The essential guide to world's sexiest celebrities of all time
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Evangeline Lilly, born in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, in 1979, was discovered on the streets of Kelowna, British Columbia, by the famous Ford modeling agency. Although she initially decided to pass on a modeling career, she went ahead and signed with Ford anyway, to help pay for her University of British Columbia tuition and expenses.- Actress
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Patricia Anne Stratigeas, better known as Trish Stratus, is marketed as a former wrestler for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Before she became a mainstay in professional wrestling, she was a student at York University in Toronto, Canada. She majored in Biology and Kinesiology, but when the professors went on strike she took a job as receptionist at a local fitness club. There she was soon discovered by an agent who landed her a job as a fitness model.
Her success as a fitness model eventually caught the attention of a WWE talent official who sent her a letter offering her a contract. Other wrestling promotions had also offered her similar contracts, but she decided to sign with the WWE. She then made her WWE debut in March 19, 2000 on WWF Sunday Night Heat #86 (2000), where she formed the tag team of T & A with Test (Andrew Martin) and Albert (Matt Bloom). She also became the manager of then-WWE Intercontinental Champion Val Venis (Sean Morley).
Trish Stratus is highly regarded as a self-proclaimed WWE Diva. Among her accomplishments: she was voted Internet Babe of the Year for three consecutive years in 2001, 2002 and 2003, along with winning the "Diva of the Decade" award for the Raw Tenth Anniversary (2003); she graced the cover of the annual WWE Divas Magazine four times--in 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2006; and she holds the record for being the only woman in WWE history to win the WWE Women's Championship seven times. On September 17, 2006, she officially retired from professional wrestling after an amazing 7-year career; she'll be remembered for the legacy she left during her time with the WWE.
Following her retirement from WWE, she made occasional appearances on WWE Raw (1993) in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012, either for a special anniversary episode (Raw 15th Anniversary (2007) and Raw 1000 (2012)- Raw 1000), to wrestle, to guest-host, or make a televised appearance in a gimmick style segment. She participated in WrestleMania XXVII (2011) in 2011 with Snooki (Nicole Polizzi) and John Morrison (John Hennigan) in an intergender tag team match against Laycool (Layla El and Michelle McCool) and Dolph Ziggler (Nic Nemeth) in which her team proved victorious. She was later inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame 2013 (2013) in 2013 by Stephanie McMahon and the following year she inducted her bestie Lita (Amy Dumas) in the WWE Hall of Fame (2014) in 2014.
During that time, she toured with Lita (Amy Dumas) on convention tours to meet and greet fans who enjoyed their 2000-2006 friendship/rivalry. In 2018, they made their return to WWE when they individually participated in the main event all women's WWE Royal Rumble (2018), then wrestled in a tag-team match against Alicia Fox (Victoria Crawford) and Mickie James at the all female pay-per-view WWE Evolution (2018). Trish Stratus continues to split her time between making appearances at conventions, doing autograph signings for special WWE events, and taking care of her children Maximus (born September 30, 2013) and Madison (born January 14, 2017). She also made her mark in the feature films Bounty Hunters (2011) as Jules and Gridlocked (2015) as Gina.- Actress
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This stunning and resourceful actress has been primarily a film player thus far. Only recently has she been opening herself up more to doing television (the series Gemini Division (2008), which she executive-produced), and animated voice-overs. Dawson's powerhouse talent stands out the most in edgy, urban filming that dates back to 1995 when she was only sixteen.
A rags-to-riches article entitled "Rosario Dawson: From Tenement to Tinseltown" probably says it all. Rosario was born on May 9, 1979 in New York City. Her mother, Isabel Celeste, of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban descent, is a singer, and her stepfather, who raised her, Greg Dawson, of Irish descent, is a construction laborer. Her parents, who married when both were teenagers, eventually divorced. Rosario and her younger brother, Clay Dawson, had it hard while growing up, and were cared for by family members, most of whom were poverty-stricken, and some of whom were HIV-positive.
Her career actually started as a child when she made a minor showing on the children's show, Sesame Street (1969). As the story goes, she was "discovered" as an adolescent on her front porch step by two photographers. One of them, Harmony Korine, was an aspiring screenwriter who thought the inexperienced sixteen-year-old was ideal for the controversial cult film Kids (1995), in which she would portray a sexually active adolescent. It took time for Rosario's film career to kick in after that, but by the late 1990s, she had nabbed several independent films. Since then, she has moved into main-stream hits (and misses) and has surprised viewers with her earthy, provocative, uninhibited approach to her roles.
Reflecting New York's tougher, tawdrier side as assorted streetwalkers, homeless mothers, drug addicts, etc., her film highlights have included Light It Up (1999), Edward Burns' Sidewalks of New York (2001), Spike Lee's 25th Hour (2002) and Shattered Glass (2003). For Oliver Stone, she portrayed the duped bride of Colin Farrell's famed B.C. Macedonian warrior, Alexander (2004) (as in "...the Great"), which featured a notoriously violent-tinged nude/sex scene.
Expanding her horizons beyond film, she has always expressed interest in singing. She hooked up with Prince for the re-release of his 1980s hit "1999" and appeared in The Chemical Brothers' video for the song "Out of Control" from the album "Surrender". She is also featured on the Outkast track, "She Lives in My Lap". On stage, she co-starred as Julia in a revival of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" at the Public Theater's "Shakespeare in the Park" and appeared in "The Vagina Monologues".
She lucked into and got to show off her singing chops in the film adaptation of the hit New York musical Rent (2005), when Daphne Rubin-Vega, the original Mimi, became pregnant and was unable to reprise her exotic dancer role. Rosario also appeared as a prostitute in the adaptation of the graphic novel Sin City (2005). Of late, she has turned to producing. One of those, Descent (2007), had her playing a college coed who is brutally attacked and raped by a fellow student. Her more popular ventures have thus far included the role of Valerie Brown in the live-action version of the comic strip Josie and the Pussycats (2001), the Will Smith starrer Men in Black II (2002), Eagle Eye (2008) with Shia LaBeouf and Seven Pounds (2008), again with Smith, in which she offered one of her more tender-hearted performances as a woman with a potentially fatal heart condition.
More recent millennium films opposite some of Hollywood's top leading movie men include the tense actioneer Unstoppable (2010) with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine; the comedy/fantasy Zookeeper (2011) opposite Dalekmania (1995); romantic dramedy 10 Years (2011) with Channing Tatum; crime drama Fire with Fire (2012) with Bruce Willis; romantic comedy Top Five (2014) with Chris Rock; and action adventure Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) with Woody Harrelson. She has also top-lined independent films with her own feisty characters such as the thriller Unforgettable (2017) and the title role in the dramedy Krystal (2017).
Focusing also on TV projects, Rosario has graced such action series/mini-series as Daredevil (2015), Iron Fist (2017) and The Defenders (2017), as well as the comedy Jane the Virgin (2014) and animated cartoon series The Last Kids on Earth (2019).
Off-camera, the still-single Dawson is highly active in political, social and environmental causes and has been involved with such organizations/charities/campaigns as the Lower East Side Girls Club, Global Cool, the O.N.E. Campaign, Oxfam, Amnesty International, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Control Arms, International Rescue Committee, Voto Latino (which she founded), Conservation International, Doctors Without Borders, National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy and Save the Children. In October 2008, she lent her voice to the RESPECT! Campaign, a movement aimed at preventing domestic violence.- Actress
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Rose McGowan is an American actress and director, known for her contribution to independent film. Since the age of nineteen, she has appeared in acclaimed films by Gregg Araki, Wes Craven, Brian De Palma, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. In 2014, her directorial debut Dawn (2014) was nominated for the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Rose Arianna McGowan was born on September 5, 1973 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy, to American parents Terri and Daniel Patrick McGowan. She is the second eldest of six siblings, and has Irish, French, and English ancestry. As a young child, she was raised within the Italian chapter of the Children of God. During the early 1980s, her family severed ties with the community and migrated to Eugene, Oregon, USA. Following the divorce of her parents, Rose relocated to Gig Harbor, Washington, to live with her grandmother. At age 14, McGowan was accused of drug use by a family friend and committed to rehabilitation. She has consistently maintained the decision was unjustified. Upon release, she spent a year without a home and was emancipated from her parents by the age of 15. McGowan's career as an actor began with The Doom Generation (1995). Originally intended for Jordan Ladd, the character of Amy Blue was, coincidentally, awarded to McGowan by an associate of director Gregg Araki. For her performance, she was nominated at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Debut Performance. Subsequently cast in Wes Craven's Scream (1996), she experienced further success when the project defied expectations to become one of the highest grossing films of the year. The innovative career of McGowan was overshadowed throughout much of the 1990s by her high-profile relationship with musician Brian Warner (aka Marilyn Manson). Strong performances in Going All the Way (1997), Lewis & Clark & George (1997), Southie (1998) and Jawbreaker (1999) were largely unseen by the general public. When the relationship ended between Rose and Manson in 2001, she remarked: "There is great love, but our lifestyle difference is, unfortunately, even greater". Rose continued to work solidly, appearing in a string of soft-sounding studio and independent films. Performances from this period included: a political activist in Showtime's The Killing Yard (2001), a grifter in Roads to Riches (2002) and a factory worker in "Stealing Bess" (aka Vacuums (2003)). She was re-introduced to the mainstream as Paige Matthews in Aaron Spelling's Charmed (1998), a popular television series for which she devoted five consecutive years. When "Charmed" finished its run in 2006, McGowan emerged in top form. Critics praised her efforts in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror (2007), and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007). In several interviews, McGowan has expressed a general apathy and disdain for Hollywood. Despite this, her work ethic remains strong. Following her recent marriage to LA-based artist Davey Detail, the actress has resolved to purse further projects as a director.- Actress
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French actress and model Eva Gaëlle Green was born on July 6, 1980, in Paris, France. Her father, Walter Green, is a dentist who appeared in the 1966 film Au hasard Balthazar (1966). Her mother, Marlène Jobert, is an actress turned children's book writer. Eva's mother was born in Algeria, of French, Spanish, and Sephardic Jewish heritage (during that time, Algeria was part of France), and Eva's father is of Swedish, French, and Breton descent. She has a fraternal twin sister, Joy. Eva left French school at 17. She switched to the American School in France for one year. She left the American School and studied acting at Saint Paul Drama School in Paris for three years, then had a 10-week polishing course at the Weber Douglas Academy of dramatic Art in London. She returned to Paris as an accomplished young actress, and played on stage in several theater productions: "La Jalousie en Trois Fax" and "Turcaret". There, she caught the eye of director Bernardo Bertolucci. Green followed a recommendation to work on her English. She studied for two months with an English coach before doing The Dreamers (2003) with Bernardo Bertolucci. During their work, Bertolucci described Green as being "so beautiful it's indecent".
Green won critical acclaim for her role in The Dreamers (2003). After "The Dreamers", Green played the love interest of cult French gentleman-thief, Arsène Lupin (2004), opposite Romain Duris. In 2005, she co-starred, opposite Orlando Bloom and Liam Neeson, in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), produced and directed by Ridley Scott. The film brought her a wider international exposure. She turned down the femme fatale role in The Black Dahlia (2006), that went to Hilary Swank, because she didn't want to end up typecast after her role in "The Dreamers". Instead, Eva accepted the prestigious role of "Vesper Lynd", one of three Bond girls, opposite Daniel Craig, in Casino Royale (2006) and became the fifth French actress to play a James Bond girl, after Claudine Auger in Thunderball (1965), Corinne Cléry in Moonraker (1979), Carole Bouquet in For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Sophie Marceau in The World Is Not Enough (1999). She achieved international recognition for the film, one of the highest-grossing Bond movies ever.
Since then, Green has starred in the films Dark Shadows (2012), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014), Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016). She also starred as Vanessa Ives in Showtime's horror drama Penny Dreadful (2014). Her performance in the series earned her a nomination for Best Actress in a Television Series - Drama at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.
Since her school years, Green has been a cosmopolitan multilingual and multicultural person. Yet, since her father always lived in France with them and her mother, she and her twin sister can't speak Swedish. She developed a wide scope of interests beyond her acting profession and became an aspiring art connoisseur and an avid museum visitor. Her other activities, outside of acting, include playing and composing music, cooking at home, walking her terrier, and collecting art. She shares time between her two residencies, one is in Paris, France, and one in London, England.- Actress
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Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent. Halle first came into the spotlight at seventeen years when she won the Miss Teen All-American Pageant, representing the state of Ohio in 1985 and, a year later in 1986, when she was the first runner-up in the Miss U.S.A. Pageant. After participating in the pageant, Halle became a model. It eventually led to her first weekly TV series, 1989's Living Dolls (1989), where she soon gained a reputation for her on-set tenacity, preferring to "live" her roles and remaining in character even when the cameras stopped rolling. It paid off though when she reportedly refused to bathe for several days before starting work on her role as a crack addict in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever (1991) because the role provided her big screen breakthrough. The following year, she was cast as Eddie Murphy's love interest in Boomerang (1992), one of the few times that Murphy was evenly matched on screen. In 1994, Berry gained a youthful following for her performance as sexy secretary "Sharon Stone" in The Flintstones (1994). She next had a highly publicized starring role with Jessica Lange in the adoption drama Losing Isaiah (1995). Though the movie received mixed reviews, Berry didn't let that slow her down, and continued down her path to super-stardom.
In 1998, she received critical success when she starred as a street smart young woman who takes up with a struggling politician in Warren Beatty's Bulworth (1998). The following year, she won even greater acclaim for her role as actress Dorothy Dandridge in made-for-cable's Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Movie/Mini-Series. In 2000, she received box office success in X-Men (2000) in which she played "Storm", a mutant who has the ability to control the weather. In 2001, she starred in the thriller Swordfish (2001), and became the first African-American to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards, for her role as a grieving mother in the drama Monster's Ball (2001).- Actress
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Maria Grazia Cucinotta (born 27 July 1968) is an Italian actress who has featured in many films and television series since 1990. She has also worked as a producer, screenwriter and model. Cucinotta was born in Messina, Province of Messina, Sicily, Italy. She is well known in Italy as a movie and television actress, but internationally she is best known for her roles in Il Postino and as the Bond girl, credited as the Cigar Girl, in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.- Actress
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Denise Richards was born in Downers Grove, Illinois, the older of two daughters of Joni Lee, who owned a coffee shop, and Irv Richards, a telephone engineer. She has German, French-Canadian, Irish, English, and Welsh ancestry. She grew up in the Chicago area, until the family relocated to Oceanside, CA when Denise was 15. She began working as a model, and moved to L.A. after she graduated from high school. She landed parts in both TV and movies, and gave breakthrough performances in Starship Troopers (1997) with Casper Van Dien, Wild Things (1998) and The World Is Not Enough (1999), in which she plays a Bond Girl. She also was in Undercover Brother (2002) with Eddie Griffin and appeared in Scary Movie 3 (2003) with her now ex-husband, Charlie Sheen.- 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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Gillian Anderson was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Rosemary Alyce (Lane), a computer analyst, and Homer Edward Anderson III, who owned a film post-production company. Gillian started her career as a member of an amateur actor group while at high school. In 1987, her love of the theatre took her to the National Theatre of Great Britain Summer Acting Programme held at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. For several weeks she studied under such NT greats as Peter Chelsom, Bardy Thomas, and Michael Joyce. Afterwards, Anderson returned to the Goodman Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois where she finished her education. Her big break came with The X-Files (1993) as Dana Scully. There, she met her future husband (Clyde Klotz), marrying on January 1st 1994. One month later, Gillian was pregnant. Her daughter, Piper Anderson-Klotz, was born on the 25th September 1994. Her film career started with the movie The Turning (1992) in 1997 and, the following year, she starred in Playing by Heart (1998) with Sean Connery, Ellen Burstyn, Angelina Jolie and Dennis Quaid.- Actress
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Emilie was born on December 27 and grew up in Mount Eliza, Victoria, Australia. When she was 15, she was accepted at the highly selective Australian Ballet School in Melbourne. However, after only a year, she dropped out and undertook acting courses.
Her first starring role was on the fantasy drama BeastMaster (1999). When her agent told her of a role in the US as newcomer Tess in the hit series Roswell (1999), she flew out and auditioned. After landing the role, she was written out of BeastMaster and started work as "Tess", an alien. She relocated to California and was on Roswell before she even owned an apartment.
After 2 years on the show, she then made notable guest appearances in CSI: Miami (2002) and The Handler (2003).
She stayed in TV, playing the bad girl Chris in Carrie (2002), a movie made for TV. She also changed genres, starring in Santa's Slay (2005), a black comedy.
Emilie has shown her versatility by branching out into film, making her debut at Sundance 2005 with the the award-winning indie film Brick (2005). She starred in the remake The Hills Have Eyes (2006) in 2006, which debuted at No.1 in the UK box office.
She was on the Emmy award-winning ABC series Lost (2004), playing "Claire", a young Australian who gave birth on the mysterious island and has a close relationship with "Charlie", played by Dominic Monaghan.
Emilie wrapped as a series regular on ABC's hit series Once Upon a Time (2011), putting a new twist on classic fairy-tales. She starred as the warm and loving "Belle," with Robert Carlyle as her beast, "Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin."
Emilie lives in California with her dogs Louise and her cat Stanley. Emilie is engaged to Eric Bilitch as of August 30, 2021 and they have a daughter Vera and son Theodore.- Yunjin Kim (born November 7, 1973), also known as Kim Yun-Jin is a South Korean-American film and theater actress. She is best known for her role as Sun on the American television series Lost, and as the North Korean spy Bang-Hee in the South Korean film Shiri. She also starred as Dr. Karen Kim in the ABC drama series Mistresses.
Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea on November 7, 1973. She immigrated to the United States with her family in 1980. They lived in Staten Island, New York. She joined the middle school drama club in the 7th grade and performed in the musical My Fair Lady.
Kim attended high school at the prestigious Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, a public high school located in Manhattan. From there, she went on to study drama at the London Academy of Performing Arts and later earned her BFA degree in drama at Boston University. Kim has remarked that in her zeal to become Americanized quickly, she studied acting, academics and pronunciation with equal intensity. She is also a trained dancer and martial arts fighter.
After graduation, Kim devoted herself full-time to acting. She garnered several minor parts on MTV, in soap opera-style dramas on ABC, and on the off-Broadway stage. In 1997, she starred in Splendid Holiday, a Korean TV drama shot on location in New York. Kim decided to return to Korea. She was cast in the TV drama Wedding Dress and was also invited to act in Lee Kwangmo's feature Spring in My Hometown, although she ended up not taking this role. Her breakthrough debut came in the 1999 film Shiri, South Korea's first blockbuster film. Shiri became the highest-grossing film in Korean history at the time. In November 2000, she continued her association with Kang Je-gyu in The Legend of Gingko.
After acting in a Japanese film and a feature set in Los Angeles, Kim appeared in the sci-fi feature Yesterday. Then in 2002, Kim took the lead role in Ardor, the feature film debut of documentarist Byun Young-ju. The film was invited to screen in a non-competitive section at the 2003 Berlin film festival.
In 2004, Kim started appearing in the U.S. television series Lost, which ran for six seasons.
In May 2006, Maxim named Kim number 98 on its annual Hot 100 List. In October 2006 she was featured on the cover of Stuff, as well as an inside spread.
In 2013, she had a leading role in the ABC drama series Mistresses.
In 2018, Kim returned to Korean television by headlining the series Ms. Ma, Nemesis. - Music Artist
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Sade was born on 16 January 1959 in Ibadan, Nigeria. She is a music artist and composer, known for A Wrinkle in Time (2018), True Lies (1994) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). She was previously married to Carlos Scola.- Actress
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Carmen Elizabeth Ejogo was born in Kensington, London, England, to a Nigerian father and a Scottish mother. Her television career began in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s, where she presented the children's series Saturday Disney (1990). Subsequently, she has had an acting career in the United States. She has appeared in Metro (1997) with Eddie Murphy, What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001) with Martin Lawrence, and Love's Labour's Lost (2000) with Kenneth Branagh, among other films, and also presented "The Carmen Ejogo Video Show" - her own video show on BSB's Power Station channel. She starred as Thomas Jefferson's slave concubine in the television drama Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000) as Sally Hemings and also as Sister Anderson in the remake version of the cult classic original film Sparkle (2012).
Ejogo is also a vocalist, having collaborated with several artists in the 1990s. She wrote and sang lead vocals on the song "Candles" by English drum 'n' bass DJ Alex Reece - she appeared in the music video and is listed in the production credits as 'Carmen'. She also sang vocals and duets with British artist Tricky on a song called "Slowly". Aside from "Candles", Ejogo appears on four songs of the Sparkle (2012) original soundtrack album from the movie of the same name, singing lead on "Yes I Do" (as a solo), and co-lead vocals with Jordin Sparks and Tika Sumpter on "Jump", "Hooked on Your Love" and "Something He Can Feel". She is also a member of Mensa International, the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world.- Actress
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Chyna had been called "The First Lady of Sports Entertainment". Her accomplishments went far beyond the wrestling ring and anyone's guess. Before exchanging body slams, modeling for top magazines and guest-starring on hundreds of shows,
Chyna was a shy girl who was born Joan Marie Laurer in Rochester, New York, to Janet Carol (Wahl) and Joseph "Joe" Von Laurer, Jr. She spent most of her childhood in a home filled with alcoholism and domestic problems. She found her escape through working out, and began doing aerobics and lifting weights at a gym near her home. This is where she found her true niche: the world of fitness.
As the only female in the gym, Chyna always stood out but developed bonds and friendships with the gym members, who gave her the encouragement to keep going. She broke all gender barriers everywhere she went, and continued her love of fitness throughout her college days. Chyna graduated from the University of Tampa with a 3.9 GPA, and a double major in Spanish Literature, in under two years. She also studied foreign languages, and could speak English, Spanish, German and French. Chyna was a true humanitarian, and served in the U.S. Army ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) and the Peace Corps, helping to teach illiterate third-world children to read. She was a strong supporter of the National Animal Rescue charity, which helps domesticated animals find good, loving homes.
Throughout her life, Chyna dreamed of being an entertainer. She began that career in the early 1990s, as a belly dancer, and soon moved on to fitness competitions, but the star found her real calling in the entertainment world: professional wrestling. She began training to be a professional under the guidance of the wrestling legend Walter 'Killer' Kowalski, in a professional wrestling school in which all other students were men. She soon took the world of women's wrestling by storm and began competing in the PGWA, where she was given the 1996 Rookie of the Year award for the Women's Championship.
After dominating the world of women's wrestling, Chyna was discovered by Paul Levesque (aka "Triple H") and Shawn Michaels (HBK), two WWF (World Wrestling Federation) superstars who helped Chyna break into the big-time. She made her worldwide television debut in February 1997 as a bodyguard for Triple H, but soon went on to break all gender stereotypes by competing with some of the toughest men in the WWF, under the name "Chyna". Years later, she was the only woman to qualify for the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring tournaments, and became the only female Intercontinental Champion and the only undefeated Women's Champion in WWF history.
Five years after she debuted as a professional wrestler in the WWF, Chyna parted ways with the company. She then toured Japan, taking the country by storm and battling in the ring with the likes of such champions as Keiji Mutô, The Great Kabuki, and most notably, Masahiro Chôno. Her 2002 Tokyo Dome match against Chono earned her the title of Nikkian Sport's 2002 Women's Wrestler of the Year.
Meanwhile, back in the US, Chyna appeared in several films, hosted a variety of shows, and showed that women can combine strength and beauty in two top-selling issues of "Playboy" magazine, which proved to the world that women can be beautiful without having the anorexic "Twiggy" look. She also appeared in the first-ever Playboy documentary, which conducted in-depth interviews with Chyna, her former manager Rich Minzer, her friend Joe Gold, and Hugh Hefner himself.
Her strong will to the best and "survival of the fittest" attitude made her one of the top wrestlers in history. She served as a role model to millions of men and women by proving anything is possible, through hard work and determination. In her best-selling autobiography "If They Only Knew", she discussed what it took to make it to the top, and showed the world what she had to overcome to make her one of the most well-known pop culture icons in the world. Shortly after her first appearance in "Playboy", she released her own fitness video, Chyna Fitness: More Than Meets the Eye (2000), which won awards from fitness and lifestyle magazines. The video is still popular with both Chyna's fans and fitness fans alike.
Unlike most former pro wrestlers, Chyna had success on her own two feet. She was on nearly every talk show, and was featured on hundreds of magazine covers, from "Playboy" and "Newsweek" to "TV Guide" and "People". She was featured on Reggie Benjamin's CD "2X-Centrix", performing drums and back up vocals. She was on the top of the "dance music" billboard charts for five weeks with the CD single "Ride", and also sang with her own rock band, "The Chynna Dolls", for a short time, playing venues like The Roxy, Elrey Theater, Hollywood Athletic Center, and two performances on Howard Stern (1994). She starred in the comedies Cougar Club (2007) and Illegal Aliens (2007), and also hosted a variety of shows, from Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors (2001) to FYE and AMC's "Tough Guys series. She had many guest-starring roles on TV series, such as Whose Line Is It Anyway? (1998), 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996), Pacific Blue (1996), The Nick Cannon Show (2002), Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996), Mad TV (1995), MTV's "Diary" and many others. She was also featured on season four of The Surreal Life (2003) and VH1's spin off, The Surreal Life: Fame Games (2007), as well as in films, including Alien Tracker (2003), Alien Fury: Countdown to Invasion (2000), Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002), Hunter: Back in Force (2003). In 2008, she appeared on VH1's Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (2008) TV series to conquer personal demons and depression caused from an abusive relationship and childhood trauma.
In 2009, she released a fashion book, "Paper Doll", which became a best-seller. In May 2011, she returned to the world of wrestling with TNA, debuting on the May 12 edition of TNA iMPACT! Wrestling (2004), and followed it up with one last match at the TNA TNA: Sacrifice (2011) Pay-per-view, where she and Kurt Angle took on Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett. The episode was one of the highest-rated for the company in many years. Although her match with TNA was a one-time-only deal, Chyna showed the world she had turned her life around - she had overcome depression, emotional trauma and was finally where she wanted to be in life.
In June 2011, Chyna released her first adult video with Vivid Entertainment, Backdoor to Chyna (2011), which sold over a million copies. She said the movie allowed her to regain control of her life, gave her a newfound confidence and got her back on her feet. She embarked on a huge media tour, appearing all over the US. She began feature dancing at high-end nightclubs, appeared on dozens of radio shows, including Howard Stern on Demand (2005) and ABC radio, and in November 2011 won a Fleshbot Award for her "Backdoor to Chyna" video. In 2012, she appeared in A Night at the Silent Movie Theater (2012) and appeared in the music video "Gonna Make You Love Me" for the band Lovechild. She also appeared in a tell-all interview with KayFabe Commentaries, in which she discussed everything from her childhood to drugs, porn and everything in between.
Chyna died on April 20, 2016, in Redondo Beach, California. She was 46.- Rena Marlette Greek was born on August 8, 1968 in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. She is an actress, known for Slaves of the Realm (2003), WWE Raw (1993) and The Final Victim (2003). She has been married to Brock Lesnar since May 6, 2006. They have two children named, Turk (born June 2009) and Duke (born July 2010). She's also the stepmother to Lesnar's oldest children, Brock Jr. (born June 2001) and Mya Lynn (born April 2002) from a previous relationship. She was previously married to Marc Mero and Wayne Richardson.
- Vanessa Ferlito is an American actress. She is known for playing Detective Aiden Burn in the first season of the CBS crime drama CSI: NY, as well as for her recurring portrayal of Claudia Hernandez in FOX drama 24, and for her starring roles as FBI Agent Charlie DeMarco in the USA Network series Graceland and as Tammy Gregorio on the CBS crime drama series NCIS: New Orleans. She has also appeared in a number of films, including Spider-Man 2 (2004), Shadowboxer (2005), Man of the House (2005), Gridiron Gang (2006), Death Proof (2007), Nothing like the Holidays (2008), Madea Goes to Jail (2009), Julie & Julia (2009), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), and Stand Up Guys (2012).
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Sydney Tamiia Poitier (born November 15, 1973) is a Bahamian-American television and film actress.
Born in Los Angeles, Poitier is the daughter of Bahamian actor Sir Sidney Poitier and Canadian actress Joanna Shimkus. Her mother is of Lithuanian Jewish and Irish descent. She has an older sister, Anika. She also has four older half-sisters, Beverly, Pamela, Sherri, and Gina, from her father's first marriage. Poitier's great-uncle has claimed that the Poitier ancestors on her grandfather's side had migrated from Haiti and were probably part of the runaway slaves who had established maroon communities throughout the Bahamas, including Cat Island. He mentions that the surname Poitier is a French name, and there were no white Poitiers from the Bahamas.
Poitier attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where she earned a bachelor's degree in acting. She also studied at Stella Adler Studio of Acting.
Poitier began her career of acting in the late 1990s. In 2001, she landed her first role on television in the NBC drama series First Years. The series was canceled after three episodes. In 2003, she starred in the UPN sitcom Abby. That series was also canceled during its first season. Later that same year, she had a recurring role in Joan of Arcadia, where she played Rebecca Askew, the love interest of Joan's older brother, Kevin (Jason Ritter). She was also a regular on the first season of Veronica Mars. However, she left the show after only appearing in four episodes because of budget cuts.
In 2007, Poitier starred in Death Proof, director Quentin Tarantino's segment of the movie Grindhouse, as radio DJ Jungle Julia. The next year, she had a co-starring role in the new Knight Rider series, as FBI Agent Carrie Rivai. In 2011, she guest-starred on two episodes of Private Practice.- Marley Eve Shelton was born in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in Eagle Rock, CA. She is the daughter of Carol (Stromme), a teacher and singer, and Christopher Shelton, who worked as a director and producer. She has three sisters: Koren Shelton, Erin Shelton and Samantha Shelton. Both of her parents were involved in local theater projects, but as a teen, Marley was never interested in life on the stage. While at Eagle Rock High School, she was a varsity cheerleader, was voted Prom Queen and held part-time jobs at stores like "Contempo" and "Wet Seal". Shelton first captured the attention of film-goers as "Margaret", Tobey Maguire's love interest, in New Line's critically-acclaimed film, Pleasantville (1998), and has continued to appear in roles that show her versatility as an actress, including in Jerry Bruckheimer's Eleventh Hour (2008) on CBS. Shelton attended UCLA, where she majored in Film and Theatre. She supported herself through small parts in feature films, television movies and episodic appearances. Her "hobby" grew into a passion while she studied acting with Larry Moss and, as a result, she decided to pursue a career as an actress. Shelton made her feature debut in Grand Canyon (1991). Since then, she has starred in numerous box office hits, including The Sandlot (1993), Never Been Kissed (1999), The Bachelor (1999), Valentine (2001), Sugar & Spice (2001), Bubble Boy (2001), Just a Kiss (2002), Uptown Girls (2003), Don't Come Knocking (2005), Sin City (2005), Grindhouse (2007), Nixon (1995), Warriors of Virtue (1997), A Perfect Getaway (2009), W. (2008), Women in Trouble (2009) and The Mighty Macs (2009), Elektra Luxx (2010), Scream 4 (2011) and Decoding Annie Parker (2013). Shelton resides in Los Angeles with her husband, Beau Flynn, and their two daughters.
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Kelley Robins Hicks was born in Houston, Texas, USA. She is a producer and actress, known for Random Acts of Flyness (2018), How to Tell You're a Douchebag (2016) and Queen of Glory (2021). She has been married to Broderick Kyle Hicks since 17 March 2007.- Actress
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Kelli McCarty was born on September 6th in Liberal KS, USA. She was Miss USA 1991 and best known for her role as Beth Wallace on NBC's Soap Opera "Passions." McCarty has appeared on many television shows including Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Even Stevens and That's So Raven to name a few. She is now a photographer and married to Blake Oseen.- Actress
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Summer is a native of San Antonio, Texas. She's been a ballerina most of her life. Her debut was in various commercials and a guest appearance on the WB's Angel (1999). She has gone on to star on the TV series Firefly (2002) as well as its follow-up movie Serenity (2005) and the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008).- Actress
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American leading lady whose sweet smile and sunny disposition made her the prototypical girl-next-door of American movies of the 1940s. Raised in semi-poverty in Bronx neighborhoods by her divorced mother, Allyson (nee Ella Geisman) was injured in a fall at age eight and spent four years confined within a steel brace. Swimming therapy slowly gave her mobility again, and she began to study dance as well. She entered dance contests after high school and earned roles in several musical short films. In 1938, she made her Broadway debut in the musical "Sing Out the News." After several roles in the chorus of various musicals, she was hired to understudy Betty Hutton in "Panama Hattie." Hutton's measles gave Allyson a shot at a performance and she impressed director George Abbott so much that he gave her a role in his next musical, "Best Foot Forward." She was subsequently hired by MGM to recreate her role in the screen version. The studio realized what it had in her and offered her a contract.
Her smoky voice and winning personality made her very popular and she made more than a score of films for MGM, most often in musicals and comedies. She became a box-office attraction, paired with many of the major stars of the day. In 1945, she married actor-director Dick Powell, with whom she occasionally co-starred. Following Powell's death from cancer in 1963, she retreated somewhat from film work, appearing only infrequently on screen and slightly more often in television films. Occasional nightclub appearances and commercials were her only other public performances since, and she died of pulmonary respiratory failure and acute bronchitis on July 8, 2006, after a long illness.- Actress
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One of the brightest, most tragic movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, Judy Garland was a much-loved character whose warmth and spirit, along with her rich and exuberant voice, kept theatre-goers entertained with an array of delightful musicals.
She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in Minnesota, the youngest daughter of vaudevillians Ethel Marian (Milne) and Francis Avent "Frank" Gumm. She was of English, along with some Scottish and Irish, descent. Her mother, an ambitious woman gifted in playing various musical instruments, saw the potential in her daughter at the tender age of just 2 years old when Baby Frances repeatedly sang "Jingle Bells" until she was dragged from the stage kicking and screaming during one of their Christmas shows and immediately drafted her into a dance act, entitled "The Gumm Sisters," along with her older sisters Mary Jane Gumm and Virginia Gumm. However, knowing that her youngest daughter would eventually become the biggest star, Ethel soon took Frances out of the act and together they traveled across America where she would perform in nightclubs, cabarets, hotels and theaters solo.
Her family life was not a happy one, largely because of her mother's drive for her to succeed as a performer and also her father's closeted homosexuality. The Gumm family would regularly be forced to leave town owing to her father's illicit affairs with other men, and from time to time they would be reduced to living out of their automobile. However, in September 1935 the Gumms', in particular Ethel's, prayers were answered when Frances was signed by Louis B. Mayer, mogul of leading film studio MGM, after hearing her sing. It was then that her name was changed from Frances Gumm to Judy Garland, after a popular '30s song "Judy" and film critic Robert Garland.
Tragedy soon followed, however, in the form of her father's death of meningitis in November 1935. Having been given no assignments with the exception of singing on radio, Judy faced the threat of losing her job following the arrival of Deanna Durbin. Knowing that they couldn't keep both of the teenage singers, MGM devised a short entitled Every Sunday (1936) which would be the girls' screen test. However, despite being the outright winner and being kept on by MGM, Judy's career did not officially kick off until she sang one of her most famous songs, "You Made Me Love You," at Clark Gable's birthday party in February 1937, during which Louis B. Mayer finally paid attention to the talented songstress.
