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Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Tamsin Egerton

Tamsin Olivia Egerton (born 26 November 1988) is an English actress best known for her roles of Chelsea Parker in the 2007 film St Trinian's, Holly Goodfellow in Keeping Mum and Guinevere in the 2011 TV series
Egerton started her acting career age six, following her older sister, Sophia to a local youth theatre, saying; "The whole reason I'm acting now is because I wanted to be doing what my big sister was doing". A year later, she appeared in a Royal Shakespeare Company musical production of The Secret Garden, playing Mary.
 
Egerton's other film credits include Sarah in Driving Lessons (2006) alongside Rupert Grint, Flora in Knife Edge (2008) andHolly Goodfellow in the 2005 film Keeping Mum. She was to appear as Katrina in Eragon, but the scenes which she featured in were removed from the final cut.

Egerton starred as Princess Elenora in the TV children's series Sir Gadabout: The Worst Knight in the Land. In 2001, she starred as the "young" Morgaine in the TV mini series The Mists of Avalon. She has alsoappeared on stage – in the RSC's musical version of The Secret Garden. In 2009 Egerton appears in the St Trinian's sequel, St. Trinian's II: The Legend of Fritton's Gold. In her second Arthurian role, Egerton plays Guinevere in the 2011 US Starz adaptation of the Arthurian legend, Camelot, also starring Joseph Fiennes, Eva Green and Jamie Campbell Bower.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Chelsea Handler

Chelsea Joy Handler (born February 25, 1975) is an American stand-up comedian, humorist, television host, actress, model and best-selling author. She currently hosts a late-night talk show titled, Chelsea Lately on the E! Cable Television Network. In 2009 she won a Bravo A-List Award. She also has her own column in Cosmopolitan and the UK celebrity magazine NOW.
 
Handler grew up in the suburban town of Livingston, New Jersey. The youngest of six children, she was raised in Reform Judaism by her Mormon mother Rita and Jewish father Seymour. Handler has said that while growing up, she felt like an outsider, telling a reporter, "We lived in this nice Jewish neighborhood...Everyone had Mercedes and Jaguars, and I was going to school in a Pinto." In a June 2011 edition of her show, she and author James Van Praagh discuss the death of her brother, Chet, when she was 9. Handler had an abortion at age 16, which she discussed at an interview in 2011. At age 19, Handler moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and two years later she decided to become a stand-up comic after telling her story about a DUI to a class of other offenders, who found her story funny. 

Career
Handler has performed nationwide as a comedian, appeared as a regular on the Oxygen Network series Girls Behaving Badly and on other shows, including Weekends at the D.L., The Bernie Mac Show, My Wife and Kids, and The Practice. She was a regular commentator on E! and Scarborough Country as well as a correspondent on The Tonight Show. She hosted the first episode of the reality TV show On the Lot, but quit before the second one was aired, as she later said, "because I smelled the disaster happening before it did." Chelsea Handler hosted The Chelsea Handler Show in April 2006, which lasted two seasons. She was a guest on Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld and The View; she co-hosted The View on August 2, 2007, and again on September 5, 2008 – and hosts her own late night talk show on E! titled Chelsea Lately. On January 25, 2009, Handler was on the CBS gameshow Million Dollar Password as one of the celebrity players. On April 15, 2009, Handler won the 2009 Bravo A-List Award for "A-List Funny".
 
On August 18, 2010 it was announced that Handler would be the host of the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. The announcement was surprising to many, including MTV, which claimed that the final decision was unexpected. This makes Handler only the second woman in the history of the VMA's to be the sole host of the ceremony, behind Roseanne Barr, who hosted in 1994. The event took place at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on September 12, 2010.

In 2007, Handler performed with the Hour Stand-Up Comedy Tour across the US. Her stand-up has been televised on Vh1's Love Lounge, Comedy Central's Premium Blend, and HBO's broadcast of the Aspen Comedy Festival. She was the host of the Fox show On The Lot. The show, produced by Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett, is a competition for aspiring filmmakers who are vying for a chance at stardom. She was replaced after one episode by former Robin & Company entertainment anchor, Adrianna Costa.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Lakshmi Menon

Lakshmi Menon (born November 4, 1981 in Kerala, India) is an Indian model. She took up modelling to earn money while studying for a degree in sociology at the Bangalore University. After modelling in India for several years, she began her international career in 2006. A show for Jean Paul Gaultier was followed by work on the Hermès catwalk and campaigns for Hermès, Max Mara, Givenchy, H&M, J Crew, Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom.
 
Menon was featured in French Vogue editorial for the first time in October, 2008, after her Milan show for La Perla, in which she walked for D&G and Givenchy. She has also appeared in editorials for American, Spanish, Indian, and French Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, V Magazine, Dazed & Confused, Indian Elle, and Allure. She won the “This year’s Model” crown awarded by Vogue for 2008. She was also in the Top 10 Newcomers by Style.com and on the cover of Elle the same year.

In December 2008, in "What's Hot For 2009", Lucie Greene of the Daily Mail included Menon as "Hot" and predicted that she would attain supermodel status. Indian photographer Prabuddha Dasgupta says of Menon that “She’s dusky, flawless and the true face of beauty. She’s worked with Jean Paul Gaultier, Hermes, Chanel -- and is the face of the future.”Vogue said in 2008 that she was "quite the embodiment of Givenchy's new-season style". She is featured in the 2011 Pirelli Calendar nudely photographed by Karl Lagerfeld.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Anna Paquin

Anna Helene Paquin (pronounced /ˈpækwɪn/; born July 24, 1982) is a Canadian-born New Zealand actress. Paquin's first critically successful film was The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1994 at the age of 11 – the second youngest winner in history. Her acting career took off almost half a decade later when she appeared in a string of successful films including She's All That, Almost Famous and the X-Men franchise.

Paquin has received critical acclaim for her role as Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series True Blood, for which she won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. Paquin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of Mary Paquin (née Brophy), an English teacher and native of Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a high school physical education teacher. Paquin is the youngest of three children; she has two older siblings: a brother, Andrew, a director, born in 1977, and a sister, Katya, born in 1980, who is the partner of Green party co-leader Russel Norman.Paquin's family moved to New Zealand when she was four. She attended the Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School until she was eight or nine. Her musical childhood hobbies in New Zealand included playing the viola, cello and piano. She also participated in gymnastics, ballet, swimming and downhill skiing, though she did not have any hobbies related to acting.
 
While in New Zealand, Paquin attended Hutt Intermediate School from 1994–95. Having begun her secondary education in Wellington at Wellington Girls' College, she completed her high school diploma at Windward School in Los Angeles, where she moved with her mother following her parents' divorce in 1995. She graduated from Windward School in June 2000 and completed the school's community service requirement by working in an LA soup kitchen and at a special education center. She studied at Columbia University for one year, but has since been on a leave of absence to continue her acting career


Article Source : Wikipedia

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Diane Kruger

Selita Ebanks (born 15 February 1983) is a Caymanian fashion model. She worked for Victoria's Secret and as a Victoria's Secret Angel from 2005-2008.  Her family, her mother in particular, encouraged her development through extracurricular programs. Education Ebanks moved to the United States, and settled in Staten Island, New York. After moving to New York City she was accepted at Spelman College, Columbia University, and New York University.

Career
At 17 years old, while walking through the turnstiles at Six Flags Great Adventure, Ebanks was scouted by an agent from Elite Model Management. Ebanks has worked with Peter Lindbergh, Bruce Weber, Steven Klein, Carter Smith, and Mikael Jansson, and for some of the most quintessential American fashion campaigns, including Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Fitch, Levi's, and Tommy Hilfiger.

