after multiple scandals. In 1992, he released a book dedicated to his penis. Wahlberg was constantly getting into rumored fights, most memorably with Madonna and her entourage at a Los Angeles party. While things were always intense, they were relatively harmless and made for enjoyable reading for the public. However, when the story of his arrest for assault (and the allegations of racism) broke in the press, things took on a decidedly darker note. People were not amused. Soon after, while on a British talk show along with rapper Shabba Ranks, he got into even more trouble. After Ranks made the statement that gays should be crucified, Wahlberg was accused of condoning the comments by his silence. Marky Mark was suddenly surrounded by charges of brutality, homophobia and racial hatred. His second album, "You Gotta Believe", had not been faring well and, after the charges surfaced, it plummeted from the charts.
Adding to the hoopla, Wahlberg was brought to court for allegedly assaulting a security guard. He was ordered to make amends by appearing in a series of anti-bias advertisements. Humbled and humiliated by his fall from grace in the music world, Wahlberg decided to pursue another angle, acting. He dropped the "Marky Mark" moniker and became known simply as Mark Wahlberg. His first big screen role came in Penny Marshall's Renaissance Man (1994). Despite the name change, many people snickered at the idea of the has-been rapper thinking he could make it as an actor. From the get-go, he was proving them wrong. In Renaissance Man (1994), he gave an utterly charming performance as a simple but sincere army recruit. What naysayers remained found it increasingly difficult to write Mark Wahlberg off as he delivered one fine performance after another. He blew them away in the controversial The Basketball Diaries (1995) and chilled them in Fear (1996) as every father's worst nightmare.
The major turning point in Wahlberg's career came with the role of troubled porn star Dirk Diggler in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997). Since then, Wahlberg has chosen roles that demonstrate a wide range of dramatic ability, starring in critically acclaimed dramas such as Three Kings (1999) and The Perfect Storm (2000), popcorn flicks like Planet of the Apes (2001) and Contraband (2012), and even indies such as I Heart Huckabees (2004).
Wahlberg was the executive producer of such television series as Boardwalk Empire (2010), In Treatment (2008) and the highly successful comedy Entourage (2004), which was partly based on his experiences in Hollywood.
Wahlberg and his wife Rhea Durham have four children.- Actor
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Donald Edmond "Donnie" Wahlberg Jr. was born on August 17, 1969 in Boston, Massachusetts into a family of Swedish (from his paternal grandfather), Irish, and more distant French-Canadian, English, and Scottish, descent. He is the eighth of nine children of Alma Elaine Conroy (née Donnelly), a nurse's aide and clerk & Donald Edward Wahlberg, a delivery driver. His parents eventually divorced and Donnie, finding himself already in trouble, discovered a positive outlet performing in school plays and became involved in varied aspects of theater -- acting, writing, and directing. At 15, he became a member of the teen vocal group originally called NYNUK. Donnie's little brother, Mark Wahlberg was originally one of the Boys but balked at the direction the group was taking and backed out.
A founding member of the boy band "New Kids on the Block," the five teens survived a false start with their debut album and proceeded to hit #1 with the single "Please Don't Go Girl" on their second in 1988. They continued to bombard the market with one-after-another "Top Ten" hits including "The Right Stuff" and "I'll Be Loving You Forever." Leaving the young girls panting for more, they became one of the hottest young singing/line-dancing groups to hit the late 80s/early 90s. The Boys went on to sell over 70 million albums worldwide, and provoke the spawning of other five-member harmony groups such as Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. During its heyday, Donnie played up his resident "bad boy" persona by tallying up several run-ins with the law, including an alleged arson at a Kentucky hotel (charges were dropped). He also delved into "body art" with numerous tattoos and body piercings in an effort to buck their already-cloying image. Amid intergroup dissension and Milli Vanilli-like charges of not contributing all the vocals to their albums, the pop band finally disbanded in 1994 -- partly out of frustration but also having outgrown the group's juvenile moniker.
Unsure of his direction while attracting more trouble in the tabloids, Donnie, who helped write, arrange and produce brother Mark's Funky Bunch group's first two albums a few years earlier, switched gears. He rapped some and modeled some, then transformed himself into an actor, a route taken earlier by his talented bro. While Mark has turned out to become the bigger film star over the years, Donnie has stepped out of his shadows to receive raves and renewed respect for his own tense and compelling character work.
He first showed up in big screen action. Making his debut as a "tough guy" thug in the Mickey Rourke urban outing Bullet (1996), filmed in 1994 but not released until two years later. Usually cast as an amoral heavy, Donnie moved up the quality ladder with director Ron Howard's thriller Ransom (1996) as part of a gang of kidnappers who nab Mel Gibson's son, to their eventual regret, of course. His next repellent took the form of a drug dealer in the goth indie horror Black Circle Boys (1997), but the film came and went. After a couple of TV movies, he finally nabbed a starring role in the film Southie (1998) playing more or less himself as an Irish-American prodigal son who returns to the mean streets of his native Boston. The movie also featured another brother Robert Wahlberg who also was testing the acting waters.
Ironically, one of Donnie's most powerful roles during this period was also one of his briefest. Seen in the opening sequence, he is nearly unrecognizable (having dropped an alarming amount of weight) portraying a deranged former patient of psychiatrist Bruce Willis whose sudden explosion into unfathomable violence sets up the clever twists and turns that turned M. Night Shyamalan's classic psychological thriller The Sixth Sense (1999) into a critically-acclaimed box office hit. Donnie's opening bit was mouth dropping and jarring in its horror. He also proved he wasn't a flash in the pan by backing up this performance with a major role as a WWII paratrooper in the critically-hailed ten-part epic Band of Brothers (2001), which won multiple Emmy awards (6).
This TV role directly led to his casting as a gritty L.A. detective in the NBC dramatic series Boomtown (2002), an acclaimed series that didn't survive a second season. Since then Donnie has patented his unrefined intensity into a number of films such as Triggermen (2002), Dreamcatcher (2003), Saw II (2005), Annapolis (2006), Saw III (2006), Saw IV (2007) and Zookeeper (2011). He has also clocked in lead roles for such roughhewn TV series as Runaway (2006), The Kill Point (2007), Return of the Mac (2017) and, most notably, as detective Danny Reagan in Blue Bloods (2010).
Donny has two sons, Xavier and Elijah, by first wife Kim Fey, and is married to actress/producer/writer Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg. As a former teen heartthrob seemingly headed down a troubled and dangerous path after his initial success, he somehow managed to avoid the traditional pitfalls of drugs and self-destruction, and has since proven himself an actor with "the right stuff." In addition, the "New Kids on the Block" reteamed in 2007 in recording and book tours. The group received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2014.- Actor
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Christian Michael Leonard Slater was born on August 18, 1969 in New York City, to Michael Hawkins, a well-known soap actor, and Mary Jo Slater (née Lawton), a casting agent. Christian started in show business early, appearing on the soap opera The Edge of Night (1956) in 1976 at the age of 7. He went on to star in many Broadway shows in the early-1980s. He rose to fame in Hollywood after landing the role of Binx Davey in The Legend of Billie Jean (1985). He moved to Los Angeles in 1987 to pursue a further acting career after dropping out of high school. After having a starring role in the cult classic Heathers (1988), he became somewhat known as the Hollywood bad-boy, having many run-ins with the law. He is also well-known for having dated stars such as Winona Ryder, Christina Applegate, Samantha Mathis and was at one time engaged to actress/model Nina Huang. In 2000, he married Ryan Haddon, the daughter of 1970s model Dayle Haddon. The couple have two children, Jaden Christopher (b. 1999) and Eliana Sophia (b. 2001). As of early 2005, they separated and later divorced, but remain dedicated to bring up their children.- Writer
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Daniel Edward Aykroyd was born on July 1, 1952 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Lorraine Hélène (Gougeon), a secretary from a French-Canadian family, and Samuel Cuthbert Peter Hugh Aykroyd, a civil engineer who advised prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Aykroyd attended Carleton University in 1969, where he majored in Criminology and Sociology, but he dropped out before completing his degree. He worked as a comedian in various Canadian nightclubs and managed an after-hours speakeasy, Club 505, in Toronto for several years. He worked with Second City Stage Troupe in Toronto and started his acting career at Carleton University with Sock'n'Buskin, the campus theater/drama club. Married to Donna Dixon since 1983, they have three daughters. His parents are named Peter and Lorraine and his brother Peter Aykroyd is a psychic researcher. Dan received an honorary Doctorate from Carleton University in 1994 and was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998.- Music Artist
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David Bowie was one of the most influential and prolific writers and performers of popular music, but he was much more than that; he was also an accomplished actor, a mime and an intellectual, as well as an art lover whose appreciation and knowledge of it had led to him amassing one of the biggest collections of 20th century art.
Born David Jones, he changed his name to Bowie in the 1960s, to avoid confusion with the then well-known Davy Jones (lead singer of The Monkees). The 1960s were not a happy period for Bowie, who remained a struggling artist, awaiting his breakthrough. He dabbled in many different styles of music (without commercial success), and other art forms such as acting, mime, painting, and play-writing. He finally achieved his commercial breakthrough in 1969 with the song "Space Oddity", which was released at the time of the moon landing. Despite the fact that the literal meaning of the lyrics relates to an astronaut who is lost in space, this song was used by the BBC in their coverage of the moon landing, and this helped it become such a success. The album, which followed "Space Oddity", and the two, which followed (one of which included the song "The Man Who Sold The World", covered by Lulu and Nirvana) failed to produce another hit single, and Bowie's career appeared to be in decline.
However, he made the first of many successful "comebacks" in 1972 with "Ziggy Stardust", a concept album about a space-age rock star. This album was followed by others in a similar vein, rock albums built around a central character and concerned with futuristic themes of Armageddon, gender dysfunction/confusion, as well as more contemporary themes such as the destructiveness of success and fame, and the dangers inherent in star worship. In the mid-1970s, Bowie was a heavy cocaine abuser and sometime heroin user.
In 1975, he changed tack. Musically, he released "Young Americans", a soul (or plastic soul as he later referred to it) album. This produced his first number one hit in the US, "Fame". He also appeared in his first major film, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). With a permanently-dilated pupil and skeletal frame, he certainly looked the part of an alien. The following year, he released "Station to Station," containing some of the material he had written for the soundtrack to this film (which was not used). As his drug problem heightened, his behavior became more erratic. Reports of his insanity started to appear, and he continued to waste away physically. He fled back to Europe, finally settling in Berlin, where he changed musical direction again and recorded three of the most influential albums of all time, an electronic trilogy with Brian Eno "Low, Heroes and Lodger". Towards the end of the 1970s, he finally kicked his drug habit, and recorded the album many of his fans consider his best, the Japanese-influenced "Scary Monsters". Around this time, he appeared in the title role of the Broadway drama The Elephant Man, and to considerable acclaim.
The next few years saw something of a drop-off in his musical output as his acting career flourished, culminating in his acclaimed performance in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983). In 1983, he released "Let's Dance," an album which proved an unexpected massive commercial success, and produced his second #1 hit single in the United States. According to producer Nile Rodgers, the album was made in just 17 days and was "the easiest album" he'd ever made in his life. The tour which followed, "Serious Moonlight", was his most successful ever. Faced with this success on a massive scale, Bowie apparently attempted to "repeat the formula" in the next two albums, with less success (and to critical scorn). Finally, in the late 1980s, he turned his back on commercial success and his solo career, forming the hard rock band, Tin Machine, who had a deliberate limited appeal. By now, his acting career was in decline. After the comparative failure of Labyrinth (1986), the movie industry appears to have decided that Bowie was not a sufficient name to be a lead actor in a major movie, and since that date, most of his roles have been cameos or glorified cameos. Tin Machine toured extensively and released two albums, with little critical or commercial success.
In 1992, Bowie again changed direction and re-launched his solo career with "Black Tie White Noise", a wedding album inspired by his recent marriage to Iman. He released three albums to considerable critical acclaim and reasonable commercial success. In 1995, he renewed his working relationship with Brian Eno to record "Outside." After an initial hostile reaction from the critics, this album has now taken its place with his classic albums. In 2003, Bowie released an album entitled 'Reality.' The Reality Tour began in November 2003 and, after great commercial success, was extended into July 2004. In June 2004, Bowie suffered a heart attack and the tour did not finish its scheduled run.
After recovering, Bowie gave what turned out to be his final live performance in a three-song set with Alicia Keys at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York in November 2006. He also returned to acting. He played Tesla in The Prestige (2006) and had a small cameo in the comedy David Bowie (2006) for fan Ricky Gervais. In 2007, he did a cartoon voice in SpongeBob SquarePants (1999) playing Lord Royal Highness. He had a brief cameo in the movie ''Bandslam'' released in 2009; after a ten year hiatus from recording, he released a new album called 'The Next Day', featuring a homage cover to his earlier work ''Heroes''. The music video of ''Stars are Out Tonight'' premiered on 25 February 2013. It consists of other songs like ''Where Are We Now?", "Valentine's Day", "Love is Lost", "The Next Day", etc.
In 2014, Bowie won British Male Solo Artist at the 2014 Brit Awards, 30 years since last winning it, and became the oldest ever Brit winner. Bowie wrote and recorded the opening title song to the television miniseries The Last Panthers (2015), which aired in November 2015. The theme used for The Last Panthers (2015) was also the title track for his January 2016 release, ''Blackstar" (released on 8 January 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday) was met with critical acclaim. Following Bowie's death two days later, on 10 January 2016, producer Tony Visconti revealed Bowie had planned the album to be his swan song, and a "parting gift" for his fans before his death. An EP, No Plan, was released on 8 January 2017, which would have been Bowie's 70th birthday. The day following his death, online viewing of Bowie's music skyrocketed, breaking the record for Vevo's most viewed artist in a single day.
On 15 January, "Blackstar" debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart; nineteen of his albums were in the UK Top 100 Albums Chart, and thirteen singles were in the UK Top 100 Singles Chart. The song also debuted at #1 on album charts around the world, including Australia, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the US Billboard 200. At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, Bowie won all five nominated awards: Best Rock Performance; Best Alternative Music Album; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Recording Package; and Best Rock Song. The wins marked Bowie's first ever in musical categories. David Bowie influenced the course of popular music several times and had an effect on several generations of musicians.- Music Artist
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Kurt Cobain was born on February 20 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington. Kurt and his family lived in Hoquiam for the first few months of his life then later moved back to Aberdeen, where he had a happy childhood until his parents divorced. The divorce left Kurt's outlook on the world forever scarred. He became withdrawn and anti-social. He was constantly placed with one relative to the next, living with friends, and at times even homeless. Kurt was not the most popular person in high school as he was in public school. In 1985 Kurt left Aberdeen for Olympia where he formed the band Nirvana in 1986. In 1989 Nirvana recorded their debut album Bleach under the independent label Sub-Pop records. Nirvana became very popular in Britain and by 1991 they signed a contract with Geffen. Their next album Nevermind became a 90s masterpiece and made Kurt's Nirvana one of the most successful bands in the world. Kurt became trampled upon with success and found the new lifestyle hard to bear. In February 1992 Kurt married Courtney Love, the woman who was already pregnant with his child, Frances Bean Cobain. Nirvana released their next album Incesticide later that year. The album appealed to many fans due to the liner notes, which expressed Kurt's open-mindedness. In September 1993 Nirvana released their next album, 'In Utero', which topped the charts. On March 4, 1994, Kurt was taken to hospital in a coma. It was officially stated as an accident but many believe it to have been an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Family and friends convinced Kurt to seek rehab. Kurt was said to have fled rehab after only a few days from a missing person's report filed by Courtney Love. On April 8th Kurt's body was found in his Seattle home. In his arms was a shotgun, which had been fired into his head. Near him laid a suicide note written in red ink. It was addressed to his wife Courtney Love and his daughter Frances Bean Cobain. Two days after Kurt's body was discovered people gathered in Seattle, they began setting fires, chanting profanities, and fighting with police officers. They also listened to a tape of Courtney reading sections of the suicide note left by Kurt. The last few words were "I love you, I love you".- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Composer
Widely regarded as the greatest and most influential guitarist in rock history, Jimi Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942 in Seattle, Washington, to African-American parents Lucille (Jeter) and James Allen Hendrix. His mother named him John Allen Hendrix and raised him alone while his father, Al Hendrix, was off fighting in World War II. When his mother became sick from alcoholism, Hendrix was sent to live with relatives in Berkeley, California. When his father returned from Europe in 1945 he took back Hendrix, divorced his wife, and renamed him James Marshall Hendrix.
When Jimi was 13 his father taught him to play an acoustic guitar. In 1959 Jimi dropped out of high school and enlisted in the U.S. Army, but soon became disenchanted with military service. After he broke his ankle during a training parachute jump, he was honorably discharged. He then went to work as a sideman on the rhythm-and-blues circuit, honing his craft but making little or no money. Jimi got restless being a sideman and moved to New York City hoping to get a break in the music business. Through his friend Curtis Knight, Jimi discovered the music scene in Greenwich Village, which left indelible impressions on him. It was here that he began taking drugs, among them marijuana, pep pills and cocaine.
In 1966, while Jimi was performing with his own band called James & the Blue Flames at Cafe Wha?, John Hammond Jr. approached Jimi about the Flames playing backup for him at Cafe Au Go Go. Jimi agreed and during the show's finale, Hammond let Jimi cut loose on Bo Diddley's "I'm the Man." Linda Keith, girlfriend of The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, was one of Jimi's biggest fans and it was she who told friend Chas Chandler, a band manager, about Jimi. When Chandler heard Jimi play, he asked him to come to London to form his own band, and while there Chandler made the simple change in Jimi's name by formally dropping James and replacing it with Jimi. Having settled in England with a new band called the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which consisted of Jimi as guitarist and lead singer, bass player Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, Jimi took the country by storm with the release of his first single "Hey, Joe."
In the summer of 1967 Jimi performed back in the USA at the Monterey Pop Festival, a mix-up backstage forced Jimi to follow The Who onstage, where after a superb performance Jimi tore up the house by trashing his guitar in a wild frenzy. Afterwards, Jimi's career skyrocketed with the release of the Experience's first two albums, "Are You Experienced?" and "Axis: Bold as Love," which catapulted him to the top of the charts. However, tensions, possibly connected with Jimi's drug use and the constant presence of hangers-on in the studio and elsewhere, began to fracture some of his relationships, including Chas Chandler, who quit as manager in February 1968.
In September 1968 the Experience released their most successful album, "Electric Ladyland." However, in early 1969 bassist Redding left the Experience and was replaced by Billy Cox, an old army buddy who Jimi had jammed with. Jimi began experimenting with different musicians. For the Woodstock music festival Jimi put together an outfit called the Gypsies, Sun and Rainbows, with Mitchell and Cox as well as a second guitarist and two percussionists. Their one and only performance in August 1969 at Woodstock took place near Bethel, New York, where Hendrix and his band were to be the closing headline act. Because of the delay getting there and the logistical problems, Jimi performed on the morning of the fourth and final day. Only 25,000 people of the original 400,000 stayed to watch Jimi and his band as the closing music number, where Jimi's searing rendering of "The Star-Spangled Banner" became the anthem for counterculture.
After Woodstock, Jimi formed a new band with Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums with the May 1970 release of the album "The Band of Gypsys." Jimi's last album, "Cry of Love", featured Cox on bass and former Experience drummer Mitchell on drums. However, Jimi's drug problem finally caught up with him. On the night of September 17, 1970, while living in London, Jimi took some sleeping pills, which were prescribed for his live-in girlfriend Monika Danneman. Sometime after midnight, Jimi threw up from an apparent allergic reaction to the pills and then passed out. Danneman, thinking him to be all right, went out to get cigarettes for them. When she returned, she found him lying where he collapsed, having inhaled his own vomit, and and she couldn't wake him. Danneman called an ambulance, which took him to a nearby hospital, but Jimi Hendrix was pronounced dead a short while later without regaining consciousness. He was 27 years old.
