AKA Beatrice Neuwirth

Born: 31-Dec-1958
Birthplace: Newark, NJ
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor, Dancer, Musician
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Dr. Lilith Sternin-Crane on Cheers
Father: Lee Neuwirth (mathematician, triathlete)
Mother: Sydney Anne Neuwirth
Brother: Peter Neuwirth (actuary)
Husband: Paul Dorman (m. 1984, div. 1991)
Husband: Michael Danek
Boyfriend: George Stephanopoulos (2000)
She was born Beatrice Neuwirth to Jewish American parents Lee, a mathematician, and Sydney Anne, an artist, in Princeton, New Jersey. She attended the Chapin School of Princeton. She began to study dance at the age of five, and chose it as her field of concentration when she attended Juilliard in New York City in 1976 and 1977. During this period, she performed with the Princeton Ballet Company in Peter and the Wolf, The Nutcracker, and Coppelia and appeared in community theater musicals.
Neuwirth made her Broadway debut in the role of Sheila in A Chorus Line in 1980. She has been featured in revivals of Little Me (1982) Sweet Charity (1986), for which she received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and Damn Yankees (1994). It was with the 1996 revival of Chicago, in which she starred as showgirl and killer Velma Kelly, that she gained her greatest stage recognition. Her performance garnered her Tony and Drama Desk Awards as Best Lead Actress in a Musical. In 2004 she mounted a show, "Here Lies Jenny", that featured songs by Kurt Weill, sung and danced by Neuwirth and a four-person supporting cast, as part of an unspoken ambiguous story in an anonymous seedy bar possibly in Berlin in the 1930s. This show was performed in the Zipper Theater on W. 37 St. in New York, initially only at 11 PM on weekends; it was eventually expanded to include an earlier show weekend evenings also. Here Lies Jenny was also presented by Ms. Neuwirth in San Francisco in 2005. On December 31, 2006, Neuwirth returned to the still-running Broadway production of Chicago, this time in the role of Roxie Hart.
Her screen credits include Green Card (with Andie MacDowell and Gérard Depardieu), Bugsy (with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening), Jumanji (with Robin Williams), Summer of Sam, Barry Levinson's Liberty Heights, Tadpole (for which the Seattle Film Critics named her Best Supporting Actress), and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
Among television viewers, Neuwirth is best known as Dr. Lilith Sternin, the conservatively dressed and emotionally repressed psychiatrist who married Dr. Frasier Crane on the hit comedy series Cheers, in which she appeared from 1986 to 1993. She won two Emmy Awards for the role, in 1990 and 1991. The character also made an appearance in the series Wings and eleven episodes of the Cheers spin-off Frasier, which garned her a 1995 Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. Her additional small-screen credits include three shortlived dramatic series, Deadline in 2000, Hack in 2003 and Law & Order: Trial by Jury in 2005. She has appeared as herself in an episode of Will and Grace and on Celebrity Jeopardy!