Ebanks first modeled for Victoria's Secret for their Ipex Bra line, before being signed as an Angel. She and Izabel Goulart made their major débuts in the 2005 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, working as an Angel until early 2009. In 2005, Tyra Banks said she was proud of Ebanks to be representing black women at Victoria's Secret. In 2007, Ebanks was selected to wear the "Very Sexy" Holiday Fantasy Bra Set with a price tag of $4,500,000 dollars that contains (diamonds, emeralds, rubies and yellow sapphires)--which she is featured in the Victoria's Secret "Christmas Dreams and Fantasies 2007" catalogue wearing the bra set and wore the fantasy bra set during the Victoria's Secret fashion show on December 4, 2007

Ebanks made a special guest appearance on How I Met Your Mother (episode: "The Yips") on 26 November 2007 with her fellow Victoria's Secret supermodels (Miranda Kerr, Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima, Marisa Miller, and Alessandra Ambrosio). According to Forbes, Ebanks ranked the twelfth highest paid supermodel for 2008, earning $2.7 million. She made her first appearance on Sports Illustrated's 2007 Swimsuit Issue. She has recorded some music. and appeared on the UPN-series South Beach.

She appeared on the third season of Celebrity Apprentice, but was fired in week 5 on April 11, 2010, placing 9th. She is featured in The-Dream's music video for his single Make Up Bag. She also appeared in the 2010 short film directed and created by Kanye West entitled Runaway. She plays a fallen Phoenix that Kanye West's character falls in love with. She also appears in a commercial for State Farm Insurance alongside actor/model Mehcad Brooks. Personal life Ebanks was engaged to rapper, actor, Nick Cannon. On October 4, 2007, People magazine announced that the couple ended their engagement.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Rosie Huntington

Rosie Alice Huntington-Whiteley (born 18 April 1987) is an English model and actress, best known for her work for Victoria's Secret, Burberry, and her role as Carly Spencer in the 2011 film Transformers: Dark of the Moon, part of the Transformers film series.Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was born at the Freedom Fields Hospital in Plymouth, Devon, England. Her mother, Fiona (née Jackson), is a fitness instructor, and her father, Charles Andrew Huntington-Whiteley, is a chartered surveyor. Her paternal great-great-grandfather was politician Sir Herbert Huntington-Whiteley, 1st Baronet; Herbert's son, Eric, was the "black sheep" of the family, and had married Rosie's great-grandmother, Enid Kohn, who was from a family of Polish Jews who immigrated to England in the 1870s.
 
Huntington-Whiteley grew up on a farm in Tavistock, Devon. Growing up in Devon, she was bullied and teased at school for having a double-barrelled name, small breasts, and for her full lips.In 2003, when studying at Tavistock College, she was discovered by Profile Model Management while seeking internships with several London based modelling agencies. Her first modelling session was at 16, posing for a Levi's commercial. In 2004, Huntington-Whiteley was photographed by Bruce Weber for Abercrombie & Fitch.

Career
 Huntington-Whiteley at the Transformers: Dark of the Moon premiere in June 2011. Since 2006, Huntington-Whiteley has modelled for American lingerie and beauty products brand Victoria's Secret. The model made her Victoria's Secret debut at the brand's 2006 show in Los Angeles.
 
She remained unknown in the fashion industry up until 2008, when she was cast by chief creative director Christopher Bailey, replacing Agyness Deyn for Burberry's fall/winter campaign with actor Sam Riley. She got her first British Vogue cover, for the November 2008 issue, which saw her pictured alongside Eden Clark and Jourdan Dunn in a feature celebrating British models. The following year, she was featured as the face of Karen Millen's spring/summer 2009 advertising campaign. Huntington-Whiteley received an Elle Style Award for 2009's "Model of the Year". She starred in a short film for Agent Provocateur playing a woman whose boyfriend forgets Valentine's Day. For fall/winter 2009, she modelled campaigns for Godiva and Miss Sixty. In late 2009, Huntington-Whiteley officially became a Victoria's Secret Angel,  modelling for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in New York city.
 
In 2010, she posed nude for the Pirelli Calendar, which was photographed by Terry Richardson. Huntington-Whiteley hit the runway for designers Prada in Milan and Giles Deacon in Paris. For SS10 her advertising campaigns included Monsoon's first underwear line, Thomas Wylde, Full Circle, and VS Online. In March, she collaborated with VOGUE.COM to share her outfit choices daily for the Today I'm Wearing feature. She appeared on the covers of the May 2010 issues of Harper's Bazaar Russia and GQ UK. She was featured on the cover of LOVE Magazine's September issue, styled as a pinup girl. For FW10 she modelled for Burberry as well as the company's first Beauty line ad; her other advertising campaigns included Loewe, Thomas Wylde, and Leon Max. Fashion photographer Rankin devoted a book entirely to her titled, Ten Times Rosie. Rankin thinks Huntington-Whiteley puts diversity back into fashion, "We’ve been looking at very, very skinny, almost masculine girls for a long time.  really is the model of the moment. She’s the actress of the moment. She’s definitely going to become something much, much bigger."Celebrity make-up artist Ruby Hammer, who has worked with Huntington-Whiteley for years, described her as the "quintessential" English rose.
 
In March 2011, she landed her first solo British Vogue cover. In May, she was voted No. 1 in Maxim Magazine's "Hot 100" list. She was also voted No.1 in FHM's World's Sexiest Woman 2011 poll. She appeared on the covers of the UK's July issues of Elle and GQ. Huntington-Whiteley was unveiled as the face of Burberry's newest fragrance, Burberry Body, in July 2011. As of July 2011, she ranks No. 15 on "The Money Girls" list and No. 3 on the "Top 20 Sexiest Models" list at MODELS.COM.

Article Source : Wikipedia

Erin Burnett

Erin Isabelle Burnett (born July 2, 1976) is the anchor of CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront. She was the co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk on the Street program and the host of CNBC's Street Signs program. She also appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, Today, MSNBC's Morning Joe, and NBC Nightly News, as well as occasional appearances on The Apprentice as an advisor to Donald Trump. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Burnett has hosted a number of documentaries filmed outside of the United States: "India Rising: The New Empire", "The Russian Gamble", and "Dollars & Danger: Africa, The Final Investment Frontier. She has focused extensively on the Middle East as well, reporting live from across the region and hosting documentaries including: "On Assignment: Iraq", "Big Money & the Middle East", "City of Money and Mystery" and "The Forbidden Zone".
 
Burnett was born and raised in Mardela Springs, Maryland. She is the youngest daughter of corporate attorney Kenneth King Burnett, and his wife Esther Margaret (Stewart). She attended St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware, graduating in 1994. Burnett later attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. At Williams College, she studied political science and economics, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in political economy. As an undergraduate, she played lacrosse and field hockey. She is engaged to Citigroup executive David Rubulotta.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Sasha Grey

Sasha Grey (born Marina Ann Hantzis on March 14, 1988) is an American former pornographic actress, who has since turned to mainstream acting, modeling and music
 
Later in her adult film career, she was profiled by several popular culture magazines and television programs. She won several AVN Awards between 2007 and 2010, and has also been featured in music videos and advertising campaigns. After her mainstream feature film debut as the lead in Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, she shifted her focus to acting, starring in the black comedy/horror film Smash Cut as April Carson, as well as having a supporting role in season 7 of HBO's Entourage. She has also appeared in independent films Quit, The Girl from the Naked Eye, and Mark Pellington's I Melt With You.