Jimi Hendrix's life was short, but his impact on the rock guitar is still being heard and set the course for a new era of rock music.- Actor
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- Music Department
Dennis William Quaid was born on April 9, 1954 in Houston, Texas to Juanita Bonniedale "Nita" Quaid (née Jordan), a real estate agent & William Rudy Quaid, an electrician. He grew up in the Houston suburban city of Bellaire. He was raised a Baptist, and studied drama, Mandarin Chinese, and dance while a student at Bellaire High School. He continued study at the University of Houston, but dropped out before completing his degree. He moved to Los Angeles to pursue a film career where his brother, Randy Quaid, had already began to build a successful career. However, Dennis initially had trouble finding film roles, but began to gain notice when he appeared in Breaking Away (1979) and earned strong reviews for his role in The Right Stuff (1983). Aside from acting, Quaid is also a musician, and plays with his band, "The Sharks". He holds a flying license and is a five handicap golfer.- Manu Ginóbili was born on 28 July 1977 in Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is an actor, known for The Equalizer 2 Promo (2018), The NBA on TNT (1988) and León, reflejos de una pasión (2015). He has been married to Marianela Orono since 11 July 2004. They have three children.
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Current ABC/ESPN analyst and former 13-year NBA star Jalen Rose is one of the few professional athletes to maintain a high profile post retirement. Long known for his post-game quotes and great relationship with the media, Jalen continues to show his versatility in the broadcast booth, in the entertainment world and as a philanthropist.
Jalen was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, where he attended Southwestern High School and the University of Michigan. In college he was part of the legendary "Fab Five" where he and his teammates revolutionized the sport of basketball on the court and off by wearing baggy uniform shorts, black socks and black shoes. The first team in Final Four history to ever start five freshmen, they led the Wolverines to back to back NCAA Championship game appearances. In 1994, Jalen was drafted in the first round by the Denver Nuggets. Notable highlights from his thirteen-year NBA career include winning the NBA's "Most Improved Player" and "Player of the Week" awards in 2000 and "Eastern Conference Player of the Week" accolades in 2005. As a member of the Indiana Pacers, his team appeared in three straight eastern conference finals including a trip to the NBA Finals in 2000. In 2003, he was honored with the Professional Basketball Writers Association Magic Johnson Award. Jalen was inducted into the Detroit High School Hall of Fame in 2013 and Michigan Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.
While many basketball stars make the transition to the small screen after they hang up their basketball kicks, Jalen made the bold leap in the midst of his NBA career in 2002, becoming a multi-faceted reporter for BET Mad Sports and an on-air personality for Fox Sports Net's famed Best Damn Sports Show Period. Working with the Best Damn Sports Show Period for six years, the budding broadcast star developed his own lifestyle-oriented "Jammin' With Jalen" segment. Shortly after retiring from basketball in 2007, Jalen - a mass communications major at U of M who ultimately earned his Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland University College - went full throttle pursuing his passion in the multi-media, sports and entertainment world, signing with ABC/ESPN as an analyst. Covering a wide range of current events in the landscape of sports, he's appeared on the network's flagship shows SportsCenter, Mike and Mike in the Morning, First Take, SportsNation, Outside the Lines and Numbers Never Lie, as well as the basketball related shows Coast to Coast, NBA Tonight and College Game Day. In 2012, Jalen was named a studio analyst for NBA Countdown - ABC and ESPN's pre-game show.
On September 28, 2015, ESPN Radio launched Jalen & Jacoby, a primetime national weekday program (7 -9 p.m.) co-hosted by Rose and ESPN senior producer/commentator David Jacoby. Jalen & Jacoby, which features Rose and Jacoby breaking down the latest news in sports and pop culture, began as a passion project of the same name in 2011 and was promoted to a full show due to its popularity. On January 28, 2016, Jalen & Jacoby added a TV version of their show on ESPN2 which is comprised of segments from the radio show. Their chemistry, catchphrases and devoted following has led them to have the most downloaded sports podcast (per episode) as well as the most watched sport podcast on the internet.
In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter named Jalen the most influential media voice in the NBA with the title of "The Smartest Specialist" and Jalen was also voted the #2 most-liked basketball personality in an online poll.
In 2000, Jalen established the Jalen Rose Foundation/Charitable Fund to create life-changing opportunities for underserved youth through the development of unique programs and the distribution of grants to qualified nonprofit organizations. Grants focus on education and sports and are distributed in Jalen's hometown of Detroit as well as other communities in need.
Jalen's most substantial outreach initiative to date is the establishment of the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy (JRLA). The Academy opened its doors in September 2011 and is an open enrollment, tuition free, public charter high school on the Northwest side of Detroit. The Academy currently serves over 400 ninth through twelfth grade students and graduated its inaugural class in June 2015 - one hundred percent of the Academy's graduates have gained college, trade/technical school or military acceptance. The mission is to provide a leadership-focused experience within a high-performing high school that engages and inspires Detroit area youth to achieve at the rigorous level necessary to ultimately graduate with a college degree and thrive in life. Jalen is the founder of JRLA and serves as the President of the Board of Directors.
A philanthropist who truly gives from the heart, Jalen has personally donated nearly $2 million via his charitable fund and to support his charter school in his hometown. In a movement to transform public education, he is also an Ambassador for the American Federation for Children.
The Detroit News has recognized Jalen with the prestigious Michiganian of the Year Award in recognition of his excellence, courage and philanthropy to uplift not only the metropolitan area but all of Michigan. In 2016, he was awarded the 11th Annual National Civil Rights Museum Sports Legacy Award for his significant contributions to civil and human rights, and for laying the foundation for future leaders through his career in sports in the spirit of Dr. King. In addition, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame awarded Jalen with the 2016 Mannie Jackson - Basketball's Human Spirit Award. This prestigious honor is only awarded to those with this highest level of dedication to making a positive impact off the court.
In 2007, Jalen created Three Tier Entertainment (TTE), a LA based production and management company. TTE is committed to creating an artistic haven for actors, writers and directors. TTE produces smart, provocative commercial projects with a worldwide mass appeal for film, Television and the web. In 2011, TTE executive produced ESPN's highest rated documentary "The Fab Five."
Jalen released his first book in October 2015. One of the most outspoken and original voices in sports sounds off while revealing his incredible life story in Got to Give the People What They Want. This colorful collection of stories and opinions about basketball and life gives people the kind of insight and understanding they don't get anywhere else in the sports world. GTGTPWTW is a New York Times Bestseller and made the list of Michigan Notable Books from 2016.
In 2016 and 2017, Jalen appeared on To Tell The Truth as a panelist. Hosted by Anthony Anderson, To Tell The Truth is an anarchic and funny re-imagination of the beloved, game show of the same name. He's also appeared on Celebrity Family Feud (2016) and Celebrity Wheel of Fortune (2003).
In 2017, Jalen starred in a single-cam pilot episode from writer-creator Nahnatchka Khan (Fresh Off the Boat) that aired on ESPN. Jalen vs. Everybody also starred Anna Maria Horsford, Marla Gibbs, Kelly Jenrette, Laysla de Oliveira, Jessica McKenna and Rich Sommer. It followed the former NBA star and current radio/TV personality Rose as he juggled his career responsibilities with the challenges of being a single dad.
A familiar face to the big screen, Jalen has also appeared on Fresh Off The Boat and The Game, as well as made cameos in The Cookout 2, Just Wright and Barbershop.
A true play-maker on the court while charming and fashionable off the court, Jalen has been recognized for his style on numerous occasions including being voted one of the NBA's best dressed players. Jalen has proved to be more than just a professional athlete making him an all-around superstar on and off the hardwood. This mogul will always be known as "The Natural."- Actress
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As the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016, and with her films grossing over $5.5 billion worldwide, Jennifer Lawrence is often cited as the most successful actress of her generation. She is also the first person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar.
Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born August 15, 1990, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Karen (Koch), who manages a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who works in construction. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine, and has English, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Her career began when she traveled to Manhattan at the age of fourteen after dropping out of the 8th grade. After conducting her first cold read, agents told her mother that "it was the best cold read by a 14-year-old they had ever heard," and tried to convince her stage mother that she needed to spend the summer in Manhattan. After leaving the agency, Jennifer was spotted by an agent in the midst of shooting an H&M ad and asked to take her picture. The next day, that agent followed up with her and invited her to the studio for a cold-read audition. Again, the agents were highly impressed and strongly urged her mother to allow her to spend the summer in New York City. As fate would have it, she did and subsequently appeared in commercials such as MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" and played a role in the movie The Devil You Know (2013).
Shortly thereafter, her career forced her and her family to move to Los Angeles, where she was cast in the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007), and in smaller movies such as The Poker House (2008) and The Burning Plain (2008).
Her big break came when she played Ree in Winter's Bone (2010), which landed her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Shortly thereafter, she secured the role of Mystique in franchise reboot X-Men: First Class (2011), which went on to be a hit in Summer 2011. Around this time, Lawrence scored the role of a lifetime when she was cast as Katniss Everdeen in the big-screen adaptation of literary sensation The Hunger Games (2012). The film went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies ever, with over $407 million at the US box office, and instantly propelled Lawrence to the A-list among young actors and actresses. Three Hunger Games sequels were released in each consecutive November: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014), and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015), with Lawrence reprising her role.
In 2012, the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Satellite Award, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress, among other accolades, making her the youngest person ever to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress and the second-youngest Best Actress winner.
She starred in David O. Russell's popular drama-comedy American Hustle (2013), as Roselyn Rosenfield, and teamed with the director again to play inventor Joy Mangano in another family comedy, Joy (2015), for which she earned Oscar nominations for both roles (Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively).- Actress
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Caitlyn Marie Jenner was born William Bruce Jenner on October 28, 1949 in Mount Kisco, New York and raised in Sleepy Hollow, New York to Esther Jenner & William Jenner. Jenner played college football for the Graceland Yellowjackets before incurring a knee injury that required surgery. Convinced by Olympic decathlete Jack Parker's coach, L.D. Weldon, to try the decathlon, Jenner had a six-year decathlon career, culminating in winning the men's decathlon event at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, setting a third successive world record and gaining fame as "an all-American hero". Given the unofficial title of "world's greatest athlete", Jenner established a career in television, film, writing, auto racing, business, and as a Playgirl cover model.
Jenner has six children with three successive wives-Chrystie Crownover, Linda Thompson, and Kris Jenner-and from 2007 to 2021 appeared on the reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians with Kris, their daughters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, and Kris's other children Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, and Rob Kardashian.
Jenner publicly came out as a trans woman in April 2015, announcing her new name in July. From 2015 to 2016, she starred in the reality television series I Am Cait, which focused on her gender transition. She has been called the most famous transgender woman in the world. Jenner is a transgender rights activist, although her views on transgender issues have been criticized by many other trans and LGBTQ+ activists.
A member of the Republican Party, she ran as a replacement candidate in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election. The recall failed, and she only received 1% of the vote, finishing in 13th place among the candidates running to replace governor Gavin Newsom. 6 months after the election, Jenner was hired by Fox News as an on-air contributor.- Actress
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Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. After appearing in summer stock for several months, she got her first major stage role in the Broadway rock musical "Hair". As understudy to the lead, she gained attention by not removing any of her clothing. In 1968, Woody Allen cast her in his Broadway play "Play It Again, Sam," which had a successful run. It was during this time that she became involved with Allen and appeared in a number of his films. The first one was Play It Again, Sam (1972), the screen adaptation of the stage play. That same year Francis Ford Coppola cast her as Kay in the Oscar-winning The Godfather (1972), and she was on her way to stardom. She reprized that role in the film's first sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974). She then appeared with Allen again in Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975).
In 1977, she broke away from her comedy image to appear in the chilling Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), which won her a Golden Globe nomination. It was the same year that she appeared in what many regard as her best performance, in the title role of Annie Hall (1977), which Allen wrote specifically for her (her real last name is Hall, and her nickname is Annie), and what an impact she made. She won the Oscar and the British Award for Best Actress, and Allen won the Directors Award from the DGA. She started a fashion trend with her unisex clothes and was the poster girl for a lot of young males. Her mannerisms and awkward speech became almost a national craze. The question being asked, though, was, "Is she just a lightweight playing herself, or is there more depth to her personality?" For whatever reason, she appeared in but one film a year for the next two years and those films were by Allen. When they broke up she was next involved with Warren Beatty and appeared in his film Reds (1981), as the bohemian female journalist Louise Bryant. For her performance, she received nominations for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe. For the rest of the 1980s she appeared infrequently in films but won nominations in three of them. Attempting to break the typecasting she had fallen into, she took on the role of a confused, somewhat naive woman who becomes involved with Middle Eastern terrorists in The Little Drummer Girl (1984). To offset her lack of movie work, Diane began directing. She directed the documentary Heaven (1987), as well as some music videos. For television she directed an episode of the popular, but strange, Twin Peaks (1990).
In the 1990s, she began to get more mature roles, though she reprized the role of Kay Corleone in the third "Godfather" epic, The Godfather Part III (1990). She appeared as the wife of Steve Martin in the hit Father of the Bride (1991) and again in Father of the Bride Part II (1995). In 1993 she once again teamed with Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), which was well received. In 1995 she received high marks for Unstrung Heroes (1995), her first major feature as a director.- Actress
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Emma Thompson was born on April 15, 1959 in Paddington, London, into a family of actors - father Eric Thompson and mother Phyllida Law, who has co-starred with Thompson in several films. Her sister, Sophie Thompson, is an actor as well. Her father was English-born and her mother is Scottish-born. Thompson's wit was cultivated by a cheerful, clever, creative family atmosphere, and she was a popular and successful student. She attended Cambridge University, studying English Literature, and was part of the university's Footlights Group, the famous group where, previously, many of the Monty Python members had first met.
Thompson graduated in 1980 and embarked on her career in entertainment, beginning with stints on BBC radio and touring with comedy shows. She soon got her first major break in television, on the comedy skit program Alfresco (1983), writing and performing along with her fellow Footlights Group alums Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. She also worked on other TV comedy review programs in the mid-1980s, occasionally with some of her fellow Footlights alums, and often with actor Robbie Coltrane.
Thompson found herself collaborating again with Fry in 1985, this time in his stage adaptation of the play "Me and My Girl" in London's West End, in which she had a leading role, playing Sally Smith. The show was a success and she received favorable reviews, and the strength of her performance led to her casting as the lead in the BBC television miniseries Fortunes of War (1987), in which Thompson and her co-star, Kenneth Branagh, play an English ex-patriate couple living in Eastern Europe as the Second World War erupts. Thompson won a BAFTA Award for her work on the program. She married Branagh in 1989, continued to work with him professionally, and formed a production company with him. In the late 80s and early 90s, she starred in a string of well-received and successful television and film productions, most notably her lead role in the Merchant-Ivory production of Howards End (1992), which confirmed her ability to carry a movie on both sides of the Atlantic and appropriately showered her with trans-Atlantic honors - both an Oscar and a BAFTA award.
Since then, Thompson has continued to move effortlessly between the art film world and mainstream Hollywood, though even her Hollywood roles tend to be in more up-market productions. She continues to work on television as well, but is generally very selective about which roles she takes. She writes for the screen as well, such as the screenplay for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), in which she also starred as Elinor Dashwood, and the teleplay adaptation of Margaret Edson's acclaimed play Wit (2001), in which she also starred.
Thompson is known for her sophisticated, skillful, though her critics say somewhat mannered, performances, and of course for her arch wit, which she is unafraid to point at herself - she is a fearless self-satirist. Thompson and Branagh divorced in 1994, and Thompson is now married to fellow actor Greg Wise, who had played Willoughby in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). Thompson and Wise have one child, Gaia, born in 1999. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama.- Actor
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Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor, singer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer and producer. Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as superhero, period, and romance characters. He is best known for his long-running role as Wolverine in the X-Men film series, as well as for his lead roles in the romantic-comedy fantasy Kate & Leopold (2001), the action-horror film Van Helsing (2004), the drama The Prestige and The Fountain (2006), the epic historical romantic drama Australia (2008), the film version of Les Misérables (2012), and the thriller Prisoners (2013). His work in Les Misérables earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in 2013. In Broadway theatre, Jackman won a Tony Award for his role in The Boy from Oz. A four-time host of the Tony Awards themselves, he won an Emmy Award for one of these appearances. Jackman also hosted the 81st Academy Awards on 22 February 2009.
Jackman was born in Sydney, New South Wales, to Grace McNeil (Greenwood) and Christopher John Jackman, an accountant. He is the youngest of five children. His parents, both English, moved to Australia shortly before his birth. He also has Greek (from a great-grandfather) and Scottish (from a grandmother) ancestry.
Jackman has a communications degree with a journalism major from the University of Technology Sydney. After graduating, he pursued drama at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, immediately after which he was offered a starring role in the ABC-TV prison drama Correlli (1995), opposite his future wife Deborra-Lee Furness. Several TV guest roles followed, as an actor and variety compere. An accomplished singer, Jackman has starred as Gaston in the Australian production of "Beauty and the Beast." He appeared as Joe Gillis in the Australian production of "Sunset Boulevard." In 1998, he was cast as Curly in the Royal National Theatre's production of Trevor Nunn's Oklahoma. Jackman has made two feature films, the second of which, Erskineville Kings (1999), garnered him an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actor in 1999. Recently, he won the part of Logan/Wolverine in the Bryan Singer- directed comic-book movie X-Men (2000). In his spare time, Jackman plays piano, golf, and guitar, and likes to windsurf.- Writer
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James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his screenwriting ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and had his first experience as a director with a two week stint on Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) before being fired.
He then wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton. It was a low budget independent film, but Cameron's superb, dynamic direction made it a surprise mainstream success and it is now regarded as one of the most iconic pictures of the 1980s. After this came a string of successful, bigger budget science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). In 1990, Cameron formed his own production company, Lightstorm Entertainment. In 1997, he wrote and directed Titanic (1997), a romance epic about two young lovers from different social classes who meet on board the famous ship. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned eleven Academy Awards. It became the highest grossing movie of all time until 12 years later, Avatar (2009), which invented and pioneered 3D film technology, and it went on to beat "Titanic", and became the first film to cost two billion dollars until 2019 when Marvel took the record.
James Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. In 2000, he married actress Suzy Amis, who appeared in Titanic, and they have three children.- Actor
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Mark Hamill is best known for his portrayal of Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy - Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) - a role he reprised in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) and Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019). He also starred and co-starred in the films Corvette Summer (1978), The Big Red One (1980), and Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014). Hamill's extensive voice acting work includes a long-standing role as the Joker, commencing with Batman: The Animated Series (1992).
Hamill was born in Oakland, California, to Virginia Suzanne (Johnson) and William Thomas Hamill, a captain in the United States Navy. He majored in drama at Los Angeles City College and made his acting debut on The Bill Cosby Show (1969). He then played a recurring role (Kent Murray) on the soap opera General Hospital (1963) and co-starred on the comedy series The Texas Wheelers (1974).
Released on May 25, 1977, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) was an enormous unexpected success and made a huge impact on the film industry. Hamill also appeared in The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) and later starred in the successful sequels Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). For both of the sequels, Hamill was honored with the Saturn Award for Best Actor given by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. He reprised the role of Luke Skywalker for the radio dramatizations of both "Star Wars" (1981) and "The Empire Strikes Back" (1983), and then in a starring role in Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017). For the radio dramatization of "Return of the Jedi" (1996), the role was played by a different actor.
