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Milla Jovovich is a Ukrainian-American actress, supermodel, fashion designer, singer and public figure, who was on the cover of more than a hundred magazines, and starred in such films as The Fifth Element (1997), Ultraviolet (2006), and the Resident Evil (2002) franchise.
Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich was born on December 17, 1975 in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now in Ukraine). Her Serbian father, Bogdan Jovovich, was a medical doctor in Kyiv. There, he met her mother, Galina Jovovich (née Loginova), a Russian actress. At the age of 5, in 1981, Milla emigrated with her parents from the Soviet Union, moving first to London, UK, then to Sacramento, California, and eventually settled in Los Angeles. There her parents worked as house cleaners for the household of director Brian De Palma. Her parents separated, and eventually divorced, because her father was arrested and spent several years in prison.
Young Milla Jovovich was brought up by her single mother in Los Angeles. In addition to her native Ukrainian, she also speaks Russian and English. However, in spite of her cosmopolitan background, Milla was ostracized by some of her classmates, as a kid who emigrated from the Soviet Union amidst the paranoia of the Cold War. Many emotional scars had affected her behavior, but she eventually emerged as a resilient, multi-talented, albeit rebellious and risk-taking girl. She was coached by her actress mother since her childhood, first at home, then studied music, ballet, and acting in Los Angeles.
She shot to international fame after she was spotted by the photographer Richard Avedon at the age of 11, and was featured in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements, and on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine 'Lei' which was her first cover shoot. She made her first professional model contract at the age of 12, and soon made it to the cover of 'The Face', 'Vogue', 'Cosmopolitan' and many other magazines. In 1994, she appeared on the cover of 'High Times' in the UK, at the age of 18. The total number of her magazine covers worldwide was over one hundred by 2004, and keeps counting. In 2004, she made $10.4 million, becoming the highest paid supermodel in the world.
Milla appeared in ad campaigns for Chanel, Versace, Emporio Armani, Donna Karen, DKNY, Celine, P&K, H&H, and continues her role as the worldwide spokesperson and model for L'Oreal. Thanks to their continued success with Milla, Giorgio Armani chose her to be the face of his fragrance, Night. In addition to Armani's fragrance, Milla was the face for Calvin Klein's Obsession and Christian Dior's Poison for over 10 years and has most recently become the new face for Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist fragrance, which debuts in August 2009. Milla continues to shoot with the fashion industry's most sought after photographers, including Peter Lindbergh, Mario Sorrenti, Craig McDean and Inez & Vinoodh.
Milla made her acting debut in the Disney Channel movie The Night Train to Kathmandu (1988) and she made guest appearances on television series including Married... with Children (1987) (in 1989 as a French exchange student), Paradise (1988) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990). In 1988, at age 12, she made her film debut credited as Milla in a supporting role in Two Moon Junction (1988) by writer/director Zalman King. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she played several supporting roles as a teenage actress in film and on television, then starred in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991). In 1997, she co-starred opposite Bruce Willis in the sci-fi blockbuster The Fifth Element (1997), then she starred as the title character of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).
In the early 2000s, Milla had a few years of uncertainty in her acting career due to the uneven quality of her films, as well as some hectic events in her private life. She appeared with Mel Gibson in Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. She went on to co-star with Wes Bentley and Sarah Polley in The Claim (2000) and in Ben Stiller's spoof of the world of models and high-fashion, Zoolander (2001).
Milla achieved box office success in the U.S. and around the world with the action-packed thriller, Resident Evil (2002), based on the wildly popular video game, Resident Evil. It was written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Milla reprised her role as the zombie slaying heroine, Alice, in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), and again in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) A seventh resident Evil movie is in pre-production.
She received glowing reviews opposite Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Illeana Douglas in Dummy (2002) which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. In the spring of 2006, Milla returned to the big screen as action heroine, Violet, in the futuristic film Ultraviolet (2006) directed by Kurt Wimmer.
Focusing on her personal sense of style, her love of fashion led Milla and her friend and business partner, Carmen Hawk, to launch their Jovovich-Hawk clothing line, which achieved instant acclaim in the domestic and international fashion world. The fresh, unique line garnered the attention of red carpet watchers and fashion magazines, including American Vogue, who featured Jovovich-Hawk on their coveted list of "10 Things to Watch Out for in 2005." A student of voice and guitar since she was very young, Milla began writing songs for her first record at the age of 15.
Her first album, "The Divine Comedy", was released by EMI Records in 1994. Informed by her experiences as a child growing up as a Russian emigrant in the Red-bashing Reagan era, the introspective European-folkish debut drew favorable reviews for Milla's songwriting and performing. She continues to write music, and has had songs featured on several film soundtracks. She has been writing music and lyrics to her song-demos, playing her guitar and sampling other sounds from her computer, and allowing free download and remix of her songs from her website.
Charitable work also plays a major part in Milla's life. She has served as Master of Ceremonies and co-chaired with Elizabeth Taylor for the amfAR and Cinema Against AIDS event at the Venice Film Festival, and has been heavily involved with The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, as well as The Wildlands Project.
For many years Milla Jovovich has been maintaining a healthier lifestyle, practicing yoga and meditation, trying to avoid junk food, and cooking for herself. Since she was a little girl, Milla has been writing a private diary, a habit she learned from her mother. She has been keeping a record of many good and bad facts of her life, her travels, her relationships, and all important ideas and events in her career, planning eventually to publish an autobiography. After dissolution of her two previous marriages, Milla Jovovich became engaged to film director Paul W.S. Anderson; their daughter, Ever Anderson, was born on November 3, 2007. They got married on August 22, 2009. Their second daughter, Dashiel Edan, was born on April 1, 2015.- Actress
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Kristanna Sommer Loken was born in Ghent, New York, to Rande (Porath) and Merlin "Chris" Loken. She is of half Norwegian and half German descent. She began her modeling career at the early age of 15. Encouraged by her mother, who was a model prior to her daughter's birth, Kristanna's modeling career, as well as her aspirations in acting brought her to New York where she now resides. The glamorous actress/ model seems to have stayed true to her roots: her father owns an apple farm in upstate New York where he writes novels and screenplays. Aside from establishing herself as a supermodel with an Elite contract, Kristanna has made numerous television appearances as well as what could be her breakthrough film role in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, released in 2003.- Actress
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Sigourney Weaver has created a host of memorable characters, both dramatic and comic, ranging from Ripley in Alien to Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist to Gwen/Tawny in Galaxy Quest and most recently, 14-year-old Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water. With a career spanning over 50 years, Weaver has captivated audiences and won acclaim as one of the most gifted and versatile actresses on stage and screen.