She is a member of aTelecine, an industrial noise band. Grey was born and raised in North Highlands, California, to a working class family. Her mother worked for the state of California and her father is a Greek American mechanic. Her parents divorced when she was 5 and subsequently she was raised by her mother, who remarried in 2000. She's stated that while her parents do not like everything she does, they get along. Grey attended four high schools, among them Highlands High, before graduating, having been unhappy in each one, though she graduated a year early at 17. In autumn 2005, she attended junior college and took classes in film, dance, and acting. She waited tables at a steakhouse through March 2006 and saved $7,000 for a move to Los Angeles.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Monalisa

Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda or La Joconde, or Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo) is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519. It is on permanent display at the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

The painting is a half-length portrait and depicts a seated woman, Lisa del Giocondo, whose facial expression has been frequently described as enigmatic. The ambiguity of the subject's expression, the monumentality of the composition, and the subtle modeling of forms and atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work. The image is widely recognised, caricatured, and sought out by visitors to the Louvre, and it is considered the most famous painting in the world.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Friday, November 18, 2011

Song Hye Gyo

Song Hye-kyo (Korean: 송혜교, born November 22, 1981) is a South Korean model and actress. She gained popularity through television dramas such as Autumn in My Heart (2000), All In (2003), Full House (2004), and The World That They Live In (2008). .
Contents
Career
Song debuted in the entertainment industry in 1996 when she won the Grand Prize in SunKyung Smart (a school uniform company) when she was finishing her third year in junior high school. It was not long until she starred in her first drama, Merry Morning. Since then, she would continue to star in a string of various dramas and sitcoms but it wasn't until the KBS drama Autumn in My Heart in 2000 with Song Seung-hun and Won Bin that she rose to fame throughout Asia.

In 2003, her popularity continued to climb when she played a leading role alongside Lee Byung-hun in the gambling drama All In. The following year, she co-starred with singer Rain in the hit romantic comedy series Full House.

After the pan-Asian success of Full House, she made her big-screen debut in My Girl and I (a Korean adaptation of Crying Out Love in the Center of the World She returned to acting in 2007, as the kisaeng Hwang Jini in the film adaptation of A year later, she made her American debut in the Hollywood indie Make Yourself at Home (formerly titled Fetish), a psychological thriller about a girl who was born to a shaman mother and tries to flee her fate by becoming an immigrant bride in the U.S. She made her TV comeback in late 2008 with The World That They Live In, a series set at a broadcast station in which Song and Hyun Bin play drama PDs who work together and fall in love. In 2010, she starred in Camellia, an omnibus pic made up of three feature films directed by three Asian directors. Each episode is set in the past, present and future of the city of Busan, Korea. In the film's final segment Love for Sale, Song and Kang Dong-won play former lovers who forget their memories about each other which later leads them to a fatal destiny.
 
Chinese director John Woo announced Song's casting in his film 1949, but the project was cancelled. Wong Kar-wai then cast her in a supporting role in his biopic about Bruce Lee's kung fu master Ip Man. Titled The Grandmasters, Song learned Cantonese and martial arts for the film. Considered one of Korea's most beautiful woman, in early 2011 Song released the photobook Song Hye-kyo's Moment which was shot by top photographers in Atlanta, New York, Buenos Aires, Patagonia, Paris, the Netherlands and Brazil. In 2010, she was ranked no. 18 among the most beautiful faces in the world by Independent Critics.

She plays a documentary producer who finds the strength to forgive the 17-year-old boy who killed her fiance but instead of redemption finds only greater tragedy in A Reason to Live (Korean title: Today), which after several delays was released in October 2011. Song was a huge fan of the director and had actively sought her out, and though she had difficulty getting into character,Song said she fell in love with the script and felt her acting had matured. She considers the film "a turning point" in her life.


Article Source : Wikipedia

January Jones

January Kristen Jones (born January 5, 1978) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Betty Draper on Mad Men. Jones was born and raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the daughter of Karen and Marvin Jones, a coach and gym teacher. She is named after January Wayne, a character in Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough. She has two sisters – Jacey and Jina.

Career
Jones has had supporting roles in Anger Management (2003), Love Actually, and Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. In 2005, she appeared as a U.S. border guard's frustrated wife in the film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones. In We Are Marshall (2006), she played the role of Carol Dawson, wife of football coach William "Red" Dawson.

She had the lead female role in the movie Love's Enduring Promise as a pioneer family's oldest child. Her character fell in love with a mysterious man who saved her father's life. She currently appears in the AMC original television drama series Mad Men as young suburban housewife and mother Betty Draper. She is also known for her role as Cadence Flaherty in the 2003 comedy American Wedding, the third installment of the American Pie film series.

She appeared in the season 18 Law & Order episode "Quit Claim," playing a con artist who matches wits with Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter, in which she is the lone surviving suspect connected to a real estate scam involving organized crime. She also appeared in The Boat That Rocked, a British film about offshore pirate radio in the 1960s, renamed Pirate Radio for North American release in 2009.

Jones was ranked No.82 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2002. She appeared on the cover of "The Hot Issue" of British GQ magazine in May 2009. In 2010, she was ranked No. 17 on the TC Chandler's "Most Beautiful Faces" list. On November 14, 2009, Jones hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live which featured the musical guest The Black Eyed Peas, giving a performance that was met with negative reviews.
 
In 2011, she starred alongside Liam Neeson and Diane Kruger in the thriller film Unknown, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, and portrayed Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty (play /riˈɑːnə/ ree-ah-nə or /riˈænə/ ree-an-ə; born February 20, 1988), better known as simply Rihanna, is a Barbadian R&B recording artist. Born in Saint Michael, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers. She subsequently signed a contract with Def Jam Recordings after auditioning for then-label head Jay-Z.
 
In 2005, Rihanna released her debut studio album, Music of the Sun, which peaked in the top ten of the Billboard 200 chart and features the Billboard Hot 100 hit single "Pon de Replay." Less than a year later, she released her second studio album, A Girl Like Me (2006), which peaked within the top five of the Billboard albums chart, and produced her first Hot 100 number one single, "SOS". Rihanna's third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad (2007), spawned four chart-topping singles "Umbrella", "Take a Bow", "Disturbia" and "Don't Stop the Music", and was nominated for nine Grammy Awards, winning Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Umbrella," which features Jay-Z. Her fourth studio album Rated R, released in November 2009, produced the top 10 singles "Russian Roulette", "Hard" and "Rude Boy", which achieved the number-one spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Loud (2010), her fifth studio album, contains the number-one hits "Only Girl (In the World)", "What's My Name?" and "S&M"."We Found Love" was released in September 2011 as the lead single from her sixth studio album and has topped the charts in over ten countries. Talk That Talk, Rihanna's sixth album, is set to be released in November 2011.

Rihanna has sold more than 20 million albums and 60 million singles which makes her one of the best selling artists of all time. She is the youngest artist in Billboard charts history to achieve eleven number-one singles on the Hot 100. As of March 2010, Rihanna has sold approximately 7.3 million album units and over 33.7 million digital singles in the United States. Billboard named Rihanna the Digital Songs Artist of the 2000s decade, and ranked her as the 17th Artist of the 2000s decade. She has received several accolades, including the 2007 World Music Awards for World's Best-Selling Pop Female Artist and Female Entertainer of the Year, and the 2011 Brit Award for Best International Female Solo Artist. She has also amassed a total of four Grammy Awards, four American Music Awards, and eighteen Billboard Music Awards. Rihanna has also been appointed the official ambassador of youth and culture for Barbados.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Rose Byrne

Mary Rose Byrne (born 24 July 1979) is an Australian actress.
Byrne made her screen debut in 1994 with a small role in the film Dallas Doll. In 2000 she played a leading role in the Australian film The Goddess of 1967, which brought her a Venice Film Festival award for Best Actress. Since 2007, she has played Ellen Parsons in the cable television series Damages, which has earned her two Golden Globe Awards nominations and two Emmy Awards nominations. In 2011, she starred in the financially successful films Insidious, X-Men: First Class and Bridesmaids.
Contents

    Early life
Byrne was born in Balmain, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, of Irish and Scottish descent (her grandfather was an Irish immigrant to Australia). She is the daughter of Jane, a primary school administrator, and Robin Byrne, a semi-retired statistician and market researcher. She is the youngest of their four children; she has an older brother, George, and two older sisters, Alice and Lucy. Both of her parents are atheists, and she describes herself as agnostic. Byrne attended Balmain Public School and Hunters Hill High School before attending Bradfield College in Crows Nest. She began taking acting classes at age eight, joining the Australian Theatre for Young People and later attended the University of Sydney. In 1999, Byrne studied acting at the Atlantic Theatre Company developed by David Mamet and William H. Macy. 