He voiced the new Chucky in Child's Play (2019), taking over from Brad Dourif.- Actor
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Born in Los Angeles but raised in Manhattan and educated at Middlebury College and Carnegie-Mellon University, James Cromwell is the son of film director John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson. He studied acting at Carnegie-Mellon, and went into the theatre (like his parents) doing everything from Shakespeare to experimental plays. He started appearing on television in 1974, gaining some notice in a recurring role as Archie Bunker's friend Stretch Cunningham on All in the Family (1971), made his film debut in 1976, and goes back to the stage periodically. Some of his more noted film roles have been in Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and the surprise classic about a charming pig, Babe (1995). He garnered some of the best reviews of his career (many of which said he should have received an Oscar) for his role as a corrupt, conniving police captain in L.A. Confidential (1997).- Producer
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Jay Leno began his career in night clubs, where he worked 300 nights a year before hitting it big in 1992 with his own late-night talk show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992). By that time he had appeared on television, acted in a few films (American Hot Wax (1978)) but hit paydirt with his late-night television appearances (he made a record number of visits to [error]); for several years, he served as Johnny Carson's permanent guest host on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962). A big, sweet guy with a very good comedy routine, he vied with David Letterman to inherit Carson's seat when Johnny retired in 1992. His victory was well-publicized, but empty, though he did gain a measure of revenge when his show beat Letterman's for the Emmy in 1995. Though he consistently lost in the ratings to Letterman except on special occasions, like Hugh Grant's first TV appearance after his encounter with Divine Brown, he surged ahead in 1996, as CBS plunged further into oblivion.- Actor
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Jeremy Lee Renner was born in Modesto, California, the son of Valerie (Tague) and Lee Renner, who managed a bowling alley. After a tumultuous yet happy childhood with his four younger siblings, Renner graduated from Beyer High School and attended Modesto Junior College. He explored several areas of study, including computer science, criminology, and psychology, before the theater department, with its freedom of emotional expression, drew him in.
However, Renner recognized the potential in acting as much through the local police academy as through drama classes. During his second year at Modesto Junior College, Renner role-played a domestic disturbance perpetrator as part of a police-training exercise for an easy $50. Deciding to shift his focus away from schoolwork, Renner left college and moved to San Francisco to study at the American Conservatory Theater. From there he moved to Hawaii and, in 1993, to Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, Renner devoted himself to theater, most notably starring in and co-directing the critically acclaimed "Search and Destroy." He pursued other projects during this time as well, landing his first film role in 1995's National Lampoon's Senior Trip (1995). After several commercials and supporting roles in television movies and series, Renner captured the attention of critics with his gripping, complex portrayal of the infamous serial killer in the 2002 film Dahmer (2002). Renner's performance, which earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination, is especially remarkable for painting a humane and sympathetic, yet deeply disturbing, portrait of the title character.
In 2003, Renner took a break from small indie films to work on his first commercially successful movie, S.W.A.T. (2003), with Colin Farrell. In 2005, he played the leading role in Neo Ned (2005) as an institutionalized white supremacist in love with a black girl, winning the Palm Beach International Film Festival's best actor award. Renner's pivotal supporting roles in 2005's 12 and Holding (2005) and North Country (2005) earned him accolades from critics, and his 2007 turn in Take (2007) garnered him the best actor award at California's Independent Film Festival. Also in 2007, Renner played a leading role in the horror film 28 Weeks Later (2007) as well as a supporting role in the underrated Western epic The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), with Casey Affleck, Brad Pitt, and Sam Rockwell.
Renner's depiction of Jeffrey Dahmer in 2002 caught the attention of director Kathryn Bigelow, and, in 2008, she cast him in his most famous role as Sergeant First Class William James in The Hurt Locker (2008). Renner's performance as a single-minded bomb specialist scored him an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He also earned best actor nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards, the Screen Actors Guild, and the BAFTA Awards, as well as wins in this category from several film critics groups.
In 2009, Renner starred in the short-lived TV series, The Unusuals (2009), and in 2010 he played the chilling but loyal criminal Jem in Ben Affleck bank-heist thriller The Town (2010). In the fall of 2010, Renner began filming Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). He has also since starred in The Avengers (2012), American Hustle (2013), and Kill the Messenger (2014).
Renner's strengths as an actor derive not only from his expressive eyes but also from his ability to thoroughly embody the characters he portrays. His visceral depiction of these individuals captivates audiences and empowers him to steal scenes in many of his films, even when playing a minor role. Renner gravitates toward flawed, complicated, three-dimensional characters that allow him to explore new territory within himself.
In addition to his work as an actor, Renner continues to cultivate his lifelong love of music. A singer, songwriter, and musician, he performed with the band Sons of Ben early in his career. Scenes in Love Comes to the Executioner (2006), North Country (2005), and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) briefly showcase Renner's singing talents.
Despite traveling the world for film roles and, recently, as a United Nations Goodwill Peace Ambassador to raise awareness for mine-clearing efforts in Afghanistan, Renner remains close to his roots. In 2010, Modesto Junior College presented him the Distinguished Alumnus award in recognition of his body of work as an actor. He also headlined at a benefit for Modesto's Gallo Center for the Arts in the fall of 2010.
Renner maintains a sense of humility and gratitude, even in the wake of his recent successes and recognition. He keeps himself grounded by renovating and restoring old and rundown iconic Hollywood homes, an enterprise he began back in his early days in Los Angeles. He values loyalty and a sense of both age and history, and enjoys the opportunity to help conserve these qualities in a town that favors the young and the new.- Actor
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John McEnroe is a former professional American tennis player, born in Wiesbaden, West Germany in 1959.
Breaking many records, McEnroe is regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, though he is perhaps equally, if not more known, for his losses of temper on the court. His outbursts became so infamous that he titled his 2002 autobiography "You cannot be serious" after his most-known phrase, and observed in the book as he got older that: "There were times I felt like an old circus act, in a show that was attracting less and less interest. "
Since retiring from the sport, McEnroe has worked as a commentator, and often parodied his own public persona, playing fictional versions of himself in commercials, and movies including You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008), Anger Management (2003) and Jack and Jill (2011).
McEnroe was formerly married to actress Tatum O'Neal from 1986 to 1994, and is presently married to singer Patty Smyth.- Actress
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One of the brightest, most tragic movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, Judy Garland was a much-loved character whose warmth and spirit, along with her rich and exuberant voice, kept theatre-goers entertained with an array of delightful musicals.
She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in Minnesota, the youngest daughter of vaudevillians Ethel Marian (Milne) and Francis Avent "Frank" Gumm. She was of English, along with some Scottish and Irish, descent. Her mother, an ambitious woman gifted in playing various musical instruments, saw the potential in her daughter at the tender age of just 2 years old when Baby Frances repeatedly sang "Jingle Bells" until she was dragged from the stage kicking and screaming during one of their Christmas shows and immediately drafted her into a dance act, entitled "The Gumm Sisters," along with her older sisters Mary Jane Gumm and Virginia Gumm. However, knowing that her youngest daughter would eventually become the biggest star, Ethel soon took Frances out of the act and together they traveled across America where she would perform in nightclubs, cabarets, hotels and theaters solo.
Her family life was not a happy one, largely because of her mother's drive for her to succeed as a performer and also her father's closeted homosexuality. The Gumm family would regularly be forced to leave town owing to her father's illicit affairs with other men, and from time to time they would be reduced to living out of their automobile. However, in September 1935 the Gumms', in particular Ethel's, prayers were answered when Frances was signed by Louis B. Mayer, mogul of leading film studio MGM, after hearing her sing. It was then that her name was changed from Frances Gumm to Judy Garland, after a popular '30s song "Judy" and film critic Robert Garland.
Tragedy soon followed, however, in the form of her father's death of meningitis in November 1935. Having been given no assignments with the exception of singing on radio, Judy faced the threat of losing her job following the arrival of Deanna Durbin. Knowing that they couldn't keep both of the teenage singers, MGM devised a short entitled Every Sunday (1936) which would be the girls' screen test. However, despite being the outright winner and being kept on by MGM, Judy's career did not officially kick off until she sang one of her most famous songs, "You Made Me Love You," at Clark Gable's birthday party in February 1937, during which Louis B. Mayer finally paid attention to the talented songstress.
Prior to this her film debut in Pigskin Parade (1936), in which she played a teenage hillbilly, had left her career hanging in the balance. However, following her rendition of "You Made Me Love You," MGM set to work preparing various musicals with which to keep Judy busy. All this had its toll on the young teenager, and she was given numerous pills by the studio doctors in order to combat her tiredness on set. Another problem was her weight fluctuation, but she was soon given amphetamines in order to give her the desired streamlined figure. This soon produced the downward spiral that resulted in her lifelong drug addiction.
In 1939, Judy shot immediately to stardom with The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which she portrayed Dorothy, an orphaned girl living on a farm in the dry plains of Kansas who gets whisked off into the magical world of Oz on the other end of the rainbow. Her poignant performance and sweet delivery of her signature song, 'Over The Rainbow,' earned Judy a special juvenile Oscar statuette on 29 February 1940 for Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor. Now growing up, Judy began to yearn for meatier adult roles instead of the virginal characters she had been playing since she was 14. She was now taking an interest in men, and after starring in her final juvenile performance in Ziegfeld Girl (1941) alongside glamorous beauties Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr, Judy got engaged to bandleader David Rose in May 1941, just two months after his divorce from Martha Raye. Despite planning a big wedding, the couple eloped to Las Vegas and married during the early hours of the morning on July 28, 1941 with just her mother Ethel and her stepfather Will Gilmore present. However, their marriage went downhill as, after discovering that she was pregnant in November 1942, David and MGM persuaded her to abort the baby in order to keep her good-girl image up. She did so and, as a result, was haunted for the rest of her life by her 'inhumane actions.' The couple separated in January 1943.
By this time, Judy had starred in her first adult role as a vaudevillian during WWI in For Me and My Gal (1942). Within weeks of separation, Judy was soon having an affair with actor Tyrone Power, who was married to French actress Annabella. Their affair ended in May 1943, which was when her affair with producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz kicked off. He introduced her to psychoanalysis and she soon began to make decisions about her career on her own instead of being influenced by her domineering mother and MGM. Their affair ended in November 1943, and soon afterward Judy reluctantly began filming Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), which proved to be a big success. The director Vincente Minnelli highlighted Judy's beauty for the first time on screen, having made the period musical in color, her first color film since The Wizard of Oz (1939). He showed off her large brandy-brown eyes and her full, thick lips and after filming ended in April 1944, a love affair resulted between director and actress and they were soon living together.
Vincente began to mold Judy and her career, making her more beautiful and more popular with audiences worldwide. He directed her in The Clock (1945), and it was during the filming of this movie that the couple announced their engagement on set on January 9, 1945. Judy's divorce from David Rose had been finalized on June 8, 1944 after almost three years of marriage, and despite her brief fling with Orson Welles, who at the time was married to screen sex goddess Rita Hayworth, on June 15, 1945 Judy made Vincente her second husband, tying the knot with him that afternoon at her mother's home with her boss Louis B. Mayer giving her away and her best friend Betty Asher serving as bridesmaid. They spent three months on honeymoon in New York and afterwards Judy discovered that she was pregnant.
On March 12, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, Judy gave birth to their daughter, Liza Minnelli, via cesarean section. It was a joyous time for the couple, but Judy was out of commission for weeks due to the cesarean and her postnatal depression, so she spent much of her time recuperating in bed. She soon returned to work, but married life was never the same for Vincente and Judy after they filmed The Pirate (1948) together in 1947. Judy's mental health was fast deteriorating and she began hallucinating things and making false accusations toward people, especially her husband, making the filming a nightmare. She also began an affair with aspiring Russian actor Yul Brynner, but after the affair ended, Judy soon regained health and tried to salvage her failing marriage. She then teamed up with dancing legend Fred Astaire for the delightful musical Easter Parade (1948), which resulted in a successful comeback despite having Vincente fired from directing the musical. Afterwards, Judy's health deteriorated and she began the first of several suicide attempts. In May 1949, she was checked into a rehabilitation center, which caused her much distress.
She soon regained strength and was visited frequently by her lover Frank Sinatra, but never saw much of Vincente or Liza. On returning, Judy made In the Good Old Summertime (1949), which was also Liza's film debut, albeit via an uncredited cameo. She had already been suspended by MGM for her lack of cooperation on the set of The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), which also resulted in her getting replaced by Ginger Rogers. After being replaced by Betty Hutton on Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Judy was suspended yet again before making her final film for MGM, entitled Summer Stock (1950). At 28, Judy received her third suspension and was fired by MGM, and her second marriage was soon dissolved.
Having taken up with Sidney Luft, Judy traveled to London to star at the legendary Palladium. She was an instant success and after her divorce from Vincente Minnelli was finalized on March 29, 1951 after almost six years of marriage, Judy traveled with Sid to New York to make an appearance on Broadway. With her newfound fame on stage, Judy was stopped in her tracks in February 1952 when she became pregnant by her new lover, Sid. At the age of 30, she made him her third husband on June 8, 1952; the wedding was held at a friend's ranch in Pasadena. Her relationship with her mother had long since been dissolved by this point, and after the birth of her second daughter, Lorna Luft, on November 21, 1952, she refused to allow her mother to see her granddaughter. Ethel then died in January 1953 of a heart attack, leaving Judy devastated and feeling guilty about not reconciling with her mother before her untimely demise.
After the funeral, Judy signed a film contract with Warner Bros. to star in the musical remake of A Star Is Born (1937), which had starred Janet Gaynor, who had won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress in 1929. Filming soon began, resulting in an affair between Judy and her leading man, British star James Mason. She also picked up on her affair with Frank Sinatra, and after filming was complete Judy was yet again lauded as a great film star. She won a Golden Globe for her brilliant and truly outstanding performance as Esther Blodgett, nightclub singer turned movie star, but when it came to the Academy Awards, a distraught Judy lost out on the Best Actress Oscar to Grace Kelly for her portrayal of the wife of an alcoholic star in The Country Girl (1954). Many still argue that Judy should have won the Oscar over Grace Kelly. Continuing her work on stage, Judy gave birth to her beloved son, Joey Luft, on March 29, 1955. She soon began to lose her millions of dollars as a result of her husband's strong gambling addiction, and with hundreds of debts to pay, Judy and Sid began a volatile, on-off relationship resulting in numerous divorce filings.
In 1961, at the age of 39, Judy returned to her ailing film career, this time to star in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but this time she lost out to Rita Moreno for her performance in West Side Story (1961). Her battles with alcoholism and drugs led to Judy's making numerous headlines in newspapers, but she soldiered on, forming a close friendship with President John F. Kennedy. In 1963, Judy and Sid finally separated permanently, and on May 19, 1965 their divorce was finalized after almost 13 years of marriage. By this time, Judy, now 41, had made her final performance on film alongside Dirk Bogarde in I Could Go on Singing (1963). She married her fourth husband, Mark Herron, on November 14, 1965 in Las Vegas, but they separated in April 1966 after five months of marriage owing to his homosexuality. It was also that year that she began an affair with young journalist Tom Green. She then settled down in London after their affair ended, and she began dating disk jockey Mickey Deans in December 1968. They became engaged once her divorce from Mark Herron was finalized on January 9, 1969 after three years of marriage. She married Mickey, her fifth and final husband, in a register office in Chelsea, London, England on March 15, 1969.
She continued working on stage, appearing several times with her daughter Liza. It was during a concert in Chelsea, London, England that Judy stumbled into her bathroom late one night and died of an overdose of barbiturates, the drug that had dominated her much of her life, on June 22, 1969 at the age of 47. Her daughter Liza Minnelli paid for her funeral, and her former lover James Mason delivered her touching eulogy. She is still an icon to this day with her famous performances in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), and A Star Is Born (1954).- Actress
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Julia Fiona Roberts never dreamed she would become the most popular actress in America. She was born in Smyrna, Georgia, to Betty Lou (Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts, one-time actors and playwrights, and is of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. As a child, due to her love of animals, Julia originally wanted to be a veterinarian, but later studied journalism. When her brother, Eric Roberts, achieved some success in Hollywood, Julia decided to try acting. Her first break came in 1988 when she appeared in two youth-oriented movies Mystic Pizza (1988) and Satisfaction (1988). The movies introduced her to a new audience who instantly fell in love with this pretty woman. Julia's biggest success was in the signature movie Pretty Woman (1990), for which Julia got an Oscar nomination, and also won the People's Choice award for Favorite Actress. Even though Julia would spend the next few years either starring in serious movies, or playing fantasy roles like Tinkerbell, the movie audiences would always love Julia best in romantic comedies. With My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) Julia gave the genre fresh life that had been lacking in Hollywood for some time. Offscreen, after a brief marriage, Julia has been romantically linked with several actors, and married cinematographer Daniel Moder in 2002; the couple has three children together.
Julia has also become involved with UNICEF charities and has made visits to many different countries, including Haiti and India, in order to promote goodwill. Julia Robert remains one of the most popular and sought-after talents in Hollywood.- 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.- Actor
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Freddie Prinze, Jr. was born on March 8, 1976, in Los Angeles, California, to Kathy Prinze (née Kathy Elaine Barber) and comedian/actor Freddie Prinze. He is of Puerto Rican, German, English, and Irish descent. Freddie lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in his early life. He attended three different schools during his childhood: Eldorado, Sandia, and La Cueva. After graduating in 1994, Freddie moved to L.A. to focus on an acting career. He immediately garnered featured roles on several episodic series, one of which was an episode of The Gun (1995), in which Freddie had a four-line part playing a punk kid who brought a gun to school. "That was my big break, and I thought it was huge," says Freddie. He then went on to appear in a few after-school specials, including Too Soon for Jeff (1996) and Detention: The Siege at Johnson High (1997) co-starring Ricky Schroder and Henry Winkler.
Freddie is married to actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, with whom he has two children.- Actor
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Tim Meadows was born on 5 February 1961 in Highland Park, Michigan, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Mean Girls (2004), The Ladies Man (2000) and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007). He was previously married to Michelle Taylor.- Music Artist
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Justin Drew Bieber was born on March 1, 1994 at St. Joseph's Hospital in London, Ontario, Canada and was raised in Stratford, Ontario. He is the son of Pattie Mallette and Jeremy Bieber. He is of French-Canadian, Irish, German, English, and Scottish descent. He has three younger half-siblings via his father.
Growing up, he showed a strong interest in music and taught himself to play many instruments, including, guitar, drums, piano and trumpet. His mother began posting videos of him performing musically on YouTube. The videos soon built up a fan following and caught the attention of talent agent Scooter Braun. Braun was able to secure an impromptu audition with Usher, who was impressed and helped Bieber to sign a record deal.
In 2009, his first single, "One Time", was a worldwide hit and was certified Platinum in Canada and the United States. This was followed by his debut EP album, "My World", which was also an international success. He became the first artist to have seven songs from a debut record chart on the Billboard Hot 100.
In 2010, he released his first full-length studio album, My World 2.0. He also released a successful concert film, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011).
In 2012, he released his third studio album, Believe. In 2015, he released his fourth studio album, Purpose.
He has won a Grammy Award and an American Music Award. He has been listed numerous times by Forbes magazine among the "Top Ten Most Powerful Celebrities in the World."
He has sold an estimated 140 million records, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists.- D'Angelo Russell is known for The NBA on TNT (1988), NBA on YES (2002) and Always Late with Katie Nolan (2018).
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LeBron James is an American basketball player and film producer who played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers. He is one of the most accomplished basketball players of the 21st century. He played himself in Space Jam: A New Legacy and Trainwreck. He is the owner of a film production company called SpringHill Company.- Actress
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Almost everyone who has spent time with Kate Hudson -including directors, family members, co-stars and interviewers - is quick to comment on her ability to light up a room. Through some combination of a winning smile, solid work ethic, and good old-fashioned talent, the young actress has gone from indie beginner to Vanity Fair cover girl in just three years. What's more, she's done it all without capitalizing on the success of legendary actress mom, Goldie Hawn.
Kate Hudson was born in Los Angeles, California, to Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, a comedian, actor and singer. She was raised by her mother and her mother's longtime boyfriend, actor Kurt Russell, whom she considers to be her father. Kate is the sister of actor Oliver Hudson, the half-sister of actor and hockey player Wyatt Russell, and the granddaughter of band musician Rut Hawn. She is the niece of entertainment publicist Patti Hawn, record producer Mark Hudson and musician Brett Hudson. Kate is of Hungarian Jewish (from her maternal grandmother), Italian (from her paternal grandmother), English, and German ancestry.