Born and educated in New York City, Weaver graduated from Stanford University and went on to receive a master's degree from the Yale School of Drama. Her first professional job was in Sir John Gielgud's production of The Constant Wife working with Ingrid Bergman.
After a walk-on in Woody Allen's Annie Hall, Weaver made her motion picture debut in Ridley Scott's 1979 blockbuster Alien. She later reprised the role of Warrant Officer Ripley in James Cameron's 1986 Aliens; her performance earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. In 1992, she again brought Ripley back to life in David Fincher's Alien 3, which she co-produced, and in 1997 she starred in and co-produced Alien: Resurrection for director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In 1985, Weaver starred in Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters alongside Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd playing Dana Barrett and her possessed counterpart Zuul.
In 1988 Weaver portrayed primatologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist and Katharine Parker in the Mike Nichols comedy Working Girl. Both performances earned her Academy Award Nominations, and she was awarded two Golden Globes for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture. Other films include Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) with Linda Hunt and Mel Gibson, Eyewitness (1981) with William Hurt, Half Moon Street (1986) with Michael Caine, Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) with Gerard Depardieu, Roman Polanski's gripping film adaptation of Death and the Maiden (1994), the thriller Copycat (1995) and Paul Rudnick's comedy Jeffery (1995). Weaver also starred in Showtime's live-action film Snow White (1997) based on the original Grimm's fairy tale, which earned her an Emmy nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination.
In 1997 Weaver joined the ensemble of Ang Lee's critically acclaimed film The Ice Storm alongside Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci. Her performance garnered her a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She later gave a galvanizing performance in A Map of the World (1999), Scott Elliott's powerful drama based on the novel by Jane Hamilton, which earned her universal critical praise and a Golden Globe nomination for best actress. Also in 1999, Weaver appeared in the science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest directed by Dean Parisot alongside Tim Allen and Alan Rickman. She delighted audiences with her flair for comedy, and the film proved to be a hit of the 1999 holiday season. She followed this with the popular comedies Company Man (2000) written and directed by Douglas McGrath and David Mirkin's Heartbreakers (2001) opposite Gene Hackman, Jennifer Love-Hewitt and the late Ray Liotta.
In 2002 Weaver starred in the film version of The Guys, with Anthony LaPaglia, directed by Jim Simpson, and in 2003 she portrayed the cold-blooded, red-headed warden in the hit comedy Holes directed by Andy Davis. The next year, Weaver appeared in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village and received rave reviews for her performance in Imaginery Heroes written and directed by Dan Harris.
In 2006 she appeared in three films - as Babe Paley in Douglas McGrath's Infamous, in Jake Kasdan's The TV Set, and in Snow Cake opposite Alan Rickman. In the following years, Weaver lent her voice to Pixar's 2008 box office smash WALL-E as well as The Tale of Despereaux (2008) with Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Watson. She also starred in the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy Baby Mama (2008) and Andy Fickman's comedy You Again (2010) with Jamie Lee Curtis. In December 2009 Weaver starred as Dr. Grace Augustine in Jim Cameron's groundbreaking film Avatar, which went on to be the highest grossing film of all time. The film won a Golden Globe for Best Picture and an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.
Other credits include Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Miguel Arteta's Cedar Rapids (2011), Paul (2011), Amy Heckerling's Vamps (2012), and Neil Blomkamp's Chappie (2015). In December 2016 she starred in Focus Features' A Monster Calls alongside Liam Neeson, Felicity Jones and newcomer, Lewis MacDougall, followed by Lionsgate's The Assignment (2017) with Michelle Rodriguez directed by Walter Hill.
After coming to New York in the fall of 1975, Weaver performed Off-Off Broadway in Christopher Durang's The Nature and Purpose of the Universe (1974), Titanic (1976) and Das Lusitania Songspiel (1980). She and Durang co-wrote Das Lusitania which earned them both Drama Desk nominations. She has appeared in numerous Off-Broadway productions in New York, working with writers such as John Guare, Albert Innaurato, Richard Nelson and Len Jenkin. In regional repertory she has performed works by Pinter, Williams, Feydeau and Shakespeare. Weaver also appeared in the PBS mini-series "The Best of Families" (1977) and John Cheever's The Sorrows of Gin (1979), adapted by Wendy Wasserstein for PBS.
Weaver received a Tony Award nomination for her starring role in Hurlyburly (1984) on Broadway, directed by Mike Nichols. She played Portia in the Classic Stage Company of New York's production of The Merchant of Venice (1986). In 1996 Weaver returned to Broadway in the Lincoln Center production of Sex and Longing, written by Christopher Durang. In the Fall of 2012, she starred in the Lincoln Center production of Christopher Durang's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike which moved to Broadway in 2013. That year Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike took home the Tony award for Best Play.
Weaver originated the female lead in Anne Nelson's The Guys (2001) at The Flea where it was commissioned and directed by Jim Simpson. The Guys tells the story of a fire captain played by Bill Murray dealing with the aftermath of 9/11. In 2002 she starred in Neil LaBute's play The Mercy Seat opposite Liev Schreiber - which John Lahr of The New Yorker described as offering "performances of a depth and concentration that haven't been seen in New York for many seasons." Weaver also originated roles in two A.R. Gurney world premieres, Mrs. Farnsworth (2004) at the Flea Theater (New York Times 10 Best Plays for 2004), and Crazy Mary (2007) at Playwrights Horizons.
In television Weaver received Emmy, Screen Actors' Guild and Golden Globe nominations for her role as Mary Griffith in Lifetime's "Prayers for Bobby," which was also Emmy nominated for Outstanding Made for Television Movie. In 2012 she was seen in USA Network's miniseries "Political Animals," for which she received SAG, Golden Globe, and Emmy nominations. Weaver also appeared in the Marvel series "The Defenders," released globally on Netflix in August 2017.
Ms. Weaver was honored to receive the GLAAD Media Award for her work in "Prayers for Bobby" as well as the Trevor Life Award in 2011. She has been the Honorary Chair of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund for the last 33 years. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, and she also served on the Board of Human Rights First for 25 years. Weaver was proud to receive the National Audubon Society's Rachel Carson Award in 2009 for her environmental work. She was also a co-founder of the original Flea Theater on White Street which championed young artists and new work.