Career
Byrne in September 2011
Byrne was cast in her first film role, Dallas Doll, when she was 13 years old.[6] She has appeared in several Australian television shows including Heartbreak High and Echo Point, and the film Two Hands with Heath Ledger. She appeared in The Date, My Mother Frank, and Clara Law's The Goddess of 1967 for which she was award the Volpi Cup for "Best Actress" at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. She appeared as a guest in an episode of the police drama series Murder Call. On stage, she played a lead role in La Dispute and in a production of Anton Chekhov's classic Three Sisters at the Sydney Theatre Company.

In 2002, Byrne made her first appearance in a Hollywood film with a small role as Dormé, the handmaiden to Natalie Portman's Senator Padmé Amidala, in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. She appeared the same year in City of Ghosts with Matt Dillon. The year previously she had flown to the UK to shoot I Capture the Castle, Tim Fywell's adaptation of the 1948 novel of the same title by Dodie Smith. In the 2003 release, she portrayed Rose Mortmain, the elder sister of Romola Garai's Cassandra. In 2003, she starred in three Australian films: The Night We Called It a Day with Melanie Griffith and Dennis Hopper; The Rage in Placid Lake for which she was named Best Actress at the Australian Film Institute with singer Ben Lee; and Take Away, another comedy.

In 2004, Byrne starred as Briseis, the Trojan priestess who is abducted during the Trojan War by Achilles, played by Brad Pitt, in Wolfgang Petersen's epic Troy, also starring Eric Bana, Peter O’Toole, Sean Bean, and Orlando Bloom. She then reunited with Peter O'Toole in the BBC TV drama Casanova. Byrne appeared with Snoop Dogg in Danny Green's film The Tenants, based on Bernard Malamud's novel, and starred with Josh Hartnett and Diane Kruger in the romantic psychological thriller Wicker Park where she played Alex, the woman who manipulated Josh Hartnett's character to keep him apart from the woman he falls in love with.

In 2006, Byrne portrayed Gabrielle de Polastron, duchesse de Polignac, a French aristocrat and friend of Marie Antoinette, in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, with Kirsten Dunst, and appeared in The Dead Girl,  directed by Karen Moncrieff.

In 2007, she played Cassie, the pilot in Danny Boyle's science fiction suspense film Sunshine, Scarlett Ross, an army medical officer in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's science fiction horror 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to Boyle's 28 Days Later, and appeared in the independent film Just Buried, a Canadian dark comedy written and directed by Chaz Thorne. Since 2007, Byrne has appeared in the FX drama production Damages, playing the regular lead role of Ellen Parsons, a young attorney torn between her new boss, played by Glenn Close, and her own ambitions. She appeared in the Australian film noir The Tender Hook with Hugo Weaving. In 2009, Byrne co-starred with Nicolas Cage in the science fiction thriller, Knowing. Later that year, she appeared in the indie film, Adam, with Hugh Dancy. She appeared in the 2010 comedy film, Get Him to the Greek, starring Russell Brand and Jonah Hill and she was joint lead in the James Wan horror film Insidious, which premiered in September 2010 at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on general release on 1 April 2011.


Article Souece : Wikipedia

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Keira Knightley

Keira Christina Knightley (play /ˌkɪərə ˈnaɪtli/; born 26 March 1985) is an English actress and model. She began acting as a child and came to international notice in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham. From 2003 her appearances in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series took her to much greater prominence.

Knightley has appeared in several Hollywood films and earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. Two years later she again was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in Atonement. In 2008, Forbes claimed Knightley to be the second highest paid actress in Hollywood, having reportedly earned $32 million in 2007, making her the only non-American on the list of highest paid actresses. Contents

    Early life
Knightley was born in Teddington, London, England, the daughter of Sharman MacDonald, an award-winning playwright, and Will Knightley, a theatre and television actor. Her father is English and her Scottish mother is of half Welsh ancestry. She has an elder brother, Caleb. Knightley, born Kiera, switched her name to Keira to make it easier for international audiences to pronounce.
 
Knightley lived in Richmond, attending Stanley Junior School, Teddington School and Esher College. She was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of six, but nevertheless was successful in school and was thus permitted to acquire a talent agent and pursue an acting career. She requested an agent as early as the age of three and got one when she turned six, from her mother as a reward for studying hard. Knightley has noted that she was "single-minded about acting" during her childhood. She performed in a number of local amateur productions, including After Juliet (written by her mother) and United States (written by her then drama teacher, Ian McShane, no relation to the actor of the same name). She focused on art, history, and English literature while at Esher, but left after a year to focus on her acting and she also turned down her spot at the London Academy of Music and Drama.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Marion Cotillard

Marion Cotillard (French pronunciation: born 30 September 1975) is a French actress and singer. She garnered critical acclaim for her roles in films such as La Vie en Rose, My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument, Taxi, Furia and Jeux d'enfants. She has also appeared in such films as Big Fish, A Very Long Engagement (for which she received a César Award for Best Supporting Actress), A Good Year, Public Enemies, Nine, Inception, Midnight in Paris, and Contagion.

She won the Academy Award, the BAFTA Award, the César Award and the Golden Globe Award, all for best actress, for her portrayal of French singer Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. She made film history by becoming the first person to win an Academy Award for a French language performance. In 2010, she received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the musical Nine.
Contents

 Family and early life
Cotillard was born in Paris and grew up around Orléans, Loiret in an artistically inclined, "bustling, creative household". Her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, is an actor, teacher, former mime, and 2006 Molière Award-winning director. Cotillard's mother, Monique (now known as Niseema) Theillaud, is also an actress and drama teacher. She has two younger twin brothers, Quentin and Guillaume. Guillaume is a screenwriter and director. She began acting during her childhood, appearing on stage in one of her father's plays.

Career
Cotillard photographed by Studio Harcourt Paris in 1999.
After small appearances and performances in theater, Cotillard had occasional and minor roles in television series such as Highlander, but her career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s with small but noticeable roles in such films as Arnaud Desplechin's My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument. Cotillard appeared in the comedy La belle verte, directed by Coline Serreau. In 1998, she starred in Gérard Pirès' action comedy Taxi. In the film, she plays Lili Bertineau, who becomes Daniel's girlfriend. Cotillard reprised the role in two sequels. She then ventured into anticipation science fiction with Alexandre Aja's Furia (1999).

Cotillard appeared in Pierre Grimblat's film Lisa as Young Lisa, alongside Jeanne Moreau, Benoît Magimel and Sagamore Stévenin in the Swiss war drama In The Highlands. She starred in Gilles Paquet-Brenner's film Les jolies choses, adapted from the work of feminist writer Virginie Despentes. In the drama, Cotillard portrayed the characters of two twins of completely opposite characters, Lucie and Marie. She was nominated for a César Award for her performance. In Guillaume Nicloux's thriller Une affaire privée she portrayed Clarisse, friend of the disappeared.  Breakthrough (2003–2006)

Cotillard starred with Guillaume Canet in the romantic comedy film Love Me If You Dare as Sophie Kowalsky, the daughter of Polish immigrants. The film was directed by Yann Samuel. Cotillard had a notable supporting role in Tim Burton's film Big Fish, where she appeared alongside Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange and Allison Lohman. In the film she plays Joséphine, the French wife of William Bloom. She appeared in two critically successful films, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement as Tina Lombardi, for which she won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress, and appeared in the mystery thriller Innocence as Mademoiselle Éva.