By all accounts, Hudson was a born performer - as a child she danced and sang at every opportunity. Her family hoped that she would attend New York University after graduating from high school, but she opted to get her feet wet in the professional acting world first. She made her big-screen debut as an ambitious young starlet stranded in a tiny California town in Desert Blue (1998). Her next two films, while critically panned, made it into wider release: 200 Cigarettes (1999) (in which she played an earnest but accident-prone ditz) and Gossip (2000) (which cast her as a rich, virginal college student). Perhaps Hudson's biggest break was landing the role of rock groupie (or "Band Aide") Penny Lane in Almost Famous (2000). The part was originally intended for Sarah Polley; when Polley backed out to pursue another project, director Cameron Crowe considered scrapping the film altogether. Hudson, who had been cast in a smaller role (as William's stewardess sister), begged for a chance to read for Penny. Crowe was impressed, Hudson got the part, and the show went on. As much as Tinseltown gossipmongers would like to put them at odds, mother and daughter agree that Hawn is one of Hudson's biggest supporters.- Actor
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Keanu Charles Reeves, whose first name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian, was born September 2, 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon. He is the son of Patric Reeves, a showgirl and costume designer, and Samuel Nowlin Reeves, a geologist. Keanu's father was born in Hawaii, of British, Portuguese, Native Hawaiian, and Chinese ancestry, and Keanu's mother is originally from Essex England. After his parents' marriage dissolved, Keanu moved with his mother and younger sister, Kim Reeves, to New York City, then Toronto. Stepfather #1 was Paul Aaron, a stage and film director - he and Patricia divorced within a year, after which she went on to marry (and divorce) rock promoter Robert Miller. Reeves never reconnected with his biological father. In high school, Reeves was lukewarm toward academics but took a keen interest in ice hockey (as team goalie, he earned the nickname "The Wall") and drama. He eventually dropped out of school to pursue an acting career.
After a few stage gigs and a handful of made-for-TV movies, he scored a supporting role in the Rob Lowe hockey flick Youngblood (1986), which was filmed in Canada. Shortly after the production wrapped, Reeves packed his bags and headed for Hollywood. Reeves popped up on critics' radar with his performance in the dark adolescent drama, River's Edge (1986), and landed a supporting role in the Oscar-nominated Dangerous Liaisons (1988) with director Stephen Frears.
His first popular success was the role of totally rad dude Ted "Theodore" Logan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989). The wacky time-travel movie became something of a cultural phenomenon, and audiences would forever confuse Reeves's real-life persona with that of his doofy on-screen counterpart. He then joined the casts of Ron Howard's comedy, Parenthood (1989) and Lawrence Kasdan's I Love You to Death (1990).
Over the next few years, Reeves tried to shake the Ted stigma with a series of highbrow projects. He played a slumming rich boy opposite River Phoenix's narcoleptic male hustler in My Own Private Idaho (1991), an unlucky lawyer who stumbles into the vampire's lair in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and Shakespearean party-pooper Don John in Much Ado About Nothing (1993).
In 1994, the understated actor became a big-budget action star with the release of Speed (1994). Its success heralded an era of five years in which Reeves would alternate between small films, like Feeling Minnesota (1996) and The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997), and big films like A Walk in the Clouds (1995) and The Devil's Advocate (1997). (There were a couple misfires, too: Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and Chain Reaction (1996).) After all this, Reeves did the unthinkable and passed on the Speed sequel, but he struck box-office gold again a few years later with the Wachowski siblings' cyberadventure, The Matrix (1999).
Now a bonafide box-office star, Keanu would appear in a string of smaller films -- among them The Replacements (2000), The Watcher (2000), The Gift (2000), Sweet November (2001), and Hardball (2001) - before The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003) were both released in 2003.
Since the end of The Matrix trilogy, Keanu has divided his time between mainstream and indie fare, landing hits with Something's Gotta Give (2003), The Lake House (2006), and Street Kings (2008). He's kept Matrix fans satiated with films such as Constantine (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008). And he's waded back into art-house territory with Ellie Parker (2005), Thumbsucker (2005), The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), and Henry's Crime (2010).
Most recently, as post-production on the samurai epic 47 Ronin (2013) waged on, Keanu appeared in front of the camera in Side by Side (2012), a documentary on celluloid and digital filmmaking, which he also produced. He also directed another Asian-influenced project, Man of Tai Chi (2013).
In 2014, Keanu played the title role in the action revenge film John Wick (2014), which became popular with critics and audiences alike. He reprised the role in John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), taking the now-iconic character to a better opening weekend and even more enthusiastic reviews than the first go-around.- Music Artist
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Lady Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, is an American songwriter, singer, actress, philanthropist, dancer and fashion designer.
Gaga was born on March 28, 1986 in Manhattan, New York City, to Cynthia Louise (Bissett), a philanthropist and business executive, and Joseph Anthony Germanotta, Jr., an internet entrepreneur. Her father is of Italian descent; and her mother, who is from West Virginia, is of half Italian and half French, English, German, and Scottish ancestry. Gaga was able to sing and play the piano from a young age. She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart from age 11 where was bullied for her appearance (she was small and plumper than other girls with large front teeth) and eccentric habits.
By the age of 14, Gaga was performing at open mike nights in clubs and bars. By age 17, she had gained early admission to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. In addition to sharpening her songwriting skills, she composed essays and analytical papers on art, religion, social issues and politics. At the age of 19 Gaga withdrew from her studies and moved out of her parents' home in order to pursue a musical career. During this time she started a band which began to gain local attention.
After a brief partnership with talent scout Rob Fusari, which resulted in the creation of her stage name, Gaga was signed to Def Jam Records in 2006; however she was dropped from the label after just three months. Devastated, Gaga returned home, and became increasingly experimental: fascinating herself with emerging neo-burlesque shows, go-go dancing at bars dressed in little more than a bikini in addition to experimenting with drugs.
Gaga met performance artist Lady Starlight during this time; after a performance at Lollapalooza Festival in 2007 Gaga was signed by Vince Herbert to Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records. Having served as an apprentice songwriter under an internship at Famous Music Publishing, which was later acquired by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Gaga subsequently struck a music publishing deal with Sony/ATV. As a result, she was hired to write songs for Britney Spears and labelmates New Kids on the Block, Fergie, and the Pussycat Dolls. At Interscope, singer-songwriter Akon recognized her vocal abilities when she sang a reference vocal for one of his tracks in studio; Akon then convinced Interscope-Geffen-A&M Chairman and CEO Jimmy Iovine to form a joint deal by having her also sign with his own label Kon Live, making her his "franchise player."
In 2008 Gaga released her first album 'The Fame' to lukewarm radio play; Gaga toured around Europe and in gay clubs in the US to promote the album - however it was not until her first hit 'Just Dance' came to mainstream attention in 2009 that Gaga exploded onto the music scene.
Since then Gaga has gained numerous awards and nominations for a string of hits; her first album spawned several more smash hits 'Paparazzi', 'Loveame' and 'Poker Face'); while touring the album Gaga wrote 'The Fame Monster', an EP examining the darker side to her new-found fame. The Fame Monster was released in 2009 and won multiple awards, spawning her most iconic single 'Bad Romance' as well as 'Telephone' and 'Alejandro'. During this time Gaga came under increased public and critical scrutiny for her eccentric and often bizarre style choices. Gaga embarked on her second tour, The Monster Ball; upon finishing in May 2011, the critically acclaimed and commercially accomplished tour ran for over one and a half years and grossed $227.4 million, making it one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time and the highest-grossing for a debut headlining artist. Concerts performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City were filmed for an HBO television special. The special accrued one of its five Emmy Award nominations and has since been released on DVD and Blu-ray.
In 2011 Gaga released her second full-length album 'Born this Way'; the album was received vastly more critically than her previous two for touching on themes of politics, sexuality, and religion. Despite this, the album's songs were praised critically, and Born This Way sold 1.108 million copies in its first week in the US, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and topping the charts in more than 20 other countries. In addition to exceeding 8 million copies in worldwide sales, Born This Way received 3 Grammy Award nominations, including her third consecutive for Album of the Year. In March 2012, Gaga was ranked fourth on Billboard's list of top moneymakers of 2011, grossing $25,353,039 dollars, which included sales from Born This Way and her Monster Ball Tour.
At the end of April 2012, Gaga's Born This Way kicked off in Korea - the tour would last 2 years and take the singer to every continent of the globe. However in February 2012 the tour was abruptly canceled; Gaga had a labral tear in her right hip which she had been nursing secretly for several weeks in the hopes that she would be able to continue the tour. After a performance in Toronto left her unable to walk and in considerable pain, she was taken to hospital for surgery and the tour was canceled. Through to Jan. 17, the tour had grossed $168.2 million and moved 1.6 million tickets to 85 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore, with the Asian, European, and South American legs already completed in 2012. The North American leg, which was to wrap the tour and was almost completely sold out, would have likely put the tour at more than $200 million gross, easily in the top 20 tours of all time and probably in the top 15, according to Billboard. As it stands, Gaga finished sixth among all touring artists in 2012, with a gross of $125 million and attendance of more than 1.1 million, according to Boxscore.
Gaga wrote her third album, ARTPOP, released in 2013. Gaga made her acting debut in Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills (2013), the sequel to his 2010 film Machete, and also appeared in Rodriguez's sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). In 2018, she starred with Bradley Cooper, who also directed, in A Star Is Born (2018). Gaga received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the role.- Actress
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Hardly the dumb blonde of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), Lisa was born in Encino, California on July 30, 1963. Her mother, Nedra S. (Stern), worked as a travel agent, and her father, Lee N. Kudrow, is a physician. Her parents are both from Jewish families (from Belarus, Russia, and Hungary). Lisa was raised in Tarzana and played varsity-level tennis in high school and college, and is a pool shark who has mastered some of the more difficult trick shots (so beware). She graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychobiology. At first, she wanted to pursue a career in research, so she returned to Los Angeles to begin working with her father. However, Lisa got inspired to perform by one of her brother's friends, comedian Jon Lovitz, and so the tall (5' 8") blonde-haired, green-eyed beauty entered show biz. Lisa auditioned for the improv theater group, The Groundlings, based in Los Angeles. Cynthia Szigeti, a well-known improv teacher, took Lisa under her wing. In that class, Lisa became a friend of Conan O'Brien. Graduating with honors in 1989, Lisa became a full-fledged member of The Groundlings. Breaking into TV, she got a recurring role as Ursula, the ditsy waitress on Mad About You (1992). This led to her starring role on Friends (1994). In the debut season (1994-95) of Friends (1994), Lisa earned an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series; in 1998, she won that award for her role as Phoebe, the ditsy but lovable folk singer. Lisa has also been nominated for Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and American Comedy Awards for her performances.
Lisa made the transition to the big screen with a lot of success. In 1997, she starred opposite Oscar winner Mira Sorvino in the above-mentioned Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997). Lisa garnered more praise for her film work when she got the New York Film Critics Award for her starring role in The Opposite of Sex (1998).
Lisa married Michel Stern, an advertising executive, on May 27, 1995. On May 7, 1998, they were blessed with a son, Julian Murray; they live in Los Angeles.- Actor
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Martin Freeman is an English actor, known for portraying Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit film trilogy, Tim Canterbury in the original UK version of sitcom mockumentary The Office (2001), Dr. John Watson in the British crime drama Sherlock (2010) and Lester Nygaard in the dark comedy-crime drama TV series Fargo (2014).
His other notable film roles include the romantic comedy Love Actually (2003) and the comic science fiction film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005).- Actor
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With an authoritative voice and calm demeanor, this ever popular American actor has grown into one of the most respected figures in modern US cinema. Morgan was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Mayme Edna (Revere), a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber. The young Freeman attended Los Angeles City College before serving several years in the US Air Force as a mechanic between 1955 and 1959. His first dramatic arts exposure was on the stage including appearing in an all-African American production of the exuberant musical Hello, Dolly!.
Throughout the 1970s, he continued his work on stage, winning Drama Desk and Clarence Derwent Awards and receiving a Tony Award nomination for his performance in The Mighty Gents in 1978. In 1980, he won two Obie Awards, for his portrayal of Shakespearean anti-hero Coriolanus at the New York Shakespeare Festival and for his work in Mother Courage and Her Children. Freeman won another Obie in 1984 for his performance as The Messenger in the acclaimed Brooklyn Academy of Music production of Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus and, in 1985, won the Drama-Logue Award for the same role. In 1987, Freeman created the role of Hoke Coleburn in Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Driving Miss Daisy, which brought him his fourth Obie Award. In 1990, Freeman starred as Petruchio in the New York Shakespeare Festival's The Taming of the Shrew, opposite Tracey Ullman. Returning to the Broadway stage in 2008, Freeman starred with Frances McDormand and Peter Gallagher in Clifford Odets' drama The Country Girl, directed by Mike Nichols.
Freeman first appeared on TV screens as several characters including "Easy Reader", "Mel Mounds" and "Count Dracula" on the Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) show The Electric Company (1971). He then moved into feature film with another children's adventure, Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow! (1971). Next, there was a small role in the thriller Blade (1973); then he played Casca in Julius Caesar (1979) and the title role in Coriolanus (1979). Regular work was coming in for the talented Freeman and he appeared in the prison dramas Attica (1980) and Brubaker (1980), Eyewitness (1981), and portrayed the final 24 hours of slain Malcolm X in Death of a Prophet (1981). For most of the 1980s, Freeman continued to contribute decent enough performances in films that fluctuated in their quality. However, he really stood out, scoring an Oscar nomination as a merciless hoodlum in Street Smart (1987) and, then, he dazzled audiences and pulled a second Oscar nomination in the film version of Driving Miss Daisy (1989) opposite Jessica Tandy. The same year, Freeman teamed up with youthful Matthew Broderick and fiery Denzel Washington in the epic Civil War drama Glory (1989) about freed slaves being recruited to form the first all-African American fighting brigade.
His star continued to rise, and the 1990s kicked off strongly with roles in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), and The Power of One (1992). Freeman's next role was as gunman Ned Logan, wooed out of retirement by friend William Munny to avenge several prostitutes in the wild west town of Big Whiskey in Clint Eastwood's de-mythologized western Unforgiven (1992). The film was a sh and scored an acting Oscar for Gene Hackman, a directing Oscar for Eastwood, and the Oscar for best picture. In 1993, Freeman made his directorial debut on Bopha! (1993) and soon after formed his production company, Revelations Entertainment.
More strong scripts came in, and Freeman was back behind bars depicting a knowledgeable inmate (and obtaining his third Oscar nomination), befriending falsely accused banker Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption (1994). He was then back out hunting a religious serial killer in Se7en (1995), starred alongside Keanu Reeves in Chain Reaction (1996), and was pursuing another serial murderer in Kiss the Girls (1997).
Further praise followed for his role in the slave tale of Amistad (1997), he was a worried US President facing Armageddon from above in Deep Impact (1998), appeared in Neil LaBute's black comedy Nurse Betty (2000), and reprised his role as Alex Cross in Along Came a Spider (2001). Now highly popular, he was much in demand with cinema audiences, and he co-starred in the terrorist drama The Sum of All Fears (2002), was a military officer in the Stephen King-inspired Dreamcatcher (2003), gave divine guidance as God to Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty (2003), and played a minor role in the comedy The Big Bounce (2004).
2005 was a huge year for Freeman. First, he he teamed up with good friend Clint Eastwood to appear in the drama, Million Dollar Baby (2004). Freeman's on-screen performance is simply world-class as ex-prize fighter Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris, who works in a run-down boxing gym alongside grizzled trainer Frankie Dunn, as the two work together to hone the skills of never-say-die female boxer Hilary Swank. Freeman received his fourth Oscar nomination and, finally, impressed the Academy's judges enough to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance. He also narrated Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds (2005) and appeared in Batman Begins (2005) as Lucius Fox, a valuable ally of Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne/Batman for director Christopher Nolan. Freeman would reprise his role in the two sequels of the record-breaking, genre-redefining trilogy.
Roles in tentpoles and indies followed; highlights include his role as a crime boss in Lucky Number Slevin (2006), a second go-round as God in Evan Almighty (2007) with Steve Carell taking over for Jim Carrey, and a supporting role in Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone (2007). He co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the breakout hit The Bucket List (2007) in 2007, and followed that up with another box-office success, Wanted (2008), then segued into the second Batman film, The Dark Knight (2008).
In 2009, he reunited with Eastwood to star in the director's true-life drama Invictus (2009), on which Freeman also served as an executive producer. For his portrayal of Nelson Mandela in the film, Freeman garnered Oscar, Golden Globe and Critics' Choice Award nominations, and won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actor.
Recently, Freeman appeared in RED (2010), a surprise box-office hit; he narrated the Conan the Barbarian (2011) remake, starred in Rob Reiner's The Magic of Belle Isle (2012); and capped the Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Freeman has several films upcoming, including the thriller Now You See Me (2013), under the direction of Louis Leterrier, and the science fiction actioner Oblivion (2013), in which he stars with Tom Cruise.- Actor
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Matt Dillon's successful film career has spanned over three decades and has showcased his wide range of dramatic and comedic talents. Dillon displayed his versatility with an arresting performance co-starring as a racist cop in the critically acclaimed Paul Haggis film Crash. This role earned him nominations for an Academy award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Critics Choice Award, BAFTA Award and won him an Independent Spirit Award. In addition, the film earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Critics Choice Award for Best Ensemble. As the New York Times' Film Critic A.O. Scott put it, "He seems to be getting better with every film."
He starred opposite Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson in Universal Pictures' comedy, You, Me and Dupree and in Factotum for which he received glowing reviews for portraying Charles Bukowski's alter ego when the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. From his breakthrough performance in The Outsiders to his hilarious turn as an obsessed private investigator in There's Something About Mary, he has proven himself to be one of the most diverse actors of his generation.
In 1990 Dillon won an IFP Spirit Award for his gritty performance as a drug addict in Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy. From there he went on to star in such films as Ted Demme's Beautiful Girls opposite Uma Thurman and Natalie Portman, Cameron Crowe's Singles, In & Out with Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey's Albino Alligator, Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish, Garry Marshall's Flamingo Kid, Van Sant's To Die For with Nicole Kidman, and John McNaughton's Wild Things. He starred in Nothing But The Truth, opposite Kate Beckinsale and Vera Farmiga, Disney's Old Dogs, opposite John Travolta, Robin Williams and Kelly Preston, and the Screen Gems films Armored and Takers.
Aside from being an accomplished actor, Dillon wrote, and made his feature film directorial debut with City of Ghosts, in which he also starred with Gérard Depardieu, Stellan Skarsgård, and James Caan. Prior to City of Ghosts, Dillon made his television directorial debut in 1997 with an episode of HBO's gritty prison drama Oz.
Dillon's achievements continued with television appearances in an HBO adaptation of Irwin Shaw's Return To Kansas City and a part co-narrating the documentary Dear America: Letters From Home.
Dillon's multi-talents have also landed him on stage starring on Broadway in The Boys In Winter as well as the PBS/American Playhouse production of The Great American Fourth Of July And Other Disasters.
His recent film credits include the comedy Girl Most Likely opposite Annette Bening and Kristen Wiig; the drama Sunlight, Jr. opposite Naomi Watts, and the heist comedy The Art Of The Steal opposite Kurt Russell. Dillon most recently starred in M. Night Shyamalan's hit television event series Wayward Pines for FOX.- Writer
- Producer
- Animation Department
Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Matt Groening did not particularly like school, which is what originally turned him towards drawing. In the mid-1980s, he moved to Los Angeles and started drawing a comic strip named "Life in Hell", which eventually became published in the newspaper where he worked. In 1988, James L. Brooks, looking for a filler in the television show, The Tracey Ullman Show (1987), turned towards a framed "Life in Hell" strip on his wall and contacted Groening. The animated shorts that Groening created were The Simpsons (1989).- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Elegant Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were there on educational visas.