Prior to this her film debut in Pigskin Parade (1936), in which she played a teenage hillbilly, had left her career hanging in the balance. However, following her rendition of "You Made Me Love You," MGM set to work preparing various musicals with which to keep Judy busy. All this had its toll on the young teenager, and she was given numerous pills by the studio doctors in order to combat her tiredness on set. Another problem was her weight fluctuation, but she was soon given amphetamines in order to give her the desired streamlined figure. This soon produced the downward spiral that resulted in her lifelong drug addiction.
In 1939, Judy shot immediately to stardom with The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which she portrayed Dorothy, an orphaned girl living on a farm in the dry plains of Kansas who gets whisked off into the magical world of Oz on the other end of the rainbow. Her poignant performance and sweet delivery of her signature song, 'Over The Rainbow,' earned Judy a special juvenile Oscar statuette on 29 February 1940 for Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor. Now growing up, Judy began to yearn for meatier adult roles instead of the virginal characters she had been playing since she was 14. She was now taking an interest in men, and after starring in her final juvenile performance in Ziegfeld Girl (1941) alongside glamorous beauties Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr, Judy got engaged to bandleader David Rose in May 1941, just two months after his divorce from Martha Raye. Despite planning a big wedding, the couple eloped to Las Vegas and married during the early hours of the morning on July 28, 1941 with just her mother Ethel and her stepfather Will Gilmore present. However, their marriage went downhill as, after discovering that she was pregnant in November 1942, David and MGM persuaded her to abort the baby in order to keep her good-girl image up. She did so and, as a result, was haunted for the rest of her life by her 'inhumane actions.' The couple separated in January 1943.
By this time, Judy had starred in her first adult role as a vaudevillian during WWI in For Me and My Gal (1942). Within weeks of separation, Judy was soon having an affair with actor Tyrone Power, who was married to French actress Annabella. Their affair ended in May 1943, which was when her affair with producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz kicked off. He introduced her to psychoanalysis and she soon began to make decisions about her career on her own instead of being influenced by her domineering mother and MGM. Their affair ended in November 1943, and soon afterward Judy reluctantly began filming Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), which proved to be a big success. The director Vincente Minnelli highlighted Judy's beauty for the first time on screen, having made the period musical in color, her first color film since The Wizard of Oz (1939). He showed off her large brandy-brown eyes and her full, thick lips and after filming ended in April 1944, a love affair resulted between director and actress and they were soon living together.
Vincente began to mold Judy and her career, making her more beautiful and more popular with audiences worldwide. He directed her in The Clock (1945), and it was during the filming of this movie that the couple announced their engagement on set on January 9, 1945. Judy's divorce from David Rose had been finalized on June 8, 1944 after almost three years of marriage, and despite her brief fling with Orson Welles, who at the time was married to screen sex goddess Rita Hayworth, on June 15, 1945 Judy made Vincente her second husband, tying the knot with him that afternoon at her mother's home with her boss Louis B. Mayer giving her away and her best friend Betty Asher serving as bridesmaid. They spent three months on honeymoon in New York and afterwards Judy discovered that she was pregnant.
On March 12, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, Judy gave birth to their daughter, Liza Minnelli, via cesarean section. It was a joyous time for the couple, but Judy was out of commission for weeks due to the cesarean and her postnatal depression, so she spent much of her time recuperating in bed. She soon returned to work, but married life was never the same for Vincente and Judy after they filmed The Pirate (1948) together in 1947. Judy's mental health was fast deteriorating and she began hallucinating things and making false accusations toward people, especially her husband, making the filming a nightmare. She also began an affair with aspiring Russian actor Yul Brynner, but after the affair ended, Judy soon regained health and tried to salvage her failing marriage. She then teamed up with dancing legend Fred Astaire for the delightful musical Easter Parade (1948), which resulted in a successful comeback despite having Vincente fired from directing the musical. Afterwards, Judy's health deteriorated and she began the first of several suicide attempts. In May 1949, she was checked into a rehabilitation center, which caused her much distress.
She soon regained strength and was visited frequently by her lover Frank Sinatra, but never saw much of Vincente or Liza. On returning, Judy made In the Good Old Summertime (1949), which was also Liza's film debut, albeit via an uncredited cameo. She had already been suspended by MGM for her lack of cooperation on the set of The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), which also resulted in her getting replaced by Ginger Rogers. After being replaced by Betty Hutton on Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Judy was suspended yet again before making her final film for MGM, entitled Summer Stock (1950). At 28, Judy received her third suspension and was fired by MGM, and her second marriage was soon dissolved.
Having taken up with Sidney Luft, Judy traveled to London to star at the legendary Palladium. She was an instant success and after her divorce from Vincente Minnelli was finalized on March 29, 1951 after almost six years of marriage, Judy traveled with Sid to New York to make an appearance on Broadway. With her newfound fame on stage, Judy was stopped in her tracks in February 1952 when she became pregnant by her new lover, Sid. At the age of 30, she made him her third husband on June 8, 1952; the wedding was held at a friend's ranch in Pasadena. Her relationship with her mother had long since been dissolved by this point, and after the birth of her second daughter, Lorna Luft, on November 21, 1952, she refused to allow her mother to see her granddaughter. Ethel then died in January 1953 of a heart attack, leaving Judy devastated and feeling guilty about not reconciling with her mother before her untimely demise.
After the funeral, Judy signed a film contract with Warner Bros. to star in the musical remake of A Star Is Born (1937), which had starred Janet Gaynor, who had won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress in 1929. Filming soon began, resulting in an affair between Judy and her leading man, British star James Mason. She also picked up on her affair with Frank Sinatra, and after filming was complete Judy was yet again lauded as a great film star. She won a Golden Globe for her brilliant and truly outstanding performance as Esther Blodgett, nightclub singer turned movie star, but when it came to the Academy Awards, a distraught Judy lost out on the Best Actress Oscar to Grace Kelly for her portrayal of the wife of an alcoholic star in The Country Girl (1954). Many still argue that Judy should have won the Oscar over Grace Kelly. Continuing her work on stage, Judy gave birth to her beloved son, Joey Luft, on March 29, 1955. She soon began to lose her millions of dollars as a result of her husband's strong gambling addiction, and with hundreds of debts to pay, Judy and Sid began a volatile, on-off relationship resulting in numerous divorce filings.
In 1961, at the age of 39, Judy returned to her ailing film career, this time to star in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but this time she lost out to Rita Moreno for her performance in West Side Story (1961). Her battles with alcoholism and drugs led to Judy's making numerous headlines in newspapers, but she soldiered on, forming a close friendship with President John F. Kennedy. In 1963, Judy and Sid finally separated permanently, and on May 19, 1965 their divorce was finalized after almost 13 years of marriage. By this time, Judy, now 41, had made her final performance on film alongside Dirk Bogarde in I Could Go on Singing (1963). She married her fourth husband, Mark Herron, on November 14, 1965 in Las Vegas, but they separated in April 1966 after five months of marriage owing to his homosexuality. It was also that year that she began an affair with young journalist Tom Green. She then settled down in London after their affair ended, and she began dating disk jockey Mickey Deans in December 1968. They became engaged once her divorce from Mark Herron was finalized on January 9, 1969 after three years of marriage. She married Mickey, her fifth and final husband, in a register office in Chelsea, London, England on March 15, 1969.
She continued working on stage, appearing several times with her daughter Liza. It was during a concert in Chelsea, London, England that Judy stumbled into her bathroom late one night and died of an overdose of barbiturates, the drug that had dominated her much of her life, on June 22, 1969 at the age of 47. Her daughter Liza Minnelli paid for her funeral, and her former lover James Mason delivered her touching eulogy. She is still an icon to this day with her famous performances in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), and A Star Is Born (1954).- Actress
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Her real name was Frances "Fanny" Rose Shore, and she was born in Winchester, Tennessee. Stricken with polio at 18 months of age, she recovered after receiving the Sister Kenny treatment. She became a cheerleader at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville and went on to graduate from Vanderbilt University in 1938, where she majored in sociology. She took voice and acting lessons on the side and sang on radio station WSM in Nashville. In 1938 she left Tennessee for New York City and began singing on radio station WNCW in New York. Her first recordings were with bandleader Xavier Cugat, and she later changed her named to Dinah after her success with the song of the same name. She received numerous Emmy awards for television specials and productions and appeared in many films. She was married to actor George Montgomery, with whom she had one daughter and adopted a son.- Caterina Murino was born on September 15, 1977, in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. In 1996 she took fourth place in the Miss Italy contest. Then she moved to Milan, where she began working as a model in commercials for MasterCard, Swatch, Mercedes-Benz and Nescafe, among other gigs. From 1999-2000 she studied acting at the Scuola di Cinema e Teatro di Francesca de Sapio in Italy.
In 1999 she made her acting debut in a stage production of "Richard III" and appeared in several Italian-language plays. In 2002 she began her film and television career with bit parts in Italian, German and French productions. Her breakthrough came in 2004, when she co-starred opposite Jean Reno in the French comedy The Corsican File (2004).
She is trilingual, speaking French, English and Italian. She is a versatile actress and a good athlete. Her talents include singing, dancing tango, flamenco and oriental dances, as well as horseback riding. She co-starred as Solange, one of three Bond girls, opposite Daniel Craig in Casino Royale (2006). - Actress
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Born in London, England and raised in European cities such as Paris and Geneva, Maryam d'Abo has rewarded audiences with her beauty and presence for over twenty years. Maryam first appeared in Xtro (1982), a gory horror film that is considered a cult entry in the genre. She appeared consistently throughout the mid-1980s in a variety of films, including two mini-series based on novels of author Sidney Sheldon: Master of the Game (1984) and If Tomorrow Comes (1986). She accepted "Laughter in the Dark" based on the Vladimir Nabokov novel. Her co-stars were Maximilian Schell and Mick Jagger. She thought it would be her big break, since it was a very challenging role, and she was in every scene. But financing fell through, and the film was never completed. The stress made her lose weight, and she appeared more mature. Which turned out to be just the right look for a classical cellist in her next film. Thus, her real big break came in the form of the James Bond film, The Living Daylights (1987). Maryam played Bond girl "Kara Milovy", opposite Timothy Dalton's "James Bond". The film gave her career a real jolt, and she found herself in leading roles throughout the early 1990s, in a variety of films. She based herself in both England and the USA, appearing in Shootfighter: Fight to the Death (1993) and the European horror movie Immortal Sins (1991). She played her hand in the erotic thriller genre, appearing in Tomcat: Dangerous Desires (1993), Tropical Heat (1993) and an episode of Red Shoe Diaries (1992), featured on the video [error]. She starred in more films throughout the mid-1990s, opposite the late Margaux Hemingway in Double Obsession (1992), a remake: The Browning Version (1994), a romantic comedy called Solitaire for 2 (1994), and thrillers such as Timelock (1996) and An American Affair (1997).
In 2002, Maryam drew on her experiences as a Bond Girl to write, produce and host Bond Girls Are Forever (2002), examining the culture and connotations of being a Bond girl, and the subsequent effects on a film career. This interesting documentary shed new light on the topic of James Bond films, and appeared on British and American television, whilst gaining a DVD release. Maryam strayed away from commercial features, opting to appear in a variety of television dramas, including: a TV mini series of Doctor Zhivago (2002) and Helen of Troy (2003). More recently, she appeared in San Antonio (2004), Evil Remains (2004), a movie filmed in France L'enfer (2005) and a direct-to-video sequel, The Prince & Me II: The Royal Wedding (2006). Maryam has displayed talent in a variety of genres, she continues to make guest appearances for her fans, and is likely to appear in more films. She also works on films with her husband director Hugh Hudson, whom she married in 2003. This striking blonde actress, a former Bond girl, holds her own up with the best of them.- Actress
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The quintessential jet-set Euro starlet, Ursula Andress was born in the Swiss canton of Berne on March 19, 1936, one of six children in a strict German Protestant family. Although often seeming icily aloof, a restless streak early demonstrated itself in her personality, and she had an impetuous desire to explore the world outside Switzerland. (For instance, she was tracked down by Interpol for running away from boarding school at 17 years old.) The stunning young woman found work as an art model in Rome and did walk-on parts in three quickie Italian pictures before coming to Hollywood in 1955 and getting nowhere professionally; a four-month fling with rising star James Dean brought her good publicity but not much else. That same year, still just 19, she met and had an affair with fading matinée idol John Derek, who left his wife Pati Behrs and two kids for Ursula even though she spoke almost no English at the time. In 1957 they eloped to Las Vegas, and the new bride put her acting aspirations on hold for a few years thereafter.
1962 saw the relatively unknown Swiss beauty back on the set, playing opposite Sean Connery in the first movie version of Ian Fleming's fanciful "James Bond" espionage novels, Dr. No (1962). Andress' role as bikini-clad Honey Ryder was somewhat brief, and her Swiss/German accent so thick that her entire performance had to be dubbed by a voiceover artist. Nevertheless, her striking looks and smoldering screen presence made a strong impression on moviegoers, immediately establishing her as one of the most desired women in the world and as an ornament to put alongside some of the most bankable talent of the era, such as Elvis Presley in Fun in Acapulco (1963) and Dean Martin in 4 for Texas (1963). In 1965, she was one of several European starlets to co-star in What's New Pussycat (1965) -- a film that perhaps sums up mid-'60s pop culture better than any other -- written by Woody Allen, starring Allen and Peter Sellers, with music by Burt Bacharach, a title song performed by Tom Jones and much on-screen sexual romping.
Andress appeared in many more racy-for-their time movies in both the United States and Europe, including The 10th Victim (1965), in which she wore a famously ballistic bra, and The Blue Max (1966), where she was aptly cast as the sultry, insatiable wife of an aristocratic World War I German general. She was also featured in Casino Royale (1967), a satirical foray into the world of James Bond, and gave a sparkling performance in the T&A-filled crime caper Perfect Friday (1970). Roles as a prostitute kidnapped by outlaws in Red Sun (1971), a stewardess living on the edge in Loaded Guns (1975), and a bombshell nurse hired to titillate a doddering millionaire to death in The Sensuous Nurse (1975) all provided plenty of excuses to throw her clothes to the wind. In Slave of the Cannibal God (1978), she was notoriously stripped and slathered in orange paint by a pair of nubiles. Then she took on the sophisticated role of Louise de la Valliere, slinky, conspiratorial mistress of King Louis XIV (Beau Bridges) in The Fifth Musketeer (1979).
As for her personal life, Andress separated from Derek in 1964 and got divorced two years later, after falling in love with French superstar Jean-Paul Belmondo on the Malaysian set of Up to His Ears (1965). (Ron Ely, John Richardson and Marcello Mastroianni kept her company during the interim.) The relationship with Belmondo hit a wall in 1972, and she was next attached to her leading man from Stateline Motel (1973), Italian heartthrob Fabio Testi. When that didn't work out, Andress jumped into the dating pool, sporadically involved with a host of Lotharios including (but by no means limited to) Dennis Hopper, Franco Nero, John DeLorean and Ryan O'Neal. In 1979, she began what would be a long-term romance with Harry Hamlin, her handsome young co-star from Clash of the Titans (1981) (in which she was cast, predictably, as "Aphrodite"). While subsequently traveling in India, Andress' belly began to swell out of her clothing, and she felt very nauseous. What at first seemed a severe case of "Delhi Belly" turned out to be pregnancy, her first and only, at age 43. Hamlin encouraged her to have the baby, and on May 19, 1980, the international sex symbol gave birth to a boy named Dimitri Hamlin amid much hoopla.
After the birth of her son, Andress scaled back her career, which now focused on slight European productions, as she was raising Dimitri in Italy. This meant turning down a big-budget Mel Brooks film in lieu of Red Bells (1982) (starring old flame Nero). Occasional television stints on the soap opera Falcon Crest (1981) and critically lauded miniseries Peter the Great (1986) helped maintain her visibility as an actress. Dumped by Hamlin in 1983, she started seeing Fausto Fagone, a Sicilian student three decades her junior, in 1986. In 1991, she met a new man when things dwindled with Fagone -- karate master Jeff Speakman. Since the breakup of that relationship, her love life has gone undocumented. She last worked on a film in 2005. Apparently retired from acting, Ursula makes the rounds of charity events and pops up on foreign talk shows every now and then. She divides her time between family in Switzerland, friends in Virginia and Spain, and her properties in Rome and L.A.- Actress
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One of four children, Blackman was born in London's East End, to Edith Eliza (Stokes), a homemaker, and Frederick Thomas Blackman, a statistician employed with the Civil Service. She received elocution lessons for her 16th birthday (at her own request), and later attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which she paid for by working as a clerical assistant in the Civil Service. She was also a dispatch rider for the Home Office during World War II, playing an important role in the war effort.
Blackman received her first acting work on stage in London's West End as an understudy in "The Guinea Pig". She continued with roles in "The Gleam" (1946) and "The Blind Goddess" (1947), before moving into film. She debuted with Fame Is the Spur (1947), starring Michael Redgrave.
Blackman suffered a nervous breakdown following her divorce from Bill Sankey, a man 12 years her senior, who's jealousy, fraudulent business practices, and emptying of her bank accounts took it's toll. After hospitalisation Blackman began counselling, which would last for years, and began rebuilding her career.
TV series work also came her way again, most notably the highly popular The Avengers (1961), co-starring Patrick Macnee as John Steed. As the leather-clad "Catherine Gale", Blackman showcased her incredible beauty, self-confidence, and athletic abilities. Her admirable qualities made her not only a catch for the men, but also an inspirational figure for the 1960s feminist movement.
