December 5th, 2011

Catherine Zeta Jones was born in Swansea, Wales on 25 September 1969, to Patricia (née Fair), a seamstress of Irish descent, and David James Jones, a Welsh sweet factory owner. She was named after her grandmothers, Catherine Fair and Zeta Jones. She now hyphenates her name as “Catherine Zeta-Jones”, accepting the mistake by the American press early in her career.

Steven Spielberg, who noted her performance in the mini-series Titanic, recommended her to Martin Campbell, the director of The Mask of Zorro. Zeta-Jones subsequently landed a lead role in the film, alongside compatriot Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas. She learned dancing, riding, sword-fighting and took part in dialect classes to play her role as Elena. Commenting on her performance, Variety noted, “Zeta-Jones is bewitchingly lovely as the center of everyone’s attention, and she throws herself into the often physical demands of her role with impressive grace.” She won the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Female Newcomer and received an Empire Award nomination for Best British Actress and a Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress. In 1999, she co-starred with Sean Connery in the film Entrapment, and alongside Liam Neeson and Lili Taylor in The Haunting. The following year, she starred in the critically acclaimed Traffic with future husband Michael Douglas. Zeta-Jones’ performance earned her her first Golden Globe nomination, as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture as well as many other nominations and acclaim.

Zeta-Jones met actor Michael Douglas, who shares the same birthday as her, and is exactly 25 years her senior, at the Deauville Film Festival in France in August 1998, after being introduced by Danny DeVito. They began dating in March 1999, even though Douglas was still married. Zeta-Jones claims that when they met, he used the line “I’d like to father your children.” They became engaged on 31 December 1999, and were married at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on 18 November 2000, just weeks after Douglas’ divorce was finalised. A traditional Welsh choir (Côr Cymraeg Rehoboth) sang at their wedding. Her Welsh gold wedding ring includes a Celtic motif and was purchased in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth. They have two children. Their son, Dylan Michael Douglas (named after Dylan Thomas), was born on 8 August 2000, with Zeta Jones’ pregnancy incorporated into her role in Traffic. Their daughter, Carys Zeta Douglas, was born on 20 April 2003. The family currently lives in New York City.
Zeta-Jones has two brothers, David and Lyndon. Her father’s cousin is married to singer Bonnie Tyler, from nearby Neath, Wales. Her younger brother, Lyndon Jones, is her personal manager and producer for Milkwood Films. Zeta-Jones’ parents recently moved from their Mayals property to a £2 million home two miles (3 km) further west along the Swansea coast, paid for by their daughter.
In 2004, Douglas and Zeta-Jones took legal action against stalker Dawnette Knight, who was accused of sending violent letters to the couple that contained graphic threats on Zeta-Jones’ life. Testifying, Zeta-Jones said the threats left her so shaken she feared a nervous breakdown. Knight claimed she had been in love with Douglas and admitted to the offences, which took place between October 2003 and May 2004. She was sentenced to three years in prison.
Douglas and Zeta-Jones own a portfolio of property around the world, with homes in Barbados, Bermuda, Manhattan, Aspen, Colorado, Quebec and Mallorca. Their properties were profiled in an interview in A Place in the Sun magazine in December 2008.
Zeta-Jones has become a keen golfer, and in October 2010 played in the Star Trophy in Hainan, China.
In April 2011, Zeta-Jones sought treatment for bipolar II disorder, checking herself into Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut.

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December 23rd, 2010

Ben Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.
After beginning his acting career with a play, Stiller wrote several mockumentaries, and was offered two of his own shows, both entitled The Ben Stiller Show. He began acting in films, and had his directorial debut with Reality Bites. Throughout his career he has since written, starred in, directed, and/or produced over fifty films including Heavyweights, There’s Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, Zoolander, Dodgeball, and Tropic Thunder. In addition he has had multiple cameos in music videos, television shows, and films with Alex Merrill.
Stiller is a member of the comedic acting brotherhood colloquially known as the Frat Pack. His films have grossed more than $2.1 billion domestically (United States and Canada), with an average of $73 million per film. Throughout his career, he has received several awards and honors including an Emmy Award, several MTV Movie Awards, and a Teen Choice Award.