Kidman is the daughter of Janelle Ann (Glenny), a nursing instructor, and Antony David Kidman, a biochemist and clinical psychologist. She is of English, Irish, and Scottish descent. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Nicole's father pursued his research on breast cancer, and then, three years later, made the pilgrimage back to her parents' native Sydney in Australia, where Nicole was raised. Young Nicole's first love was ballet, but she eventually took up mime and drama as well (her first stage role was a bleating sheep in an elementary school Christmas pageant). In her adolescent years, acting edged out the other arts and became a kind of refuge -- as her classmates sought out fun in the sun, the fair-skinned Kidman retreated to dark rehearsal halls to practice her craft. She worked regularly at the Philip Street Theater, where she once received a personal letter of praise and encouragement from audience member Jane Campion (then a film student). Kidman eventually dropped out of high school to pursue acting full-time. She broke into movies at age 16, landing a role in the Australian holiday favorite Bush Christmas (1983). That appearance touched off a flurry of film and television offers, including a lead in BMX Bandits (1983) and a turn as a schoolgirl-turned-protester in the miniseries Vietnam (1987) (for which she won her first Australian Film Institute Award). With the help of an American agent, she eventually made her US debut opposite Sam Neill in the at-sea thriller Dead Calm (1989).
Kidman's next casting coup scored her more than exposure. While starring as Tom Cruise's doctor/love interest in the racetrack romance Days of Thunder (1990), she won over the Hollywood hunk hook, line and sinker. After a whirlwind courtship (and decent box office returns), the couple wed on December 24, 1990. Determined not to let her new marital status overshadow her fledgling career, the actress pressed on. She appeared as a catty high school senior in the Australian film Flirting (1991), then as Dustin Hoffman's moll in the gangster flick Billy Bathgate (1991). She reunited with Cruise for Far and Away (1992), the story of young Irish lovers who flee to America in the late 1800s, and starred opposite Michael Keaton in the tear-tugger My Life (1993). Despite her steady employment, critics and moviegoers still had not quite warmed to Kidman as a leading lady. She tried to spice up her image by seducing Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995), but achieved her real breakthrough with Gus Van Sant's To Die For (1995). As a fame-crazed housewife determined to eliminate any obstacle in her path, Kidman proved that she had an impressive range and deadly comic timing. She took home a Golden Globe and several critics' awards for the performance. In 1996, Kidman stepped into a corset to work with her countrywoman and onetime admirer, Jane Campion, on the adaptation of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (1996). A few months later, she tore across the screen as a nuclear weapons expert in The Peacemaker (1997), adding "action star" to her professional repertoire.
She and Cruise then disappeared into a notoriously long, secretive shoot for Stanley Kubrick's sexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut (1999). The couple's on-screen shenanigans prompted an increase in public speculation about their sex life (rumors had long been circulating that their marriage was a cover-up for Cruise's rumored homosexuality); tired of denying tabloid attacks, they successfully sued The Star for a story alleging that they needed a sex therapist to coach them through love scenes. Family life has always been a priority for Kidman. Born to social activists (mother was a feminist; father, a labor advocate), Nicole and her little sister, Antonia Kidman, discussed current events around the dinner table and participated in their parents' campaigns by passing out pamphlets on street corners. When her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, 17-year-old Nicole stopped working and took a massage course so that she could provide physical therapy (her mother eventually beat the cancer). She and Cruise adopted two children: Isabella Jane (born 1993) and Connor Antony (born 1995). Despite their rock-solid image, the couple announced in early 2001 that they were separating due to career conflicts. Her marriage to Cruise ended mid-summer of 2001.- Nikola Tesla (28 June 1856 - 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
Born and raised in the Austrian Empire, Tesla studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without receiving a degree, gaining practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in the new electric power industry. In 1884 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen. He worked for a short time at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before he struck out on his own. With the help of partners to finance and market his ideas, Tesla set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices. His alternating current (AC) induction motor and related poly-phase AC patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, earned him a considerable amount of money and became the cornerstone of the poly-phase system which that company eventually marketed.
Attempting to develop inventions he could patent and market, Tesla conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging. He also built a wireless-controlled boat, one of the first-ever exhibited. Tesla became well known as an inventor and demonstrated his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab, and was noted for his showmanship at public lectures. Throughout the 1890s, Tesla pursued his ideas for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution in his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs. In 1893, he made pronouncements on the possibility of wireless communication with his devices. Tesla tried to put these ideas to practical use in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project, an intercontinental wireless communication and power transmitter, but ran out of funding before he could complete it.
After Wardenclyffe, Tesla experimented with a series of inventions in the 1910s and 1920s with varying degrees of success. Having spent most of his money, Tesla lived in a series of New York hotels, leaving behind unpaid bills. He died in New York City in January 1943. Tesla's work fell into relative obscurity following his death, until 1960, when the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the SI unit of magnetic flux density the Tesla in his honor. There has been a resurgence in popular interest in Tesla since the 1990s. - Music Artist
- Composer
- Actor
Sir Paul McCartney is a key figure in contemporary culture as a singer, composer, poet, writer, artist, humanitarian, entrepreneur, and holder of more than 3 thousand copyrights. He is in the "Guinness Book of World Records" for most records sold, most #1s (shared), most covered song, "Yesterday," largest paid audience for a solo concert (350,000+ people, in 1989, in Brazil). He is considered one of the most successful entertainers of all time.
He was born James Paul McCartney on June 18, 1942, in Liverpool General Hospital, where his mother, Mary Patricia (Mohin), was a medical nurse and midwife. His father, James "Jim" McCartney, was a cotton salesman and a pianist leading the Jim Mac's Jazz Band in Liverpool. He has Irish and English ancestry. Young McCartney was raised non-denominational. He studied music and art, and had a happy childhood with one younger brother, Michael. At age 11, he was one of only four students who passed the 11+ exam, known as "the scholarship" in Liverpool, and gained a place at Liverpool Institute for Boys. There he studied from 1953 to 1960, earning A level in English and Art.
At the age of 14, Paul McCartney was traumatized by his mother's sudden death from breast cancer. Shortly afterward, he wrote his first song. In July 1957 he met John Lennon during their performances at a local church fête (festival). McCartney impressed Lennon with his mastery of guitar and singing in a variety of styles. He soon joined Lennon's band, The Quarrymen, and eventually became founding member of The Beatles, with the addition of George Harrison and Pete Best. After a few gigs in Hamburg, Germany, the band returned to Liverpool and played regular gigs at the Cavern during 1961.
In November 1961, they invited Brian Epstein to be their manager, making a written agreement in January 1962. At that time McCartney and Harrison were under 21, so the paper wasn't technically legal, albeit it did not matter to them. What mattered was their genuine trust in Epstein. He improved their image, secured them a record deal with EMI, and replaced drummer Best with Ringo Starr. With a little help from Brian Epstein and George Martin, The Beatles consolidated their talents and mutual stimulation into beautiful teamwork, launching the most successful career in the history of entertainment.
The Beatles contributed to music, film, literature, art, and fashion, made a continuous impact on entertainment, popular culture and the lifestyle of several generations. Music became their ticket to ride around the world. Beatlemania never really ended since its initiation; it became a movable feast in many hearts and minds, a sweet memory of youth, when all you need is love and a little help from a friend to be happy. Their songs and images carrying powerful ideas of love, peace, help, and imagination evoked creativity and liberation that outperformed the rusty Soviet propaganda and contributed to breaking walls in the minds of millions, thus making impact on human history.
All four members of The Beatles were charismatic and individually talented artists, they sparked each other from the beginning. Paul McCartney had the privilege of a better musical education, having studied classical piano and guitar in his childhood. He progressed as a lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, as well as a singer-songwriter. In addition to singing and songwriting, Paul McCartney played bass guitar, acoustic and electric guitars, piano and keyboards, as well as over 40 other musical instruments.
McCartney wrote more popular hits for the Beatles than other members of the band. His songs Yesterday, Let It Be, Hey Jude, Blackbird, All My Loving, Eleanor Rigby, Birthday, I Saw Her Standing There, I Will, Get Back, Carry That Weight, P.S. I Love You, Things We Said Today, "Hello, Goodbye," Two of Us, Why Don't We Do It in the Road?, Helter Skelter, Honey Pie, When I'm 64, Lady Madonna, She's a Woman, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," Mother Nature's Son, Long And Winding Road, Rocky Raccoon, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Fool on the Hill, You Never Give Me Your Money, Your Mother Should Know, The End, Yellow Submarine, and many others are among the Beatles' best hits. Yesterday is considered the most covered song in history with over three thousand versions of it recorded by various artists across the universe.
Since he was a teenager, McCartney honored the agreement that was offered by John Lennon in 1957, about the 50/50 authorship of every song written by either one of them. However, both were teenagers, and technically, being under 21, their oral agreement had no legal power. Still, almost 200 songs by The Beatles are formally credited to both names, regardless of the fact that most of the songs were written individually. The songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney was really working until the mid-60s, when they collaborated in many of their early songs. Their jamming on a piano together led to creation of their first best-selling hit 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' in 1963.
In total, The Beatles created over 240 songs, they recorded many singles and albums, made several films and TV shows. Thousands of memorable pictures popularized their image. In their evolution from beginners to the leaders of entertainment, they learned from many world cultures, absorbed from various styles, and created their own. McCartney's own range of interests spanned from classical music and English folk ballads to Indian raga and other Oriental cultures, and later expanded into psychedelic experiments and classical-sounding compositions. His creative search has been covering a range of styles from jazz and rock to symphonies and choral music, and to cosmopolitan cross-cultural and cross-genre compositions.
Epstein's 1967 death hurt all four members of The Beatles, as they lost their creative manager. Evolution of each member's creativity and musicianship also led to individual career ambitions, however, their legacy as The Beatles remained the main driving force in their individual careers ever since. McCartney and The Beatles made impact on human history, because their influence has been liberating for generations of nowhere men living in misery beyond the Iron Curtain.
Something in their songs and images appealed to everybody who wanted to become free as a bird. Their songs carrying powerful ideas of real love, peace, help, imagination and freedom evoked creativity and contributed to breaking chains and walls in the minds of millions. The Beatles expressed themselves in beautiful and liberating words of love, happiness, freedom, and revolution, and carried those messages to people across the universe. Their songs and images helped many freedom-loving people to come together for revolutions in Prague and Warsaw, Beijing and Bucharest, Berlin and Moscow. The Beatles has been an inspiration for those who take the long and winding road to freedom.
McCartney was 28 when he started his solo career, and formed his new band, Wings. His first solo album, "McCartney," was a #1 hit and spawned the evergreen ballad "Maybe I'm Amazed", yet critical reaction was mixed. He continued to release music with Wings, that eventually became one of the most commercially successful groups of the 70s. "Band on the Run" won two Grammy Awards and remained the Wings' most lauded work. The 1977 release "Mull of Kintyre" stayed at #1 in the UK for nine weeks, and was highest selling single in the UK for seven years. In 1978 McCartney's theme "Rockestra" won him another Grammy Award. In 1979, together with Elvis Costello, he organized Concerts for the People of Kampuchea. In 1979, McCartney released his solo album "Wonderful Christmastime" which remained popular ever since.
In 1980 McCartney was arrested in Tokyo, Japan, for marijuana possession, and after a ten-day stint in jail, he was released to a media firestorm. He retreated into seclusion after the arrest, and was comforted by his wife Linda. Yet he had another traumatic experience when his ex-band-mate, John Lennon, was shot dead by a crazed fan near his home in New York City on December 8, 1980. McCartney did not play any live concerts for some time because he was nervous that he would be "the next" to be murdered.
After almost a year of absence from the music scene, McCartney returned in 1982 with the album "Tug of War," which was well received by public and enjoyed great critical acclaim. He continued a successful career as a solo artist, collaborated with wife Linda McCartney, and writers such as Elvis Costello. During the 80s, McCartney released such hits as 'No More Lonely Nights' and his first compilation, "All the Best." In 1989, he started his first concert tour since the John Lennon's murder.
In 1994, the three surviving members of The Beatles, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr, reunited and produced Lennon's previously unknown song "Free as a Bird." It was preserved by Yoko Ono on a tape recording made by Lennon in 1977. The song was re-arranged and re-mixed by George Martin at the Abbey Road Studios with the voices of three surviving members. The Beatles Anthology TV documentary series was watched by 420 million people in 1995.
During the 1990s McCartney concentrated on composing classical works for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society, such as "The Liverpool Oratorio" involving a choir and symphony, and "A Leaf" solo-piano project, both released in 1995. That same year he was working on a new pop album, "Flaming Pie," when his wife Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer, and caring for his wife during her illness meant only sporadic public appearances during that time. The album was released in 1997 to both critical and commercial success, debuting at #2 on both the UK and US pop charts. That same year he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II as Sir Paul McCartney for his services to music.
In April 1998, Linda McCartney, his beloved wife of almost 30 years, mother of their four children, and his steady partner in music, died of breast cancer. McCartney suffered from a severe depression and undergone medical treatment. He spent much of the next year away from the public eye, emerging only to campaign on behalf of his late wife for animal rights and vegetarian causes.
He eventually returned to the studio, releasing an album of rock n'roll covers in 1999. "Run Devil Run" made both Entertainment Weekly and USA Today's year-end top ten lists. McCartney also slowly returned to the public spotlight with the release of his another classical album, "Working Classical" in November 1999, in recording by the London Symphony Orchestra. His 2000 release "A Garland for Linda" was a choral tribute album, which raised funds to aid cancer survivors.
In 2000 he was invited by Heather Mills, a disabled ex-model, to her 32nd birthday. McCartney wrote songs dedicated to her, he and Mills developed a romantic relationship and became engaged in 2001. However, the year brought him a cascade of traumatic experiences. On September 11, 2001, Paul McCartney was sitting on a plane in New York when the World Trade Center tragedy occurred in front of his eyes, and he was able to witness the events from his seat. Yet there was another sadness, as his former band-mate George Harrison died of cancer in November, 2001.
Recuperating from the stressful year, McCartney received the 2002 Academy Award nomination for the title song to the movie Vanilla Sky (2001), and also went on his first concert tour in several years. In June, 2002, Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills married in a castle in Monaghan, Ireland. Their daughter, Beatrice Milly McCartney, was born in October 2003. Four years later, the high profile marriage ended in divorce, after a widely publicized litigation. "Whenever you're going through difficult times, I'm at the moment, it's really cool to be able to escape into music" says Paul McCartney.
In 2003 Paul McCartney rocked the Red Square in Moscow with his show "Back in USSR" which was attended by his former opponents from the former Soviet KGB, including the Russian president Vladimir Putin himself, who invited McCartney to be the guest of honor in the Kremlin. In 2004 Paul McCartney received a birthday present from the Russian president. In June 2004, he and Heather Mills-McCartney stayed as special guests at suburban Royal Palaces of Russian Tsars in St. Petersburg, Russia. There he staged a spectacular show near the Tsar's Winter Palace in St. Petersburg where the Communist Revolution took place, just imagine.
In 2005 the Entertainment magazine poll named The Beatles the most iconic entertainers of the 20th Century. In 2006, the guitar on which Paul McCartney played his first chords and impressed John Lennon, was sold at an auction for over $600,000.
On June 18, 2006, Paul McCartney celebrated his 64th birthday, as in his song "when I'm Sixty-Four." McCartney's celebrity status, made it a cultural milestone for a generation of those born in the baby-boom era who grew up with the music of The Beatles during the 1960s. The prophetic message in the song has been intertwined with McCartney's personal life and his career.
In 2007 McCartney left his longtime label, EMI, and signed with Los Angeles based Hear Music. He learned to play mandolin to create a refreshing feeling for his latest album "Memory Almost Full," then appeared in Apple Computer's commercial for iPod+iTunes to promote the album. In June 2007 McCartney appeared together with Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison and Guy Laliberté in a live broadcast from the "Revolution" Lounge at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
His 3-DVD set "The McCartney Years" with over 40 music videos and hours of Historic Live Performances was released in November 2007. His classical album "Ecco Cor Meum" (aka.. Behold My Heart), recorded with the Academy of St. Martin of the Fields and the boys of King's college Choir, was voted Classical Album of the Year in 2007. That same year, Paul McCartney began dating Nancy Shevell. The couple married in 2011, in London. Sir Paul's "On the Run Tour" once again took him flying across world from July through December 2011 giving sold out concerts in the USA, Canada, UK, United Arab Emirates, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Russia.
In July 2012, Paul McCartney rocked the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He delivered a live performance of The Beatles's timeless hit "Hey Jude" and engaged the crowd of people from all over the world to join his band in a sing along finale. The show was seen by a live audience of close to 80000 people at the Olympic Park Stadium in addition to an estimated TV audience of two billion people worldwide.
On the long and winding road of his life and career, Sir Paul McCartney has been a highly respected entertainer and internationally regarded public figure.- Benjamin Netanyahu was born on 21 October 1949 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
- Prince William Arthur Philip Louis Mountbatten-Windsor was born on June 21, 1982 to King Charles III and Princess Diana, Prince and Princess of Wales. At his birth, he became second in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, after his father. His early life was spent living in London in Kensington Palace. When he was four and a half, he started nursery school at the Mrs. Maynard Acadamy. Aged eight, he went to Wetherby School, then to a boarding school called Ludgrove, which is about 25 miles from London. When he was 10, his parents separated and they divorced when he was 14. Aged 13, he started at Eton College, an all boys school near Windsor, in Berkshire, and close to Windsor Castle, the home of his grandmother. On August 31, 1997 William was woken up with the news that his mother had died in a car-crash in Paris. Since her death, he has been very protective of his younger brother, Harry, now a cadet at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Prince William is due to join him in 2006, having graduated from the University of St. Andrews with an Upper Second Class Degree in History of Art. With the Death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8 2022 Prince William became the first in the line to the throne of the United Kingdom, after his father King Charles III and the new Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall & Cambridge. If William becomes King, it is not known what title he might take, but it is likely to be William V.
- Actor
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- Writer
Richard Dreyfuss is an American leading man, who has played his fair share of irritating pests and brash, ambitious hustlers.
He was born Richard Stephen Dreyfus in Brooklyn, New York, to Geraldine (Robbins), an activist, and Norman Dreyfus, a restaurateur and attorney. His paternal grandparents were Austro-Hungarian Jewish immigrants, and his mother's family was Russian Jewish.
Richard worked his way up through bit parts (The Graduate (1967), for one) and TV before gaining attention with his portrayal of Baby Face Nelson in John Milius' Dillinger (1973). He gained prominence as a college-bound young man in American Graffiti (1973) and as a nervy Jewish kid with high hopes in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974). By the latter part of the 1970s Dreyfuss was established as a major star, playing leads (and alter-egos) for Steven Spielberg in two of the top-grossing films of the that decade: Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). He won a Best Actor Oscar in his first romantic lead as an out-of-work actor in The Goodbye Girl (1977). Dreyfuss also produced and starred in the entertaining private eye movie The Big Fix (1978). After a brief lull in the early 1980s, a well-publicized drug problem and a string of box-office disappointments (The Competition (1980), Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981), The Buddy System (1984)), a clean and sober Dreyfuss re-established himself in the mid-'80s as one of Hollywood's more engaging leads. He co-starred with Bette Midler and Nick Nolte in Paul Mazursky's popular Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986). That same year he provided the narration and appeared in the opening and closing "bookends" of Rob Reiner's nostalgic Stand by Me (1986). He quickly followed that with Nuts (1987) opposite Barbra Streisand, Barry Levinson's Tin Men (1987) in a memorable teaming with Danny DeVito, and Stakeout (1987) with Emilio Estevez. Dreyfuss continued working steadily through the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s, most notably in Mazursky's farce Moon Over Parador (1988), Spielberg's Always (1989), Postcards from the Edge (1990) and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990). He appeared as a member of an ensemble that included Holly Hunter, Gena Rowlands and Danny Aiello in the romantic comedy Once Around (1991) and as a pop psychiatrist, the author of several successful self-help books, who is driven to the edge by nutcase Bill Murray in the popular comedy What About Bob? (1991). Dreyfuss has also remained active in the theater ("Death and Maiden", 1992) and on TV. In his next project he starred the thriller Silent Fall (1994) with John Lithgow and Linda Hamilton, being the film debut of Liv Tyler, Steven Tyler's daughter (Aerosmith's lead vocals). Just later Dreyfuss made Another Stakeout (1993), sequel of Stakeout (1987) where was team again with Emilio Estevez accompanied of Rosie O'Donnell, the adaptation of Neil Simon's play Lost in Yonkers (1993) and followed with a supporting turn as the querulous political opponent in The American President (1995). Dreyfuss received some of the best notices of his career as a determined, inspiring music teacher coping with a deaf son and the demands of his career in Mr. Holland's Opus (1995). Closing the 20th century he was in Sidney Lumet's Night Falls on Manhattan (1996) with Andy Garcia, the crime comedy Mad Dog Time (1996) as the mob boss Vic, the screwball comedy Krippendorf's Tribe (1998) about an anthropologist who creates a false lost New Guinea tribe for not losing his job in the university, TV movie Lansky (1999) about the infamous mob boss to end, the too TV movie Fail Safe (2000) playing The President, and The Crew (2000), about four older mobsters retired in Miami, partnering with Hollywood legends Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassel.