AKA Eliza Patricia Dushku

Born: 30-Dec-1980
Birthplace: Boston, MA
Gender: Female
Religion: Mormon
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Tru Calling
Father: Philip Dushku (teacher, Boston)
Mother: Judy Dushku (professor at Suffolk University)
Brother: Ben Dushku
Brother: Nate Dushku (actor, b. 1977)
Brother: Aaron Dushku
Boyfriend: Colby (a Ralph Lauren model, ex-)
Dushku was born in Watertown, Massachusetts to Philip R. Dushku (born June 1, 1941), an Albanian-American administrator-teacher in the Boston Public Schools and Judith (Judy) Rasmussen (born March 30, 1942) (a half-Danish-American university administrator and professor at Suffolk University); She graduated from Watertown High School (Massachusetts) as a teenager. She was raised a Mormon, the faith of her mother (though she is not actively practicing). She has three older brothers, Aaron, Benjamin (Ben) (born February 5, 1976), and Nathan (Nate) (born June 8, 1977, in Boston, Massachusetts), the last of whom is also an actor and a model. Her parents divorced when she was still an infant.
As a teenager Dushku attended Beaver Country Day School and Watertown High School.
Early career
Dushku came to the attention of casting agents when she was 10. She was chosen at the end of a five month search throughout the United States for the lead role of Alice, opposite Juliette Lewis in the film That Night. In 1993, Dushku landed a role as Pearl alongside Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in This Boy's Life, a role that she said opened a lot of doors. Dushku says that DiCaprio taught her how to deal with bullies and other high school dangers, for which she is grateful.
The following year, she played the teenage daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies. She also had parts as Paul Reiser's daughter in Bye Bye, Love, as Cindy Johnson with Halle Berry and Jim Belushi in Race the Sun, as well as roles in a television movie and a short film.
Dushku took some time off from acting to finish her junior and senior years of high school. She was accepted to the George Washington University in Washington, DC and Suffolk University in Boston, where her mother serves as professor of government and previously served as dean of the campus in Dakar, Senegal.
Later roles
After completing high school, Dushku returned to acting with the role of Faith, a Slayer much more troubled than the main character Buffy. Though initially planned as a five episode role, the character became so popular that she stayed on for the entirety of the third season and returned for a two-part appearance in season four, after which the remainder of her original story arc was played out as part of the first season of the Buffy spinoff series Angel. Repentant and rededicated, Faith returned as a heroine in a number of further episodes of Angel and in the last five episodes of Buffy.
Because of her convincing portrayal of a sociopath, she became an icon to many criminals. She was inundated with piles of fan mail from legions of prisoners. She said that:
I've been getting fan mail from maximum security penitentiaries and death row. What are the authorities thinking of in playing a show with young teenage girls to Death Row inmates? They write everything — disgusting things that you don't even want to know about. And they send me pictures — 'Oh, here's a picture of me before I was incarcerated!' — and there's some guy sat on the sofa with a bottle of beer and a moustache, and a big gut. It's so creepy. Way more creepy than Buffy.
In 2000, Dushku starred in Soul Survivors, reuniting her with Race The Sun co-star Casey Affleck. She followed that up with the cheerleader comedy Bring It On with Kirsten Dunst, which was a surprising success at the box office that spawned straight-to-DVD sequels. 2001 saw a busy time for her: shooting The New Guy in Texas and having to shuttle up to New York where she was reunited with actor Robert De Niro and director Michael Caton-Jones in City by the Sea. She played James Franco's junkie girlfriend and mother of his child. The film garnered attention from a wider adult audience and several good reviews.
The same year Kevin Smith invited Dushku to be a part of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where Dushku co-starred with Shannon Elizabeth, Ali Larter, Ben Affleck, and others.
In 2001 Eliza Dushku was considered for the role of Paige Matthews on the WB hit Series Charmed but actress Rose McGowan was given the role.
2003 saw the release of Wrong Turn, a horror film in which Dushku had the starring role, and The Kiss, an independent comedy-drama. Starting that same year, she also starred in a new Fox TV series, Tru Calling, where she played the main character, Tru Davies, a medical student whose grant is pulled out from under her, forcing her to take a job at a local morgue where she discovers that she has the power to "re-live" the previous day over again, an ability she used to right wrongful deaths.
She has had many roles as a "bad girl" in movies and relishes the opportunities. In an interview with Maxim magazine in May of 2001, Eliza says of her roles, "It’s easy to play a bad girl: You just do everything you’ve been told not to do, and you don’t have to deal with the consequences, because it’s only acting."
Dushku starred in an off-Broadway production entitled Dog Sees God from December 2005, playing "Van's sister", a character paralleled with Lucy from original Peanuts comic strip that the play production is based on. She quit in February 2006 along with several other members of the cast amongst rumours of alleged abuse from the producer, which were later dismissed.
Dushku voiced the role of Yumi Sawamura in the English language version of the PlayStation 2 video game Yakuza, published and developed by SEGA, and released in September 2006.
She appeared in the Simple Plan music video, "I'm Just a Kid", as the band's love interest, as well as Nickelback's video for "Rockstar".

AKA Katherine Sian Moennig

Born: 29-Dec-1976
Birthplace: Philadelphia, PA
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: The L Word
Father: William Moennig (dancer, violin maker)
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is the daughter of Broadway dancer Mary Zahn and violin maker William Moennig. She is also the niece of actress Blythe Danner and cousin of Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow.
Although there has been much speculation surrounding Moennig's sexual orientation due to the on-screen lesbian and transgender roles she has taken, in a 2000 interview with Rebecca Traister of the New York Observer, Moennig identified herself as heterosexual. The only evidence to the contrary is a comment by L Word costar Jennifer Beals in an interview with The Advocate, which lumped Moennig with openly gay staff and cast members: when asked "Do people still assume that you have to be a lesbian to play one on TV?", Beals responded with, "Not at all... I heard a rumor that somebody... assumed I was bisexual. Which was a huge compliment to me, because often I will go to Leisha or Kate or Ilene or Rose Troche most often and ask, 'OK, is this the right thing to do? Is this not the right thing to do? Am I going to seem like a total chump if I do this?" Moennig has made no further comments beyond her initial identification as heterosexual.
Recently, a profile for Moennig on the OurChart.com website listed the "Quality I most like in a woman" as: "Wit. Confidence. Honesty. Maturity." Whether the profile actually belongs to Katherine is still unconfirmed.
Career
Moennig moved to New York City at the age of 18 to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. There she began a modeling career, and also performed on stage.
In 1999, she had the central role of the Our Lady Peace video, "Is Anybody Home?"
Her first major role was in the television series Young Americans, playing Jacqueline "Jake" Pratt, a girl who enters the Rawley Boys Academy by passing as a boy and ends up falling in love with Hamilton (Ian Somerhalder), the Dean's son.
She has played many lesbian and transgender roles. She auditioned for the part of Brandon Teena in Boys Don't Cry - that ended up going to actress Hillary Swank. She played a pre-operative transsexual in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (episode "Fallacy").
Since 2004, Moennig has played one of the main characters in The L Word. She plays Shane McCutcheon, a hairdresser who goes from one girl to another.
On 12 April, 2006, Moennig made her Off-Broadway debut in Guardians, by Peter Morris. In it, she plays "American Girl" - a young United States Army soldier from West Virginia who becomes a scapegoat in a scandal involving abuse at an Iraqi prison. The story is loosely based on that of Lynndie England.
Moennig had a minor role in the 2006 film Art School Confidential as Candace, the ex-girlfriend of Audrey, the art model who serves as a love interest for protagonist Jerome.