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Kate Beckinsale

Kathryn Bailey "Kate" Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress. After some minor television roles, her first widely seen appearance was in Much Ado About Nothing (1993), filmed while she was a student at Oxford University. She then appeared in British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland (1994), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Emma (1996) and The Golden Bowl (2000), in addition to various stage and radio productions. She began to seek film work in the United States in the late 1990s and, after appearing in small-scale dramas The Last Days of Disco (1998) and Brokedown Palace (1999), she had a breakout year in 2001 with starring roles in war epic Pearl Harbor and romantic comedy Serendipity. She built on this success with appearances in The Aviator (2004) and Click (2006).

She garnered a reputation as an action star following an appearance as a vampire in 2003's Underworld and has since starred in Van Helsing (2004), Underworld: Evolution (2006) and Whiteout (2009). She has also continued to work on smaller independent projects such as Snow Angels (2007), Winged Creatures (2008), Nothing but the Truth (for which she earned a Critic's Choice Award nomination in 2008) and Everybody's Fine (2009). She has three films set for release in 2012: the fourth installment of vampire franchise Underworld: Awakening, crime thriller Contraband and sci-fi remake Total Recall.

She is the only child of actors Richard Beckinsale (1947–1979) and Judy Loe and was raised in London, England. She had an eight-year relationship with Welsh actor Michael Sheen from 1995 until 2003. Their daughter, Lily Mo Sheen, was born in London, England in 1999. She married American film director Len Wiseman in 2004 and they live in Los Angeles, California. Publications such as Esquire and People Magazine have repeatedly included her in their annual rankings of the world's sexiest and most beautiful women. She has worked occasionally as a model in television and print campaigns to promote Gap denim, Diet Coke, Absolut Vodka and Lux shampoo.


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Christina Hendricks

Christina Rene Hendricks (born May 3, 1975) is an actress known for her role as Joan Holloway in the AMC cable television series Mad Men, and as Saffron in Fox's short-lived series Firefly. Hendricks was named "the sexiest woman in the world" in 2010 in a poll of female readers taken by Esquire magazine.
 
 Personal life
Hendricks was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her mother, Jackie Sue (née Raymond), was a psychologist. Her father, Robert Hendricks, who worked for the forestry service, was British from Birmingham, England. Through her father she has dual U.S./U.K. nationality. Her family moved because of her father's profession, living in Fairfax, Virginia; Portland, Oregon; and Twin Falls, Idaho. Hendricks is a natural blonde and began coloring her hair red at the age of ten after reading the book Anne of Green Gables. She began acting in children's musical theater productions in Twin Falls. On October 11, 2009, Hendricks married actor Geoffrey Arend. 

Career
Hendricks started her career as a model, from the ages of 18 to 27. She made a number of guest television appearances, starting as a regular in the series Beggars and Choosers. Since then, she has starred in the series The Big Time and The Court, opposite Sally Field and Craig Bierko, as well as the legal drama Kevin Hill. She has also had recurring roles in ER and Firefly and guest-starred in episodes of Angel, Miss Match, Tru Calling, Presidio Med, Without a Trace, and Las Vegas. Hendricks starred opposite Kip Pardue in South of Pico. La Cucina, an award-winning indie film, premiered on Showtime in December 2009 and stars Hendricks as a sexy writer opposite Joaquim de Almeida. She has appeared in four episodes of the NBC TV show Life in the recurring role of Olivia, detective Charlie Crews' soon-to-be stepmother and Ted Earley's love interest. She also starred in music videos for "The Ghost Inside" by Broken Bells, and Everclear's "One Hit Wonder".
 
Her best-known role is that of Joan Holloway on the award-winning AMC series Mad Men. Hendricks' character is the office manager of advertising agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (SCDP), providing mentoring to a group of women who must deal with the come-ons and callousness of professional advertising executives. She appeared in the action-thriller Drive, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, and alongside Carey Mulligan and Ryan Gosling.


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Amanda Seyfried

Amanda Michelle Seyfried (born December 3, 1985) is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My Children.

In 2004, Seyfried made her film debut in Mean Girls playing Karen Smith, the ditziest of the so-called "Plastics". Her subsequent roles as a supporting character were in independent films, such as Nine Lives (2005) and Alpha Dog (2006). She also had a recurring role in the UPN TV show Veronica Mars (2004–2006). Between 2006 and 2010, she landed a lead role on HBO's popular television series Big Love. After that, Seyfried appeared in her breakthrough and first leading role as Sophie Sheridan in the 2008 musical feature film Mamma Mia!. Other appearances include leading roles in Jennifer's Body (2009), Chloe (2009), Dear John (2010), Letters to Juliet (2010), Red Riding Hood (2011), and In Time (2011).
Seyfried was born in Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania on December 3, 1985. Her mother, Ann (née Sander), is an occupational therapist, and her father, Jack, is a pharmacist. She has German ancestry. Seyfried graduated in 2003 from Allentown's William Allen High School. Seyfried has an older sister, Jennifer Seyfried, who is a musician in the Philadelphia, organ-driven rock band, Love City.

In late January 2009 she became attached to appear in Myriad Pictures' adaptation of Oscar Wilde's comedy A Woman of No Importance. The film is set to be released in 2011. In 2010, however, reports indicated that the film might not happen due to lack of financing. Although it was confirmed in 2009 that she would appear in the movie, Albert Nobbs, she ultimately dropped out due to scheduling conflicts and was replaced by Mia Wasikowska. Seyfried plays the lead role of Valerie in Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood. It was released on March 11, 2011. She played the lead role of Sylvia Weis in Andrew Niccol's In Time, released in October 2011.


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Emily DiDonato

Emily DiDonato (born February 24, 1991) is an American model. She was raised in a small town in Orange County in upstate New York  and is of Irish and Italian ancestry. After a family friend encouraged her to pursue modeling, she signed with Request Model Management in 2008 and booked jobs as the face of Guess? clothing for spring 2009 and as a model in Ralph Lauren's "Rugby" spring 2009 advertisement campaign. In May 2009, she was signed as the latest face of Maybelline New York, a notable accomplishment for a model who had just graduated from high school with only a few months of modeling experience, and made her television commercial debut for the company's "Color Sensational Lip Color" line, alongside Christy Turlington, Jessica White, and Julia Stegner. DiDonato began modeling for Victoria's Secret in August 2009, and appeared on her first magazine cover with The Block's October 2009 issue. Prior to the 2009 New York Fashion Week, Vogue Germany dubbed her "top newcomer. In 2010, she became the face of Giorgio Armani's fragrance Acqua Di Gioia.


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Alice Eve

Alice Sophia Eve (born 6 February 1982) is an English actress. She is known for her lead in She's Out of My League and also appeared in Sex and the City 2. She will also star in the up-coming The Decoy Bride and Men in Black III.
 
Contents Early lifeEve was born in London, England, the daughter of actors Trevor Eve and Sharon Maughan. She has two younger brothers, Jack and George. Eve is of English, Welsh, and Irish descent. She attended Bedales School and then took her A-Levels at Westminster School in London. During her gap year, she studied at the Beverly Hills Playhouse and then read English at St Catherine's College, Oxford. While at Oxford, she appeared in student productions of An Ideal Husband, Animal Crackers (which toured to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Scenes from an Execution and The Colour of Justice.

Career
Eve has starred in television dramas including the BBC's The Rotters' Club, Poirot and Hawking, as well as the film Stage Beauty (2004).

Eve played significant roles in two 2006 films: Starter for 10 and Big Nothing (in which she and co-star Simon Pegg used American accents). She spent the early part of 2006 in India working on a drama mini-series Losing Gemma about backpackers. Eve has appeared in two plays, both directed by Trevor Nunn. In 2006, she appeared in Rock 'n' Roll, a new play by Tom Stoppard at the Royal Court Theatre and reprised her role in the 2007 Broadway transfer. For her performance, she was nominated for the best supporting actress award at the Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers' Choice Awards. In 2009, she played Roxane in a production of Cyrano de Bergerac at the Chichester Festival Theatre.
 