Weaver appeared in season 4 of the French television series "Call My Agent!" which was released globally on Netflix in 2021 and won the International Emmy for Comedy Series. Additionally, she starred in Philippe Falardeau's My Salinger Year which opened the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival. In April 2021 Weaver narrated James Cameron's "Secrets of the Whales," which debuted on Disney+ and garnered an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Narrator. The series also won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
Weaver's recent film work includes Phyllis Nagy's drama Call Jane alongside Elizabeth Banks, Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky's The Goos House alongside Kevin Kline. James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water premiered at the end of 2022 with Weaver playing Kiri, Grace Augustine's Na'vi daughter. A2 received "Best Picture" nominations for the Oscars, Golden Globe, and Critics Choice awards and has grossed almost 2.5 billion dollars. Upcoming projects include Amazon Studios' drama series, "The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart," which she also executive produced, and Paul Schrader's Master Gardener, opposite Joel Edgerton, which premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.- Actress
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Famke Janssen was born November 5, 1964, in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, and has two other siblings. Moving to America in the 1980s, she modeled for Chanel in New York. Later, taking a break from modeling, she attended Columbia University, majoring in literature.
This model-turned-actress broke into Hollywood in the early 1990s. Her first film was Fathers & Sons (1992). Later she became James Bond's enemy in GoldenEye (1995). Her career has bloomed since then with her starring in such films as House on Haunted Hill (1999), Hide and Seek (2005), a recurring role on FX's Nip/Tuck (2003), and the blockbuster movies X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).- Actress
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Cynthia Rothrock is a martial arts expert and athlete, who went on to become a film actress, starring in a number of highly successful martial arts action movies. She first made a name as an action actress in Hong Kong before going on to wow audiences in her home turf. At the time of her popularity, she was well-known as the "Queen of Martial Arts films".
Cynthia Rothrock is the World Champion in martial arts Forms and Weapons (1981-1985). Her goal was to be undefeated and retire after five years. With over 100 competitions, she holds the undefeated worldwide record in martial arts Forms competition. In weapons competition, Cynthia is the first and only woman to win number one in North America against the men-at that time, women had to compete with the men. She holds five Black Belts with a rank of 8th Dan Grandmaster.
Upon completing her goal of being undefeated in competition, she began her martial arts acting career starring in movies produced and filmed in Hong Kong. Her first movie, Yes, Madam alongside Michelle Yeoh, broke box office records making her a massive star in Hong Kong. After three years of living in Hong Kong, finishing seven films, she returned to the United States to continue her acting career. Today she has starred in over 60 movies.
Rothrock has been a role model for women in martial arts and film. She made history by becoming the inaugural woman to grace the cover of Karate Illustrated (August 1981) and holds the distinction of being the first woman featured on the cover three times in the magazine's history.
In March 2024, Black Belt Magazine named Rothrock number one in its list of "The Most Influential Women Martial Artists on the Planet.". Rothrock is a proud inductee into the prestigious Black Belt Hall of Fame, along with Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. In 2016 she was the first martial artist (male or female) to be inducted into the prestigious International Sports Hall of Fame by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dr. Robert Goldman.- Actress
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Carrie-Anne Moss was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. At age 20, after studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she moved to Europe to pursue a career in modeling. While in Spain she was cast in the TV show Dark Justice which was produced in Barcelona for its first season and Los Angeles for its second. Once in LA, Carrie-Anne was cast in other series regular opportunities like Matrix (which coincidentally presaged the movie that would later make her famous), and then Aaron Spelling's Models Inc.
Carrie-Anne's work was gaining attention when the late great Mali Finn brought her in to audition for The Wachowski's, who offered her the opportunity to create the iconic cyber warrior "Trinity". Alongside her "One" Keanu Reeves, in stride with Laurence Fishburne and the multifaceted Hugo Weaving. Carrie-Anne Moss galvanized her place in cinematic history in one of the highest grossing sci-fi action franchises of all time.
Carrie-Anne began receiving a wide range of scripts but it was the complex screenplay Memento that stirred her creative senses and once meeting the then unknown writer/director Christopher Nolan, it was without hesitation that she accepted the role of "Natalie" in Nolan's directorial debut. Her remarkable performance won her the coveted Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female that year.
Prominent directors and producers continued to pursue her. She survived with Val Kilmer on the Red Planet for Warner Bros; sweetened Lasse Hallstrom's multi Oscar nominated Chocolat for Miramax and tracked Sir Ben Kingsley in Paramount's Suspect Zero. She mothered Shia LaBeouf in DreamWork's box-office hit Disturbia; and together with Samuel L. Jackson, led the intense interrogation of Michael Sheen in Sony's Unthinkable.
Carrie-Anne continued to collaborate on independent projects including The Chumscrubber with Ralph Fiennes and Glenn Close; the comedy noir Mini's First Time also starring Alec Baldwin and Luke Wilson; Snow Cake the touching drama with Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman; Fireflies in the Garden in the company of Ryan Reynolds, Julia Roberts and Willem Defoe; and the retro zombie rom-com Fido along with Billy Connelly and Dylan Baker.
Throughout her career, Carrie-Anne has joined compelling television projects such as Ryan Murphy's Pretty Handsome; CBS's Vegas for James Mangold and Marvel's Jessica Jones as "Jerry Hogarth" for show runner Melissa Rosenberg. She recently finished acting and also producing in her second season, the bi-lingual English/Norwegian detective crime series Wisting, as an FBI agent set in the Norwegian landscape.
Next up, Carrie-Anne returns once again to star as "Trinity" in the much anticipated fourth installment of Lana Wachowski's Matrix Resurrections opposite Keanu Reeves for Warner Bros, which launches globally December 22, 2021- 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.- Actress
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Michelle Yeoh was born in Ipoh, Malaysia. She's the daughter of Janet Yeoh & Kian Teik Yeoh. She's of Hokkien descent, speaking English and Malay before Chinese. A ballet dancer since 4, she moved to London to study at the Royal Academy as a teen. After a brief dance career, she won the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant title in and the Miss Moomba beauty pageant title in Melbourne, Australia in the early 1980s. Her first on camera work was a 1984 commercial with martial arts star Jackie Chan. In 1985, she began making action movies with D&B Films of Hong Kong. She was first billed as Michelle Khan, then Michelle Yeoh. Never a trained martial artist, she relied on her dance discipline and on-set trainers to prepare for martial arts action scenes.