Stiller was born in New York City. His father, Jerry Stiller, is Jewish; his mother Anne Meara, who is of Irish Catholic background. Meara converted to Judaism after marrying Jerry Stiller(though the family celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas). Stiller’s parents frequently took him on the sets of their appearances, including an appearance on The Mike Douglas Show when he was six. He admitted in an interview that he considered his childhood unusual: “In some ways, it was a show-business upbringing—a lot of traveling, a lot of late nights—not what you’d call traditional.” His sister, actress Amy Stiller, has made appearances in many of his productions, including Reality Bites, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and Zoolander.
Stiller attended the Cathedral School in and graduated from the Calhoun School in New York in 1983. He started performing on the cabaret circuit as opening act to the cabaret siren Jadin Wong. Stiller then enrolled as a film student at the University of California, Los Angeles. After nine months, Stiller left school to move back to New York City.

Ben Stiller dated several actresses during his early television and film career including Jeanne Tripplehorn, Calista Flockhart, and Amanda Peet. In May 2000, Stiller married Christine Taylor, whom he met while filming a never-broadcast television pilot for the Fox Broadcasting network called Heat Vision and Jack, which starred Jack Black. The couple appeared onscreen together in Zoolander, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and Tropic Thunder. He and Taylor reside in Hollywood Hills and have a daughter, Ella Olivia, born April 10, 2002, and a son, Quinlin Dempsey, born July 10, 2005.
Stiller is a supporter of the Democratic Party and donated money to John Kerry’s 2004 U.S. Presidential campaign. In February 2007, Stiller attended a fundraiser for Barack Obama and later donated to the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaigns of Democrats Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton. Stiller is also a supporter of several charities including Declare Yourself, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation. In 2010, Stiller joined Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Robin Williams, and other Hollywood stars in “The Cove PSA: My Friend is… “, an effort to stop the slaughter of dolphins and protect the Japanese population from the toxic levels of mercury found in dolphin meat.
In a 1999 interview with GQ and later in a 2001 interview with Hollywood.com, Stiller was quoted as saying that he has bipolar disorder, an illness he said that ran in his family. In interviews in November and December 2006, Stiller claimed that this earlier interview’s comment about the disorder was false. In one interview he clarified, “I said jokingly in GQ that I was, like, crazy, and it came out as: Ben Stiller, bipolar manic-depressive!”
Stiller frequently does impersonations of many of his favorite performers, including Bono, Tom Cruise, Bruce Springsteen, and David Blaine. In an interview with Parade, he commented that Robert Klein, George Carlin, and Jimmie Walker were inspirations for his comedy career. Stiller is also a self-professed Trekkie and appeared in the television special Star Trek: 30 Years and Beyond to express his love of the show, as well as a comedy roast for William Shatner. He frequently references the show in his work, and named his production company Red Hour Productions after the original Star Trek episode “The Return of the Archons”.

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December 22nd, 2010

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born on November 11, 1974, he is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator (2004). In addition, he has won a Silver Bear, a Chlotrudis Award and a Satellite Award among others, and has been nominated by the Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

DiCaprio, an only child, was born in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Irmelin (née Indenbirken), is a former legal secretary, and his father, George DiCaprio, is an underground comic artist and producer/distributor of comic books. DiCaprio’s mother moved from Oer-Erkenschwick at the Ruhr, Germany, to the U.S. during the 1950s, while DiCaprio’s father is a fourth-generation American of half south-Italian (from the Naples region) and half German descent (from Bavaria in southern Germany). DiCaprio’s maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken (1915–2008), who was born Yelena Smirnova, was a Russian immigrant to Germany. In a 2010 conversation with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, DiCaprio stated that his grandfather was also Russian, and added: “So I am really half-Russian”. DiCaprio’s paternal grandmother, Olga Anne Jacobs (1904–1984), was German-born.
DiCaprio’s parents met while attending college together and subsequently moved to Los Angeles. He was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when DiCaprio first kicked. His parents divorced when he was a year old and he lived mostly with his mother, although his father was around intermittently. During his childhood, DiCaprio was interested in baseball cards, comic books, and frequently visited museums with his father.
DiCaprio and his mother lived in several Los Angeles neighborhoods, such as Echo Park, and at 1874 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Feliz district (which was later converted into a local public library), while his mother worked several jobs to support them. He attended Seeds Elementary School and graduated from John Marshall High School a few blocks away, after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years.