Blackman took on the role of Greek goddess Hera in popular movie adventure Jason and the Argonauts (1963) with Ray Harryhausen and melodrama Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey. She then played "Pussy Galore" in the classic James Bond film Goldfinger (1964). Blackman went toe to toe with Sean Connery's womanizing "007" and created major sparks on screen.
Blackman continued to work consistently in films and tv, while also appearing on stage where she earned rave reviews as the blind heroine of the thriller "Wait Until Dark" as well as for her dual roles in "Mr. and Mrs.", a production based on two of Noël Coward's plays. She also enjoyed working with her second husband, actor Maurice Kaufmann, in the play "Move Over, Mrs. Markham" and the film thriller Fright (1971). She proved a sultry-voiced sensation in various musicals productions such as "A Little Night Music", "The Sound of Music", "On Your Toes", and "Nunsense."
In the new millennium, Honor was seen in such films as Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Color Me Kubrick (2005), Reuniting the Rubins (2010), I, Anna (2012) and Cockneys vs Zombies (2012), as well as the British TV serieses Water, Water, Everywhere (1920) The Royal (2003) Coronation Street (1960), long running series Casualty (1986) and finally You, Me & Them (2013), her last role after her retirement several years earlier.
Divorced from Kaufmann in 1975 (although they remained friends until his death, Blackman even cared for him during his 13 year battle with cancer), Blackman never remarried, revealing in an interview that she simply preferred single life, "Basically I'm a shy person and I like my own company". Unable to conceive, the couple adopted two children, Lottie and Barnaby, in '67 and '68 respectively.
The ever-lovely and eternally glamorous star continued to find regular work into her 90s, including co-starring in the long-running English hit comedy series The Upper Hand (1990) and performing her one-woman stage show, "Wayward Women"
Honor Blackman died on April 5, 2020, in Lewes, Sussex. She was 94.- Actress
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Luciana Paluzzi's an Italian actress, best known for playing SPECTRE assassin ,Fiona Volpe, in the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball.
In the film, Thunderball she had auditioned for the part of the lead Bond girl, Dominetta "Domino" Petacchi, but producers cast Claudine Auger, changing the Domino character from an Italian to a Frenchwoman and renaming her Dominique Derval.
Paluzzi's first film was an uncredited walk-on part in Three Coins in the Fountain (1954).- Actress
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Jane Seymour was born as Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg in 1951 in Middlesex, England, to a nurse mother and gynaecologist/obstetrician father. She is of Polish Jewish (father) and Dutch (mother) descent. She adopted the acting name of "Jane Seymour" when she entered show business as it was easier for people to remember (and the name of one of King Henry VIII's wives). She attracted the attention of the James Bond film producers when they saw her on British television. She was cast as the main Bond girl, "Solitaire", in Live and Let Die (1973). The role gained her international recognition but she was in danger of losing it all like the previous Bond girls, so she came to the U.S.
A casting director advised her to lose her English accent and acquire an American accent to land roles on American television. She did and started getting roles, earning five Emmy nominations, resulting in one win for Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988) for playing Maria Callas. She won Golden Globe awards for both East of Eden (1981) and the American television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993), where she played the title role for 5 years. She occasionally appeared in feature films, memorably in Somewhere in Time (1980) and in Wedding Crashers (2005).
Married and divorced four times, she gave birth to four children and is a stepmother to two. They have children of their own, making her a grandmother. As of 2018, she has been acting in television movies and making guest-appearances.- Actress
- Director
Stunning Swedish born ex-model who broke into film in 1970, and quickly appeared in several high profile films including playing the ex-wife of James Caan in the futuristic Rollerball (1975) and the ill-fated lover of super-assassin Francisco Scaramanga played by Christopher Lee in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). To date, the beautiful Maud Adams has appeared in three James Bond films... the other two performances were as one of the lead villains in Octopussy (1983) and as an extra in A View to a Kill (1985). She has appeared in numerous television specials on the Bond series of films, and also played the love interest of crazy Bruce Dern in Tattoo (1981). In the late 1990s, Adams had a regular role on a Swedish soap opera; however, she has not been seen on cinema screens since late 1996.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lois Chiles is a former supermodel-turned-actress who gave elegant performances in a variety of films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Her motion picture debut role was as Robert Redford's sexual endeavor in the old-fashioned Hollywood melodrama, The Way We Were (1973). Shortly after, she starred opposite Clifton Davis in the indie blaxploitation film, Together for Days (1972); they portrayed a mixed-race couple enduring societal disapproval and political pandemonium. She also appeared as the irreverent socialite Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby (1974), in which she starred alongside Mia Farrow and, again, Robert Redford.
Chiles delivered a series of pivotal characters particularly as a woman who mysteriously falls into a state of unconsciousness after entering the hospital for an early term abortion in Coma (1978), and as an impudent heiress and murder victim in the center of Death on the Nile (1978).
Chiles' most recognized role is the sophisticated NASA astronaut, scientist, and "Bond girl", Dr. Holly Goodhead opposite Roger Moore's James Bond in Moonraker (1979). It is worth noting that Goodhead was different than any previous "Bond girl", in that she was dignified and not so much sexualized. Sadly, that same year, just as Chiles' career was at its height, she lost her youngest brother to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma which resulted in her three-year hiatus from acting. Her career never fully recovered and she struggled to find roles that necessitated her individuality but she persevered and received positive reviews for her continued performances in film and television, particularly in Sweet Liberty (1986), Broadcast News (1987), Creepshow 2 (1987), Diary of a Hitman (1991) and Curdled (1996).
In recent years, she's appeared in a few television sitcoms, participated in interviews recalling her experience as a "Bond girl", and taught an acting class at the University of Houston.- A former leading fashion model, almost 5'10'' tall, Carey was a favorite with top American designers such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Her father is a distinguished geologist who was voted Scientist of the Year in 1979 at the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists. As a result of his career Carey grew up all around the world. She started modeling part time while she was at the University of Colorado and caught the attention of a representative of the Ford model Agency in New York. She moved to France in 1980 and lived briefly in Paris and Bordeaux before deciding to return to New York to continue with her college education and modeling career and was soon appearing on the covers of Vogue, Glamour, etc. In between her modeling assignments she was a full time student obtaining a major in literature at New York University. Gradually she became interested in acting and studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. She made her acting debut with a small role in 'Club Paradise' in 1986 with Robin Williams. Her leisure time is spent skiing, wind surfing, rock climbing and white water rafting.
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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
- Soundtrack
Barbara Goldbach was born to Howard and Marjorie Goldbach in Queens, New York. Her father was a policeman. She met her first husband Augusto Gregorini in New York while she worked as a model and he was visiting from Italy for business tourism in 1966. Barbara followed him to Italy to be with him and they married in 1968. They had two children, Francesca Gregorini and Gianni Gregorini. During Gianni's birth, he had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, nearly choking him, and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, although a later operation improved his condition.
In 1975, Barbara and Augusto Gregorini separated when she moved to Los Angeles, California. The couple separated in 1978, sharing custody of their two children. Barbara met Ringo Starr on the set of the comedy Caveman (1981), and they became a couple during the filming. Ringo and Barbara were on a holiday in December 1980 when her daughter called to inform them that John Lennon had been shot. Ringo and Barbara went to New York City to console Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon. Ringo and Barbara married on April 27, 1981.
Her acting career began in Italy, where she played Nausicaa in Odissea (1968), a television adaptation of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey", directed by Franco Rossi and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. Bach co-starred with two other "Bond Girls", Claudine Auger and Barbara Bouchet in the mystery Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971) and had small roles in other Italian films. In 1977, she played Russian secret agent Anya Amasova in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). The following year, she appeared in the war film Force 10 from Navarone (1978), which also starred Robert Shaw and Harrison Ford.- Daniela Bianchi is an Italian actress, best known for her role of Bond girl Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love (1963). She Finished 1st Runner Up in Miss Universe 1960 Competition, enough to get the attentions of Bond movie producers who chose her over 200 female prospects for the role of Tatiana Romanova.
Bianchi made a number of French and Italian movies after From Russia with Love (1963), the last being The Last Chance (1968). One of her later films was Operation Kid Brother (1967), which was a James Bond spoof filmed in English (though Bianchi was again dubbed) and starring Sean Connery's brother, Neil Connery.
In 2012, Bianchi appeared in a small role in the documentary film We're Nothing Like James Bond. - Actress
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Britt Ekland was born in Sweden and grew up to be the poster girl for beautiful, big-eyed Scandinavian blondes. She attended a drama school and then joined a traveling theater group. With her looks as her passport, Britt entered films and became a star in Italy. When Peter Sellers met her in a hotel, he fell hard for her and they soon married. The combination of Sellers' stardom and her stunning beauty contributed to her fame (the fact that Sellers suffered a heart attack in bed on their wedding night did not hurt, either). She appeared in two films with her husband: After the Fox (1966), written by Neil Simon, and the forgettable The Bobo (1967). Her claim to fame would come as the young girl who invented the striptease in The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968). After that, she appeared in a string of movies that were built around her looks and not much else. She did appear in some first-rate productions over the years, though, two of them being Get Carter (1971) and the cult classic The Wicker Man (1973). The high point in her career would be her role as Bond girl Mary Goodnight in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). After her much publicized breakup with rocker Rod Stewart in 1977, Britt continued to make movies--both features and made-for-TV films--and tried the stage. By that time, the quality of her film projects had decreased markedly, and she was reduced to appearing in things like Fraternity Vacation (1985) and Beverly Hills Vamp (1989).- Actress
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Sophie Marceau was born Sophie Danièle Sylvie Maupu in Paris, France, to Simone (Morisset), a shop assistant, and Benoît Maupu, a truck driver. She grew up far from the studio spotlights. When she was 14 she was living in the Paris suburb of Gentilly with her father. She learned from friends that director Claude Pinoteau was looking for new faces for a movie about teenagers called The Party (1980). She auditioned for the role, got it, and the film was a success. She played in The Party 2 (1982), then bought back her contract with Gaumont when she was 16 years old for one million French francs. She is a critically acclaimed actress, having received the Cesar for Best Feminine Hope for "La Boum 2" in 1983. She was elected Romantic actress for Chouans! (1988) at the Festival International du Film Romantique (International Festival of Romantic Movie) of Cabourg in 1988, and was awarded the Moliere of the Best Theatrical Revelation for "Eurydice et Pygmalion" in 1994.- Actress
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Costume Designer
British actress Dame Diana Rigg was born on July 20, 1938 in Doncaster, Yorkshire, England. She has had an extensive career in film and theatre, including playing the title role in "Medea", both in London and New York, for which she won the 1994 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Rigg made her professional stage debut in 1957 in the Caucasian Chalk Circle, and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1959. She made her Broadway debut in the 1971 production of "Abelard & Heloise". Her film roles include Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968); Lady Holiday in The Great Muppet Caper (1981); and Arlene Marshall in Evil Under the Sun (1982). She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the BBC miniseries Mother Love (1989), and an Emmy Award for her role as Mrs. Danvers in the adaptation of Rebecca (1997). In 2013, she appeared with her daughter Rachael Stirling on the BBC series Doctor Who (2005) in an episode titled "The Crimson Horror" and plays Olenna Tyrell on the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011).
From 1965 to 1968, Rigg appeared on the British television series The Avengers (1961) playing the secret agent Mrs. Emma Peel. She became a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), playing Tracy Bond, James Bond's only wife, opposite George Lazenby. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) at the 1988 Queen's New Years Honours for her services to drama. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) at the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama.
Dame Diana Rigg died of lung cancer on September 10, 2020, she was 82 years old.- Born in the northern Polish town of Bialystok, Izabella Scorupco moved to Sweden with her mother as a young child. She studied drama and music and, at 17, was discovered by a Swedish film director who cast her in the movie Ingen kan älska som vi (1988), which made her a local teen idol. She then became a successful model in Sweden and throughout Europe, where she made good use of her fluency in four languages.
In 1989, Scorupco displayed another facet of her talents, launching her career as a pop singer with her first single, Substitute. The single and subsequent album, IZA, both went gold, and she followed with another hit single, Shame, Shame, which she recorded in 1991. Returning to acting in 1994, she immediately won the lead role in the Swedish film The Tears of Saint Peter (1995). Scorupco stars as a woman who lives her life as a man in the medieval drama, which was released in August 1995.
Shortly after Izabella received international attention after landing the leading female role in the Bond movie "Goldeneye" starring against Pierce Brosnan. In 2000 she played one of the adventurers in "Vertical limit" and went on to the lead female in the science-fantasy movie "Reign of fire" against Matthew Mc Conaughey and Christian Bale. In 2004 Izabella acted against fellow Swede Stellan Skarsgård in the Renny Harlin film "The Exorcist- the beginning". After a couple of roles in American TV-series, Izabella decided to work on the Scandinavian market again, first in the crime/thriller story "Solstrom" against Michael Persbrandt and and then onto the drama "Guardian angel", a heartbreaking story opposite Michael Nyqvist. Izabella tried a whole different genre in 2014 when she starred the in the hit comedy movie "Micke and Veronica". Izabella resides in Los Angeles with her two teenage kids and three dogs. - Actress
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Long before Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty and company showed up in 1980s TV households, Hollywood had, in effect, its own original "Golden Girl"...literally...in the form of stunning British actress Shirley Eaton. Although she found definitive cult stardom in 1964 with her final golden moment in a certain "007" film, Shirley was hardly considered an "overnight success". For nearly a decade, she had been out and about uplifting a number of 1950s and early 1960s British dramatic films and slapstick farce. Shirley became quite a sought-after actress internationally but, by the end of the decade, the dark-browed blonde beauty intentionally bade Hollywood and her acting career a fond and permanent farewell. She has never looked back.
Born in Edgware, Middlesex, England on January 12, 1937 (some references incorrectly list her birth year as 1936), Shirley Jean Eaton began on stage as a youth, making her debut at age 12 in "Set to Partners" (1949) and following it up the following year with Benjamin Britten's "Let's Make an Opera". Her first on-camera work was on TV in 1951, but it didn't take long before the pretty teen began to provide fleeting, decorative interest on film. Under contract to Alexander Korda in her early career, she found an encouraging break with minor parts in such comedies as Doctor in the House (1954) and The Love Match (1955). She quickly rose to co-star status in the droll features, Panic in the Parlor (1956), Three Men in a Boat (1956), Your Past Is Showing (1957) and Doctor at Large (1957), while appearing opposite such top stars as Peter Sellers and Dirk Bogarde, among others.
Upon Korda's death in 1956, Shirley briefly joined the Rank Organization. Every once in awhile, she relished playing a fetching villainess in a drama, such as in The Girl Hunters (1963) when not playing it straight as the beautiful foil caught up in some of Britain's finest madcap farces, which included the highly popular "Carry On" movies. Trained also in ballet and voice, Shirley was afforded a great chance to sing and dance with the film, Life Is a Circus (1960), and managed to grace the BBC as well in a few of their musical formats of the 1950s.
Shirley's career hit international status, of course, when she played "Jill Masterson", one of a bevy of beauties linked to titular archvillain Gert Fröbe in the film, Goldfinger (1964). And like many of the Bondian girls before and since, her character dearly paid for her furtive romantic clinches with Sean Connery's magnetic "James Bond". Shirley's memorable 24-karat gold death scene (She was found by Bond, painted head to toe in gold paint, and had "died of skin suffocation".), became the eye-catching draw for the movie. The image was splattered everywhere -- on movie posters, in press junkets and in publicity campaigns. Despite the formidable attention the movie received in the form of Honor Blackman's high-kicking "Pussy Galore" character and Shirley Bassey's famous rendition of the title song playing the airwaves, it was Eaton's gilded visuals that became THE iconic image of not only the movie but the whole "007" phenomena.
In its wake, Hollywood beckoned and Shirley immediately won a number of female leads in melodrama, crime yarns, war stories and rugged adventures. Adding to the mesmerizing Ivan Tors scenery in such movies as Rhino! (1964) and the underwater epic, Around the World Under the Sea (1966), she appeared opposite some of Hollywood best-looking and talented leading men, including Harry Guardino and Robert Culp of the afore-mentioned Rhino! (1964), and Hugh O'Brian in the classic whodunnit, Ten Little Indians (1965). During this highly productive time, her co-stars ranged from comedy legend Bob Hope in Eight on the Lam (1967) to horror icon Christopher Lee in The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968). Shirley's film career ended with her participation as "Sumuru", the ambitious leader of an all-woman's society called "Femina", in both The Million Eyes of Sumuru (1967) and Mothers of America (1969). Many of her movies remain interesting to the public today as they are a product reflective of their times, and a number of them, like she, have achieved cult status.
After Shirley's self-imposed retirement, she, first and foremost, dedicated herself to her family. The widow of building contractor Colin Rowe (they were married in 1957; he died in 1994), she has two sons, Grant and Jason, and is the proud grandmother of five. She also developed a special knack for writing and, in 1999, published her autobiography entitled "Golden Girl". In 2006, she marketed an "intimate diary" of poems. These days, the spectacular Shirley can be glimpsed from time to time at film festivals that very much appreciate her cult celebrity. She also enjoys painting and has made a return to the stage in recent years.- Actress
- Art Department
- Additional Crew
Samantha's early theatre work includes repertory seasons at Coventry, Edinburgh, Derby, and Bristol and 'Never in My Life 'at the Soho Poly in London. After appearing in Kenneth Branagh's production of 'Romeo and Juliet' she went on to West End productions of 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses', 'Man of the Moment', 'Three Tall Women' and 'Much Ado About Nothing' which was directed by Judi Dench. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company she acted in 'A Winters Tale' and 'As You Like It' She made her film debut in 'Eric the Viking' Television work includes 'Inspector Morse', 'Rumpole of the Bailey', 'Under the Moon', 'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'The Ruby Ring'- Actress
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Born in 1979 in London, England, actress Rosamund Mary Elizabeth Pike is the only child of a classical violinist mother, Caroline (Friend), and an opera singer father, Julian Pike. Due to her parents' work, she spent her early childhood traveling around Europe. Pike attended Badminton School in Bristol, England and began acting at the National Youth Theatre. While appearing in a National Youth Theatre production of "Romeo and Juliet", she was first spotted and signed by an agent, although she continued her education at Wadham College, Oxford, where she read English Literature, eventually graduating with an upper second class honors degree.