Born: 28-Dec-1946
Birthplace: Beaumont, TX
Gender: Male
Religion: Scientology
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Musician
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Albino rock star
Father: John Winter
Mother: Edwina
Brother: Johnny Winter (guitarist, b. 23-Jan-1944)
As teens Edgar and Johnny (who is three years older than Edgar) began performing together at local watering holes such as Tom's Fish Camp. The two played in R&B and blues groups; Johnny and the Jammers, The Crystaliers, and The Black Plague. By the time he was of college age Edgar had become competent on keyboards, saxophone, bass, guitar and drums.
After recording with his brother, Edgar was signed to his own Epic Records contract in 1970 and recorded two R&B flavored albums, Entrance and Edgar Winter's White Trash. In 1972 he formed The Edgar Winter Group which included Dan Hartman, Ronnie Montrose and Chuck Ruff. It was with this band that he had his biggest successes: first with the 1973 album They Only Come Out at Night which featured the #1 hit instrumental "Frankenstein" which pioneered the use of the synthesizer as a lead instrument and reached number one in the U.S. in May 1973 and the top 15 single "Free Ride;" which reached number 14 that same year, then the album Shock Treatment which featured the song "Easy Street".
The preponderance of vocals and songwriting by Hartman on Shock Treatment led to the release of Jasmine Nightdreams with all vocals by Winter. It was nominally a solo album, but it used the same personnel as the Edgar Winter Group. A full band album followed, the Edgar Winter Group with Rick Derringer, featuring songs and vocals by Derringer.
Success was waning, however, and Edgar teamed with brother Johnny for a live album of blues and early rock classics, including Harlem Shuffle (later a revival hit for the Rolling Stones). This album too performed below expectations, so the White Trash was reformed. They recorded Recycled, and toured as an opening act to support the album. The tour was cut short by a tragic plane crash, which killed some members of the tour's headliner, Lynyrd Skynyrd. This was followed by two solo albums, an attempt at literate disco on the Edgar Winter Album and a return to 1970s rock on Standing on Rock. Since then there have been more obscure solo albums and session work, namely with David Lee Roth on Crazy from the Heat in 1985, which included a cover version of the song Easy Street.
With over 20 albums and many television and radio appearances both to promote his music—and to give his opinion on everything politically incorrect— Edgar Winter's music is solidly in the popular vein. Winter's 1970s albums are bluesier than his later albums, but there are blues tunes like "Big City Woman" on his 1990 album Not a Kid Anymore. In 2005, "Frankenstein" was featured in the PlayStation 2 music video game Guitar Hero. It has also been covered by Gary Hoey on the 2003 album "Wake Up Call".
In 2006, Winter joined Hamish Stuart, Rod Argent, Richard Marx, Billy Squier, and Sheila E touring with Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band.