She uses many dance moves in her films and does most of her own stunts. In 1988, she married wealthy D&B Films executive Dickson Poon & retired from acting. Even though they divorced in 1992, she's close to Poon's second wife and a godmother to his daughter. When she returned to acting, she became very popular w/ Chinese audiences. She later became known to Western audiences through role in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and in the phenomenally successful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). She turned down a role in a sequel to The Matrix (1999).
She has her own production company, Mythical Films. She trained with the Shen Yang Acrobatic team for her role in The Touch (2002), an English-language film she both starred in and produced. She hopes to use her company to discover and nurture new film-making talent. She also aspires to act in roles that combine both action and deeper spiritual themes.- Actress
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Kate Beckinsale was born on 26 July 1973 in Hounslow, Middlesex, England, and has resided in London for most of her life. Her mother is Judy Loe, who has appeared in a number of British dramas and sitcoms and continues to work as an actress, predominantly in British television productions. Her father was Richard Beckinsale, born in Nottingham, England. He starred in a number of popular British television comedies during the 1970s, most notably the series Rising Damp (1974), Porridge (1974) and The Lovers (1970). He passed away tragically early in 1979 at the age of 31.
Kate attended the private school Godolphin and Latymer School in London for her grade and primary school education. In her teens she twice won the British bookseller W.H. Smith Young Writers' competition - once for three short stories and once for three poems. After a tumultuous adolescence (a bout of anorexia - cured - and a smoking habit which continues to this day), she gradually took up the profession of acting.
Her major acting debut came in a TV film about World War II called One Against the Wind (1991), filmed in Luxembourg during the summer of 1991. It first aired on American television that December. Kate began attending Oxford University's New College in the fall of 1991, majoring in French and Russian literature. She had already decided that she wanted to act, but to broaden her horizons she chose university over drama school. While in her first year at Oxford, Kate received her big break in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1993). Kate worked in three other films while attending Oxford, beginning with a part in the medieval historical drama Royal Deceit (1994), cast as Ethel. The film was shot during the spring of 1993 on location in Denmark, and she filmed her supporting part during New College's Easter break. Later in the summer of that year she played the lead in the contemporary mystery drama Uncovered (1994). Before she went back to school, her third year at university was spent at Oxford's study-abroad program in Paris, France, immersing herself in the French language, Parisian culture and French cigarettes.
A year away from the academic community and living on her own in the French capital caused her to re-evaluate the direction of her life. She faced a choice: continue with school or concentrate on her flourishing acting career. After much thought, she chose the acting career. In the spring of 1994 Kate left Oxford, after finishing three years of study. Kate appeared in the BBC/Thames Television satire Cold Comfort Farm (1995), filmed in London and East Sussex during late summer 1994 and which opened to spectacular reviews in the United States, grossing over $5 million during its American run. It was re-released to U.K. theaters in the spring of 1997.
Acting on the stage consumed the first part of 1995; she toured in England with the Thelma Holts Theatre Company production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". After turning down several mediocre scripts "and going nearly berserk with boredom", she waited seven months before another interesting role was offered to her. Her big movie of 1995 was the romance/horror movie Haunted (1995), starring opposite Aidan Quinn and John Gielgud, and filmed in West Sussex. In this film she wanted to play "an object of desire", unlike her past performances where her characters were much less the siren and more the worldly innocent. Kate's first film project of 1996 was the British ITV production of Jane Austen's novel Emma (1996). Her last film of 1996 was the comedy Shooting Fish (1997), filmed at Shepperton Studios in London during early fall. She played the part of Georgie, an altruistic con artist. She had a daughter, Lily, in 1999 with actor Michael Sheen.- Actress
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Born in Salisbury, Maryland, USA, following high school Linda studied for two years at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, before moving on to acting studies in New York. In New York she attended acting workshops given by Lee Strasberg. Her first parts were small parts in TV series, with her biggest break coming with her role in The Terminator (1984). Most known to public at large from her part in the TV series Beauty and the Beast (1987) (before Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), at least).- Actress
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Diane Lane was born on January 22, 1965, in New York. She is the daughter of acting coach Burton Eugene "Burt" Lane and nightclub singer/centerfold Colleen Farrington. Her parents' families were both from the state of Georgia. Diane was acting from a very young age and made her stage debut at the age of six. Her work in such acclaimed theater productions as "The Cherry Orchard" and "Medea" led to her being called to Hollywood. She was 13 when she was cast by director George Roy Hill in his wonderful 1979 film A Little Romance (1979), opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. The film only did so-so commercially, but Olivier praised his young co-star, calling her the new Grace Kelly. After her well-received debut, Diane found herself on magazine covers all over the world, including "Time", which declared her the "new young acting sensation". However, things quietened down a bit when she found herself in such critical and financial flops as Touched by Love (1980), Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1980), Movie Madness (1982), Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982) and, most unmemorably, Six Pack (1982), all of which failed to set her career on fire.
She also made several TV movies during this period, but it was in 1983 that she finally began to fulfill the promise of stardom that had earlier been predicted for her. Acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola took note of Diane's appeal and cast her in two "youth"-oriented films based on S.E. Hinton novels. Indeed, Rumble Fish (1983) and The Outsiders (1983) have become cult classics and resulted in her getting a loyal fan base. The industry was now taking notice of Diane Lane, and she soon secured lead roles in three big-budget studio epics. She turned down the first, Splash (1983) (which was a surprise hit for Daryl Hannah). Unfortunately, the other two were critical and box-office bombs: Walter Hill's glossy rock 'n' roll fable Streets of Fire (1984) was not the huge summer success that many had thought it would be, and the massively troubled Coppola epic The Cotton Club (1984) co-starring Richard Gere was also a high-profile flop. The back-to-back failure of both of these films could have ended her career there and then -- but thankfully it didn't. Possibly "burned out" by the lambasting these films received and unhappy with the direction her career was taking, she "retired" from the film business at age 19, saying that she had forgotten what she had started acting for. She stayed away from the screen for the next three years. Ironically, the two films that were the main causes of her "retirement" have since grown in popularity, and "Streets of Fire" especially seems to have found the kind of audience it couldn't get when it was first released.