Pike appeared in a number of UK television series, including Wives and Daughters (1999), before scoring an auspicious feature film debut as the glacial beauty "Miranda Frost" in the James Bond film, Die Another Day (2002); when the film was released, she was only 23. Though her debut was a big-budget action film, the film work that followed was primarily in smaller, independent films, including Promised Land (2004), The Libertine (2004), (for which she won the Best Supporting Actress award at The British Independent Film Awards), and Pride & Prejudice (2005), as one of the Bennet daughters. A brief foray into Hollywood film followed with the action flick, Doom (2005), and the thriller, Fracture (2007), but she returned to smaller films with exceptional performances in three films: An Education (2009), Made in Dagenham (2010), and the lead opposite Paul Giamatti in Barney's Version (2010).
As she continued her stage work in England, Pike appeared in the spy spoof, Johnny English Reborn (2011), and inhabited the role of "Andromeda" in the sci-fi epic, Wrath of the Titans (2012). She returned to action films with the female lead opposite Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher (2012).
Pike entered into a relationship with a mathematical researcher named Robie Uniacke in 2009. She gave birth to their first son, named Solo, in May 2012. She returned to acting and landed the coveted title role in Gone Girl (2014). The film became a critical and box-office hit, with Pike earning the film's sole Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. She also earned nominations as Best Actress from Screen Actor's Guild, Golden Globes, and BAFTA. She gave birth to her second son with Uniacke in December 2014.- Mie Hama was born in Tokyo, Japan on November 20, 1943 in a blue-collar Tokyo family whose small cardboard factory burned down in World War II. She grew up poor. She first started out working as a bus fare collector. While working, she was spotted by producer Tomoyuki Tanaka when she was only sixteen years old, and was soon employed at Toho Studios. She appeared in a bevy of drama and sci-fi films, including King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963), where she became the Giant Ape's "Damsel in Distress." She is probably best known in Western Cinema as Bond girl Kissy Suzuki, starring alongside actor Sean Connery in the 007 film You Only Live Twice (1967). That same year, King Kong Escapes (1967) was released, thus, she portrayed the spellbinding "Bond-girlish" villainess Madamn Piranha. Her extended wardrobe and enchanted bed chambers contributed to the film's "James Bond-ish" atmosphere. In addition, Hama would sometimes be referred to as "Funny Face," due to her appearances in Japan's "Crazy Cats" movies.
She became one of the most popular actresses in Japan's "Golden Age" of Cinema, but has done little acting when Japan's cinema world experienced severe financial problems. However, she did return to appear in a few films in the 1970s and 1980s, and she is seen, most recently, working as an active environmentalist, radio and television talk show host. She also married a television executive with whom she has four children. - Actress
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Dana Welles Delany was born on March 13, 1956, in New York City and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. Dana knew early in life that she wanted to be an actress. Following graduation from Wesleyan University, this tall (5'6") beauty moved to New York and developed her skills working in daytime television and theater. Dana starred in the Broadway show "A Life" and received critical acclaim in a number of off-Broadway productions as well. Her role in Nicholas Kazan's controversial "Bloodmoon" in New York led her to Hollywood. Dana acted in a number of TV series, working steadily until she could get her own starring vehicle. That happened in 1988 when Dana became identified with Army nurse Colleen McMurphy in ABC TV's critically acclaimed series China Beach (1988), the role earning her four Emmy nominations and two Emmy Awards as Best Actress.
Dana moved on to movies and eventually started getting starring roles in films such as Tombstone. With over a dozen TV and movie projects within the last few years, Dana is one of the busiest actresses in Hollywood.- Actress
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Born Kätherose Derr in Wiesbaden, Karin Dor studied acting and ballet at school and began in films as an extra. The attractive redhead made an indelible impression on Austrian director Harald Reinl (who became her first husband in 1954) and this paved the way to higher profile roles. Her first significant featured appearance was in Reinl's melodrama Der schweigende Engel (1954). Karin subsequently shared top billing in a classroom drama about wayward matriculation students, Ihre große Prüfung (1954). During the initial segment of her career she played nice girls, mainly wide-eyed ingénues, innocent victims and assorted naive juveniles in war and period dramas (As Long as You Live (1955)), Heimatfilms (Almenrausch und Edelweiß (1957)) and operettas (The White Horse Inn (1960)).
By 1960, a more glamorous, lithe and sensual Karin had graduated to juicer roles as heroines in Edgar Wallace potboilers (beginning with Der grüne Bogenschütze (1961)) and a series of Karl May European westerns, invariably directed by Reinl and co-starring Tarzan actor Lex Barker (a combination which proved equally successful for other crime/sci-fi franchises, including The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (1962)). Many of these pictures enjoyed only limited release and were rarely exhibited outside Germany.
Karin succeeded at last to break her stereotyping by playing a pathological serial killer wielding a cutthroat razor in another Wallace/Reinl outing, Room 13 (1964), and - for a total change of pace -- essayed Brunhilde in a two-part filming of the epic 'Die Nibelungen' (also directed by Reinl). With her international appeal now widening, she appeared in The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), a British-West German co-production, as a scientist's daughter menaced by the titular villain. To follow was arguably her best-known international role as an early 'Bond girl', Helga Brandt (alias Number Eleven), a SPECTRE operative whose failure to eliminate J.B. results in her being dropped into a piranha-infested pool by super villain Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) in You Only Live Twice (1967). She was then engaged by Alfred Hitchcock for the part of Cuban resistance leader Juanita de Cordoba in Topaz (1969) in which her character came to a similarly sticky end. Karin's career never quite recovered from this director's rare box-office aberration. British Times reviewer and Hitchcock specialist John Russell Taylor described the picture as "generally flat, undistinguished, and lacking in any sign of positive interest or involvement on his (Hitchcock's) part". In the wake of Topaz, Karin's screen appearances became infrequent, except for a couple of guest spots on American crime shows, followed by an of unsuccessful feature film comeback attempt in the incongruous thriller Warhead (1977). She was latterly seen on German television in several episodes of Rosamunde Pilcher (1993). Karin's third husband was actor and stuntman George Robotham who predeceased her in 2007.- Retired African-American female professional wrestler best known for her work in the USWA as Miss Texas and under her own first name for WCW in 1997 and for WWE from 1998 to 2004. After training under legendary heel manager General Skandor Akbar, she debuted for World Class Championship Wrestling as Sweet Georgia Brown. Changed her ring name to Miss Texas and competed under that name for years in Memphis. She broke ground by wrestling both women and men, and, in 1993, was the first woman to be ranked in "Pro Wrestling Illustrated" Magazine's "PWI 500" ranking of the best wrestlers in the world. During her time there, she was the inaugural USWA Women's Champion and would hold the title a record 14 times. She had a brief run in Jim Cornette's SMW as Sgt. Rock, a member of Cornette's Army. She also worked as Queen Moesha as a member of the USWA arm of the Nation of Domination. In February 1997, "The Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan brought her in to WCW as the final member of the Dungeon of Doom, as part of his feud with Chris Benoit and Sullivan's former wife Woman (Nancy Daus-Sullivan). In this role, her main function was to cheat relentlessly behind the referee's back by beating up Sullivan's opponents on the floor. The storyline behind her arrival was based on a supposed "relationship" between herself and Sullivan that was never explained. At "WCW Bash at the Beach 97," she turned on Sullivan by smashing a chair over his head, costing him his Career vs. Career match with Benoit, and sending him into retirement. (Sullivan continued to work in the office until he was pushed out by Kevin Nash in late 1998, though he would not have another match until "Starrcade 99.") After Disco Inferno defeated WCW World Television Champion Alex Wright for the title on the September 22, 1997 "WCW Monday Nitro," Jacqueline confronted Disco about a title shot, as Disco had left the company for a short time earlier in the year after refusing to lose a match to her. This led to Jacqueline defeating Disco in a non-title (due to how WCW wouldn't/couldn't sanction an intergender match for a title) match at "WCW Halloween Havoc 1997." Following in the tradition of her regularly losing her clothes in Memphis, Jackie suffered a nipple slip while executing a Side Russian Legsweep. Jackie disappeared for a time before arriving in WWE on the "Raw" after "WWF Over the Edge 1998." At that PPV, Marc Mero had defeated Sable, thus forcing Sable out of the company, though she was brought back soon after. Mero introduced Jackie as Sable's replacement, leading to the inevitable feud. At "WWF Fully Loaded 98," Jackie faced Sable in a Bikini Contest. Jackie actually wore a one-piece thong swimsuit, and, while dancing around, flashed her left breast on camera. Sable wore only a thong with hands painted on her breasts. Sable was declared the winner, but the decision was reversed the following night on "Raw." The feud continued, and WWE brought back the dormant WWE Women's Title for it. Jackie defeated Sable for the vacant title, becoming the first African-American wrestler to hold the title. Sable defeated Jackie for the belt at "Survivor Series 98." At the UK-only "WWF Capital Carnage" PPV, Sable and Christian defeated Mero and Jackie, in Mero's last match with the company. After the match, Jackie climbed on referee Tim White's shoulders and started punching away at him, and Sable pulled Jackie's shirt right off of her body, revealing that she was not wearing a bra. This was the first moment of out-and-out toplessness on PPV, predating Miss Kitty/the Kat celebrating winning the title by removing her bra and flashing her breasts at "WWF Armageddon 99" by a year. In the Fall, Jackie and Terri Runnels both rejected their men, Mero and Val Venis (Sean Morley) respectively, and formed Pretty Mean Sisters (PMS), based on the premise that they hated men. The duo added Ken Shamrock's "sister" Ryan Shamrock (Alicia Webb) and Meat (Shawn Stasiak-Stipich), who was essentially Runnels' sex slave, until he dropped the gimmick and renamed himself Shawn Stasiak. PMS went their separate ways in late 1999. On January 31, 2000, manager/referee/road agent Harvey Wippleman (Bruno Lauer) dressed up as "Harvina" and defeated the Kat for the Women's Title in a "Lumberjill Snowbunny Match." That Thursday on "SmackDown!," with all of the women complaining about Wippleman being the Champion, Jackie was chosen as his opponent. The match started with Harvey making sexist comments, then Jackie speared him, rained down several punches, slammed Harvey, dropped an elbow and pinned him for her second and final WWE Women's Title. She lost the title to Stephanie McMahon in March and never regained it. Jackie was pushed down the card, and reduced to working as a referee and as a trainer on "WWE Tough Enough" and at WWE's developmental promotion Ohio Valley Wrestling. On the May 6, 2004 "WWE SmackDown!," WWE Cruiserweight Champion Chavo Guerrero Jr. threw out an open challenge to defend the title against anyone, and Jackie responded. She proceeded to defeat Chavo for the belt, becoming the only woman to win the title in WWE (Debra Ann Miceli and Daffney Unger (Shannon Spruill) had both won it in WCW) and the only African-American wrestler to ever win the title (Lance Storm had awarded the title to Elix Skipper back in WCW in 2000 as part of the formation of Team Canada). In her last appearance, Jackie lost the title back to Chavo at "WWE Judgment Day." Jackie had a couple of runs in TNA, usually aligned with James Storm, before retiring. Along with her in-ring achievements, she is also a black belt in Tae Kwan Do. She was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2016.
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Savanna Samson was trained as a ballerina, spending years at ballet school. That training eventually served her well when she decided to become an exotic dancer, and her talent and extraordinary beauty landed her a job at Scores, one of the country's top "gentleman's clubs", in New York City. Her entrance into the adult-film business was a bit unusual. She knew that her boyfriend had always wanted to see her have sex with another man, so when they decided to get married she secretly wrote to porn legend Rocco Siffredi, enclosing her picture and asking him if he would perform with her. He readily agreed, and she flew to Paris to make Rocco Meats an American Angel in Paris (2000) and gave it to her new husband as a wedding present. Needless to say, when porn producers got a look at her in that film the offers came pouring in, and her career as a porn starlet was off and running. In addition to performing in videos, she has made numerous appearances on the show of her friend Howard Stern and even on Into the Crevasse (2009).- Actress
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Tabitha Stevens was born on 16 February 1970 in Long Island, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer. She has been married to Gary Dean Orona since 17 March 2007. She was previously married to Don Osterholt and Kenji.- Tall (5'8"), buxom, and shapely blonde bombshell Ryan Conner was born on February 12, 1971 in Santa Ana, California. Ryan moved to Idaho at age nine and was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. Conner didn't have sex until she got married at age eighteen. After divorcing her first husband and getting away from her restrictive family, Ryan started out in the adult entertainment industry dancing at a strip club. Conner began performing in explicit hardcore fare at age twenty-eight in 1999. Ryan took a hiatus from porn in 2006 to concentrate on singing and writing music instead. Conner made an eventual comeback in 2015 and has since carved out a niche for herself in the MILF/cougar genre. She's the mother of adult film actress Dylan Phoenix.
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Bobbie Phillips is an actress, animal advocate, and a true Chameleon (1998); both on screen and off. Bobbie has portrayed a variety of characters in various genres throughout her career. Widely recognized for her award winning role as the insect loving entomologist, Dr. Bambi Berenbaum on War of the Coprophages (1996); Phillips also received industry praise for her turn as Julie Costello on Steven Bochco's Murder One (1995); A genre favorite as the first female crow, "Talon", on The Crow: Stairway to Heaven (1998); Phillips left Hollywood in 2003 when Bobbie and her husband traveled to Costa Rica and then Fiji to begin Anthony's surfing career. The couple traveled extensively between Canada, Fiji, Australia and Mexico before Bobbie returned to acting in 2014. Bobbie Phillips continues to create in her unique style on diverse projects and she always reinvents herself like a great actress should.- Wendy Benson-Landes was born on 8 July 1971 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Wishmaster (1997), Burlesque (2010) and Desperate Housewives (2004). She has been married to Michael Landes since 21 October 2000. They have two children.
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Gabrielle Miller is one of Canada's most celebrated performers. A professional actor for over two decades, she is widely recognized for her lead roles on two of Canada's most successful series: the runaway hit CTV series Corner Gas (6 seasons), which inspired a feature film in 2014, as well as an animated series, and the critically acclaimed series Robson Arms (3 seasons).
She was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for her role in the feature film Moving Day and was a series regular on City TV/Hulu's Mother Up!, a 13-episode, half-hour adult animated comedy series starring Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives).
Along with her recurring role on Call Me Fitz, opposite Jason Priestley, Gabrielle has also recurred on Hallmark's Good Witch, and guest-starred on CBS's Person of Interest, ABC's Once Upon a Time, and Showtime's popular series Lost Girl. She starred in the feature film Down River alongside Helen Shaver (The Color of Money, Desert Hearts), which won Best Picture at the 2014 Leo Awards.
In the spring of 2012, she starred on stage in New York at the Cherry Lane Theatre in the popular play Psycho Therapy. Combined, Gabrielle has garnered 14 Gemini and Leo Award nominations. In 2005 and 2006 she won a Leo Award for her role as Lacey Burrows on Corner Gas, and in 2007 took home a Gemini Award for best ensemble cast in a comedy. For her portrayal of Bobbi Briggs on Robson Arms, Gabrielle won the 2007 Leo Award and 2009 Gemini Award for Best Dramatic Performance. Most recently Gabrielle took home the Leo Award for Best Supporting Female in a Motion Picture in 2019 for her mesmerizing performance in Rabbit.
Talented and vivacious, Gabrielle has been busy on the big and small screen with a number of projects including a guest star role on Hallmark's Hailey Dean Mysteries, a recurring role on Disney's Puppy Prep Academy, and a guest star on SYFY's The Magicians. Before that, she starred in the feature film Sisters & Brothers and the Hallmark Hall of Fame MOW Trading Christmas. Other film and TV credits include Elijah, Holiday in Handcuffs, Love and Other Dilemmas, Breaking News, Pasadena, Frasier, The X-Files, DaVinci's Inquest, The Outer Limits, NCIS and Cold Case, to name a few. Gabrielle also does extensive charitable work, supporting organizations such as Vela Microboard and World Vision.- Actress
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New Yorker Claire Catherine Danes was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Carla (Hall), a day-care provider and artist, and Christopher Danes, a computer consultant and photographer. She has an older brother, Asa. Her paternal grandfather, Gibson Andrew Danes, was a Dean of the Yale School of Art and Architecture. She is of mostly German and British Isles descent.
Claire was educated at Dalton School, New York, The New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies, The Professional Performing Arts School and Lycée Français de Los Angeles. From 1998, she attended Yale University, studying psychology, but dropped out after two years to concentrate on her acting career.
Danes first came to major public attention when she appeared as "Angela Chase" in My So-Called Life (1994). She won an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award for this performance. A successful film career followed, including the role of "Juliet", opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996). She continued acting in such varied project as The Hours (2002), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) and Stardust (2007).
In 2010, she appeared in the HBO Production, Temple Grandin (2010), playing the title character. She received huge critical acclaim for the role, and won an Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. Since 2011, she has starred on the SHOWTIME series Homeland (2011), receiving great critical acclaim and winning Emmys and Golden Globes.- Actress
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Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. After appearing in summer stock for several months, she got her first major stage role in the Broadway rock musical "Hair". As understudy to the lead, she gained attention by not removing any of her clothing. In 1968, Woody Allen cast her in his Broadway play "Play It Again, Sam," which had a successful run. It was during this time that she became involved with Allen and appeared in a number of his films. The first one was Play It Again, Sam (1972), the screen adaptation of the stage play. That same year Francis Ford Coppola cast her as Kay in the Oscar-winning The Godfather (1972), and she was on her way to stardom. She reprized that role in the film's first sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974). She then appeared with Allen again in Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975).