His start in the 21st century was with the adaption of Luis Sepúlveda's novel The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2001), playing an old man to must to hunt a female jaguar turned crazy. It was followed by the supporting apparition in the comedy Who Is Cletis Tout? (2001) and another TV movie about 1981 Ronald Reagan's shooting The Day Reagan Was Shot (2001). After the short-lived TV series The Education of Max Bickford (2001) about a teacher in a women's college where his daughter is student, Dreyfuss returned to cinema in Silver City (2004) and the box-office bomb Poseidon (2006) with Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum and Josh Lucas. Playing former vice-president Dick Cheney in the Oliver Stone's biopic W. (2008) and Irv, the cunning tourist in Greece turned in assistant of a troubled tour guide in My Life in Ruins (2009), Dreyfuss participated in low-budget productions as Leaves of Grass (2009) and The Lightkeepers (2009), for making a cameo in the wild and crazy Piranha 3D (2010) about prehistoric men-eater piranhas that make a bloodbath in a spring break. Returning to first line playing evil Alexander Dunning in the actioner RED (2010), his further productions included Paranoia (2013) as Liam Hemsworth's father partnering Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman, road movie Cas & Dylan (2013) opposites Tatiana Maslany and the biopic TV mini-series Madoff (2016) about the infamous multi-billion-dollar and hustler Bernie Madoff. Tireless and always implied in new projects, Dreyfuss played George, the funny online date of Candice Bergen in Book Club (2018), the comedy and road movie The Last Laugh (2019) with Chevy Chase, and the set in wilderness thriller Daughter of the Wolf (2019) with Gina Carano and Brendan Fehr. Making his 73rd birthday in 2020, Dreyfuss is an example of talent, diversity and love for his work, touching not only all the genres in cinema but leaving an unforgettable footprint at any of them.- Actress
- Writer
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Rebel Wilson was born in Sydney, Australia, to a family of dog handlers and showers. She trained at the Australian Theatre for Young People and at Second City in the US. After a successful stage and television career in Australia, this writer/actress/producer now focuses on feature film projects in the United States and is perhaps most known for her breakthrough roles in the films Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect. In 2019, Rebel will be seen in four feature films: Isn't It Romantic and The Hustle (both of which she also produced), Jojo Rabbit directed by Taika Waititi and Tom Hooper's Cats and ABC television series Les Norton.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Randy Quaid is an Academy Award-nominated actor, for his performance in The Last Detail (1973). Hal Ashby directed Quaid in the role of Meadows opposite Jack Nicholson and Otis Young. Quaid is a great and much-admired actor that has been recognized by Hollywood and the world's finest directors, Midnight Express, The Last Picture Show, Ice Harvest (2005), Real Time (2008), King Carlos in Goya's Ghosts (2006) for director Milos Forman. Forman cast Quaid as "King Carlos IV of Spain" after seeing his Golden Globe-nominated performance as The Colonel in Elvis. Quaid also starred in such mainstream favorites as Kingpin (1996), Vacation (1983), Christmas Vacation (1989) and Independence day (1996).
Quaid earned a Golden Globe for portraying Lyndon Johnson, and received a Golden Globe Nomination for incarnating "Colonel" Tom Parker in Elvis (2005). The portrait of Colonel Parker, a former carnival barker with a murky past, is dark. The New York Times said "Mr. Quaid is riveting as the bully of Graceland" when he has Elvis firmly under his thumb, he is the L.B.J. of rock 'n' roll - a towering, wheedling, tirelessly self-promoting Southern fox in the rare instances when Elvis defies him, Colonel Parker shrinks into a hand-wringing phony, cajoling his only client in the overly ornate language of Professor Marvel in "The Wizard of Oz".
Quaid stars in and was nominated for The Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a cast for his work in Brokeback Mountain (2005), directed by Ang Lee from a script written by Larry McMurtry, who also wrote The Last Picture Show (1971) in which Quaid had his first feature film role. Working with McMurtry and supporting his material has become a Randy Quaid career tradition. Quaid's performance in Brokeback Mountain (2005) was listed as one of the New York Observer's 2005 Noteworthy male performances. In 2009 Randy Quaid Won the Vancouver Critics Award for Best Male Performance in the Feature Film Real-Time for the Role of Rubin an Australian Hit Man.
Randy Quaid was born in Houston, Texas, to Juanita Bonnie Dale (Jordan), a real estate agent, and William Rudy Quaid, an electrician. He grew up in the Houston suburban city of Bellaire, along with his brother, actor Dennis Quaid.
Quaid is married to American Film Director Evi Quaid.- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Actor
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Ricky initiated his singing career in the Latin all boy-band group Menudo. After leaving the group, he moved to New York to study acting. After finishing his studies, he relocated to Mexico where he performed as actor in "Mama ama el Rock", "Alcanzar una Estrella II". In 1991, he began to focus his career as a soloist singer, eventually becoming an international superstar with the release of his self-titled English language album in 1996.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Ringo Starr is a British musician, actor, director, writer, and artist best known as the drummer of The Beatles who also coined the title 'A Hard day's Night' for The Beatles' first movie.
He was born Richard Starkey on July 7, 1940, in a small two-storey house in the working class area of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. His father, Richard Starkey, was a former dockworker turned baker; his mother, Elsie (Gleave) Starkey, was a bakery worker. His parents divorced when he was three and he and his mother, Elsie, moved to another home in Liverpool. While attending Silas Infants' Schools he suffered from many afflictions that basically ruined his education: he had constant abdominal pains, was once diagnosed with a ruptured appendix that led to an inflamed peritoneum, which also led to one of his first surgeries. Ringo was in a coma, and his recovery took a couple of months, during which more operations were performed, and he was known to be accident-prone. Shortly after he came out of the coma, he was trying to offer a toy bus to another boy in an adjoining bed, but fell and suffered from a concussion. When he finally was able to go back to school, he learned that he was far behind in his studies. At age 13 he caught a cold that turned into chronic pleurisy, causing him another stay at a hospital in Liverpool. A few lung complications followed, which resulted in a treatment in yet another children's hospital, this time until 1955. Meanwhile, Richard's mother Elsie had married Harry Graves, the man who her son referred to as a "step-ladder".
At the age of 15 he could barely read or write, although he had aptitude for practical subjects such as woodwork and mechanics. At that time he dropped out of school and got his first job was as a delivery boy for British Rail. His second job was a barman on a ferry to New Brighton, and his next was as a trainee joiner at Henry Hunt & Sons. Ringo injured his finger on the first day of his new job, and then he decided to become a drummer. His dream came true, when his stepfather bought him a new drum kit, and Richard promised to be the best drummer ever.
In 1957, together with Eddie Miles, he started his own band called 'Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group'. At that time he became known as Ritchie, and eventually became caught in the Liverpool's Skiffle craze. Although he was self-taught, he was a good time-keeper, and developed an original beat with his signature accentuations, due to his left-handed manner of playing on the right-handed drum set. He traveled from band to band, but he eventually landed a spot with "Raving Texans", which was a backing band for Rory Storm, later known as "Rory Storm & The Hurricanes", a popular band at that time Liverpool. Rory Storm encouraged Richard to enhance his career by legally changing his name to Ringo Starr. The Hurricanes topped the bill at one of Liverpool's clubs, where The Beatles also had a gig. Ringo's group was at times sharing popularity with The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers. He wanted to leave The Hurricanes to join another group called "The Seniors."
Before Ringo, The Beatles tried several other drummers. At one point they were so desperate, that they even invited strangers from the audience to fill the position. Then came Pete Best who was not considered by the other band members to be the greatest drummer, and they were keen to recruit Ringo as his replacement. On June 6, 1962, at the Abbey Road studios, The Beatles passed Martin's audition with the exception of Pete Best. George Martin liked them, but recommended the change of a drummer. Being asked by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison; Epstein fired Pete Best. After a mutual decision the band was completed with Ringo Starr. Ringo contributed to their first hit in September of 1962, when The Beatles recorded Love Me Do, which charted in UK, and reached the top of the US singles chart.
Ringo's steady and reliable drumming became essential in their studio sessions, as well as in their numerous and exhausting live performances across the world. Ringo's positive disposition as well as his drumming style played the pivotal role in shaping the famous image and music style of The Beatles as they are now known to the world, under the management of Brian Epstein and music producer George Martin. Ringo filled the position of a drummer for The Beatles in the most critical time of the band's formation. He quickly connected with the other three members of The Beatles, and contributed to their music and creativity with his easy-going personality, light humour, reliable drumming and inventive musicianship. All four members were charismatic and individually talented artists, they sparked each other from the beginning. Eventually they made a much better group effort under the thorough management by Brian Epstein whose coaching helped consolidate their talents and mutual stimulation into beautiful teamwork.
Starr had dreamed of becoming a professional actor since his younger years. He wanted to be in movies probably more so than the other members of The Beatles. In 1964, during the first months of Beatlemania, Ringo coined the phrase 'A Hard Day's Night' which soon became the official title of the Beatles' first movie, in replacement for the working title 'Beatlemania'. Ringo received great reviews for his performance in A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965). At first, Ringo did not have a songwriting career, although he had no problem with his name recognition, however, he had a problem with getting his songs noticed. At that time he got help from his friends; John and Paul wrote a song or two for him to sing on their albums, such as "I Wanna Be Your Man" and "Yellow Submarine". He also sang on "Boys" (by Luther Dixon and Wes Farrell) and "Honey Don't (by Carl Perkins), During his eight-year career with The Beatles, Ringo wrote two original songs: "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus' Garden" for which he also sang the lead vocals. He is listed as co-writing "What Goes On" from Rubber Soul with Lennon and McCartney. Besides his drumming, Ringo's voice was recorded on many of the most popular Beatle's songs, contributing to their unique sound and tight harmonies.
He had a hectic solo career during the 1970s, after the breakup of The Beatles. However, Ringo eventually emerged as a steady performer, and sustained a very popular solo career, turning out a dozen chart-topping hit songs and eight best-selling albums. He made a famous appearance together with George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, and other popular musicians in the landmark 'Concert for Bangladesh' in 1971. His 1973 solo release "Ringo" was the last album to feature all four living Beatles, although not on the same song. He also appeared in various TV shows, including his own special, Ringo (1978), and a TV mini-series, Princess Daisy (1983), with his wife Barbara. In 1984 he did narration for the children's series Thomas & Friends (1984). During the 1980s, after having a long period of troubles with alcohol, Ringo and his wife attended a rehabilitation clinic, and came back to the scene sober. He made the All-Starr Band tour of America and Japan. The tour was so popular that he formed another All-Starr Band lineup in 1992, and began an American and European tour in June of that year. Since then Ringo Starr has been enjoying a continuous career as the leader of the All-Starr Band. In 1994, along with George Harrison and Paul McCartney, the three surviving members of The Beatles, reunited and produced Lennon's previously unknown song 'Free as a Bird'. It was preserved by 'Yoko Ono' on a tape recording made by John Lennon in 1977. The song was re-arranged and re-mixed with the voices of three surviving members, and became an international hit. 'Free as a Bird' was also included in The Beatles Anthology TV documentary which was watched by 420 million people in 1995. Ringo, Paul and George sang their new songs, in addition to mixing their voices and music arrangements to John Lennon demos.
Ringo's old friend and band-mate George Harrison passed away on November 29, 2001, after a long battle against lung cancer. The following year, on the anniversary of Harrison's death, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton appeared in a Concert For George, to raise money for the support of Harrison's legacy in exploration of alternative lifestyles, views and philosophies. Starr also supported charitable organizations with consideration to those who have special needs.
Ringo Starr updated the role of a drummer in popular music, he made drummer an equal partner to the lead musicians, thus changing the whole paradigm in how the public saw drummers. His original performing style evolved from adjusting his natural left-handed manner of playing to the right-handed drum set, and allowing his left hand lead in weaving a pattern tightly intertwined with the music of other players, and adding such enhancements as unusual accents and stops. Ringo's musical originality as well as his inventive drumming patterns, time signatures and accentuations became essential to the sound of The Beatles. His on-stage presence and acting talent as well as his humor and musicianship was the essential part in formation and remarkable career of The Beatles.
He was married to his long-time girlfriend, Maureen Cox, from 1965 - 1975, and they had three children: Zak Starkey, Jason, and Lee. The couple broke up in July of 1975, and he married actress Barbara Bach. Ringo Starr divides his time between his residences in England, in Switzerland and his home in Los Angeles, California.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
English actor, writer and director Chiwetel Ejiofor is renowned for his portrayal of Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave (2013), for which he received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations, along with the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. He is also known for playing Okwe in Dirty Pretty Things (2002), the Operative in Serenity (2005), Lola in Kinky Boots (2005), Luke in Children of Men (2006), Dr. Adrian Helmsley in 2012 (2009) and Dr. Vincent Kapoor in The Martian (2015).
Chiwetelu Umeadi Ejiofor was born on July 10, 1977 in Forest Gate, London, England, to Nigerian parents, Obiajulu (Okaford), a pharmacist, and Arinze Ejiofor, a doctor. Chiwetel attended Dulwich College in South-East London. By the age of 13, he was appearing in numerous school and National Youth Theatre productions and subsequently attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA).
Ejiofor caught the attention of Steven Spielberg who cast him in the critically acclaimed Amistad (1997) alongside Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins. He has since been seen on the big screen in numerous features including Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things (2002) (for which he won Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards, the Evening Standard Film Awards, and the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards), Love Actually (2003), Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda (2004), Kinky Boots (2005), Inside Man (2006), Children of Men (2006), American Gangster (2007) and Talk to Me (2007), for which his performance won him an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Ejiofor has balanced his film and television commitments with a number of prestigious stage productions. In 2008, his portrayal of the title role in Michael Grandage's "Othello" at the Donmar Warehouse alongside Ewan McGregor was unanimously commended and won him best actor at the 2008 Laurence Olivier Awards and Evening Standard Theatre Awards. He also received nominations in the South Bank Show Awards and the What's On Stage Theatregoers' Choice Awards in 2009. His other stage roles include Roger Michell's "Blue/Orange" in 2000 which received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play, and the same year Tim Supple's "Romeo and Juliet" in which Ejiofor portrayed the title role.
Following his television debut in the series episode Deadly Voyage (1996), Ejiofor has complimented his film and theatre work on the small screen in productions including Murder in Mind (2001), created by the award-winning writer Anthony Horowitz, Trust (2003), Twelfth Night, or What You Will (2003), and Canterbury Tales (2003). His television appearance in the hard hitting emotional drama Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006) alongside Toni Collette, Sophie Okonedo and Tim Roth earned him a nomination for a Golden Globe Award as well as an NAACP Image award.
Ejiofor also appeared in such notable films as Endgame (2009), Channel 4's moving drama set in South Africa for which his performance earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries; Roland Emmerich's action feature 2012 (2009), opposite John Cusack, Danny Glover and Thandiwe Newton; and Salt (2010), opposite Angelina Jolie and Liev Schreiber. In 2013, he starred in Half of a Yellow Sun (2013) and 12 Years a Slave (2013), receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for the latter film.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Ron Perlman is a classically-trained actor who has appeared in countless stage plays, feature films and television productions.
Ronald N. Perlman was born April 13, 1950 in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York. His mother, Dorothy (Rosen), is retired from the City Clerk's Office. His father, Bertram "Bert" Perlman, now deceased, was a repairman and a drummer. His parents were both from Jewish families (from Hungary, Germany and Poland).
With a career spanning over three decades, Perlman has worked alongside such diverse actors as Marlon Brando, Sean Connery, Dominique Pinon, Brad Dourif, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Jude Law, Christina Ricci, Federico Luppi, Sigourney Weaver, Michael Wincott and Elijah Wood to name a few.
While he has never been a bankable star, Perlman has always had a large fan-base. He started out strong as Amoukar, one of the tribesmen in Jean-Jacques Annaud's Academy Award-winning film Quest for Fire (1981), for which he earned a Genie Award nomination. Perlman teamed up with Annaud again, this time as a hunchback named Salvatore in The Name of the Rose (1986). His first real breakthrough came later when he landed the role of the noble lion-man Vincent, opposite Linda Hamilton on the fantasy series Beauty and the Beast (1987). His work in this role earned him not only a Golden Globe Award but an underground fan following. Sadly the series was canceled in its third season shortly after Hamilton's character's death.
After that, he spent time doing supporting work on television and independent films such as Guillermo del Toro's debut Cronos (1992) (where a lifelong friendship and collaboration between the director and Perlman would blossom) as Angel and his first lead role as One in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's surreal The City of Lost Children (1995). His first real big role in a mainstream film came when Jeunet wanted him for the brutish Johner in his first Hollywood outing Alien: Resurrection (1997). Perlman has also used his distinctive voice to his advantage, appearing in many animated films/series, commercials and he is a video game fan favorite because of his work on such games as the Fallout series.
It was not until much later he received worldwide fame when his good friend Guillermo del Toro helped him land the title role in the big-budget comic book movie Hellboy (2004). Del Toro fought the studio for four years because they wanted a more secure name, but he stood his ground and in 2004, after almost 25 years in and out of obscurity, Perlman became a household name and a sought out actor. Perlman has had one of the most offbeat careers in film, playing everything from a prehistoric ape-man to an aging transsexual and will always be a rarity in Hollywood.
Other notable roles include the cunning Norman Arbuthnot in The Last Supper (1995), sniper expert Koulikov in Enemy at the Gates (2001), vampire leader Reinhardt in Blade II (2002), his reprisal of Hellboy in Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) and biker chief Clarence Morrow on the popular series Sons of Anarchy (2008).
He currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Opal, and their two children, Blake and Brandon.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Sarah Jessica Parker was born March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio, to Barbra Forste (née Keck), a teacher who ran a nursery school, and Stephen Parker, a journalist. Her parents divorced, and her mother later remarried to Paul Forste and had four more children, bringing the total to eight. Sarah now had 3 full siblings and 4 half siblings. Her father was of Eastern European Jewish ancestry, and her mother had German, and some English, roots.
Trained in singing and ballet, Sarah was cast in the Broadway production of "The Innocents", which prompted her family to relocate to New Jersey. Already a professional performer (she studied at the American Ballet School and the Professional Children's School), Sarah was cast in "The Sound of Music" (along with four of her siblings), and landed the lead in the Broadway run of "Annie". After a year as the free-spirited orphan, Sarah attended Dwight Morrow High School, while continuing to add more credits to her acting resume. She landed a role in the made-for-TV movie My Body, My Child (1982), before being cast as one of the lead roles in the 1982 sitcom Square Pegs (1982), as high-schooler Patty Green.