The process of rebuilding her career was a slow and gradual one. First came the obscure and very sexy straight-to-video thriller Lady Beware (1987), followed by the critically acclaimed but little seen The Big Town (1987) with Matt Dillon and Tommy Lee Jones. In the former, Diane plays a very mysterious and sexy stripper and her memorable strip sequence is a highlight of the film. Despite her sexy new on-screen image, it wasn't until 1989's smash hit TV mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989) that Diane made another big impression on a sizable audience. Her performance in the hugely popular and critically acclaimed western epic as a vulnerable "whore with a heart" won her an Emmy nomination and much praise. Film producers were interested in her again. Another well-received TV production, Descending Angel (1990), was followed by smaller roles in major films like Richard Attenborough's Chaplin (1992) and Mike Binder's Indian Summer (1993), and larger parts in small independent films like My New Gun (1992), Vital Signs (1990) and Knight Moves (1992). Indeed, the latter two films co-starred her then-husband, Christopher Lambert, with whom she had a daughter named Eleanor.
Diane was now re-established in Hollywood and started to appear in higher-profile co-starring roles in some big-budget, major movies like Walter Hill's Wild Bill (1995), the Sylvester Stallone actioner Judge Dredd (1995), the Robin Williams's comedy Jack (1996) and Murder at 1600 (1997) co-starring Wesley Snipes. However, all of these still did not quite make Diane a "big-name star" and, by 1997, she found herself, possibly by choice, back in smaller, personal projects.
Her next role as a frustrated 1960s housewife in the independent hit A Walk on the Moon (1999) deservedly won her rave notices and, at last, gave her career the big lift it needed. The cute but tear-jerking comedy My Dog Skip (2000) also proved to be a small-scale success. However, it was the £330-million worldwide grossing blockbuster hit The Perfect Storm (2000) that finally made Diane Lane the household name that she always should have been.
After the worldwide success of "The Perfect Storm", she was more in demand than ever. She played Leelee Sobieski's sinister junkie guardian in the slick thriller The Glass House (2001), and co-starred with Keanu Reeves in the #1 smash hit Hardball (2001). However, her greatest career moment was still to come with her lead role in the enormous critical and commercial hit Unfaithful (2002), in which she superbly portrayed Richard Gere's adulterous wife. Her performance won the respect of critics and audiences alike, as well as many awards and nominations including Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
Her follow-up films including Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), Must Love Dogs (2005), Hollywoodland (2006), Secretariat (2010), and the blockbuster, Man of Steel (2013), were all received and her performances were highly praised. She won further Best Actress Golden Globe nominations for her roles in Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) and Cinema Verite (2011).
She is very well regarded within the industry, adored by film fans, and has a credibility and quality that is all too rare today. Her immense talent at playing human and real characters, her "drop dead gorgeous" beauty and down-to-earth grittiness guarantees that she will stay on top, and she guarantee has already shown the kind of resilience that will keep her working for a long, long time.- Actress
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Olga Kurylenko is a Ukrainian-French actress and model, went from sharing a cramped flat with her aunt, uncle, grandparents and cousin to starring as a Bond girl opposite Daniel Craig.
She was born Olga Konstantinovna Kurylenko on November 14, 1979, in Berdyansk, Ukraine, Soviet Union. Her mother, Marina Alyabysheva, divorced her father, Konstantin Kurylenko, soon after her birth. After the divorce her mother struggled to survive as an art teacher. Young Olga was brought up by her mother and her grandmother, Raisa. During her youth Olga had the humbling experience of living in poverty; she had no choice but to wear rags and had to darn the holes on her sweater. During her years in Ukraine she studied art and languages and spent seven years studying piano at a local school of music in Berdyansk. She also went to a ballet studio until 13.
At age 13 Olga and her mother made a trip to Moscow. There she was spotted by an agent, who approached her at a subway station and offered her a job as a model. Initially Olga's mother was suspicious, but she checked the agent's credentials and eventually allowed Olga to accept training as a model in Moscow, which turned out to be a good career choice.
By age 16 she was ready for the next step. She moved to Paris, learned French in six months and was signed by the Madison agency. At age 18 she appeared on the cover of Glamour, and in short order graced the covers of Elle, Madame Figaro, Marie Claire, and Vogue. She also became the face of Lejaby lingerie, Bebe clothing, Clarins and Helena Rubinstein cosmetic companies.
In 1999 Olga married French photographer Cedric Van Mol, but divorced him 3-1/2 years later. One day Olga presented herself to an acting agency. Eventually she swapped the catwalk for the movie screen, and her acting career took off. In 2005 she made her film debut as "Iris", a sensual beauty, in The Ring Finger (2005), by director Diane Bertrand.
Olga's cinematic roles have been notably steamy, and her natural beauty and explicit nudity attracted the attention of the male audiences. She appeared opposite Elijah Wood in Paris, I Love You (2006) and as "Sofia" in The Snake (2006), then co-starred as Russian beauty "Nika Boronina" opposite Timothy Olyphant in Hitman (2007). She also appeared as "Mina Harud" in the indie surveillance-thriller Tyranny (2008). On Christmas Eve 2007, Olga was offered to play what will become her biggest hit: co-starring as "Camille", the Bond girl, opposite Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace (2008), a sequel to Casino Royale (2006).
With the international success as Bond Girl, Olga also made appearances on various TV productions in Russia and Ukraine. In 2012, Olga Kurylenko was cast as Julia, supporting role in the Sci-Fi adventure Oblivion (2013) opposite Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman.- Actress
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Tia Carrere, born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, was discovered in a grocery store and landed the female lead in the film Aloha Summer. She then moved to Los Angeles and continued her ascent in the acting world as a series regular on General Hospital as well as a string of guest starring roles on MacGyver, Quantum Leap, Married With Children, and Friday the 13th among others. With her iconic breakthrough role as Cassandra in Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2, Tia was able to showcase both her considerable singing as well as acting chops. Wayne's World was a worldwide phenom and set the stage for the femme fatale role of Juno Skinner in James Cameron's film True Lies, opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger; the computer whiz Jingo Asakuma in Rising Sun opposite Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes; and her very own series lead as Sydney Fox in Relic Hunter. Other work includes Nip/Tuck, In Plain Sight, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and many more. Subsequently Tia returned to her Hawaii roots starring in Disney's animated film Lilo & Stitch, while on the musical front, being nominated four times and winning the Grammy twice with her records 'ikena and Huana Ke Aloha. She also co-hosted and performed during the ceremony. Lately, Tia can be seen in Michael Patrick King's series AJ & the Queen starring RuPaul, Amblin Films "Easter Sunday" starring JoKoy and Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever. She also just released a single and video of a song she wrote called "I'm Still Here".- Actress
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Jessica Biel, has become one of Hollywood's most sought-out actresses. She was born in Ely, Minnesota, to Kimberly (Conroe) and Jonathan Edward Biel, who is a business consultant and GM worker. Biel was raised in Boulder, Colorado. She is of Hungarian Jewish, Danish, English, and German descent.