In 1977, she broke away from her comedy image to appear in the chilling Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), which won her a Golden Globe nomination. It was the same year that she appeared in what many regard as her best performance, in the title role of Annie Hall (1977), which Allen wrote specifically for her (her real last name is Hall, and her nickname is Annie), and what an impact she made. She won the Oscar and the British Award for Best Actress, and Allen won the Directors Award from the DGA. She started a fashion trend with her unisex clothes and was the poster girl for a lot of young males. Her mannerisms and awkward speech became almost a national craze. The question being asked, though, was, "Is she just a lightweight playing herself, or is there more depth to her personality?" For whatever reason, she appeared in but one film a year for the next two years and those films were by Allen. When they broke up she was next involved with Warren Beatty and appeared in his film Reds (1981), as the bohemian female journalist Louise Bryant. For her performance, she received nominations for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe. For the rest of the 1980s she appeared infrequently in films but won nominations in three of them. Attempting to break the typecasting she had fallen into, she took on the role of a confused, somewhat naive woman who becomes involved with Middle Eastern terrorists in The Little Drummer Girl (1984). To offset her lack of movie work, Diane began directing. She directed the documentary Heaven (1987), as well as some music videos. For television she directed an episode of the popular, but strange, Twin Peaks (1990).
In the 1990s, she began to get more mature roles, though she reprized the role of Kay Corleone in the third "Godfather" epic, The Godfather Part III (1990). She appeared as the wife of Steve Martin in the hit Father of the Bride (1991) and again in Father of the Bride Part II (1995). In 1993 she once again teamed with Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), which was well received. In 1995 she received high marks for Unstrung Heroes (1995), her first major feature as a director.- Actress
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Rachel Anne McAdams was born on November 17, 1978 in London, Ontario, Canada, to Sandra Kay (Gale), a nurse, and Lance Frederick McAdams, a truck driver and furniture mover. She is of English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish descent. Rachel became involved with acting as a teenager and by the age of 13 was performing in Shakespearean productions in summer theater camp; she went on to graduate with honors with a BFA degree in Theater from York University. After her debut in an episode of Disney's The Famous Jett Jackson (1998), she co-starred in the Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows (2003), a comedy-drama about the trials and travails of a Shakespearean theater group, and won a Gemini award for her performance in 2003.
Her breakout role as Regina George in the hit comedy Mean Girls (2004) instantly catapulted her onto the short list of Hollywood's hottest young actresses. She followed that film with a star turn opposite Ryan Gosling in the adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks bestseller The Notebook (2004), which was a surprise box office success and became the predominant romantic drama for a new, young generation of moviegoers. After filming, McAdams and Gosling became romantically involved and dated through mid-2007. McAdams next showcased her versatility onscreen with the manic comedy Wedding Crashers (2005), the thriller Red Eye (2005), and the holiday drama The Family Stone (2005).
McAdams then explored the independent film world with Married Life (2007), which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and also starred Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson. Starring roles in the military drama The Lucky Ones (2008), the newspaper thriller State of Play (2009), and the romance The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) followed before she starred opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in Guy Ritchie's international blockbuster Sherlock Holmes (2009). McAdams played the plucky producer of a failing morning TV show in Morning Glory (2010), the materialistic fiancée of Owen Wilson in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011), and returned to romantic drama territory with the hit film The Vow (2012) opposite Channing Tatum. The actress also stars with Ben Affleck in Terrence Malick's To the Wonder (2012) and alongside Noomi Rapace in Brian De Palma's thriller Passion (2012).
In 2005, McAdams received ShoWest's "Supporting Actress of the Year" Award as well as the "Breakthrough Actress of the Year" at the Hollywood Film Awards. In 2009, she was awarded with ShoWest's "Female Star of the Year." As of 2011, she has been romantically linked with her Midnight in Paris (2011) co-star Michael Sheen.- Actress
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Sarah Jessica Parker was born March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio, to Barbra Forste (née Keck), a teacher who ran a nursery school, and Stephen Parker, a journalist. Her parents divorced, and her mother later remarried to Paul Forste and had four more children, bringing the total to eight. Sarah now had 3 full siblings and 4 half siblings. Her father was of Eastern European Jewish ancestry, and her mother had German, and some English, roots.
Trained in singing and ballet, Sarah was cast in the Broadway production of "The Innocents", which prompted her family to relocate to New Jersey. Already a professional performer (she studied at the American Ballet School and the Professional Children's School), Sarah was cast in "The Sound of Music" (along with four of her siblings), and landed the lead in the Broadway run of "Annie". After a year as the free-spirited orphan, Sarah attended Dwight Morrow High School, while continuing to add more credits to her acting resume. She landed a role in the made-for-TV movie My Body, My Child (1982), before being cast as one of the lead roles in the 1982 sitcom Square Pegs (1982), as high-schooler Patty Green.
Once a graduate, Sarah decided to pursue a full-time acting career rather than further her education. Since Square Pegs (1982) did not last more than a year, Sarah moved on to supporting film roles in movies such as Footloose (1984), Firstborn (1984), and the lead role in the teenage film Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985). Sarah was having lots of fun, although she had yet to land a star-turning role. After more television appearances in series and made-for-TV movies including A Year in the Life (1986), The Room Upstairs (1987) and Dadah Is Death (1988), Sarah finally landed the role of Steve Martin's bubbly lover in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story (1991). More substantial film roles soon followed, starting with a role opposite Nicolas Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) (which foreshadowed her comedic talent), Hocus Pocus (1993) and Ed Wood (1994).
A big Woody Allen fan, she starred opposite the renowned filmmaker in the television movie The Sunshine Boys (1996), and that same year, she landed a starring role in Miami Rhapsody (1995). 1996 was a film intensive year with roles in The First Wives Club (1996), If Lucy Fell (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996). All the while making a name for herself in film, Sarah was gaining respect as a theater actress, with her lead role as a dog (hard to imagine, but true) in the off-Broadway "Sylvia", and her Broadway roles in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (starring her present husband, Matthew Broderick), and the Tony-Award nominated "Once Upon a Mattress".
But Sarah's star has shot up since her portrayal of Manhattan sex-columnist Carrie Bradshaw in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998). Sarah's Golden Globe Best Actress victory in 2000 only underscores the fact that she plays the role of Carrie as though it were literally written for her. Sarah has been happily married to fellow actor Matthew Broderick for quite a while now. Before the marriage, she dated Robert Downey Jr. (who she also lived with), and the late John Kennedy Jr. When not serving as lead actress and producer of Sex and the City (1998), Sarah is a member of Hollywood's Women's Political Committee, and is UNICEF's representative for the Performing Arts.- Elizabeth Ann Reaser was born July 2, 1975 in Bloomfield, Michigan, to Karen (Weidman) and John Reaser. As the middle child in a trio of sisters, she grew up in rural Milford, MI. Her mother, a homemaker, and her father, an attorney turned restaurateur turned substitute teacher, divorced, and her stepfather was businessman Bill Davidson. Through high school, Elizabeth worked several odd jobs, including being a caddie at a country club.
Elizabeth wanted to be an actor from childhood. She began college at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan, but, after one year, yearned to leave the mid-west and expand her horizons. She applied (with her parent's blessing) to the Drama Division of The Juilliard School and was accepted. At Juilliard, she was awarded a Bachelor's of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) in 1999.
She struggled at first, but soon found adequate representation, and a part on the daytime drama series, Guiding Light (1952). Since then, she has become an accomplished film, television, and stage actor, landing numerous supporting and leading roles, including Esme Cullen in the Twilight series.
In October 2004, Interview magazine hailed her as one of the "14 To Be" emerging creative women. - Actress
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Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis is a Ukrainian-American actress born to a Jewish family in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher, her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer, and she has an older brother named Michael. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991. After attending one semester of college between gigs, she realized that she wanted to act for the rest of her life. She started acting when she was nine years old, when her father heard about an acting class on the radio and decided to enroll Mila in it. There, she met her future agent. Her first gig was when she played a character named Melinda in Make a Wish, Molly (1995). From there, her career skyrocketed into big-budget films.
Although she is mostly known for playing Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show (1998), she has shown the world that she can do so much more. Since 1999, she provided the voice of self-conscious daughter Meg Griffin on the animated sitcom Family Guy (1999). Her breakthrough film was Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), in which she played a free-spirited character named Rachel Jansen. She has since starred or co-starred in the films Max Payne (2008), The Book of Eli (2010), Black Swan (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), Ted (2012) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).
Mila Kunis is married to actor Ashton Kutcher, with whom she has two children.- Actress
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Jennifer is an award-winning actor, writer, producer, and advocate for authentic storytelling. Born in the Philippines, and raised in the Seattle area, Jennifer made her professional debut as a performer with Broadway, touring, and regional credits. As an emerging screenwriter, her original pilot won the Outstanding Screenplays TV Pilot Competition 2021 as a top selection from judge Susan Soon He Stanton (Emmy Award-winning, WGA and Peabody Award-winning writer/producer on HBO's "Succession"). Jennifer is a 2022 cohort with the Unlock Her Potential mentor-ship program with show-runner/producer Brian Yorkey, a 2023 NAMT Writers Residency Grant recipient, and a 2024 cohort with the prestigious Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Grove residency at Goodspeed Musicals.- Actress
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Brenda Song was born in Carmichael, California. Her father is Hmong and her mother is Thai-American. Brenda, her parents, and her younger brothers Timmy and Nathan now live in a suburb of Los Angeles.
Brenda was named an All-American Scholar in ninth grade and holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
She stars as London Tipton, the hotel owner's spoiled daughter, in the Disney Channel's sitcom The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005). Having acted since age six, Brenda is already a familiar face to Disney Channel viewers. Before beginning production on the new series, she had a recurring role as the hip and trendy Tia on Phil of the Future (2004). She also starred in the top-rated Disney Channel Original Movies Stuck in the Suburbs (2004), the mystery Get a Clue (2002) with Lindsay Lohan, and The Ultimate Christmas Present (2000) with Hallee Hirsh and Spencer Breslin.
Her other television credits include guest starring roles on That's So Raven (2003), George Lopez (2002), The Bernie Mac Show (2001), 7th Heaven (1996), One on One (2001), The Nightmare Room (2001), Judging Amy (1999), Popular (1999), Once and Again (1999), and as a panelist on Small Talk (1996). Brenda also had a starring role on the series 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd (1999).
On the big screen, she starred in Like Mike (2002) opposite Shad Moss and Jonathan Lipnicki, and appeared in Leave It to Beaver (1997) and Santa with Muscles (1996) starring Hulk Hogan.
A self-proclaimed total dork, she loves sampling international cuisine, shopping and studying. She is an avid Los Angeles Lakers fan.- Actress
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Kristen Cloke was born September 2 in Van Nuys, California. She attended California State University, Northridge. Her first feature film role was the female lead in Megaville (1990), opposite Billy Zane. She is best known from her role as Shane Vansen in the television series Space: Above and Beyond (1995) and most recently the Academy Award nominated "Lady Bird". In addition to acting, she is a writer best known for "The X-Files" episode "Rm9sbG93ZXJz", as well as several episodes of BBC's "Intruders".- Actress
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Laurie Holden is best known to audiences as Andrea in the hit AMC drama series The Walking Dead. However, Laurie's big acting break came much earlier in her career, starring with Vanessa Redgrave in the critically acclaimed TNT mini-series Young Catherine. Since that auspicious beginning, she has appeared in several groundbreaking television series, including seminal roles on FOX's The X-Files, FX's The Shield, and currently FX's The Americans. Holden's big screen debut found her starring alongside Jim Carrey in Frank Darabont's The Majestic. The 1950's period piece earned Holden critical acclaim and a place on Entertainment Weekly's "100 Most Creative People in Entertainment" list and Variety's "Ten Actors To Watch" list. Laurie entered the comic book world when she co-starred opposite Michael Chiklis in Fox's Fantastic Four and then ventured into the gamer genre with her starring role as the iconic Cybil Bennett opposite Sean Bean in Christophe Gans' cult horror classic Silent Hill. She also starred with Thomas Jane and Marcia Gay Harden in Stephen King's sci-fi thriller The Mist and in the Farrelly Brothers' Dumb and Dumber To with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. She will soon be seen in Adam MacDonald's Pyewacket with Nicole Munoz and will be voicing the role of "Dakota" in the animated feature Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad. In 2011, Holden received two Best Supporting Actress nominations for her work on The Walking Dead: one from Spike TV's Scream Awards and another from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films' Saturn Awards. She won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Walking Dead in 2013. Earlier in her career, she also received a Best Actress nomination from the Genie Awards (Canada's equivalent to the Emmys) for her guest- starring role on the Canadian comedy hit Due South. In 2014, Holden executive produced her first motion picture: Rebecca Johnson's critically acclaimed film Honeytrap, which garnered a nomination at the London Film Festival, received U.S distribution through Ava DuVernay's film collective ARRAY, and can currently be streamed on Netflix. Laurie is also an Executive Producer on The Time of Their Lives (Bright Pictures/Daryl Prince Productions) starring Dame Joan Collins, Pauline Collins, Franco Nero and Joely Richardson. The film will be distributed by Universal in most world markets, starting with its 2017 cinema release in the UK on March 10th. Holden is also a human rights activist, and dedicates much of her time and effort to enriching and protecting the lives of women and children victimized by the sex trade. Through her philanthropic work with Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.) a non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating modern day slavery, she volunteered in the field in Cartagena, Colombia with O.U.R. on a mission that helped liberate 55 young sex slaves and brought down notorious sex trafficker Marcus Bronschidle. The successful sting operation was featured on ABC's Nightline and is the subject of an upcoming documentary entitled The Abolitionists. Holden serves on the Board of Alamasi Collaborative Arts, a Zimbabwean dramatic arts collaborative. She also actively supports HomeFromHome, a South African non-profit NGO that provides shelter and education for orphans infected and afflicted by HIV.- 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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Diane Kruger was born Diane Heidkrüger in Algermissen, near Hildesheim, Germany, to Maria-Theresa, a bank employee, and Hans-Heinrich Heidkrüger, a computer specialist. She studied ballet with the Royal Ballet in London before an injury ended her career. She returned to Germany and became a top fashion model. She later pursued acting and relocated to Paris at the suggestion of filmmaker Luc Besson (The Fifth Element (1997)). She married French actor Guillaume Canet (The Beach (2000)) in 2001.- Actress
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Born at a military base in Panama, Alexis Texas was raised in a small town near San Antonio, Texas. Alexis describes herself as an outgoing and fun-loving person. In high school, she held tutorials for her male classmates on how to take off a girl's bra. While working at a college bar in October 2006, Alexis met some people working for the adult film company Shane's World. She agreed to appear in a film they were making entitled Shane's World's College Amateur Tour In Texas. Following this, she traveled to Florida to work for Bang Bros and then moved to Los Angeles to pursue adult film acting full time. In 2009, Alexis won CAVR Performer of the year award. By that time, she had filmed over 200 scenes. In 2009, Alexis also formed her own company, entitled Alexis Texas Entertainment, through which she launched her own web site.- Actress
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Patterson was born in Concord, California and raised in Pleasant Hill in California's Bay Area. She is the youngest of four children.
Meredith 'Merie' Patterson has been dancing since the age of 2, and excelled at classical ballet, tap, and jazz. She competed in famous dance competitions around the country such as Tremaine & Show Stoppers. She began singing at age 8, and taking acting class at age 9. She made her stage debut at Concord Citi Arts production of "Cinderella" at the age of 13.
Patterson toured the country at age 17 as a teacher for The Universal Dance Association.
Patterson left home at age 18 and headed to New York City intent upon becoming a dancer on Broadway. She was nominated for a Barrymore Award at 19, starring in two national tours at 20, and signing her first Equity production contract with Madison Square Garden's show, "A Christmas Carol", with choreographer Susan Stroman, at 21.
She made her Broadway debut in 2000 in "The Green Bird", a play directed by Julie Taymor. The following year, she made her musical debut in the original chorus of the Tony Award-winning revival of "42nd Street". Three months after opening, she was given the starring role of "Peggy Sawyer", which she performed from August 2001 to August 2002 and her performance was taped for The Lincoln Center Archives. Later, Patterson was asked to star in a production of "42nd Street" in Moscow, Russia, making her the first American actress to star in an English-speaking musical in Russia and the first "Peggy Sawyer" to ever be billed above the title.
In 2003, actress Julie Andrews made her directorial debut with the musical, "The Boy Friend". Ms. Andrews met Patterson and cast her in the starring role of "Miss Polly Browne", coincidentally the same role that Ms. Andrews made her Broadway debut with some 50 years earlier. For this role, Patterson received critical acclaim.
Ms. Andrews took a liking to Ms. Patterson and set up a meeting with film director Garry Marshall for the movie, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Mr. Marshall decided to put Meredith in the movie as Lord Nicholas Chris Pine's girlfriend, "Lady Alyssa Wells". Named after Garry Marshall's daughter-in-law, and Julie Andrews' real last name.
Patterson made her Los Angeles theater debut starring as "Louise Maske" in Steve Martin's adaptation of the play, "The Underpants" at the Geffen Playhouse, for which she received more rave reviews. In addition, she originated the role of "Judy Haynes" in the highly-anticipated world premiere of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", which she originated on Broadway at The Marquis Theater, November 14 through January 4, 2009.