She starred in the 2010 U.S. film She's Out of My League. In the film, her parents play the roles of her character's parents. She also played the role of Charlotte's Irish nanny, Erin, in Sex and the City 2. In 2011, Eve had a recurring guest role on the 8th season of the HBO series Entourage, playing Sophia, a journalist and love interest to Vincent Chase.


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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Freida Pinto

Freida Pinto (born 18 October 1984) is an Indian actress and model best known for her portrayal of Latika in the 2008 Academy Award winning film Slumdog Millionaire, for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. In 2010, she starred in the films You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and as the title character in Miral, and in 2011, she starred in the box-office hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
 
 Early life
Freida Pinto was born on 18 October 1984 to a Mangalorean Catholic family in Mumbai, which she still refers to as Bombay out of habit. Her surname is Portuguese and Pinto has said that she "probably" has distant Portuguese ancestry. Her mother, Sylvia, is a principal of St John's Universal High School (Goregaon), and her father, Frederick, is a senior branch manager at the Bank of Baroda. Her older sister Sharon is an associate producer for the NDTV news channel. Pinto dreamed of becoming an actress since she was five years old. When Freida was ten, Sushmita Sen won Miss Universe 1994, which turned out to be a defining point in Freida's life. She studied at Carmel of St. Joseph School in Malad, Mumbai and completed her Bachelor of Arts (BA) with a major in English Literature, and minors in Psychology and Economics, from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. She also acted in plays and amateur theater while attending St. Xavier's. She later joined Elite Model Management and modeled for two and a half years. 

Acting career
 
Pinto at the 2010 International Film Festival of India
Before starring in Slumdog Millionaire, Pinto anchored the international travel show, Full Circle, on Zee International Asia Pacific in English between 2006-08. Pinto was also featured in several television and print advertisements for products such as Wrigley's Chewing Gum, Škoda, Vodafone India, Airtel, and DeBeers. Pinto modeled for four years and appeared in runway shows and magazine covers. She learned acting from The Barry John's Acting Studio in Andheri and was trained by theatre director Barry John. After six months of auditions, she received a call to audition for Slumdog Millionaire. Pinto auditioned for Danny Boyle and was short-listed and finally selected to star in Slumdog Millionaire.
 
Pinto made her feature film debut in 2008 in Slumdog Millionaire playing the role of Latika, the girl with whom Jamal (Dev Patel) is in love. At the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, the movie won the Cadillac People's Choice Award. At the 2009 Golden Globe Awards, the movie won four awards. Pinto herself was nominated for "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" at the 2009 BAFTA Awards, She won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture alongside other cast members from Slumdog Millionaire.
 
Pinto co-starred in Woody Allen's comedy-drama film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, with Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Anupam Kher and Naomi Watts, which premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Pinto appeared in the 2011 science fiction film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a reboot of the Planet of the Apes series, opposite James Franco. She played Caroline, a primatologist, in the film. She also appeared in the 2011 fantasy-action-drama film, Immortals, in which she played the oracle priestess Phaedra. Also in 2011, she will play Princess Lallah in the 1930s set Black Gold.


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Alison Brie

Brie was born in Pasadena, California as Alison Brie Schermerhorn. She began her career acting onstage at the Jewish Community Center in Southern California (Brie's mother is Jewish). She graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a bachelor's in theater in 2005. Prior to becoming a television actress, Brie had worked as a clown at birthday parties, and performed in theatre in California.
For a time, Brie studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.

 Career

One of Brie's first television roles was the minor character Nina, a novice hairdresser, on Hannah Montana. She then went on to star in the web series My Alibi. Brie auditioned and was chosen for the role of Trudy Campbell in Mad Men. She plays Annie Edison on Community.
On April 15, 2010, Brie co-hosted G4's Attack of the Show!. Brie has also appeared for a short segment on the G4 show, Web Soup. She had a role in the 2010 film Montana Amazon. She made Maxim's 2010 Hot 100 list at number 99 and Maxim's 2011 Hot 100 list at number 49. She had a role in the horror film Scream 4, in April 2011.


Article Source : Wikipedia

Leighton Meester

Leighton Marissa Meester (born April 9, 1986) is an American actress and singer. Meester first garnered attention for playing Blair Waldorf in the CW television series Gossip Girl. She most recently appeared in the 2010 country drama film Country Strong, the 2011 thriller The Roommate, and the 2011 romantic-comedy Monte Carlo. 

Early life and personal life
Meester was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to Constance and Douglas Meester and lived most of her life in New York City and Los Angeles. Meester's last name means "master" or "teacher" in Dutch. Her mother was serving time in a federal prison for her involvement in a drug ring that smuggled marijuana from Jamaica to the United States. She was able to give birth to Leighton in a hospital and nurse her for three months in a halfway house, before returning to prison to complete her sentence, after which Leighton's grandmother cared for her.

Meester has maintained that her parents gave her a normal upbringing and, despite their criminal past, are good people with experience that has only made Meester more open-minded and non-judgmental, "It made me realize that you can't judge anyone — especially your parents — for what they've done in their past, because people change."Meester has joked, "Look, I could've turned out a lot worse." She has cited her mother as her style icon.

Meester grew up in Marco Island, Florida, where she participated in productions at a local playhouse. When she was 11 years old, Meester and her mother moved to New York City. Meester attended the Professional Children's School and also began working as a model with Wilhelmina, booking a Ralph Lauren campaign shot by Bruce Weber and working with then photographer (now film maker) Sofia Coppola as well as many commercials including Tamagotchi toys and Clearasil. Meester made her television acting debut as a murder victim's friend on an episode of Law & Order. At 14, Meester moved to Los Angeles, California, wanting more stable work, and attended Hollywood High School and Beverly Hills High School. She then transferred to a small private school and graduated a year early.

In July 2011, she and her mother filed lawsuits against each other regarding Meester's financial support of her younger brother, who has multiple health problems. Meester's suit claims the money she sent was misused by her mother; her mother's suit makes a cross-claim alleging breach of contract and physical abuse. From 2008 to 2010, Meester dated actor Sebastian Stan.
 
After her television debut in 1999 playing Alyssa Turner in Law & Order, Meester appeared as a guest in two more series before landing her big role in the movie Hangman's Curse, based on the best-selling book by Frank Peretti. She appeared in Tarzan, which ran for only eight episodes. Meester then started to land guest roles in other series such as Crossing Jordan, 8 Simple Rules, 7th Heaven, Veronica Mars, 24, and Entourage. In 2005, Meester began a regular role in the series Surface as Savannah Bennet. Meester appeared in two more 2006 movies, Flourish and Inside. She also guest appeared in Numb3rs and in three episodes of House M.D. as Ali, a young girl who has a crush on House. She had guest roles on CSI: Miami and Shark, and played the female lead in the horror film Drive-Thru.

In 2007, Meester was cast in the CW's teen drama series Gossip Girl as Blair Waldorf. The show is based on the book series by Cecily von Ziegesar about the lives of New York's privileged Upper East Side young adults. Her performance is the most critically acclaimed of the show, with Blair being cited as the series' breakout character, and also garnering much media recognition due to her wardrobe. She dated Gossip Girl co-star Sebastian Stan. Meester appeared on the television film The Haunting of Sorority Row, and played a part in the ensemble comedy/drama Remember the Daze. She also appeared in the horror/thriller film Killer Movie in 2008.