As a child, Biel initially pursued a career as a vocalist, performing in musical theater. Beginning at age nine, she starred in such productions as "Annie," "The Sound of Music," and "Beauty and the Beast." Biel soon turned to modeling and commercial work by competing in The International Modeling and Talent Association's Annual Conference in 1994.
Her Film debut was in the Kid's Rock Opera It's a Digital World (1994) where she demonstrated her acting and singing abilities. Her television series acting debut, playing Mary Camden on the WB's #1-rated show, 7th Heaven (1996), helped her emerge as a breakout star. She terrified moviegoers with her portrayal of Erin, "Leatherface's" greatest nemesis to date, in New Line Cinema's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), a remake of the original. Having finished filming, Blade: Trinity (2004) in Vancouver with Wesley Snipes, Ryan Reynolds, and Kris Kristofferson, she the portrayed a jet-fighter pilot in Stealth (2005), starring Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx, and Sam Shepherd, for director Rob Cohen. Biel's film career began at age 14 when she played alongside Peter Fonda in his Golden Globe-winning performance in Ulee's Gold (1997). Her other film credits include I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998), Summer Catch (2001), Roger Avary's The Rules of Attraction (2002), and Cellular (2004), which stars Chris Evans, Kim Basinger, and William H. Macy.
In her spare time, Biel is involved with charities such as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and PETA. Her hobbies include ballet, soccer, running, yoga and hiking with her dog "East." She resides in Los Angeles.
In 2012, she married actor and singer Justin Timberlake. The two have a son.- Actress
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Jennifer Garner, who catapulted into stardom with her lead role on the television series Alias (2001), has come a long way from her birthplace of Houston, Texas. Raised in Charleston, West Virginia by her mother Patricia Ann (née English), a retired English teacher, and her father, Billy Jack Garner, a former chemical engineer, she is the second of their three daughters. She spent nine years of her adolescence studying ballet, and characterizes her years in dance as consisting of determination rather than talent, being driven mostly by a love of the stage.
Jennifer took this determination with her when she enrolled at Denison University as a chemistry major; later she changed her major when she discovered that her passion for the stage was stronger than her love of science. New York attracted the young actress after college, and she worked as a hostess while pursuing a career in film and television. Her most recent move has been to Los Angeles, a decision that led to a role on the television series Felicity (1998), where she met her future husband Scott Foley. The couple divorced in 2004.
Jennifer starred in the television series Alias (2001) as Agent Sydney Bristow, who works for the Central Intelligence Agency. For her work, Garner has received four consecutive Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She has also received four Golden Globe nominations and won once, as well as received two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and won once. She has appeared in numerous other television production as well as such films as Elektra (2005), 13 Going on 30 (2004), Daredevil (2003), Pearl Harbor (2001) and Dude, Where's My Car? (2000). Aside from filming Alias (2001), Jennifer enjoys cooking, gardening, hiking, and--inspired by her character on the series--kickboxing. She married actor and filmmaker Ben Affleck in 2005, now her ex-husband, with whom she has three children.- Actress
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Radha Mitchell (born 12 November 1973) is an Australian actress. She started her career acting in various Australian TV series and movies, and later became known for her appearance in Hollywood films. Mitchell, a native of Melbourne, began acting when she was still in high school and had her professional debut on the popular Australian soap, Neighbours (1985) in 1994. Two years later, she made her film debut in the romantic comedy Love and Other Catastrophes (1996), in which she starred as a college student experiencing a messy breakup. The film proved to be fairly popular in Australia, but it wasn't until she was cast in High Art (1998) that Mitchell gained an introduction to a wider audience. The critical success of "High Art" made it possible for her to do more international work, and her increasing popularity was reflected by her subsequent casting in a number of projects. Among them were Pitch Black (2000), a sci-fi horror film in which Mitchell played a pilot whose ship crashes on a hostile planet, and Everything Put Together (2000), a drama where she plays a suburban woman shunned by her peers after the death of her baby. Her career continued with a diverse run of films, including Nobody's Baby (2001), Man on Fire (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), and landing the lead in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda (2004). Those last three films all hit the screens in 2004, and although kept working steadily, she never quite capitalized on the buzz she generated that year. Her other credits include Silent Hill (2006), Henry Poole Is Here (2008), Surrogates (2009) and The Crazies (2010).- With her distinctive voice, ultra-intense eyes and statuesque frame, Peta Wilson probably could have carried her breakout television show, "La Femme Nikita," on looks alone. Such was television in 1997. But when viewers realized that this killer- with-a-killer body could actually act, the show became the highest-rated drama on cable. Indeed "La Femme Nikita" was yet more proof that an inexpensively produced series could bypass the traditional TV networks and still make lots of money if it had something special to offer. In this case, Peta Wilson was that "something special." Producer Joel Surnow, who later went on to produce "24," said watching Peta Wilson as "Nikita" was "like watching lightning in a jar." She beat out 200 actors for the role patterned after the female assassin "Nikita" in the dark French film by Luc Bresson. What set her apart from the pack were her ideas on what the Anglo version of the broody French killer should be like. In order to grab and hold an American television audience for the long term, "Nikita" had to become a very different person, Peta told the production team. Her version of "Nikita," the drop-dead-gorgeous killer with a heart of gold, not only clicked with viewers but transcended the show and has been copied in film and TV ever since. Wilson took herself out of the Hollywood loop when "Nikita" ended in 2001 and returned to her native Australia to decompress, build her dream house and give birth to the son conceived with Damian Harris, the director-producer son of the late acting legend Richard Harris. Marlowe Harris-Wilson was born Feb. , 2002. Motherhood tempered Wilson's instincts to jump back into the Hollywood game but the offer in 2003 to appear opposite Sean Connery in the big-budget film, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," was something she couldn't pass up. "Superman Returns" (2006), "Gardens of the Night" (2008) and "Beautiful" (2009) kept her on track. Born to a military family in Sydney, Wilson moved frequently as a child and is perhaps the only Hollywood star to have ever lived 8 years in Papua New Guinea. But when the fire for acting hit, there was no putting it out and her path from the Antipodes eventually led to the Hollywood studio of legendary acting coach Arthur Mendoza, a protégé of Stella Adler. Though her beauty was unmistakable, it was Wilson's raw talent that immediately made Mendoza realize he had a serious Hollywood contender on his hands. During the six years between Wilson's arrival in Hollywood and her role as "Nikita," it was Mendoza who drew out and shaped the actor within.