In addition to stage work, Patterson has made several television and film appearances, including guest starring roles on The Good Wife, Person Of Interest, Made in Jersey, Boston Legal and in the films, Every Little Step, A Secret Promise, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Broken Flowers, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and Company Man. She is making her soap opera debut on Guiding Light and played the recurring role of "Francesca" on ABC's All My Children.
Patterson is a self-taught singer/songwriter. She has been writing music and lyrics since she was 18-years-old. She composed, performed, produced and recorded her own CD of music entitled "MerieNYC", available on ITunes. Autographed hard copies are rare.
Meredith is certified in Holistic Health from The Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC and owns her own company, Merie, where she counsels and coaches entertainment professionals how to balance themselves in the entertainment industry; body, mind and spirit.
Meredith resides in Hollywood, CA with her husband, Dustin Brayley and their children Maxwell & William.- Dziena studied theatre in New York at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she wrote and acted in plays and was cast in her first role on television at the age of 17.
From 'E's' crazy, jealous girlfriend on HBO's Entourage (2004) to 'Lolita' parading around in the buff for Bill Murray in Jim Jarmusch's film Broken Flowers (2005), Alexis Dziena has played a wide range of wonderfully colorful characters in both film and television.
In the upcoming feature Without Ward (2022) for director Cory Cataldo, Dziena plays a deaf girl who falls in love with the man who lives across the street. Confined to their homes and never physically touching, they communicate through their windows, as love prevails. Alexis portrays a promiscuous pizza girl looking for love in Wrong (2012) from visionary filmmaker Quentin Dupieux for Drafthouse Films.
She has played notable roles in such films as When in Rome (2010), Fool's Gold (2008), Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008), Sex and Breakfast (2005), Havoc (2005), and Strangers with Candy (2005).
Alexis starred opposite Marcia Gay Harden in the coming-of-age movie for cable entitled She's Too Young (2004). She was a regular on the ABC series Invasion (2005) and is still asked if she can do an American accent because of the memorable Russian girl she played on Law & Order (1990) early in her career. - 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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Chloë Sevigny is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress and director who is known for her groundbreaking work across film, television and theatre. Sevigny has spent her career working with innovative and revolutionary filmmakers and artists including Lars von Trier, Jim Jarmusch, Mary Harron, David Fincher and Whit Stillman and Luca Guadagnino. She continues that work with several upcoming projects: Sevigny can be currently seen in We Are Who We Are, for HBO/Sky, which was created, written and directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name). The eight-episode drama is a coming of age story about a group of American soldiers on an Army base in Italy. We Are Who We Are is being produced by Wildside and Apartment Pictures and distributed by Freemantle. Alice Braga, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Kid Cudi also star. In 2021 Sevigny will begin production on the second season of the Natasha Lyonne hit Russian Doll for Netflix. In the first season, Chloë made an appearance as Leonora, mother to Natasha's character Nadia. The second season will be an origin story in which Chloë's character is heavily featured. Russian Doll was created by Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland. Sevigny was last seen on the big screen in Queen and Slim, directed by Melina Matsoukas and written by Lena Waithe, with the original idea by James Frey. The film stars Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith. The film is about a black man and black woman on a first date that goes awry after the two are pulled over by a police officer at a traffic stop. They kill the police officer in self-defense and go on the run, rather than turn themselves in. Chloë's character plays a pivotal role in deciding their fate. The film was released in the US by Universal in November 2019. Opening the 2019 Cannes Film Festival was Jim Jarmusch's third film for Focus Features and Universal Pictures International, The Dead Don't Die. The zombie-comedy boasts a cast including Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Adam Driver, Steve Buscemi and Selena Gomez. Sevigny plays a small-town police officer, with Murray and Driver, in a town under zombie attack. Carter Logan and Animal Kingdom produced. Sevigny previously worked with Jarmusch on Broken Flowers and Ten Minutes Older Sevigny has now made the move into directing with three critically acclaimed short films: Her most recent, White Echo, premiered in competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, at which Sevigny was the only American female director in Competition. Chloë's directorial debut, Kitty, also debuted at Cannes in 2016 and her second short entitled Carmen, proved equally successful at the 2017 Venice Film Festival. Recent past projects include: The Act, on Hulu, a true-crime anthology series written by Michelle Dean and Nick Antosca and directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (Mustang). The Act tells the true story of Gypsy Blanchard, a girl (Joey King) trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother, played by Patricia Arquette. Chloë played Mel, who serves as the moral compass of the story. Lizzie, which premiered at Sundance 2018 after being developed and produced by Sevigny. The film, in which she starred with Kristen Stewart, was released by Roadside Attractions in September 2018. Lean On Pete, directed by Andrew Haigh, which was released domestically in May 2018 by A24. Sevigny co-starred with Steve Buscemi in a coming of age story starring Charlie Plummer, based on the acclaimed novel by Willy Vlautin. Golden Exits, directed by Alex Ross Perry, Oren Moverman's The Dinner, and Miguel Arteta's Beatriz at Dinner. The critically acclaimed television series Bloodline is recently aired its third and final season on Netflix. On stage, Sevigny was most recently seen in the New Group's Downtown Race Riot written by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld and directed by Scott Elliot. Sevigny was previously seen in The New Group's productions of What the Butler Saw and Hazelwood Junior High. Sevigny has also appeared in many celebrated indie and cult-favorite films like, The Last Days of Disco, American Psycho, Gummo, Dogville, Party Monster, Broken Flowers and Love & Friendship, and has appeared in television hits such as American Horror Story, Portlandia and Big Love, for which she won a Golden Globe. Sevigny made her film debut in the controversial Kids, directed by Larry Clark and written by Harmony Korine. For her performance in Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry, Chloë received nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe among many others. She makes her home in New York. 10/2020- Actress
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The iconoclastic gifts of the highly striking and ferociously talented actress Tilda Swinton have been appreciated by art house crowds and international audiences alike. After her stunning Oscar-winning turn as a high-powered corporate attorney in the George Clooney starring and critically-lauded legal thriller Michael Clayton (2007), however, her androgynous looks and often bizarre appeal have been embraced by more mainstream crowds as well.
She was born Katherine Mathilda Swinton into a patrician Scottish military family on November 5, 1960, in London, England. Her mother, Judith Balfour, Lady Swinton (née Killen), was Australian, and her father, Major-General Sir John Swinton, an army officer, was English-born. Her ancestry is Scottish, Northern Irish, and English, including a long tapestry of prominent Scottish ancestors. Educated at an English and a Scottish boarding school, Tilda subsequently studied Social and Political Science at Cambridge University and graduated in 1983 with a degree in English Literature.
During her tenure as a student, she performed countless stage productions and proceeded to work for a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company where she appeared in such productions as "Measure for Measure." The rebel insider her, however, was strong and she left the company after a year as her approach and interests began to shift dramatically. With a pungent taste for the unique and seldom tried, Tilda found some gender-bending stage roles come her way. She portrayed Mozart in Pushkin's "Mozart and Salieri", and as a working class woman impersonating her dead husband during World War II, in Manfred Karge's "Man to Man," a role she later committed to film (Man to Man (1992)).
In 1985, the tall, slender performer with alabaster skin and carrot-topped hair began a professional association with gay experimental director Derek Jarman. She continued to live and work with the groundbreaking writer/director/cinematographer for the next nine years, involving herself in seven of his often notorious films. This quirky, highly fascinating alliance would produce such stark and radical turns as the Berlin International Film Festival winners Caravaggio (1986), The Last of England (1987), The Garden (1990) and Edward II (1991) (playing Isabella, in which she won "Best Actress" at the Venice Film Festival) and Wittgenstein (1993), as well as the films Soursweet (1988) (a movie with no spoken dialogue) and the Stockholm Film Festival Award winner Blue (1993).
Jarman succumbed to complications from AIDS in 1994. His untimely demise left a devastating void in Tilda's life for quite some time. Her most notable performance of her Jarman period, however, came from a non-Jarman film. For the vivid title role in Orlando (1992), her nobleman character lives for 400 years while changing sex from man to woman. The film, which Swinton spent years helping writer/director Sally Potter develop and finance, continues to this day to have a worldwide devoted fan following.
Over the years, Tilda has preferred art to celebrity, opening herself to experimental projects with new and untried directors and mediums, delving into the worlds of installation art and cutting-edge fashion. Consistently off-centered roles in Female Perversions (1996), Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998), Teknolust (2002), Young Adam (2003), Broken Flowers (2005) and Béla Tarr's The Man from London (2007) have added to her mystique. Back in 1995, she delved into a performance art piece in the Serpentine Gallery, London, where she was put on display to the public for a week, asleep (or apparently so), in a glass case.
Following the birth of her twins in 1997, Tilda would leave lean for a time towards Hollywood mainstream filming. The thriller The Deep End (2001), earned her a number of critic's awards and her first Golden Globe nomination. Other visible U.S. pictures included The Beach (2000) with Leonardo DiCaprio, fantasy epic Constantine (2005) with Keanu Reeves, her Oscar-decorated performance in Michael Clayton (2007) and, of course, her iconic White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005).
Into the millennium, Tilda continued to amaze starring in the crime drama Julia (2008) and in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). She learned Italian and Russian for Luca Guadagnino's I Am Love (2009), starred in the psychological thriller We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer (2013), and earned fine notice in Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem (2013). She also starred in the dark romantic fantasy drama Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) directed by Jim Jarmusch, had a small role in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), starred in Judd Apatow's comedy Trainwreck (2015), and played a rock star in Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash (2015).
Showing no signs of slowing up, Tilda continues to make creative, visual impressions in such films as the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar! (2016) where she reunited with Clooney and had a dual role playing twin journalists, and as the wise Asian teacher of Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in the Marvel Comics action film Doctor Strange (2016), while repeating the part of The Ancient One in Avengers: Endgame (2019). She gave another eccentric, unhinged performance in the action adventure message movie Okja (2017), played Betsy Trotwood in a contemporary telling of The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019) and teamed up again with writer/director Jim Jarmusch in the thoroughly offbeat fantasy horror comedy The Dead Don't Die (2019).- Actress
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Pell James was born on 30 April 1977 in Virginia, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Zodiac (2007), Broken Flowers (2005) and The King (2005). She has been married to Michael Burns since 11 June 2006. They have three children.- Actress
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Emmy nominated filmmaker Cecilia Peck has always been drawn to stories of individuals who stand up for their beliefs. She was Showrunner, Director, and Writer of the 2020 STARZ four episode documentary series Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult. She directed and produced the Netflix Original "Brave Miss World," the story of Miss World Linor Abargil's fight for justice and triumph over trauma following a brutal rape crime. She also directed and produced "Shut Up & Sing," which was shortlisted for the 2007 Academy Awards, won Best Documentary at the Aspen, Sydney, Woodstock Film Festivals, and Special Jury Prize at the Toronto and Chicago Film Festivals. It was named Best Documentary by the Boston and San Diego Film Critics Societies, and won the Courage in Film Award from the Women's Film Critics Circle among others. Cecilia produced "A Conversation with Gregory Peck," an intimate portrait of her father, which premiered as a Special Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, for TCM and American Masters. She directed and produced "Justice For All," an examination of capital punishment through the eyes of one death row prisoner, was Producer on "The Hamptons," 4 hour reality mini-series, ABC TV, and Assoc. Producer on "Defending Our Daughters" for Lifetime TV. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives with her husband writer Daniel Voll, and their two children, in Santa Monica, CA.- Maria Rangel was born on 18 October 1964 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for A Million to Juan (1994), Legal Tender (1991) and The District (2000).
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Mary McCormack began her acting career performing in a stage production of Gian Carlo Menotti's Christmas opera, "Amahl and the Night Visitors". "I was twelve but looked like an eight-year-old boy" she recalls. "As luck would have it, none of the boys in town could sing, so I got the part and wore a hat". Mary continued working regionally throughout New Jersey and continued her education at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. At Trinity, she majored in English and painting and continued her stage work in many more musicals. Mary finished an acting program at the William Esper Studio. She has worked in many New York theaters, some of which include The Atlantic Theatre Company, Alice's 4th Floor and Naked Angels, where she recently appeared in Jon Robin Baitz's "A Fair Country".- Actress
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Jean Dorothy Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, to substitute teacher Dorothy Arline (Benson) and pharmacist Edward Waldemar Seberg. Her father was of Swedish descent and her mother was of English and German ancestry.
One month before her 18th birthday, Jean landed the title role in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan (1957) after a much-publicized contest involving some 18,000 hopefuls. The failure of that film and the only moderate success of her next, Bonjour Tristesse (1958), combined to stall Seberg's career, until her role in Jean-Luc Godard's landmark feature, Breathless (1960), brought her renewed international attention. Seberg gave a memorable performance as a schizophrenic in the title role of Robert Rossen's Lilith (1964) opposite Warren Beatty and went on to appear in over 30 films in Hollywood and Europe.
In the late 1960s, Seberg became involved in anti-war politics and was the target of an undercover campaign by the FBI to discredit her because of her association with several members of the Black Panther party. She was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Paris in 1979.- Actress
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Katherine Marie Heigl was born on November 24, 1978 in Washington, D.C., to Nancy Heigl (née Engelhardt), a personnel manager, and Paul Heigl, an accountant and executive. Her father is of German/Swiss-German and Irish descent, and her mother is of German ancestry. A short time after her birth, the family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, where Katherine was to spend the majority of her childhood; the youngest member of her family, Katherine--or "Katie" as she is nicknamed--has two elder siblings, John and Meg. Tragically, her older brother Jason died in 1986 of brain injuries suffered in a car accident, after being thrown from the back of a pickup truck. When doctors determined he was brain-dead, the family made the difficult decision to donate his organs. Not only did this painful chapter give Katherine a greater perspective and appreciation for life, but it motivated her to use her celebrity to promote the importance of organ donation.
Katherine was first thrust into the limelight as a child model. An aunt, visiting the family in New Canaan, took a number of photographs of Katherine, then aged nine, in a series of poses to advertise a hair care product she had invented. Upon returning to New York, with permission from Katherine's parents, she sent the photos to a number of modeling agencies. Within a few weeks, Katherine had been signed to Wilhelmina, a renowned international modeling agency. Almost immediately, she made her debut in a magazine advertisement and soon followed this with an inaugural television appearance in a national commercial for Cheerios breakfast cereal.
Following a number of commercials and modeling assignments for Sears and Lord & Taylor, she made her big-screen debut in That Night (1992), which starred Juliette Lewis and C. Thomas Howell. It was then that she realized that acting rather than modeling was her passion. In 1993, Katherine appeared in Steven Soderbergh's critically-acclaimed Depression-era drama, King of the Hill (1993), before landing her first leading role as a rebellious teenager, alongside Gérard Depardieu, in My Father the Hero (1994). During this time, Katherine continued to attend New Canaan High School, balancing her academic studies with work on films and modeling, which she undertook during holidays, vacations and weekends.
In 1995, she played "Sarah Ryback", the niece of Steven Seagal's character, in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995), which was her "debut" in the action film genre. Acting was now becoming a stronger focus for Katherine, although she still modeled extensively, appearing regularly in magazines such as "Seventeen". Television appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992) and Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993) soon followed, before she took the lead role in Disney's Wish Upon a Star (1996) in 1996. It was also during that year that Katherine's parents divorced and, following her graduation from high school in 1997, she moved with her mother into a four-bedroom house in Los Angeles' Malibu Canyon area. This enabled her to focus upon acting with the guidance and support of her mother, who now managed her career.
In 1997, Katherine portrayed "Taffy Entwhistle", Rita Hayworth's stand-in, in Stand-ins (1997) and was also cast as the beauteous "Princess Ilene" in the European production, Prince Valiant (1997). She then made her made-for-TV movie debut, co-starring with Peter Fonda in a re-working of the classic Shakespearean play, The Tempest (1998), updated with an American Civil War theme. In this film, she played "Miranda Prosper", a young woman torn between her love for both her father and a Union soldier. Bug Buster (1998) and Bride of Chucky (1998) represented a venture into the horror genre for Katherine. While both films could be described as rather tongue-in-cheek despite their gory emphases, Bride of Chucky (1998) was the better received, both critically and commercially.
In 1999, Katherine decided to branch out into series television when she accepted the role of the haughty, yet vulnerable, "Isabel Evans", on Roswell (1999), a show that blended teen angst with sci-fi drama. Though she had never planned to embark on a career in television, the role of Isabel, a teenager with a secret life, was an offer she found impossible to refuse. In the series, Isabel, her brother Max (Jason Behr) and their friend Michael (Brendan Fehr) are aliens passing as humans in Roswell, New Mexico, as they desperately try to hide the truth from government agencies, the people of Roswell and even their own adopted families. To publicize her role on the show, Katherine graced the covers of magazines such as "TV Guide", "Maxim" and "Teen" and was interviewed on Later (1994) and The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn (1999). Along with her mother Nancy, she also appeared in an episode of the Sci-Fi TV talk show, Crossing Over with John Edward (2001), during which she spoke with John Edward, a psychic medium, about her late brother, Jason. During the three years Roswell (1999) was in production, Katherine found time to work on several movies. 100 Girls (2000), an independent film released in 2001, is the story of a college freshman who meets the girl of his dreams in an elevator during a blackout, and spends the rest of the movie trying to find her again. Her cameo role is that of Arlene, the competitive tomboy. The second film, Valentine (2001), a horror film starring David Boreanaz and Denise Richards, appeared in U.S. theaters on February 2, 2001. In this movie, which is based upon the 1996 novel by Tom Savage, Katherine plays "Shelley", a medical student who meets a sudden demise.