DiCaprio is a close friend of Tobey Maguire, whom he met while auditioning for the Parenthood series in 1990 and is a longtime friend of both fellow actors Kevin Connolly and Lukas Haas, and Titanic and Revolutionary Road co-star Kate Winslet. He was a childhood friend of the late Christopher Pettiet.
DiCaprio at the red carpet at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. His romantic relationships have been widely covered in the media. DiCaprio has dated women including model Kristen Zang on-and-off for several years, and British model and socialite Emma Miller. In 2001, he met Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen with whom he had an on-and-off relationship until their separation in 2005. DiCaprio began a relationship with Israeli model and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue covergirl Bar Refaeli in November 2005 after meeting her at a Las Vegas party thrown for members of U2. In the course of their trip to Israel in March 2007, the couple met with Israeli president Shimon Peres and visited Refaeli’s hometown of Hod HaSharon. The relationship was on hold for a period of 6 months starting in June 2009. DiCaprio owns a home in Los Angeles, California, and an apartment in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York. In 2009, he bought an island in Belize on which he is planning to create an eco-friendly resort. He also owns an apartment in Riverhouse, an eco-friendly building overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan

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December 12th, 2010

Julia Roberts was born on October 28, 1967. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman, which grossed $464 million worldwide. After receiving Academy Award nominations for Steel Magnolias in 1990 and Pretty Woman in 1991, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2001 for her performance in Erin Brockovich. Her films My Best Friend’s Wedding, Mystic Pizza, Notting Hill, Runaway Bride, Valentine’s Day, The Pelican Brief, Ocean’s Eleven and Twelve have collectively brought box office receipts of over $2.4 billion, making her one of the most successful actors in terms of box office receipts. Roberts had become one of the highest-paid actresses in the world.

Roberts was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the daughter of Betty Lou and Walter Grady Roberts. Her parents were Baptist and Catholic. Her older brother, Eric Roberts, and sister, Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors. Roberts’ parents, one-time actors and playwrights, met while performing theatrical productions for the armed forces and later co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia. While her mother was pregnant with Julia, she and her husband ran an acting school for children in Decatur, Georgia.

Roberts’ mother filed for divorce in 1971, with the divorce being finalized early in 1972. The family moved to Smyrna, Georgia in 1972, where Roberts attended Fitzhugh Lee Elementary School, Griffin Middle School and Campbell High School. Her mother re-married to Michael Motes and had another daughter. Roberts’ father died of cancer when she was ten.

In school, Roberts played clarinet in the band. She wanted to be a veterinarian as a child. After graduating from Smyrna’s Campbell High School, she headed to New York to join her brother and sister Lisa Roberts Gillan and pursue a career in acting by joining acting classes. She reverted to her original name “Julia Roberts”. Her niece Emma Roberts, whom Julia used to take to movie sets when she was a young girl, has joined her father and aunts in the acting business.