Once a graduate, Sarah decided to pursue a full-time acting career rather than further her education. Since Square Pegs (1982) did not last more than a year, Sarah moved on to supporting film roles in movies such as Footloose (1984), Firstborn (1984), and the lead role in the teenage film Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985). Sarah was having lots of fun, although she had yet to land a star-turning role. After more television appearances in series and made-for-TV movies including A Year in the Life (1986), The Room Upstairs (1987) and Dadah Is Death (1988), Sarah finally landed the role of Steve Martin's bubbly lover in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story (1991). More substantial film roles soon followed, starting with a role opposite Nicolas Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) (which foreshadowed her comedic talent), Hocus Pocus (1993) and Ed Wood (1994).
A big Woody Allen fan, she starred opposite the renowned filmmaker in the television movie The Sunshine Boys (1996), and that same year, she landed a starring role in Miami Rhapsody (1995). 1996 was a film intensive year with roles in The First Wives Club (1996), If Lucy Fell (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996). All the while making a name for herself in film, Sarah was gaining respect as a theater actress, with her lead role as a dog (hard to imagine, but true) in the off-Broadway "Sylvia", and her Broadway roles in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (starring her present husband, Matthew Broderick), and the Tony-Award nominated "Once Upon a Mattress".
But Sarah's star has shot up since her portrayal of Manhattan sex-columnist Carrie Bradshaw in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998). Sarah's Golden Globe Best Actress victory in 2000 only underscores the fact that she plays the role of Carrie as though it were literally written for her. Sarah has been happily married to fellow actor Matthew Broderick for quite a while now. Before the marriage, she dated Robert Downey Jr. (who she also lived with), and the late John Kennedy Jr. When not serving as lead actress and producer of Sex and the City (1998), Sarah is a member of Hollywood's Women's Political Committee, and is UNICEF's representative for the Performing Arts.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Scarlett Ingrid Johansson was born on November 22, 1984 in Manhattan, New York City, New York. Her mother, Melanie Sloan is from a Jewish family from the Bronx and her father, Karsten Johansson is a Danish-born architect from Copenhagen. She has a sister, Vanessa Johansson, who is also an actress, a brother, Adrian, a twin brother, Hunter Johansson, born three minutes after her, and a paternal half-brother, Christian. Her grandfather was writer Ejner Johansson.
Johansson began acting during childhood, after her mother started taking her to auditions. She made her professional acting debut at the age of eight in the off-Broadway production of "Sophistry" with Ethan Hawke, at New York's Playwrights Horizons. She would audition for commercials but took rejection so hard her mother began limiting her to film tryouts. She made her film debut at the age of nine, as John Ritter's character's daughter in the fantasy comedy North (1994). Following minor roles in Just Cause (1995), as the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw's character, and If Lucy Fell (1996), she played the role of Amanda in Manny & Lo (1996). Her performance in Manny & Lo garnered a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female, and positive reviews, one noting, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson", while San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle commentated on her "peaceful aura", and wrote, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress."
After appearing in minor roles in Fall (1997) and Home Alone 3 (1997), Johansson garnered widely spread attention for her performance in The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford, where she played Grace MacLean, a teenager traumatized by a riding accident. She received a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress for the film. In 1999, she appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the music video for Mandy Moore's single, "Candy". Although the film was not a box office success, she received praise for her breakout role in Ghost World (2001), credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age". She was also featured in the Coen Brothers' dark drama The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), opposite Billy Bob Thornton and Frances McDormand. She appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002) with David Arquette and Kari Wuhrer.
In 2003, she was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, one for drama (Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)) and one for comedy (Lost in Translation (2003)), her breakout role, starring opposite Bill Murray, and receiving rave reviews and a Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival. Her film roles include the critically acclaimed Weitz brothers' film In Good Company (2004), as well as starring opposite John Travolta in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), which garnered her a third Golden Globe Award nomination.
She dropped out of Mission: Impossible III (2006) due to scheduling conflicts. Her next film role was in The Island (2005) alongside Ewan McGregor which earned weak reviews from U.S. critics. After this, she appeared in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) and was nominated again for a Golden Globe Award. In May 2008, she released her album "Anywhere I Lay My Head", a collection of Tom Waits covers featuring one original song. Also that year, she starred in Frank Miller's The Spirit (2008), the Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), and played Mary Boleyn opposite Natalie Portman in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008).
Since then, she has appeared as part of an ensemble cast in the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You (2009), the action superhero film Iron Man 2 (2010), the comedy-drama We Bought a Zoo (2011) and starred as the original scream queen, Janet Leigh, in Hitchcock (2012). She then played her character, Black Widow, in the blockbuster action films The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Black Widow (2021), and also headlined the sci-fi action thriller Lucy (2014), a box office success. With more than a decade of work already under her belt, Scarlett has proven to be one of Hollywood's most talented young actresses. Her other starring roles are in the sci-fi action thriller Ghost in the Shell (2017) and the dark comedy Rough Night (2017).
Scarlett and Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds were engaged in May 2008 and married in September of that year. In 2010, the couple announced their separation, and subsequently divorced a year later. In 2013, she became engaged to French journalist Romain Dauriac, the couple married a year later. In January 2017, the couple announced their separation, and subsequently divorced in March of that year. They have a daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac (born 2014). The couple divorced in September 2017.
She married Colin Jost in October 2020. They have one child, a son.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
His Nigerian mother and Brazilian-born father were still studying when Seal was born. They were barely able to stay afloat with odd jobs. Shortly after his birth, Seal was sent to a foster family, where he grew up in sheltered conditions until he was four years old. In 1967, his mother Adebisi fought back for custody of him. She now had an orderly life, worked as a wig maker and had divorced Seal's father. For the next two years, Seal lived with his mother in London with his five siblings until she left him to his father in 1969. Life with his father was marked by domestic violence and abuse.
In addition to his father's violence, he also had to deal with the worst kind of teasing at school. The skin disease lupus erythematosus, which affected him as a child, left extensive scars on his face. At the age of 15, he ran away from home and dropped out of school. From then on he kept himself afloat with various odd jobs, but always kept an eye on his passion for music and sang in various pubs and bars. In the mid-1980s, Seal joined the British funk band Push. A tour took him to Japan and Thailand, where he briefly joined a blues band. Fascinated by Asia, he went on an exploratory trip to India. In 1990 he returned to London and met the producer Adamski there. With him Seal recorded "Killer", which immediately reached number one in the British charts.
In 1991 he recorded his first album entitled "Seal" with Trevor Horn, who was a producer for Grace Jones, among others. The single "Crazy" was particularly successful. In 1994 he released his second album, which he also simply titled "Seal". He celebrated an absolute worldwide success with the title song for the movie "Batman Forever". "Kiss From A Rose" went multi-platinum, went number one in the US and stayed on the charts for a total of 45 weeks. Seal was also nominated for three Grammys for "Kiss From A Rose." His participation in the soundtrack to the 1996 film "Space Jam" entitled "Fly Like An Eagle" also received wide attention. Two years later, in 1998, Seal's third album "Human Nature" followed, but could not match the great success of its predecessors. In the following years things became a little quieter for the soul star.
Seal lived in Los Angeles and stayed away from the public most of the time. However, media interest quickly returned when it was revealed that he was in a relationship with top German model Heidi Klum. He moved to London to live with her and recorded the album "Seal IV" (2003), again with Trevor Horn, who accompanied him on all his albums. The success was unimaginably great, especially the single "Love's Divine" became a worldwide megahit and was listed in the top ten around the world. At the end of 2004 a best-of album followed with the title "Best 1991 - 2004". On May 10, 2005, Seal and Heidi Klum married. They lived alternately in London and New York. Together they became parents to two sons in 2005 and 2006; Their daughter was born in 2009. Another of Klum's daughters, from a previous relationship, was adopted by Seal.
At the beginning of 2007 he contributed the song "A Father's Way" to the film "The Pursuit of Happiness". In February of the same year, Seal was defeated in a legal dispute with his former manager in a London appeal court, whereupon he had to pay John Wadlow $922,000 in commissions from the proceeds of his first two albums. At the end of 2009, Klum subsequently adopted Seal's surname Samuel. In October 2011, a private appearance at Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's birthday party led to criticism because he was accused of serious human rights violations. On January 22, 2012, the couple announced their separation.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Began his career in Texas. Trained by the legendary Jose Lothario, Shawn Michaels wrestled in Kansas, where he met fellow wrestler, Marty Jannetty. A year later, after sending tapes of his matches to the major wrestling companies at the time, he was contacted by the AWA, who proposed that he team up with Marty Jannetty again. Together, Michaels and Jannetty became known as the Midnight Rockers. The AWA had just received a TV deal with ESPN, which did wonders for his career. The Midnight Rockers had a major feud with "Playboy" Buddy Rose and "Pretty Boy" Doug Somers. Their matches were considered bloodbaths at the time. Eventually the Midnight Rockers came out the victors and were the AWA World Tag Team Champions. The WWF (now WWE) noticed their efforts and signed them to a deal. Both Michaels and Jannetty were soon fired for a incident in a bar, which Michaels claims was a misunderstanding. The duo went back to the AWA for a brief time. After a while, they contacted the WWF, who gave them a second chance and they returned in late 1988. They were known simply as The Rockers. The duo had a great influence on many of the present teams in wrestling. Their trademark was being tag team specialists and using great double team moves on their opponents.
They had major feuds with The Brain Busters, The Fabulous Rougeaus, The Hart Foundation, The Orient Express, and Power & Glory. At one point the Rockers won the WWF Tag Team Titles. The match was taped before being shown Jim Neidhart of the Hart Foundation was negotiating his release at the time, then eventually came to an agreement to stay. They were stripped of the Tag Team titles which was returned to the Hart Foundation with the explanation that a turnbuckle collapsed which caused the match to go bad for both teams. Sometime after the Rockers were split apart and Shawn Michaels became a singles wrestler, after turning on his partner Marty Jannetty. In a related story, Michaels actually met with Vince McMahon to discuss his character. He told him he worked hard and would like to be pushed as a singles wrestler. He wanted to know what he had to do to convince Vince McMahon to do so. McMahon told him he just did it by coming to him. Michaels defeated Tito Santana in his first WrestleMania as a singles wrestler. He was managed by Sherri Martel, who supposedly had a crush on him. In a major upset, Michaels defeated The British Bulldog on Saturday Night's Main Event. Michaels thus won the Intercontinental Title from the Bulldog. One night on Raw in May 1993, Michaels wrestled former partner Marty Jannetty with the Intercontinental Title on the line. The match became Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Match of the Year. Jannetty won the bout.
The following year, Michaels wrestled Razor Ramon (Scott Hall, who is one of his best friends) in a ladder match at WrestleMania X. This match was voted by Pro Wrestling Illustrated as the Match of the Year and became one of wrestling's most innovative matches. In 1995, Michaels was again voted in Match of the Year by wrestling another great friend, Diesel (Kevin Nash) at WrestleMania XI. Michaels won both the 1995 and 1996 Royal Rumbles, and again was in match of the year when in 1996 he wrestled Bret Hart at WrestleMania XII in a one hour Iron Man Match. Michaels was involved in the big Montreal Screwjob on Bret Hart, that Vince McMahon was behind. The match was stopped and awarded to Shawn Michaels because Vince McMahon was worried that Hart would refuse to lose and take the WWF Title belt to WCW Nitro. This severed a friendship between Michaels and Hart. Michaels originally denied knowing about it in advance. Later on he admitted he knew but wouldn't refuse to do what Vince McMahon wanted him to, since Vince McMahon made his career. Michaels innovated another match against the Undertaker, when he wrestled him in a Hell in the Cell match. After WrestleMania XIV, Michaels didn't wrestle for 4 years due to a back injury, but maintained an on air role on occasion. During his time off, Michaels became a father, and also became a Born again Christian. At SummerSlam 2002, Michaels returned to the ring to face his friend Triple H. The two had a great feud, and Michaels who didn't think he could wrestle as well as he used to, dazzled the audience. He wasn't sure if he would be able to continue his normal wrestling schedule due to the nagging injuries, but after that, he went strong for almost 8 full years. He won his last World Championship from Triple H later that year, which he held for a month.- Director
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Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from artistic, education-grounded background; his father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher. He attended school in Morehouse College in Atlanta and developed his film making skills at Clark Atlanta University. After graduating from Morehouse, Lee attended the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program. He made a controversial short, The Answer (1980), a reworking of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915), a ten-minute film. Lee went on to produce a 45-minute film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983) which won a student Academy Award. In 1986, Spike Lee made the film, She's Gotta Have It (1986), a comedy about sexual relationships. The movie was made for $175,000, and earned $7 million at the box office, which launched his career and allowed him to found his own production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. His next movie was School Daze (1988), which was set at a historically black school, focused mostly on the conflict between the school and the Fraternities, of which he was a strong critic, portraying them as materialistic, irresponsible, and uncaring. With his School Daze (1988) profits, Lee went on to make his landmark film, Do the Right Thing (1989), a movie based specifically his own neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The movie portrayed the racial tensions that emerge in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood on one very hot day. The movie garnered Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay, for Danny Aiello for supporting actor, and sparked a debate on racial relations. Lee went on to produce and direct the jazz biopic Mo' Better Blues (1990), the first of many Spike Lee films to feature Denzel Washington, including the biography of Malcolm X (1992), in which Washington portrayed the civil rights leader. The movie was a success, and garnered an Oscar nomination for Washington. The pair would work together again on He Got Game (1998), an excursion into the collegiate world showing the darker side of college athletic recruiting, as well as the 2006 film Inside Man (2006). Spike Lee's role as a documentarian has expanded over the years, highlighted by his participation in Lumière and Company (1995), the Oscar-nominated 4 Little Girls (1997), to his Peabody Award-winning biographical adaptation of Black Panther leader in A Huey P. Newton Story (2001), through his 2005 Emmy Award-winning examination of post-Katrina New Orleans in When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006) and its follow-up five years later If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise (2010). Through his production company 40 Acres and A Mule Filmworks, Lee continues to create and direct both independent films and projects for major studios, as well as working on story development, creating an internship program for aspiring filmmakers, releasing music, and community outreach and support. He is married to Tonya Lewis Lee, and they have two sons, Satchel and Jackson.- Actor
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Timothy Allen Dick was born on June 13, 1953, in Denver, Colorado, to Martha Katherine (Fox) and Gerald M. Dick. His father, a real estate salesman, was killed in a collision with a drunk driver while driving his family home from a University of Colorado football game, when Tim was eleven years old. His mother, a community service worker, remarried her high school sweetheart, an Episcopalian deacon, two years after Tim's father's death. He was raised with his many siblings and step-siblings. When Tim was young, his family moved to Birmingham, Michigan.
In high school, his favorite subject was shop, of course, and after high school, he attended Western Michigan University and graduated with a degree in Television Production in 1975. In 1978, he was arrested on drug charges and spent two years in jail. Upon his release, he had a new outlook on life and on a dare from a friend, started his comedy career at the Comedy Castle in Detroit. Later, he went on to do several cable specials, including, Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen (1988) and Tim Allen: Men Are Pigs (1990). In 1991, he became the star of his own hit television series on ABC called Home Improvement (1991). While continuing to film his television series throughout most of the 1990s, he starred in a string of blockbuster movies, including The Santa Clause (1994), Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Galaxy Quest (1999). In August 1996, he developed and unveiled his own signature line of power tools, manufactured by Ryobi. On top of all that, he has his own racing team, Tim Allen/Saleen RRRRacing. In May 1999, he ended his series Home Improvement (1991) after eight seasons and in 2001, he filmed such movies as Big Trouble (2002) and Joe Somebody (2001).- Writer
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Elizabeth Stamatina Fey was born in 1970 in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia, to Xenobia "Jeanne" (Xenakes), a brokerage employee, and Donald Henry Fey, who wrote grant proposals for universities. Her mother is Greek, born in Piraeus, while her father had German, Northern Irish, and English ancestry. Going by the name of Tina, Fey considered herself a "supernerd" during her high school and college years. She studied drama at the University of Virginia, and after graduating in 1992, she headed to Chicago, the ancestral home of American comedy. While working at a YMCA to support herself, she started Second City's first set of courses. After about nine months, a teacher told her to just skip ahead and audition for the more selective Second City Training Center. She failed but about eight weeks later, she re-auditioned and got into the year-long program. She ended up spending many years at The Second City in Chicago where many SNL cast members first started out. Then in 1995, Saturday Night Live (1975) came to The Second City's cast, including Fey's friend, Adam McKay, as a writer, searching for new talent. What they found was Tina Fey. When Adam was made Head writer, he suggested Fey should send a submission packet over the summer with six sketches, 10 pages each. Tina took the advice and sent them. After Lorne Michaels met her and saw her work she was offered a job a week later. She admitted that she was extremely nervous working in the legendary Studio 8H; being a foot shorter than everyone else, younger, and being one of the only female writers at the time. After a few years, Tina made history by becoming the first female head writer in the show's history. Tina also made her screen debut as a featured player during the 25th season by co-anchoring Weekend Update with Jimmy Fallon. Since Tina and Jimmy have taken over Weekend Update it has been considered the best ever. This year she made it to full fledged star by becoming a regular cast member, though she is hardly on the show, besides Update. And during the past two summers, Tina and Rachel Dratch performed their two-woman show to critical acclaim in both Chicago (1999) and New York (2000) and made their Aspen Comedy Festival Debut. Tina is married to Jeff Richmond, a Second City director and lives in New York City.- Actor
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Uri Geller was born on 20 December 1946 in Tel Aviv, Palestine [now Israel]. He is an actor and producer, known for Once Upon a Time in Dublin (2009), An Honest Liar (2014) and Sanitarium (2001). He has been married to Hanna Shtrang since 1979. They have two children.- Actress
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- Writer
Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on November 13, 1955. Her mother, Emma (Harris), was a teacher and a nurse, and her father, Robert James Johnson, Jr., was a clergyman. Whoopi's recent ancestors were from Georgia, Florida, and Virginia. She worked in a funeral parlor and as a bricklayer while taking small parts on Broadway. She moved to California and worked with improv groups, including Spontaneous Combustion, and developed her skills as a stand-up comedienne. Goldberg came to prominence doing an HBO special and a one-woman show as Moms Mabley. She has been known in her prosperous career as a unique and socially conscious talent with articulately liberal views. Among her boyfriends were Ted Danson and Frank Langella. Goldberg was married three times and was once addicted to drugs.
Goldberg had her first big film starring role in The Color Purple (1985). She received much critical acclaim, and an Oscar nomination for her role and became a major star as a result. Subsequent efforts in the late 1980s were, at best, marginal hits. These movies mostly were off-beat to formulaic comedies like Burglar (1987), The Telephone (1988) and Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986). She made her mark as a household name and a mainstay in Hollywood for her Oscar-winning role in the box office smash Ghost (1990). Whoopi Goldberg was at her most famous in the early 1990s, making regular appearances on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). She admitted to being a huge fan of the original Star Trek (1966) series and jumped at the opportunity to star in "Star Trek: The Next Generation".
Goldberg received another smash hit role in Sister Act (1992). Her fish-out-of-water with some flash seemed to resonate with audiences and it was a box office smash. Whoopi starred in some highly publicized and moderately successful comedies of this time, including Made in America (1993) and Soapdish (1991). Goldberg followed up to her success with Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), which was well-received but did not seem to match up to the first.
As the late 1990s approached, Goldberg seemed to alternate between lead roles in straight comedies such as Eddie (1996) and The Associate (1996), and took supporting parts in more independent minded movies, such as The Deep End of the Ocean (1999) and How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998). Goldberg never forgot where she came from, hosting many tributes to other legendary entertainment figures. Her most recent movies include Rat Race (2001) and the quietly received Kingdom Come (2001). Goldberg contributes her voice to many cartoons, including The Pagemaster (1994) and Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990), as Gaia, the voice of the earth. Alternating between big-budget movies, independent movies, tributes, documentaries, and even television movies (including Theodore Rex (1995)).