In the spring of 2001, Katherine accepted a role in NBC's Critical Assembly (2002), a two-hour original television thriller. Katherine and Kerr Smith (Dawson's Creek (1998)) co-starred as brilliant and politically concerned college students who build a nuclear device to illustrate the need for a change in national priorities, but are betrayed by a fellow student when the bomb ends up in the hands of a terrorist. Unfortunately, the telefilm, directed by Eric Laneuville, written by Tom Vaughan, and based on the best-seller "The Seventh Power" by James Mills, was shelved when its storyline was deemed too close for comfort to the events of September 11, 2001. It was eventually broadcast in 2003. Since the cancellation of Roswell (1999) in the spring of 2002, Katherine has been busy with various projects, including an appearance on UPN's update of the classic television series, The Twilight Zone (2002). That episode, entitled Cradle of Darkness (2002), aired on October 2, 2002, and featured Katherine in the role of a woman who goes back in time to stop one of the most notorious murders in history. In addition, she completed a movie, Descendant (2003), a psychological thriller inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". She has also starred as "Romy" in ABC/Touchstone's two-hour telepic, Romy and Michele: In the Beginning (2005), a prequel to the 1997 feature, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997). During the summer of 2002, Katherine made a major decision in the direction of her career when she signed on for representation in all areas with the William Morris Agency, one of the biggest and most prestigious agencies in the entertainment industry. She is now being represented by Norman Aladjem at Paradigm Agency and being managed by Nancy Heigl and Stephanie Simon and Jason Newman at Untitled Entertainment.- Actress
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Melora Hardin is an American actress, singer and director from Houston, Texas who is known for playing Jan Levinson from The Office and Trudy Monk from Monk. She also acted in The Rocketeer, 24 Dresses, 17 Again, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Transparent, The Bold Type and The Hot Chick. She had two daughters with Gildart Jackson, a British actor.- Actress
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Malin was born in Stockholm, Sweden and raised in Toronto, Canada. Her mother, Pia (Sundström), is a model and aerobics instructor, and her father, Magnus Åkerman, is an insurance broker. They moved to Toronto when she was age 2. At age 5, she began appearing in TV commercials. Her parents divorced when she was 6 and her father returned to Sweden.
At age 17, she won the Canadian title of Ford Supermodel. This enabled her to spend 3 years as a catwalk model in Europe. She decided to become a child psychologist and enrolled in York University but she was offered a guest role in Earth: Final Conflict (1997) so she turned her attention back to acting. She moved to Los Angeles in 2001 and won roles in both TV and film. Her breakthrough role came when she was cast as Silk Spectre II in Watchmen (2009).- Alexa Havins was born on 16 November 1980 in Artesia, New Mexico, USA. She is an actress, known for The Astronaut Wives Club (2015), Torchwood (2006) and Proxy (2013). She has been married to Justin Bruening since 5 June 2005. They have three children.
- Georgina Helen Henley was born July 9, 1995 in Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, the youngest of three daughters of Mike and Helen Henley. When she was young, she joined a local drama group called "Upstagers". It was there that she started her acting career, participating in stage performances such as "Babushka: A Christmas Story" and "The Pied Piper", prior to landing her first role in a film.
When Pippa Hall, casting director for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) came to Georgie's town in search of children to play the four Pevensies, she knew Georgie was perfect for the role of "Lucy" after only one audition. Finally, after 18 months of auditioning, Georgie was picked from thousands of girls to play "Lucy Pevensie" in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), which was her movie debut. She reprised her role in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). Georgie's promotion of the three Narnia films took her to New York, Orlando, Tokyo, Paris, and lots of other places around the world.
Georgie finished 6th form at Bradford Grammar School in 2012, and started at Cambridge University, in Autumn 2013, to study English. She is no longer a part of her drama club "Upstagers", but hopes to continue her acting career on the big screen, and has also done some theatre work at her school. In her free time, she enjoys watching films with her friends, and listening to and writing music. She says that if she doesn't keep acting in the future, she'd like to teach, or experiment with music or writing. - Anna Popplewell was born on December 16, 1988 in London, England as Anna Katherine Popplewell. She is an actress, known for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) and Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (2012). She is also known for her role as "Lola" on the popular CW show, Reign (2013).
- Vanessa Cater started her career in her home town of Auckland, New Zealand as an Actress and after having some success in New Zealand on a few American Features, including the lead Female Centaur on Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, was asked to consider Auditioning to become a Stuntwoman for the American Production Legend of the Seeker due to already Physical and Athletic nature. After Legend of the Seeker, Vanessa went on to work on more American Productions, Such as Spartacus and The Hobbit as both a Actress and Stuntwoman. After the Success of these Shows/Movies, Vanessa moved across the world to Los Angeles to try her hand at the exciting and daunting Hollywood market. It was not without many Struggles & Challenges. But After a few Years of Hustling & Working Hard, started making a name for herself in the Revered American TV & Film industry. In the last few years has gone on to work on some incredible productions!! Including the STARWARS, STARTREK, DC and MARVEL UNIVERSES!!
At the End of the day, Vanessa is still just a Kiwi Girl always excited to be here, striving to live the Dream!! - Allison Sarofim is an actress, producer and the founder of Sixty-Six Productions, a New York-based independent film production company with a diverse slate of projects from a host of next generation filmmakers. As an actress, Sarofim has appeared in "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" and "The Nanny Diaries. Sarofim also produced "Lake City" starring Sissy Spacek, Troy Garity, Keith Carradine, Rebecca Romijn, Drea de Matteo and Dave Matthews - that opened The Tribeca Film Festival in 2008. Sarofim is currently in post production on "Nina," a soon to be released biopic starring Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone, as well as the award winning documentary "Tell Them Anything You Want. A Portrait Of Maurice Sendak," directed by Spike Jonze for HBO. Sarofim's most recent project is "The Untitled Anita Bryant" starring Academy Award winner Julianne Moore, and actor Chris Pine, Sarofim has been featured in publications such as Vogue, Bazaar, Town and Country, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. She served as a contributing editor for Conde Nast's popular shelter magazine, Domino. Paper Magazine listed her as one of their "50 Most Beautiful People", and she will be serving as guest editor for an upcoming issue of W Magazine. Sarofim also is also a founding board member of Ballroom Marfa, a not for profit art collective in Marfa Texas.
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Sophie Winkleman was born on 5 August 1980 in London, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Wonka (2023), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) and Peep Show (2003). She has been married to Lord Frederick Windsor since 12 September 2009. They have two children.- Additional Crew
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Catherine Elizabeth Middleton was born at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, United Kingdom. She is the oldest of three children with a younger sister, Philippa ("Pippa") Charlotte and a younger brother, James William. Her mother Carole worked as a flight attendant while her father Michael worked as a flight dispatcher, both for the British Airways. They married on June 21, 1980 and founded Party Pieces, a successful mail order company that sells party supplies and decorations in 1987. Catherine and her family moved to Amman in Jordan in 1984 where her father worked for the British Airways for two and a half years. Catherine and her sister, Philippa, attended a nursery school in Jordan. In 1986, Catherine and her family returned to their home in West Berkshire, United Kingdom, where she started St. Andrew's School in Pangbourne and remained there until 1995. Catherine went on to Marlborough College Wiltshire, where she studied Chemistry, Biology and Art at A-level. She also took part in sporty activities such as tennis, hockey, netball and athletics.
At the age of 18, Catherine undertook a gap year, where she studied at the British Institute in Florence, Italy and participated in a Raleigh International programme in Chile. She also joined as a crew member on Round the World Challenge Boats in the Solent. In 2001, Catherine enrolled at the University of Saint Andrews in Fife, Scotland and graduated in 2005 with a 2:1 in History of Art. During her time at university, she continued her interest in sport by playing hockey for the university team. It was also at university where Catherine met her future husband, Prince William of Wales. Since she completed her university degree, Catherine worked for her parents' company, Party Pieces, as well as a part-time buyer in Jigsaw Junior in London.
In October 2010, during a private holiday in Kenya, her long term boyfriend, Prince William of Wales of Wales, proposed with his mother's engagement ring. The engagement was publicly announced on November 16, 2010 at a press conference and photo call in the State Rooms of St. James Palace in London. A pre-recorded TV interview with the couple followed. They married on April 29, 2011 at Westminster Abbey in London and Catherine was formally titled The Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn, and Baroness Carrickfergus. The Duchess of Cambridge has been branded a style icon with many of her outfits selling out. Ranked #8 on Tatler's list of best dressed women in 2007. Vanity Fair named her #1 Best Dressed in 2010, 2011, and 2012, while UK Harper's Bazaar named her #1 Best Dressed in 2011. The Duchess of Cambridge is patron of Action on Addiction and the National Portrait Gallery, and royal patron of East Anglia's Children's Hospices and The Art Room. She is also a volunteer with the Scout Association. With the Death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8 2022, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge has become Catherine, Princess of Wales.- Nicole Dabeau is known for Step Up Revolution (2012), Action Sports Plus (2011) and In the Qube (2011).
- Pippa Middleton was born on 6 September 1983 in Reading, Berkshire, England, UK. She has been married to James Matthews since 20 May 2017. They have three children.
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Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).
Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an American-born artist (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. Her parents are both of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Natalie's family left Israel for Washington, D.C., when she was still very young. After a few more moves, her family finally settled in New York, where she still lives to this day. She graduated with honors, and her academic achievements allowed her to attend Harvard University. She was discovered by an agent in a pizza parlor at the age of 11. She was pushed towards a career in modeling but she decided that she would rather pursue a career in acting. She was featured in many live performances, but she made her powerful film debut in the movie Léon: The Professional (1994) (aka "Léon"). Following this role Natalie won roles in such films as Heat (1995), Beautiful Girls (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996).
It was not until 1999 that Natalie received worldwide fame as Queen Amidala in the highly anticipated US$431 million-grossing prequel Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). She then she starred in two critically acclaimed comedy dramas, Anywhere But Here (1999) and Where the Heart Is (2000), followed by Closer (2004), for which she received an Oscar nomination. She reprised her role as Padme Amidala in the last two episodes of the Star Wars prequel trilogy: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). She received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Black Swan (2010).
She received a second nomination for Best Actress, for playing Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016).- Actress
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Kat Dennings was born Katherine Victoria Litwack in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, to Ellen (Schatz), a speech therapist and poet, and Gerald Litwack, a molecular pharmacologist. She is the youngest of five children. Her family is of Russian Jewish descent. Kat was predominantly home-schooled, graduating at the age of fourteen. Her family subsequently moved to Los Angeles, California to support Kat acting full-time.
After work doing commercials, she began work in television, starting with a role on HBO's Sex and the City (1998), following up with roles on Raising Dad (2001), The Scream Team (2002), Everwood (2002), Without a Trace (2002) and ER (1994), among others.
Kat made the move to the big screen with supporting roles in Raise Your Voice (2004), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Big Momma's House 2 (2006). She later achieved a level of fame with roles in The House Bunny (2008) and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008).
Kat continues to act in feature films and is an avid video blogger. Since 2011, she has starred with Beth Behrs in the CBS television series 2 Broke Girls (2011).- Jaimie Alexander was born in Greenville, South Carolina, but moved with her family to Grapevine, Texas, when she was four years old. She took theatre classes in grade school as a hobby but was kicked out in high school because she could not sing, and so she took up sports instead. At age 17 she substituted for a friend at a meeting with a scouting agency and she met her manager, Randy James, who sent her some scripts. After graduating from high school she moved to Los Angeles, California, to pursue acting.
Her career was launched in 2003 when she was cast in the leading role of Hanna Thompson in the low-budget award-winning film The Other Side (2006). According to the DVD commentary, she was originally at the audition to help out by reading against the male actors, but director Gregg Bishop decided to cast her in the leading role after hearing her perform the lines. Her second role was in 2004 in Squirrel Trap (2004), in which she played the co-lead role of Sara. A year later she was cast as Jessi XX on the ABC Family series Kyle XY (2006), in which she played the role of a superhuman being created by scientists as a laboratory experiment. She was nominated for the Saturn Awards as "Best Supporting Actress on Television" for that role in 2008.
Her biggest role came in 2011, when she was cast as Lady Sif, a warrior goddess of Asgard, in the blockbuster from Marvel Comics, Thor (2011). She later reprised her role in its sequel, Thor: The Dark World (2013). - Actress
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Rene Russo was born in Burbank, California, to Shirley (Balocca), a barmaid and factory laborer, and Nino Russo. Her father, a sculptor and mechanic, left the family when Rene was just two, and thus her mother raised Rene and her sister, Toni, as a single mom. Her father was of Italian descent, and her mother was of Italian and German-English-Irish ancestry.
In junior high school, Rene was plagued with scoliosis and had to wear a full-torso brace. She was already a tall girl, which earned her the nickname "Jolly Green Giant" from her classmates. She entered Burroughs High School, along with classmate Ron Howard, and even though her brace had been removed, she was still somewhat of a loner. Unable to deal with academics and the school social scene, Rene dropped out of school in the tenth grade. Since money was tight, she began to take a variety of part-time jobs over the next 18 months, many for the free benefits. She sold refreshments at a movie theater, where she could see free movies; worked as a restaurant hostess, where her meals were free; and worked as a store cashier at Disneyland, where she had free admission. She often had two jobs at one time. Her last job, which was solely for the paycheck, was a full-time job at an eyeglass factory, inspecting contact lenses.
In 1972, the 17-year-old was attending a Rolling Stones concert when she was approached by John Crosby, a scout and manager from International Creative Management. He told her she should be a model and had test photos made of her. Within a few months, Rene signed a contract with Ford Modeling Agency and within a year had become a successful print and photographers model. Soon her modeling breakthrough came when she graced the cover of Vogue. By 1975, she had appeared on numerous magazine covers, was one of the most successful models in America, and was also starting to be seen in several TV commercials through the 1980s. She would define what a top fashion model was for years to come.
By her 30th birthday, demand for her began to dwindle, as it did for most models at that age. She did a few more commercials and then turned her back on modeling and show business for a while. Financially secure for the next several years, she began an intense period of literature and Christian theology. She also began to study theater and acting, and began appearing in theater roles at small regional theaters in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California.
Her television series debut came in 1987 with a supporting part on the short-lived TV series Sable (1987). In 1989 she made her motion picture debut with the part of the lead characters girlfriend in the film Major League (1989). Her subsequent roles were that of girlfriends and supportive wives in a few films, until her breakthrough as an Internal Affairs detective in Lethal Weapon 3 (1992). Rene Russo has been praised for her ability to hold her own against her major male co-stars, who have included Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner and Pierce Brosnan. Two of her performances within the last few years have gotten her recognition as both a major dramatic actress and a talented character actress. One was as the mother of a kidnapped son in Ransom (1996). The other was as the cartoon femme fatale foreign spy in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000). Although the latter received mixed reviews among moviegoers and critics, Russo was praised for her performance of a role originally slated for Meryl Streep in 1992. Rene Russo has been married to screenwriter Dan Gilroy since 1992, and they have one daughter, named Rose. They reside in Brentwood, California.- Kimberly Evan is an Actor and Singer born in Warren, PA to Michael Fredrick Evan, a international executive with GTE and Barbara Lundgren Evan, a teacher and principal. She is of direct Swedish descent from her maternal side of the family and distant Czech descent from her paternal. She found her true passion for acting at age 10 when she attended a movie, by herself, after swim team practice as her parents were double booked with her brother and sisters sporting events. Her swim team career had pecked with 3 record breaking times. She told the woman at the front desk of the YMCA where she was going and she went to see "The Philadelphia Story" starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. She remembers thinking to her self, "I can do that". It was a world she wanted to be a part of. Years later she would earn a place at New Yorks' Academy of Dramatic Arts with a audition scene from"The Philadelphia Story". In High School she sang and danced in musicals, and toured Europe singing in an A Capella Choir. She didn't consider acting as a career until she took an acting class with Dr. Lammel at Westminster College, PA. She earned the only A given in class that year. She continued her studies of french theater in Cannes France, meisner technique at The Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York and enrolled in a masters program in Psychology at Columbia University. She has starred and co-starred in multiple independent films and guest starred on television shows such as "Bones" and "Desperate Housewives". Her best work is yet to come.
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Carla Gugino was born in Sarasota, Florida, to Carl Gugino, an orthodontist. She is of Italian (father) and English-Irish (mother) ancestry. Gugino moved with her mother to Paradise, California, when Carla was just five years old. During her childhood, they moved many times within the state. But she remained a straight-A student throughout high school and graduated as valedictorian. A major modeling agency discovered Carla in San Diego and sent her to New York to begin a new career when she was 15. New York was more than she could handle at that young age, so she returned to LA in the summer, modeling and enrolling in an acting class at the suggestion of her aunt, Carol Merrill, known from Let's Make a Deal (1963). During her free time, Carla enjoys yoga, traveling and spending time with her friends in Los Angeles.- Actress
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Maggie stars as "Althea" on the popular AMC series "Fear the Walking Dead". She is most often recognized from the hit series "Lost" , "Californication" on Showtime, and the "Taken" and "Twilight" franchises. Maggie has also starred on Broadway in William Inge's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Picnic" directed by the Tony-nominated director Sam Gold . Maggie was named one of Variety's Top 10 Actors to Watch.- Jonna Walsh is from Los Angeles County, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Couples Retreat (2009) and Faster (2010). She has also appeared on Code Black (2015) (in the Hero Complex (2016) episode), Baby Daddy (2012) (in six episodes), Silicon Valley (2014) (in Fiduciary Duties (2014)), Fairly Legal (2011) (in Teenage Wasteland (2012)), and No Ordinary Family (2010) (three episodes). She has been married to Lee DeWyze since July 21, 2012.
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Moon Bloodgood was born on 20 September 1975 in Alliance, Nebraska, USA. She is an actress, known for Terminator Salvation (2009), Faster (2010) and The Sessions (2012). She was previously married to Grady Hall.- Actress
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Gloria Garayua was born in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Maid (2021), Reckoning (2019) and Grey's Anatomy (2005).