Roberts’ personal life has been in the spotlight. She has had reported romantic relationships with numerous famous men, including Liam Neeson, Dylan McDermott, Kiefer Sutherland, Lyle Lovett, Matthew Perry, and Benjamin Bratt. She was briefly engaged to McDermott, her Steel Magnolias co-star. In August 1990, Roberts and Sutherland announced their engagement. Roberts broke the engagement three days before the wedding. Roberts subsequently went to Ireland with Jason Patric. On June 27, 1993, she married country singer Lyle Lovett. The wedding took place at St. James Lutheran Church in Marion, Indiana. In March 1995, the couple separated, and subsequently divorced. In 1998, Roberts began dating Law & Order star Benjamin Bratt, and he was her escort for the March 25, 2001 Academy Awards ceremony at which she won her Oscar. Three months later, in June 2001, Roberts and Bratt announced that they were no longer a couple. Roberts met her current husband, cameraman Daniel Moder, on the set of her movie The Mexican in 2001. At the time, Moder was married to Vera Steimberg Moder. He and Roberts wed on July 4, 2002, at her ranch in Taos, New Mexico. Together, they have three children, twins Hazel Patricia Moder and Phinnaeus “Finn” Walter Moder (born November 28, 2004) and Henry Daniel Moder (born June 18, 2007). Roberts disclosed in an 2010 interview for Elle magazine that she is practicing Hinduism. Julia Roberts is a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji). A picture of Neem Karoli Baba drew Roberts to Hinduism.

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December 12th, 2010

Also known as Bruce Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany on March 19, 1955. His father David Willis was an American soldier, and mother was a Kassel-born German, Marlene, who worked in a bank. Willis is the eldest of four children: he has a sister, Florence, and a brother, David. His brother Robert died of pancreatic cancer in 2001, aged 42. After being discharged from the military in 1957, Willis’s father took his family back to Penns Grove, New Jersey, where he worked as a welder and factory worker. His parents separated in 1972, while Willis was in his teens. Willis attended Penns Grove High School in his hometown, where he encountered issues with a stutter. He was nicknamed Buck-Buck by his schoolmates. Finding it easy to express himself on stage and losing his stutter in the process, Willis began performing on stage and his high school activities were marked by such things as the drama club and student council president.
After high school, Willis took a job as a security guard at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant and also transported work crews at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deepwater, New Jersey. He quit after a colleague was killed on the job, and became a regular at several bars. Later on Willis enrolled in the drama program at Montclair State University, where he was cast in the class production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Willis left school in his junior year and moved to New York City.
Willis returned to the bar scene, only this time for a part-time job at the West Bank Cafe in New York City’s Manhattan Plaza. After multiple auditions, Willis made his theater debut in the off-Broadway production of Heaven and Earth. He gained more experience and exposure in Fool for Love, and in a Levi’s commercial.
At the premiere for the film Stakeout, Willis met actress Demi Moore. Willis married Moore on November 21, 1987 and had three daughters: Rumer Willis (b. August 16, 1988), Scout LaRue Willis (b. July 20, 1991) and Tallulah Belle Willis (b. February 3, 1994) before the couple divorced on October 18, 2000. The couple gave no public reason for their breakup. Regarding the divorce, Willis stated, “I felt I had failed as a father and a husband by not being able to make it work.” He credited actor Will Smith for helping him cope with the situation. After their breakup, rumors persisted that the couple planned to re-marry, until Moore married the actor Ashton Kutcher. Willis has maintained a close relationship with both Moore and Kutcher, even attending their wedding. Willis and Moore currently share custody of their daughters.
Willis was engaged to Brooke Burns until they broke up in 2004 after ten months together. He married Emma Heming in Turks and Caicos on March 21, 2009; guests included his three daughters, Moore, and Kutcher. The ceremony was not legally binding, so the couple wed again in a civil ceremony in Beverly Hills six days later. Willis has expressed interest in having more children.
Willis owns property in Los Angeles, rents an apartment in the Trump Tower in New York City, and Trump Place, as well as a home in Malibu, California, a ranch in Montana, a beach home on Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos, and multiple properties in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Willis owns his own motion picture production company called Cheyenne Enterprises, which he started with his business partner Arnold Rifkin in 2000. He also owns several small businesses in Hailey, Idaho, including The Mint Bar and The Liberty Theater and is a co-founder of Planet Hollywood, with actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. In 2009 Willis signed a contract to become the international face of Belvedere SA’s Sobieski vodka in exchange for 3.3% ownership in the company.