Meester had small roles in the 2010 comedies Date Night and Going The Distance. She starred in Screen Gems' 2010 country drama Country Strong and the 2011 thriller The Roommate. In 2011 she starred alongside Selena Gomez and Katie Cassidy in the young femme comedy Monte Carlo, loosely based on Jules Bass's young-adult book Headhunters. She is set to star in The Uncatchable Cowgirl Bandits of Nottingham, Texas alongside Amber Heard; in the indie dramatic comedy The Oranges opposite Hugh Laurie; and she also joined the cast of the comedy I Hate You, Dad, alongside Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, and Milo Ventimiglia.


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Marisa Miller

Marisa Lee Miller (née Bertetta; born August 6, 1978) is an American model best known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues and her work for lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret. After a stint shooting with photographer Mario Testino for fashion magazines like Vogue, Miller began working for both companies in 2002. In 2007, she became a Victoria's Secret Angel, and graced the cover of the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to record-setting numbers. Her accomplishments have led to her being dubbed the "return of the great American supermodel.
 
She is also known for contracts with companies like Harley-Davidson, for whom she is the first spokesperson in the history of the company. Miller is considered a sex symbol; she ranked #1 on Maxim magazine's 2008 "Hot 100" list and in FHM's global 2010 "Sexiest Women in the World" poll. Aside from modeling, she is an ambassador for both the American Cancer Society and the USO. Born Marisa Lee Bertetta in Santa Cruz, California, to parents Krista (Useldinger) and Marc Bertetta, Miller attended high school at Aptos High and Monte Vista Christian School. She considered herself a tomboy growing up, with mostly male friends and little awareness of anything girly. Out of shyness, she often wore large t-shirts to hide her body and would get fully dressed just to go to the trash-can while at the beach.
 
Miller was first "discovered" at age sixteen walking through a San Francisco café by two Italian modeling agents. After talking to her mother, she was on a plane to Italy with her mother a few months later, despite her "shy and conservative" personality. Miller gained attention in 1997 when she appeared in the first issue of Perfect 10 magazine. Although she came in third behind Ashley Degenford and Monica Hansen in Perfect 10 magazine's first annual model search, she was repeatedly showcased in following issues, including the covers of the Winter 1998 and August/September 1999 editions, as well as a reprint for the Fall 2004 edition cover.

Career
Miller moved from a start as an amateur magazine model to high profile mainstream work after an acquaintance showed a picture of her to famed fashion photographer Mario Testino in 2001. Testino asked to meet Miller, who was running a surf school at the time, and was invited to Manhattan Beach, California, where she would be surfing.
 
Noticing her, Testino snapped pictures of her and approached her with a job offer. It turned out to be editorials for both the American and Italian editions of Vogue. Within six months, Miller was working for Victoria's Secret and the coveted Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, in which she appeared in every issue from 2002 to 2008. In particular, she famously posed wearing only an iPod in the 2007 issue. She has also appeared in a diverse range of magazines, many of them international editions, such as GQ, Maxim, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, and Vanity Fair. She has featured in advertisements for Nordstrom, J.Crew, Guess?, Tommy Hilfiger, Bath & Body Works, and True Religion jeans. Miller in a bikini, the top a striped design with a variety of different brown patterns. Miller backstage at the Fashion for Relief show, a charity event in aid of victims of Hurricane Katrina.

It was not until 2007 that she filmed her first television commercial for Victoria's Secret, appearing alongside Heidi Klum for the It bra. On December 4, 2007, Miller made her debut in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show,   and opened a segment in the following year's edition. Other runway work include 2007's Fashion for Relief show, benefiting victims of Hurricane Katrina, as well as MTV's Fashionably Loud, Imitation of Christ, Inca, and Amir Slama's Rosa Cha, for which she was one of the most anticipated models.On the February 12, 2008 episode of The Late Show with David Letterman, it was revealed via a three-story billboard in New York City that Miller would grace the cover of that year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. The tandem online launch of the issue drew record page views to the SI website: 228 million, a 41% increase over 2007. In September 2008, Sports Illustrated released a "Best of Marisa Miller" swimsuit calendar for the 2009 year.

Article Source : Wikipedia

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Brooklyn Decker

Brooklyn Danielle Decker (born April 12, 1987) is an American fashion model and actress best known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, including the cover of the 2010 issue. In addition to working for Victoria's Secret for the 2010 "Swim" collection, she has ventured into television with guest appearances on Chuck, Ugly Betty and Royal Pains. She made her feature film debut in Just Go with It. Decker is married to American tennis player Andy Roddick.

Decker was born in Kettering, Ohio, the daughter of Tessa (née Moore), a nurse, and Stephen Decker, a pacemaker seller. She has one brother, Jordan, who is three years younger than her. She and her family moved to Middletown, Ohio, then to Matthews, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. She was discovered in a Charlotte shopping mall as a teenager. Decker began her modeling career as the face of Mauri Simone, a popular prom dress maker. She won the 2003 Model of the Year award at the Connections Model and Talent Convention. In a January 2011 interview with Self magazine, Decker stated that she suffered from an eating disorder and states, "My father did an intervention and got me to stop obsessing about everyone else and wrecking my body.
 
Career
Decker in May 2011.Decker has been featured in pictorials in Teen Vogue, Cosmopolitan, FHM, and Glamour, and has modeled for The Gap, Intimissimi and Victoria's Secret. She has appeared in music videos for Jimmy Buffett and the band 3 Doors Down. She is also an avid Tar Heel basketball and Carolina Panthers fan.In 2005, within two months of moving to New York City, Decker auditioned for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, in which she first appeared in 2006. She was again featured in the 2007 edition, and hosted the 2007 behind-the-scenes television special. She returned for a third consecutive time in 2008. Decker was chosen cover girl for the 2010 edition, shot on location in the Maldives islands. In 2007, she had a recurring feature on the CNN/SI website called "She Says, Z Says," along with Paul Zimmerman, discussing NFL football games of the week. Decker appeared in the 2007 made-for-television Lipshitz Saves the World. She worked for a period in Australia. She joined the cast of Sports New York to discuss the 2010 NCAA basketball tournament. In 2008, Decker rang the New York Stock Exchange bell with other Sports Illustrated models.

Decker is represented by Marilyn Agency.Decker made a guest appearance on NBC's Chuck, where she played a model applying to be a "Buy More Girl." She made a guest appearance on USA Network's Royal Pains on July 30, 2009. Decker played swimsuit model Rachel, while Peter Jacobson played Alan, her nebbish husband.On February 8, 2010, David Letterman announced on Late Show with David Letterman that Decker had been chosen as the 2010 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit covermodel.Calling her selection "the news of a lifetime," Decker admitted that her mother cried when she heard her daughter would grace the cover.Decker served as a guest judge in the 5th cycle from Germany's Next Topmodel.

She was reportedly considered for the lead female role in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Decker won Esquire magazine's 2010 "Sexiest Woman Alive" bracket challenge.MTV Networks' NextMovie.com named her one of the 'Breakout Stars to Watch for in 2011.Brooklyn is the female lead, Sam, in the upcoming Battleship movie based on the game of the same name.Brooklyn is playing a female lead named Skyler who is the young wife of Dennis Quaid's character, Ramsey, who finds out she is pregnant with twins in, the upcoming What to Expect When You're Expecting movie based on the book of the same name.
 
Article source : Wikipedia

Monday, November 14, 2011

Nicole Scherzinger

Nicole Prescovia Elikolani Valiente Scherzinger is an American singer, songwriter and dancer who is best known as the lead vocalist of the Pussycat Dolls. Previously, Scherzinger was a backing vocalist for the late-1990s rock group Days of the New, then she was part of reality TV girl group Eden's Crush. After the disbandment of the group, she joined the Pussycat Dolls and became the group's lead vocalist during their transition into a career in music. With the Pussycat Dolls, she released two albums PCD and Doll Domination and embarked on several concert tours. After leaving the group in December 2010, Scherzinger began a solo career with the release of her debut studio album Killer Love. The album's second single, "Don't Hold Your Breath" peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart, in turn marking her first number one hit as a solo artist.
 