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Bridget Jane Fonda was born in Los Angeles, California, to Susan Brewer and actor Peter Fonda. She is the granddaughter of Henry Fonda and niece of Jane Fonda, both famous actors. Bridget made her film debut at age five as an extra in Easy Rider (1969), but first became interested in acting after appearing in a high school production of "Harvey." At age 18, she enrolled at New York University and spent four years there and at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
She went on to hone her craft in workshop productions and worked on such stage projects as "Just Horrible," written by Nicholas Kazan, who later cast Bridget in his directorial debut, "Professional Man," an episode for The Edge (1989) series on HBO. She also starred in PBS's Jacob Have I Loved (1989) and in a segment of Aria (1987), a film composed of short works by 10 respected directors. Her film credits include The Godfather Part III (1990), Strapless (1989), Doc Hollywood (1991), Singles (1992), and Single White Female (1992).- Producer
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Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road with her parents and younger sister, chef Gesine Bullock-Prado, and spent much of her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany. She often performed in the children's chorus of whatever production her mother was in. That singing talent later came in handy for her role as an aspiring country singer in The Thing Called Love (1993). Her family moved back to the Washington area when she was adolescent. She later enrolled in East Carolina University in North Carolina, where she studied acting. Shortly afterward she moved to New York to pursue a career on the stage. This led to acting in television programs and then feature films. She gave memorable performances in Demolition Man (1993) and Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), but did not achieve the stardom that seemed inevitable for her until her work in the smash hit Speed (1994). She now ranks as one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood. For her role in The Blind Side (2009) she won the Oscar, and her blockbusters The Proposal (2009), The Heat (2013) and Gravity (2013) made her a bankable star. With $56,000,000, she was listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the highest-paid actress in the world.- Actress
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Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).- Actress
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Catherine Zeta-Jones was born September 25, 1969 in Swansea, Wales (and raised in the nearby town of Mumbles), the only daughter of Patricia (nee Fair) and David James "Dai" Jones, who formerly owned a sweet factory. She attended Dumbarton House School (Swansea). Her father (the son of Bertram (1912-1970) and Zeta Davies Jones (1917-2008)) is of Welsh descent and her mother (the daughter of William (1921-2000) and Catherine O'Callaghan Fair (1920-2001) ) is of English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry. Her brothers are David Jones (born 1967), a development executive, and Lyndon Jones (born 1972), who works at her production company. Her birth name was simply Catherine Jones, but she added her paternal grandmother's name ("Zeta") so as to stand out from the many other young women with the exact same name.
She showed an interest early on in entertainment. She starred on stage in "Annie", "Bugsy Malone" and "The Pajama Game". At age 15, she had the lead in the British revival of "42nd Street". She was originally cast as the second understudy for the lead role in the musical but when the star and first understudy became sick the night the play's producer was in the audience, she was given the lead for the rest of the musical's production. She first made a name for herself in the early 1990s when she starred in the Yorkshire Television comedy/drama series The Darling Buds of May (1991). The series was a success and made her one of the United Kingdom's most popular television actresses.
She subsequently played supporting roles in several films including Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992), the miniseries Catherine the Great (1995) and a larger role as the seductive Sala in The Phantom (1996) before landing her breakthrough role playing the fiery Elena opposite Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro (1998). She starred in many big-budget blockbusters like Entrapment (1999), The Haunting (1999) and Traffic (2000), for which many believed she was robbed of an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as murderous vaudevillian Velma Kelly in the musical comedy Chicago (2002). She then appeared opposite George Clooney in Intolerable Cruelty (2003), Ocean's Twelve (2004) and reprised her starring role in the sequel The Legend of Zorro (2005).
In November 2000, she married actor Michael Douglas. She gave birth to their son Dylan Michael in August 2000 followed by daughter, Carys, in April 2003. She was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.- Actress
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On February 13th, 1968, a girl of Chinese, English, and Hawaiian ancestry was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her father, Herbert, was a salesman and her mother, Juanita, worked many odd jobs to help support the family. She has one older brother, Glenn. She is a former Miss Teen USA, and modeled in Japan and Italy for several months before deciding to relocate to L.A. and try her hand at show business. She received her break on TV's Growing Pains (1985) in 1987 and never looked back.- Actress
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Jennifer Connelly was born in the Catskill Mountains, New York, to Ilene (Schuman), a dealer of antiques, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father had Irish and Norwegian ancestry, and her mother was from a Jewish immigrant family. Jennifer grew up in Brooklyn Heights, just across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan, except for the four years her parents spent in Woodstock, New York. Back in Brooklyn Heights, she attended St. Ann's school. A close friend of the family was an advertising executive. When Jennifer was ten, he suggested that her parents take her to a modeling audition. She began appearing in newspaper and magazine ads (among them "Seventeen" magazine), and soon moved on to television commercials. A casting director saw her and introduced her to Sergio Leone, who was seeking a young girl to dance in his gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Although having little screen time, the few minutes she was on-screen were enough to reveal her talent. Her next role after that was an episode of the British horror anthology TV series Tales of the Unexpected (1979) in 1984.
After Leone's movie, horror master Dario Argento signed her to play her first starring role in his thriller Phenomena (1985). The film made a lot of money in Europe but, unfortunately, was heavily cut for American distribution. Around the same time, she appeared in the rock video "I Drove All Night," a Roy Orbison song, co-starring Jason Priestley. She released a single called "Monologue of Love" in Japan in the mid-1980s, in which she sings in Japanese a charming little song with semi-classical instruments arrangement. On the B-side is "Message Of Love," which is an interview with music in background. She also appeared in television commercials in Japan.