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November 21st, 2010

Hanks was born in Concord, California. His father, Amos Mefford Hanks (born in Glenn County, California, on March 9, 1924 – died in Alameda, California, on January 31, 1992), was a distant relative of President Abraham Lincoln, through Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks. His mother, Portuguese-American Janet Marylyn (née Frager; born in Alameda County, California, on January 18, 1932), was a hospital worker. Hanks’s parents divorced in 1960. The family’s three oldest children, Sandra, Larry and Tom, went with their father, while the youngest, Jim, now an actor and film maker, remained with his mother in Red Bluff, California.

Amos Hanks became a single parent, working long hours and often leaving the children to fend for themselves, an exercise in self-reliance that served the siblings well. In addition to having a family history of Catholicism and Mormonism, Hanks was a “Bible-toting evangelical teenager” for several years. In school, Hanks was unpopular with students and teachers alike. Hanks studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California, and after two years, transferred to California State University, Sacramento.

In 1979, Hanks packed his bags for New York City, where he made his film debut in the low-budget slasher film He Knows You’re Alone and got a part in the television movie Mazes and Monsters. In 1981 Hanks landed a lead role on the ABC television pilot of Bosom Buddies, playing the role of Kip Wilson. Hanks moved to Los Angeles, where he and Peter Scolari played a pair of young advertising men forced to dress as women so they could live in an inexpensive all-female hotel. Hanks had previously partnered with Scolari in the 1970s game show Make Me Laugh. Hanks career reached a bit of a halt with some unsuccessful acting sessions.

After a few more flops and a moderate success with Dragnet, Hanks succeeded with the film Big (1988), both at the box office and within the industry. The film established Hanks as a major Hollywood talent. It was followed later that year by Punchline, in which he and Sally Field co-star as struggling stand-up comedians. Only the 1989 movie Turner and Hooch brought success for Hanks during this time.

Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball star turned manager in A League of Their Own. In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost thirty-five pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. Hanks followed Philadelphia with the 1994 summer hit Forrest Gump. Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars.

Hanks’ next role–astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the 1995 movie Apollo 13–reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The same year, Hanks starred in the animated blockbuster Toy Story as the voice of the toy Sheriff Woody.
Hanks’s next project was no less expensive. For Saving Private Ryan he teamed up with Steven Spielberg to make a film about D-Day, the landing at Omaha Beach, and a quest through war-torn France to bring back a soldier who has a ticket home.

Hanks is ranked the highest all time box office star with over $3.639 billion total box office gross, an average of $107 million per film. He has been involved with seventeen films that grossed over $100 million at the worldwide box office. The highest grossing film he has starred in is 2010′s Toy Story 3.

Hanks was married to American actress Samantha Lewes from 1978 to 1987. The couple had two children, son Colin Hanks (also an actor) and daughter Elizabeth Ann. In 1988, Hanks married actress Rita Wilson.

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November 19th, 2010

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, the sixth of 11 children, and the second son of Hutton Gibson and Irish-born Anne Patricia (née Reilly, died 1990). His paternal grandmother was the Australian opera soprano, Eva Mylott (1875–1920). One of Gibson’s younger brothers, Donal, is also an actor. Gibson’s first name comes from Saint Mel, fifth-century Irish saint, and founder of Gibson’s mother’s native diocese, Ardagh, while his second name, Colm-Cille, is also shared by an Irish saint and is the name of the parish in County Longford where Gibson’s mother was born and raised. Because of his mother, Gibson holds dual Irish and American citizenship.

Soon after being awarded $145,000 in a work-related-injury lawsuit against New York Central Railroad on February 14, 1968, Hutton Gibson relocated his family to West Pymble, Sydney, Australia. Gibson was 12 years old at the time. The move to Hutton’s mother’s native Australia was for economic reasons, and because Hutton thought the Australian Defence Forces would reject his oldest son for the draft during the Vietnam War. Gibson was educated by members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers at St. Leo’s Catholic College in Wahroonga, New South Wales, during his high school years.