Whoopi is accredited as a truly unique and visible talent in Hollywood. Perhaps she will always be remembered as well for Comic Relief, playing an integral part in almost every benefit concert they had. Whoopi is also the center square in Hollywood Squares (1998), sometimes hosts the Academy Awards, and is an author, with the book "Book."- Actor
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Born William Henry III is an American entrepreneur, business mogul, investor, philanthropist, and widely known as one of the most richest and influential people in the world. William Henry III was born to attorney, William Henry II and teacher, Mary Maxwell Gates in Seattle, Washington, USA.
Bill Gates as a child was very competitive, curious, and depth thinker. His parents decided to enroll him in the private preparation school, Lakeside School. Gates soon excelled at Lakeside, where he made himself oriented to a wide variety of subject ranging from Math, Science, English Literature and even becoming a superb Drama student. Bill Gates surrounded by historical events at a young age was inspired. In 1969, Apollo 11 took men to the moon, this involved huge computers, and which cost billions of research dollars to function and operate. A computer during that era, was very genuine to have. However, Lakeside had gotten a deal with the city of Seattle and received, this became Bill Gates first encounter toward a computer.
Bill Gates would spend hours,upon hours at the computer room at the high-school, and he eventually met a man named,Paul Allen whom shared the same interests as Bill Gates. Bill Gates in 1973 graduated, Lakeside and was accepted by the prestigious University Of Harvard. Gates during his years at Harvard University never had a definite career plan, for some time he thought of pursuing a career in law for the admiration he had with politics, but his true craze was staying up all day and night with the computer. Bill Gates met Steve Ballmer whom would soon join Gates in his venture to start his own company, Microsoft. This all started when Paul Allen, Bill's former school mate moved to Boston from Seattle for a job. Paul Allen picked up a magazine at Harvard Square which read, "World's First Minicomputer Kit To Rival Commercial Models" to Bill Gates and Paul Allen this was the moment they had been waiting for, the dawn of personal computer had begun. Ed Roberts who ran this phenomenal product was looking for someone to do further programming to it. Bill Gates and Allen Paul soon took on this task and this partnership with Ed Roberts eventually led to the first product made by Microsoft the Altair BASIC. "Microsoft" was created in 1976 Altair BASIC was an programming language which ran on the MITS Altair 8800. Gates due to the success of Altair BASIC decided to drop out of Harvard and never returned to complete his studies. Microsoft was located in Albuquerque from 1976 to 1979. In 1979 they relocated their location to Bellevue Washington on January,1,1979.
Microsoft began to expand and specialize in languages such as Basic,Cobol,Fortan,and Pascal. With this expansion and Microsoft having hit the one million dollar profit margin mark, it was a matter of time until a big-shot computer creative company came knocking at their door. That company was IBM. The partnership IBM and Microsoft developed was a pivotal role which defined technology, to what it has become today. It established what Gates had predicted, every home in America would have one computer per household. IBM wanted an operating system for their new line of personal computers. Bill Gates bought an operating system in which he renamed, MS-DOS for IBM. He received profit from IBM for every MS-DOS product made, as IBM didn't own the licensing fee, and Gates refused to give it to them.
The partnership with Bill Gates and Paul Allen soon ended, due to Paul being diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. Their partnership would be seen as one which defined the technology field world-wide. This made Gates the sole-man in the Microsoft empire. In 1985, Microsoft had generated 140 million dollars in sales in just that year alone.
In 1986, Bill Gates introduced Microsoft Windows it would be come one of the most used operating systems in history, and one of the most advanced. Apple around this time, came up with an ingenious software, Gates advised them to have a copyright, however Apple was more focused on selling computers, this prompted Gates to take advantage of an open opportunity. At the age of 31, Gates became a billionaire owning 45% of his stock.
Bill Gates always had insecurities, even if he at such a peak. IBM soon to separate from MS-DOS with the success of their sales, decided to create their own operating system which it licensed from Microsoft called Dos2. OS2 eventually failed as Gates decided to invest his name and the entire future of Microsoft to advancing the Windows operating system, even if it meant losing IBM as a client. He came out with Windows 3.0 which turned out be a best market seller. Microsoft was soon becoming a monopoly, and Gates started receiving the reputation of being ruthless,and unfair. Gates was accused for practicing unfair marketing practices, and a case with the Department Of Justice Division Anti Trust Department was opened. Microsoft would receive royalty fee because of a "per-processor" license Microsoft had which stated, for each computer a microprocessor is sold; a royalty payment must be made. Regardless, if it was a Microsoft operating system or not. Operating Equipment Manufacturers saw this as unfair, this would lead him further to be a monopoly, which no software company liked. Apple had no way of competing, IBM had no way of competing, it was Microsoft receiving these royalty fees even for a non-Microsoft Operating System which most manufactures thought was most unfair. Microsoft agreed to stop charging the fees and the Department Of Justice dropped the case.
Bill Gates's mother died shortly after their marriage of breast cancer. Bill Gates because of the influence his mother had on him, created philanthropic organizations that fought certain causes, and was pursuing the interests his mother had. In 1995, Windows 95 was introduced, Bill Gates at this time slowed down on his work with Microsoft as he became a family man, welcoming his first daughter he had with his wife, Melinda French. Netscape came out with a browser which allowed you to access the world of internet. This was a realm, Microsoft had yet to embark. Netscape sales soared through the roof, while Microsoft was behind. Microsoft then promptly released the web-browser Explorer. With the success of Explorer Gates had yet to know he would be receiving a nation-wide law-suit which would cost Microsoft millions. Gates was charged with practicing unlawful conduct, and running a illegal monopoly in 1998. An anti-trust suit along with president Bill Clinton's Justice Department filed a anti-trust suit which would be seen as the most severe lawsuit's related to the technology field. Bill Gates to save his company stepped down from Microsoft as the CEO and allowed Steve Balmer to be CEO. Bill Gates was the Chairman.
Bill Gates changed the way the world operates,functions, Gates made life easier for humans to live in. To get tasks done within seconds at a time, creating several multitasking software programs. Bill Gates will forever be remembered as a business man, philanthropist, and investor. Bill Gates with multiple products unleashed with his company Microsoft, allowed the technology field to expand and become more competitive,always setting the stakes much higher, and presented a field with endless surprises.- Additional Crew
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Steven Paul Jobs was born on 24 February 1955 in San Francisco, California, to students Abdul Fattah Jandali and Joanne Carole Schieble who were unmarried at the time and gave him up for adoption. He was taken in by a working class couple, Paul and Clara Jobs, and grew up with them in Mountain View, California.
He attended Homestead High School in Cupertino California and went to Reed College in Portland Oregon in 1972 but dropped out after only one semester, staying on to "drop in" on courses that interested him.
He took a job with video game manufacturer Atari to raise enough money for a trip to India and returned from there a Buddhist.
Back in Cupertino he returned to Atari where his old friend Steve Wozniak was still working. Wozniak was building his own computer and in 1976 Jobs pre-sold 50 of the as-yet unmade computers to a local store and managed to buy the components on credit solely on the strength of the order, enabling them to build the Apple I without any funding at all.
The Apple II followed in 1977 and the company Apple Computer was formed shortly afterwards. The Apple II was credited with starting the personal computer boom, its popularity prompting IBM to hurriedly develop their own PC. By the time production of the Apple II ended in 1993 it had sold over 6 million units.
Inspired by a trip to Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), engineers from Apple began working on a commercial application for the graphical interface ideas they had seen there. The resulting machine, Lisa, was expensive and never achieved any level of commercial success, but in 1984 another Apple computer, using the same WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) interface concept, was launched. An advert during the 1984 Super Bowl, directed by Ridley Scott introduced the Macintosh computer to the world (in fact, the advert had been shown on a local TV channel in Idaho on 31 December 1983 and in movie theaters during January 1984 before its famous "premiere" on 22 January during the Super Bowl).
In 1985 Jobs was fired from Apple and immediately founded another computer company, NeXT. Its machines were not a commercial success but some of the technology was later used by Apple when Jobs eventually returned there.
In the meantime, in 1986, Jobs bought The Computer Graphics Group from Lucasfilm. The group was responsible for making high-end computer graphics hardware but under its new name, Pixar, it began to produce innovative computer animations. Their first title under the Pixar name, Luxo Jr. (1986) won critical and popular acclaim and in 1991 Pixar signed an agreement with Disney, with whom it already had a relationship, to produce a series of feature films, beginning with Toy Story (1995).
In 1996 Apple bought NeXT and Jobs returned to Apple, becoming its CEO. With the help of British-born industrial designer Jonathan Ive, Jobs brought his own aesthetic philosophy back to the ailing company and began to turn its fortunes around with the release of the iMac in 1998. The company's MP3 player, the iPod, followed in 2001, with the iPhone launching in 2007 and the iPad in 2010. The company's software music player, iTunes, evolved into an online music (and eventually also movie and software application) store, helping to popularize the idea of "legally" downloading entertainment content.
In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and underwent surgery in 2004. Despite the success of this operation he became increasingly ill and received a liver transplant in 2009. He returned to work after a six month break but eventually resigned his position in August 2011 after another period of medical leave which began in January 2011. He died on 5 October 2011.- Actress
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- Music Department
Mary-Kate Olsen (born June 13, 1986) is an American actress, fashion designer, producer, author, and businesswoman. She co-founded luxury fashion brands The Row, Elizabeth and James, and the more affordable lines Olsenboye and StyleMint alongside her fraternal twin sister Ashley Olsen. Olsen pursued acting independently as an adult until 2012. She is the older sister of actress Elizabeth Olsen.
Mary-Kate was born in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Jarnette "Jarnie", a personal manager, and David "Dave" Olsen, a real estate developer and mortgage banker. Along with her twin, Ashley, she has an older brother, Trent, a younger sister, Elizabeth Olsen, and two half siblings from her father's second marriage. Olsen's parents divorced in 1996.
Along with Ashley, Olsen was cast at the age of nine months to share the role of Michelle Tanner on the ABC sitcom Full House. The Olsen twins portrayed Michelle throughout the series' 1987-95 run. In the early 1990s, she and Ashley established a company, Dualstar, which produced a long string of TV movies and direct-to-video releases featuring the girls. The Olsens continued to release direct-to-video films up to the early 2000s, along with starring in the 1995 feature film It Takes Two. In 1997, the Olsen twins guest starred in an episode of Sister, Sister, alongside rival twin actresses Tia Mowry and Tamera Mowry. After Full House, the sisters starred in two other sitcoms (Two of a Kind and So Little Time) and an animated series (Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!). The former lasted one season while the latter ran for two seasons. These ventures, combined with an array of licensing deals for their names and likenesses, made Olsen wealthy at a young age. In 2004, Olsen's wealth was estimated at $137 million.
Olsen and her sister became co-presidents of Dualstar upon their eighteenth birthday. Olsen's first solo acting appearance was in the movie Factory Girl, released in December 2006. Olsen's one short scene was ultimately cut from theatrical release, but was included on the film's DVD. In 2007, the sisters said that if they became involved in movies together again it would be as producers. Olsen had a recurring role on Weeds . In 2008, she appeared in The Wackness. At the Sundance Film Festival, Academy Award-winner Sir Ben Kingsley, her co-star' praised her. In 2008 Olsen also made a guest appearance on the ABC comedy Samantha Who? as a self-destructive girl that Samantha tries to help. Olsen appeared in the motion picture adaption of the Alex Flinn novel Beastly. Beastly was Mary-Kate's final acting project.
In March 2012, both Mary-Kate and Ashley indicated their interest to retire as actresses in order to focus on their careers in fashion. Mary-Kate and Ashley felt that their futures were in fashion, and not in acting. They discussed wanting to open a store as one of their future fashion-based endeavors.
In 2015 it was announced that John Stamos signed on with Netflix to produce and co-star in Fuller House, a spin-off Full House that would reunite the original cast members for a 13-episode series. Mary-Kate and Ashley originally announced in May 2015 that they will not reprise their role as Michelle Tanner.
Nickelodeon acquired the rights to the Olsen twins' video library in 2015.
In 1993, following Mary-Kate and Ashley's success on Full House, a limited liability company, Dualstar was created to produce Mary-Kate and Ashley-branded products.
In 2004, both Mary-Kate and Ashley took control of Dualstar, becoming joint-CEOs and presidents of the company, which at the time had its merchandise being carried in over 3,000 stores in America and 5,300 stores worldwide.
Mary-Kate and her twin Ashley's success has been marked by their inclusion on every Forbes The Celebrity 100 list since 2002. In 2007 Forbes ranked the twins jointly as the eleventh-richest women in entertainment, with an estimated combined net worth of $100 million.
Following a high volume of public interest in their fashion choices, the sisters began work in collaboration on a string of fashion lines available to the public. Starting as young girls, the Olsen twins started a clothing line in Wal-Mart stores across America for girls ages 4 to 14 as well as a beauty line called "Mary-Kate and Ashley: Real fashion for real girls". In 2004 they made news by signing a pledge to allow all the workers that sew their line of clothing in Bangladesh full maternity leave. The National Labor Committee, which organized the pledge, later praised the twins for their commitment to worker rights.
In 2006, in an attempt to gain credibility in the fashion industry after their association with Wal-Mart tarnished their reputations, they were tapped as the faces of the upscale fashion line Badgley Mischka.
As adults, the Olsen twins have devoted much of their attention to the world of fashion. They head a couture fashion label, "The Row," as well as "Elizabeth and James", "Olsenboye", and "StyleMint" retail collections. Mary-Kate's sometimes controversial fashion choices have often found her on both the best and worst dressed fashion lists, particularly for her decision to wear fur. Mary-Kate and Ashley designed an Olsenboye Change Purse in 2011 and donated the money to "Pennies From Heaven".
In 2011, Mary-Kate and Ashley teamed up with TOMS Shoes to design footwear for kids without shoes in more than 20 countries worldwide. Mary-Kate and Ashley are now the creative directors for Superga. Mary-Kate and Ashley released an Elizabeth and James perfume in Spring 2013. They won the top prize at the 2012 CFDA Fashion Awards. StyleMint is now available in the UK.
In October 2012, Mary-Kate and Ashley won the WSJ magazine Innovator of The Year Award.
Mary Kate was nominated for Council Of Fashion Designers in 2015.
In 2008, the Olsen twins co-authored Influence, a book featuring interviews with fashion designers that have inspired the twins' fashion lines.
Olsen has dated David Katzenberg, son of DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg; photographer Maxwell Snow; and artist Nate Lowman.
In May 2012, Olsen began a relationship with Olivier Sarkozy, half brother of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In March 2014, photos were published showing Olsen wearing what appeared to be an engagement ring. Olsen and Sarkozy were married on November 27, 2015 at a private residence in New York City.
In 2014, Olsen competed in the Hamptons Horse Show. In 2013, her horse Marvelous competed in and won the 38th Hampton Classic Horse Show.
In mid-2004, Olsen announced she had entered treatment for anorexia nervosa. A Got Milk? ad featuring the twins was pulled following the announcement. On November 20, 2007, she was hospitalized for a reported kidney infection.
Mary-Kate was a close friend of late actor Heath Ledger. After discovering Ledger unconscious in his bed in January 2008, his masseuse called Olsen twice before contacting police. Olsen sent a private security guard to the scene.
Responding to a claim by an anonymous law enforcement official that she would not speak to federal investigators without a promise of legal immunity, Olsen's attorney Michael C. Miller said, "We have provided the government with relevant information including facts in the chronology of events surrounding Mr. Ledger's death and the fact that Ms. Olsen does not know the source of the drugs Mr. Ledger consumed".- Actor
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Most of Babe Ruth's records have been broken. In 1961, not only did Roger Maris break The Babe's 34-year-old record for most home runs in a season with 61* (2001), but Maris' teammate on the '61 Yankees, pitcher Whitey Ford broke the Babe's 43-year-old record for most scoreless innings pitched in a World Series when the Yankees dispatched the Reds that year in the postseason. (When asked how it felt to have beat the Babe's "other" record, Whitey responded, "It was a bad year for the Babe".)
Though Barry Bonds now holds the record for most home runs in a season (73), most home runs in a career (762), highest slugging percentage, most intentional walks, etc., The Babe still must be considered the greatest player who ever graced the game. In addition to his record 12 home run titles, his 13 slugging titles, his six R.B.I. titles, and his solo batting title (.378 in 1924; The Babe placed in the top five hitters in terms of batting average eight times, including a career high of .393 in 1923, when Harry Heilmann hit .403), The Babe won 18, 23 and 24 games as a left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox in 1915, 1916 and 1917, and won the American League E.R.A. title in '16. He set his first home run title in 1918, another year the Sox won the World Series, as a part-time position player and part-time pitcher, notching up 11 homers and nine wins. George Herman Ruth likely will remain the sole player in major league baseball history to win batting, home run, R.B.I., slugging *and* E.R.A. titles, plus eat a dozen hot dogs and drink the better part of a keg of bootleg "needle" beer before suiting up for a game.
From 1914 to 1919, The Babe played for the Boston Red Sox, with whom he appeared on three World's Championship teams. Sold to the New York Yankees by Red Sox owner and theatrical impresario Harry Frazee, he led the-then no pennant American League franchise in Gotham to seven A.L. pennants and four World Series titles from 1920-1934. He played out his string with the Boston Braves in 1935; even a washed-up Babe was still able to pole three circuit clouts in one game before calling it quits after 28 games and six in that last season. The following year, he was one of the inaugural inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yes, the Babe was mighty, and he did prevail more often than naught except over one opponent: Father Time.
The Babe ended his 22 years in the Big Leagues with 2,873 hits good for a career batting average of .342, 714 home runs, 2,217 R.B.I.s, and 2,174 runs scored in 2,503 games. (From his debut in 1914 through the 1918 season, when he was making his transition to becoming a full time position player, Ruth only appeared in 261 ball games as he was considered the top left-handed pitcher in the American League.) In the record books, Ty Cobb scored more runs and Hank Aaron hit more homers and racked up more R.B.I.s (Interestingly, Hammerin' Hank and The Babe ended their careers with the exact same number of runs scored.), but they played in far more games than the The Babe, with 3,035 and 3,298 games, respectively. Among modern players, Rickey Henderson, who surpassed Cobb's record for runs after 25 years in The Show, played in 3,081 games, and Barry Bonds appeared in almost 3,000 games.
No player ever had the impact, both on and off the field, as did the charismatic Babe. When he died of cancer in 1948, the New York Times headline read, "Babe Ruth/Idol of Millions of Boys/Dead".- Actor
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At one point in time, Chris Tucker was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.
Tucker was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to Mary Louise (Bryant) and Norris Tucker, who owned a janitorial service. After graduating from high school, Tucker made a change to move to Hollywood from Georgia to pursue a career in show business. He found himself a frequent guest on the Def Comedy Jam (1992). Tucker was noted for doing exceptionally "clean", non-vulgar stand-up comedy routines. Tucker states his inspirations for comedy are Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor.
Tucker made his film debut in House Party 3 (1994), along side stars such as Bernie Mac, Marques Houston, and Khandi Alexander. In 1995 Tucker appeared in one of his most notable and hilarious films, Friday (1995), alongside Ice Cube. Tucker's character, Smokey, was a drug addict who was an energetic and outlandish person. Films such as Friday (1995) showed Tucker's television-comedy styling was very different from his stand-up. In 1995, Tucker also appeared in in another film, Dead Presidents (1995).
In 1997 was the busiest year of Tucker's career. He starred in three hit movies all in the same year: The Fifth Element (1997), Money Talks (1997), and Jackie Brown (1997).
In 1998, Tucker got a role to star along-side Jackie Chan. The movie was Rush Hour (1998) and it grossed more than $200 million worldwide. This resulted in two additional sequels, Rush Hour 2 (2001) and Rush Hour 3 (2007). In 2006, Tucker got a deal on his Rush Hour 3 (2007) contract that paid $25 million, making him the highest-paid actor in Hollywood at that time.
In 2001, Tucker also was in a music video with friend, pop legend Michael Jackson, in the music video, "You Rock My World."