She enrolled at Yale, and then transferred two years later to Stanford. She trained in classical theater and improvisation, studying with the late drama coach Roy London, Howard Fine, and Harold Guskin.
The late 1980s saw her starring in a hit and three lesser seen films. Amongst the latter was her roles in Ballet (1989), as a ballerina and in Some Girls (1988), where she played a self-absorbed college freshman. The hit was Labyrinth (1986), released in 1986. Jennifer got the job after a nationwide talent search for the lead in this fantasy directed by Jim Henson and produced by George Lucas. Her career entered in a calm phase after those films, until Dennis Hopper, who was impressed after having seen her in "Some Girls", cast Jennifer as an ingénue small-town girl in The Hot Spot (1990), based upon the 1950s crime novel "Hell Hath No Fury". It received mixed critical reviews, but it was not a box office success.
The Rocketeer (1991), an ambitious Touchstone super-production, came to the rescue. The film was an old-fashioned adventure flick about a man capable of flying with rockets on his back. Critics saw in "Rocketeer" a top-quality movie, a homage to those old films of the 1930s in which the likes of Errol Flynn starred. After "Rocketeer," Jennifer made Career Opportunities (1991), The Heart of Justice (1992), Mulholland Falls (1996), her first collaboration with Nick Nolte and Inventing the Abbotts (1997). In 1998, she was invited by director Alex Proyas to make Dark City (1998), a strange, visually stunning science-fiction extravaganza. In this movie, Jennifer played the main character's wife, and she delivered an acclaimed performance. The film itself didn't break any box-office record but received positive reviews. This led Jennifer to a contract with Fox for the television series The $treet (2000), a main part in the memorable and dramatic love-story Waking the Dead (2000) and, more important, a breakthrough part in the polemic and applauded independent Requiem for a Dream (2000), a tale about the haunting lives of drug addicts and the subsequent process of decadence and destruction. In "Requiem for a Dream," Jennifer had her career's most courageous, difficult part, a performance that earned her a Spirit Award Nomination. She followed this role with Pollock (2000), in which she played Pollock's mistress, Ruth Klingman. In 2001, Ron Howard chose her to co-star with Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind (2001), the film that tells the true story of John Nash, a man who suffered from mental illness but eventually beats this and wins the Nobel Prize in 1994. Jennifer played Nash's wife and won a Golden Globe, BAFTA, AFI and Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. Connelly continued her career with films including Hulk (2003), her second collaboration with Nick Nolte, Dark Water (2005), Blood Diamond (2006), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), He's Just Not That Into You (2009) and Noah (2014), where she did her second collaboration with both Darren Aronofsky and Russell Crowe and made her third collaboration with Nick Nolte in that same film.
Jennifer lives in New York. She is 5'7", and speaks fluent Italian and French. She enjoys physical activities such as swimming, gymnastics, and bike riding. She is also an outdoors person -- camping, hiking and walking, and is interested in quantum physics and philosophy. She likes horses, Pearl Jam, SoundGarden, Jesus Jones, and occasionally wears a small picture of the The Dalai Lama on a necklace. Her favorite colors are cobalt blue, forest green, and "very pale green/gray -- sort of like the color of the sea". She likes to draw.- Actress
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Sharon Stone was born and raised in Meadville, a small town in Pennsylvania. Her strict father was a factory worker, and her mother was a homemaker. She was the second of four children. At the age of 15, she studied in Saegertown High School, Pennsylvania, and at that same age, entered Edinboro State University of Pennsylvania, and graduated with a degree in creative writing and fine arts. She was a very smart girl (with an IQ of 154), became a bookworm, and once was told that a suitable job for her (and her brains) was to become a lawyer. However, her first love was still the black-and-white movies, especially those featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. So, the 17-year-old Sharon got herself into the Miss Crawford County and won the beauty contest.
From working part-time as a McDonald's counter girl, she worked her way up to become a successful Ford model, both in TV commercials and print ads. In 1980, she made her acting debut in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980) as "pretty girl in train". Her first speaking part, though, was in Wes Craven's horror movie, Deadly Blessing (1981). She struggled through many parts in B-movies, notably King Solomon's Mines (1985) and Action Jackson (1988). She was also married in 1984 to Michael Greenburg, the producer of MacGyver (1985), but they divorced two years later.
She finally got her big break with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall (1990) and also posed nude for Playboy, a daring move for a 32-year-old actress. But it worked; she landed the breakthrough role as a sociopath novelist, "Catherine Tramell", in Basic Instinct (1992). Her interrogation scene has become a classic in film history and her performance captivated everyone, from MTV viewers, who honored her with Most Desirable Female and Best Female Performance Awards, to a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. After she got famous, she didn't want to be typecast, so she played a victim in Sliver (1993), and, in Intersection (1994), she was the aloof, estranged wife of Richard Gere. These movies didn't "work," so she got herself again into more aggressive roles , such as The Specialist (1994) with Sylvester Stallone and The Quick and the Dead (1995) with Gene Hackman.
But it wasn't until she played a beautiful but drug-crazy wife of Robert De Niro in Casino (1995) that she got far more than just fame and fortune--she also received the acknowledgment of the movie industry for her acting ability. She received her first Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. She did a couple of films afterwards, teaming up with Isabelle Adjani in Diabolique (1996), and as a woman waiting for her death penalty in Last Dance (1996). In 1998, she married a newspaper editor,Phil Bronstein but they divorced later in 2004. She received her third Golden Globe nomination for The Mighty (1998), a film that her company, "Chaos", also co-executive produced. The next year, she played the title role in Gloria (1999) and entered her first comedic role in The Muse (1999), which gave her another Golden Globe nomination.
Sharon Stone, a diva who thoroughly enjoys her hard-won stardom, is now a mother of three children: Roan, Laird and Quinn.- Actress
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- Director
Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading Places (1983), Perfect (1985) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988). She starred in one of the biggest action films ever, True Lies (1994), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for her performance. Curtis also appeared on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), and starred in Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981) as the title role. Her first starring role was opposite Richard Lewis on the ABC situation comedy Anything But Love (1989). In 1998, she starred in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) in which she reprised her role that made her famous back in 1978.
Jamie Lee served as an honorary chairperson for the Building Resilience for Young Children Dealing with Trauma program held at the Shakespeare Theatre - Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C. She was an inspiration for the youth that were celebrated. Curtis was also given an award from US Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman for her work on behalf of children through her charities and children's books.