Gibson gained very favorable notices from film critics when he first entered the cinematic scene, as well as comparisons to several classic movie stars. In 1982, Vincent Canby wrote that “Mr. Gibson recalls the young Steve McQueen… I can’t define “star quality,” but whatever it is, Mr. Gibson has it.” Gibson has also been likened to “a combination Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart.” Gibson’s roles in the “Mad Max” series of films, Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, and the “Lethal Weapon” series of films earned him the label of “action hero”.Later, Gibson expanded into a variety of acting projects including human dramas such as Hamlet, and comedic roles such as those in Maverick and What Women Want. He expanded beyond acting into directing and producing, with: The Man Without a Face, in 1993; Braveheart, in 1995; The Passion of the Christ, in 2004; and Apocalypto, in 2006. Jess Cagle of Time has compared Gibson to Cary Grant, Sean Connery, and Robert Redford. Connery once suggested Gibson should play the next James Bond to Connery’s M. Gibson turned down the role, reportedly because he feared being typecast (when an actor becomes greatly affiliated with a fictional character).

Outside his career, remarks by Gibson have generated accusations of homophobia, misogyny, and antisemitism; he has previously attributed the statements to his battle with alcoholism.

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October 21st, 2010

Woody Allen was born as Allan Stewart Konigsberg on December 1, 1935 is an American actor, screenwriter, director, comedian, jazz musician, author and playwright. As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues to do today.

He broke into show business at age 15 when received $200 a week writing jokes for the local paper and pumping out an estimated 2000 jokes a day. He then moved on to write jokes for talk shows, but felt that his jokes were being wasted. His agents, Charles Joffe and Jack Rollins convinced him to tell his own jokes through stand-up comedy. He evntually and reluctantly agreed initially performing with such fear of the audience that he would cover his ears when they applauded his jokes he eventually became very successful at this.

After a few years of on stage performance he was approached to write a script for Warren Beatty to star in: “What’s New Pussycat?” and was also offered a minor acting role in film itslef. However as production was ongiong Allen gave himself more and better lines leaving Beatty with less compelling dialogue which led to Beatty quitting the project. Beatty was then replaced by Peter Sellers who made sure to demand the best lines and most screen time. From this Woody learnt that he would not be able to work on a film without complete control over its production.

Woody’s directorial debut was in “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?” which was a Japanese spy flick that he dubbed with his own comedic dialogue. Although, his realdirectorial debut came the next year in the mockumentary “Take the Money and Run.” He has written, directed and starred in just about a film every year since then, while simultaneously writing over a dozen plays and several books of comedy.

While best known for his romantic comedies of “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” Woody has made many transitions in his films throughout the years, starting with productions like “Love and Death” and “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask” to his more storied and romantic comedies of “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan” and “Hannah and Her Sisters” to the Bergman-esque films of “Stardust Memories” and “Interiors;” and then on to the more recent, but varied works of “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Husbands and Wives,” “Mighty Aphrodite,” “Celebrity” and “Deconstructing Harry;” and lastly to his film of the last decade, which vary from the light comedy of “Scoop,” to the self-destructive darkness of “Match Point” and, most recently, to the beautiful tale of “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

Although his stories and style has greatly changed over the years, his views on art and his mastery of filmmaking leaves him as one of the best filmmakers of our time.

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September 1st, 2010

Jack Nicholson was born on April 22, 1937. Nicholson was brought up believing that his grandparents, John Joseph Nicholson (a department store window dresser in Manasquan, New Jersey) and Ethel May Rhoads (a hairdresser, beautician and amateur artist in Manasquan), were his parents. Nicholson only discovered that his “parents” were actually his grandparents and his sister was in fact his mother in 1974, after a journalist for Time magazine who was doing a feature on Nicholson informed him of the fact. By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). Nicholson has stated he does not know who his father is, saying “Only Ethel and June knew and they never told anybody”, and has chosen not to have a DNA test or to pursue the matter.
Nicholson grew up in Neptune City, New Jersey. He was raised in his mother’s Roman Catholic religion. Nick, as he was known to his high school friends, attended nearby Manasquan High School, where he was voted “class clown” by the Class of 1954. A theatre and a drama award at the school are named in his honor. In 2004, Nicholson attended his 50-year high school reunion accompanied by his aunt Lorraine.