Scherzinger became the winner of the tenth season of Dancing with the Stars in early 2010, and was hailed by judge Carrie Ann Inaba, "by far the best dancer we've ever had on the show." She is a judge on the American version of The X Factor, which premiered in September 2011.  Nicole Scherzinger was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, into a staunchly Catholic family. Her father, Alfonso Valiente, is Filipino, and her mother, Rosemary, is a mix of Hawaiian and Russian descent. Her mother was eighteen at the time of Scherzinger's birth and lived in an inner city neighborhood. Nicole's parents separated when she was still a baby. When she was six years old, her maternal family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, with her sister, Keala, and her German American stepfather, Gary Scherzinger.
 
She first attended Bowen Elementary, and later attended Meyzeek Middle School as an adolescent. Scherzinger states that, growing up, her family did not have a lot of money, and she thanks her mother for all the support she gave her to become what she is today. Scherzinger began performing in Louisville, attending the Youth Performing Arts School at duPont Manual High School, and performing with Actors Theatre of Louisville. As a teenager, Scherzinger was the first runner-up at the 1996 Kentucky State Fair's Coca-Cola Talent Classic contest. Scherzinger majored in acting and musical theatre at Wright State University, where she played Velma Kelly in Chicago and Julie La Verne in Show Boat. She put her studies on hold in 1999 to sing backing vocals for the rock band, Days of the New.

Article Source : Wikipedia

Olivia Wilde

Olivia Wilde (born Olivia Jane Cockburn; March 10, 1984) is an American actress and fashion model. She began acting in the early 2000s, and has since appeared in a number of film and television parts, including roles in the serial-drama The O.C. and The Black Donnellys. She portrayed Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley in the TV drama House for nearly four years,and has had starring roles in films such as Tron: Legacy and Cowboys & Aliens Wilde was born in New York City on March 10, 1984. Her mother, Leslie Cockburn (née Redlich), is a 60 Minutes producer and journalist. Her father, Andrew Cockburn, who was born in London, England, and raised in Ireland, is a journalist, as are her uncles Alexander Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn. Her older sister, Chloe Cockburn, is a civil rights attorney in New York; her late aunt, Sarah Caudwell, was a writer, and her paternal grandfather, Claud Cockburn, was a novelist/journalist.

Wilde has said that as a result of her family background, she has a "strong journalistic streak", being "really critical and analytical". Both her parents were prominent in the Washington social scene, hosting dinner parties. Her mother once recounted a story of a young Wilde eavesdropping one night on a conversation between Richard Holbrooke and Mick Jagger until Jagger noticed her and shooed her to bed. She has wanted to become an actress since the age of two.For a short time, Wilde's family had a house in Guilford, Vermont. She attended Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C., as well as Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 2002. She also attended The Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland for a short time.
 
Career
Wilde has appeared in the films The Girl Next Door, Alpha Dog, Conversations with Other Women and Turistas. She became known for her role on The O.C. as Alex Kelly, although she originally auditioned for the role of Marissa Cooper. She has also appeared in the Dashboard Confessional music video for "Stolen", and the French Kicks music video for "So Far We Are". She was strongly considered to play Bond girl Vesper Lynd in the 21st Bond film Casino Royale but Eva Green eventually won the role. In 2008, Wilde was honored alongside Jesse Eisenberg with the Vail Film Festival Rising Star Award.
In 2009 Wilde was ranked No.1 on Maxim magazine's Hot 100. It was an honor which was included as an inside joke during House season 6: episode 4 called "The Tyrant", where Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), upon hearing about Dr. Eric Foreman's (Omar Epps) recent firing of Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Wilde), sarcastically teased, "My condolences. Although, it's not like she's the hottest woman in the world." She was also ranked No.95 on the FHM 100 Sexiest Women of 2006.She was one of the key models in Abercrombie & Fitch's "Rising Stars" campaign in summer of 2004.

In 2007, Wilde was a part of the ensemble cast of the short-lived NBC mid-season drama The Black Donnellys. Her character, Jenny Reilly, was the lone principal female character in the series following the lives of an Irish-American family tied to organized crime in New York City. Also in 2007, Wilde appeared in the play Beauty on the Vine, a political thriller, playing three different characters.

Wilde joined the cast of the Fox medical drama House starring Hugh Laurie in September 2007, making her first appearance in season 4: episode 2 called "The Right Stuff". She played a secretive and bisexual young intern with Huntington's disease, Dr. Remy Hadley, nicknamed Thirteen, who was handpicked by Dr. Gregory House out of a number of applicants to join his team. Wilde told Star magazine how she sometimes took cues from her character even when she was not working, saying, "I'm now convinced that I'm a doctor. I mean, if someone says they have a pain, I'm like, 'Well, that's your spleen.'"
The New York Observer has described Wilde as having a "throaty voice" and the "wide, teal-eyed charisma of Hollywood in the days of yore". She has cited Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener and Robin Wright Penn as acting inspirations.

She won the 2006 US Comedy Arts Festival Film Discovery Jury Award for Best Actress for Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas (2006) and in 2008 at the Teen Choice Awards she was nominated for the Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Breakout Star Female for House, M.D. and won the Rising Star Award at the Vail Film Festival.

On October 7, 2008, Wilde appeared in a video on funnyordie.com showing how much she enjoys registering early for the 2008 Presidential election, "Olivia Wilde Does It Early".Wilde appeared alongside Jack Black and Michael Cera in the 2009 comedy Year One.
Wilde at 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International

She played Quorra in Disney's Tron: Legacy, which opened on December 17, 2010. In the December 2010/January 2011 issue of Details[9] Wilde was quoted as saying she freaked out the first time she saw her costume for the movie, "I saw the boobs on the suit and I said, 'Oh hell no. I'm doing kicks and backflips in this thing?'" In January 2011, it was announced that Wilde was cast alongside Chris Pine in the upcoming film Welcome to People.Wilde played Ella Swenson in the thriller Cowboys & Aliens. Her character works with Jake Lonergan, (Daniel Craig), and Woodrow Dolarhyde, (Harrison Ford), to save their town from evil aliens. Wilde played Sabrina McArdle in the movie The Change-Up. Her character is the girlfriend of Mitch Planko, who was played by Ryan Reynolds. In August 2011, it was announced Wilde will be leaving House to pursue her film career. Wilde left House in October 2011, in season 8: episode 3 called "Charity Case".
 
Personal life
Wilde has dual citizenship in the United States and Ireland. She derived her stage name "Wilde" from Irish author Oscar Wilde. She changed her surname while in high school, to honor the writers in her family, many of whom used pen names.
Wilde married Italian-American documentary filmmaker, flamenco guitar player, and son of an Italian prince, Tao Ruspoli, on June 7, 2003, in Washington, Virginia, on a school bus with only a pair of witnesses, when she was nineteen years old. She later said the marriage occurred in an abandoned school bus because it was the only place they could be completely alone, as the marriage was a secret at the time. On February 8, 2011, she and her husband announced that they were separating.Wilde filed for divorce in Los Angeles County Superior Court on March 3, 2011, citing "irreconcilable differences."The divorce was finalized on September 29, 2011. Wilde did not seek spousal support, and the pair reached a private agreement on property division.
She is a vegan.
 
Political activism
Wilde is a board member of Artists for Peace and Justice, which provides education and health services in Haiti, and the ACLU of Southern California. Previously, Wilde was a supporter of the youth voter organization, 18 in '08. She serves on their advisory council and appeared in a public service announcement that debuted June 30, 2008. In 2008, Wilde campaigned with actors Justin Long and her former House castmate Kal Penn for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama.She also appeared in the Moveon.org mock-PSA "supporting" the right of the healthcare insurance industry.Wilde was commended by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkers' union, for supporting the Fair Foods campaign.
 
Article source : Wikipedia