He has been romantically linked to numerous actresses and models, including Michelle Phillips, Bebe Buell, and Lara Flynn Boyle. Nicholson’s longest relationship was for 16 years with actress Anjelica Huston, from 1973 to 1989, the daughter of film director John Huston. However, the relationship ended when the media reported that Rebecca Broussard had become pregnant with his child. Nicholson and Broussard had two children together, Lorraine Nicholson (born 1990) and Raymond Nicholson (born 1992). Jack’s other children are Jennifer Nicholson (born 1963 with Sandra Knight) and Honey Hollman (b. 1981 with Winnie Hollman). Actress Susan Anspach contends that her son, Caleb Goddard (born 1970), was fathered by Jack, but he has never made any public statements about the allegation.

Nicholson lived next door to Marlon Brando for a number of years on Mulholland Drive in Beverly Hills. Warren Beatty also lived nearby, earning the road the nickname “Bad Boy Drive”. After Brando’s death in 2004, Nicholson purchased his neighbor’s bungalow for $6.1 million, with the purpose of having it demolished. Nicholson stated that it was done out of respect to Brando’s legacy, as it had become too expensive to renovate the “derelict” building which was plagued by mold.
Though he has not been very public about his political views, Nicholson has considered himself a lifelong Democrat. On February 4, 2008, he announced his endorsement of Senator Hillary Clinton in her race for the President of the United States. In an interview on Rick Dees’ radio program, Nicholson said, “Mrs. Clinton has been involved in issues, everything from health care, which we know and prison reform and helping the military, speaking for women and speaking for Americans. And besides, it’s about time we have a Prez with a nice tush.

Notable films in which he has starred include, in chronological order, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Shining, Reds, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt, Something’s Gotta Give, and The Departed.

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June 10th, 2010

Tony Shalhoub was born on October 9, 1953. He has won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his work in TV series Monk. Tony was raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His father, Joe Shalhoub, emigrated from Lebanon to the United States as an orphan at the age of 10. He married Shalhoub’s mother, Helen, a second-generation Lebanese-American, and founded a family grocery chain, starting with a store in downtown Green Bay. The second youngest of the couple’s 10 children, Tony Shalhoub was introduced to the theater by an older sister who put his name forward as an extra in a high school production of The King and I. Shalhoub graduated from Green Bay East High School, where his senior peers named him the best dressed and most likely to succeed. In his senior year he suffered a setback, breaking his leg in a fall off the stage into the pit during a rehearsal. Recovering quickly, he was able to perform in the school’s final play of the year. He has a bachelor’s degree in drama from the University of Southern Maine in Portland, and a masters from the Yale School of Drama in 1980.

Shalhoub married actress Brooke Adams in 1992. The two have worked together in several films, and Adams made several guest appearances on Monk, almost always as different characters. Shalhoub and Adams are currently appearing on Broadway together in the 2010 hit revival of Lend Me a Tenor.
At the time of their wedding Adams had an adopted daughter, Josie Lynn (born 1988), whom Shalhoub adopted. In 1994, they adopted another daughter, Sophie (born 1993). The family resides in Los Angeles and Green Bay, Wisconsin.
In 2006, Shalhoub’s brother, Dan, appeared on the reality show American Inventor, pitching the Sha-Poopie, a catch-in-action pooper scooper. Judges rejected it. The invention has since appeared on an episode of Monk. Tony Shalhoub is the cousin of Chicago radio personality Jonathon Brandmeier. He is also the brother-in-law of former Guiding Light actress Lynne Adams

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