AKA Joanie Marie Laurer

Born: 27-Dec-1970
Birthplace: Rochester, NY
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Wrestling
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Former pro wrestler
Father: Joseph
Mother: Janet
Sister: Kathy (older)
Brother: Sonny
Boyfriend: Triple H (wrestler)
Boyfriend: Sean Waltman
Boyfriend: Marcus Schenkenberg (male model)
As a child, Laurer learned to play both the violin and cello.
Joanie Laurer left home at age 16, and went to Spain under a scholarship with the United Nations. By 1987, she had graduated high school in Spain. She spent the next five years at the University of Tampa and graduated in 1992 with a degree in Spanish Literature. During college, she also studied French and German and can hold a conversation in either language. She originally wanted to use her knowledge of foreign languages to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Drug Enforcement Administration. Subsequently, she joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to Costa Rica to teach literacy.
After college, Laurer began to regularly enter fitness competitions. In 1996, Laurer competed in the New York City regional of the Fitness America
Professional wrestling career
Joanie Laurer trained at Wladek "Killer" Kowalski's wrestling school in Salem, Massachusetts. During this time, she briefly dated Perry "Saturn" Satullo. She debuted in the year 1995 and worked for various independent promotions as Just Joanie and Joanie Lee.
World Wrestling Federation (1997-2001)
1997-1998
Main article: D-Generation X
Laurer met World Wrestling Federation employees Triple H and Shawn Michaels in a bar in 1997. Struck by her appearance, they helped her get into the WWF. She made her WWF debut on February 16 at In Your House choking Marlena. Her original role in the company was as Chyna, the laconic bodyguard of Triple H and later D-Generation X. She often got physically involved in Triple H's matches during his feuds with Goldust, Mankind, Owen Hart, and The Rock by executing a low-blow (an uppercut to the crotch). At WWF No Way Out of Texas in 1998, she became the first woman to be stunned by Stone Cold Steve Austin.
1999
In January 1999, Chyna was the #30 entrant in the Royal Rumble, becoming the first woman ever to enter the contest. The day after the Royal Rumble, Chyna turned heel by betraying Triple H and aligning herself with his enemy Vince McMahon and Kane, his future opponent at WrestleMania XV. Laurer teamed with Kane in her WWF in-ring debut at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre pay-per-view against former allies X-Pac and Triple H. The Corporate pair were successful, although a Triple H vs. Chyna encounter did not occur. At WrestleMania XV, Chyna turned on Kane in his match by helping Triple H defeat him, appearing to rejoin DX. However, Chyna and Triple H turned against DX later that evening when they helped Shane McMahon defeat DX member X-Pac. The duo became part of The Corporation, and later Shane McMahon's Corporate Ministry, feuding with faces such as Steve Austin, Kane, X-Pac, and The Rock. Following the dissolution of the Corporate Ministry, Chyna remained at Triple H's side, implying there was a romantic relationship, though the two were never affectionate to one another on-screen.
In late 1999, Laurer became a face again during her long feud with Jeff Jarrett. At Unforgiven 1999, she had a match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship against Jarrett, which she lost. The next night, Chyna and Debra took on Jeff and Tom Prichard, hoping to be rewarded a re-match at No Mercy 1999. She defeated Jarrett for the title in his last WWF match, a Good Housekeeping match, on October 17 at No Mercy 1999, in the process becoming the first and only woman to win the Intercontinental Championship. She also gained the services of his valet, Miss Kitty. According to her autobiography If They Only Knew, Laurer claims that Jarrett demanded (and received) $250,000 from Vince McMahon in order to lose the title cleanly to a woman. His contract had expired on October 16, 1999, and he was therefore not contractually obligated to appear on the pay-per-view. If he had not appeared, the WWF would have been criticized for false advertising, and the lineage of the title would have been broken.
Chyna then feuded with Chris Jericho over the belt, defeating him at the Survivor Series, but losing the title to him at Armageddon. The two faced off again in a match on the December 28th edition of SmackDown!, which ended controversially with both wrestlers pinning each other. As a result, then "head of authority" Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley declared them co-champions.
2000
At the Royal Rumble, Jericho and Chyna defended the title against Hardcore Holly in a triple threat match to determine the Undisputed Champion, which Jericho won. Laurer briefly teamed with Jericho before becoming the on-screen girlfriend of then-heel, Eddie Guerrero, thus making her third heel run.
Guerrero and Laurer, originally heels, became very popular during the summer of 2000, with Guerrero dubbing her his "Mamacita". The couple both faced off against Val Venis and then-rookie Trish Stratus in an intergender tag team match at SummerSlam 2000 with the Intercontinental Championship on the line. Chyna won the match, but lost the belt two weeks later to Guerrero in a triple threat match with Kurt Angle, causing friction between the two. They officially split in the autumn of 2000 after Eddie was found cavorting in the shower with two of The Godfather's "hos", Mandy and Victoria.
At the same time, Laurer's appearance in the November 2000 issue of Playboy attracted the unwanted attention of Right to Censor, a strait-laced group of wrestlers who lampooned the Parents Television Council. Shortly after, Laurer was announced as injured after a double team piledriver at the hands of Ivory and Val Venis.
2001
Laurer returned a few weeks later and began a feud with Ivory over the Women's Championship. This culminated in an angle at the Royal Rumble where Laurer appeared to re-injure her neck while performing a handspring back elbow. In order to sell the injury, color commentator Jerry Lawler left the commentators' booth and entered the ring to check on Laurer's condition, something he had not done since the in-ring accident that killed Owen Hart in 1999. The highly publicized return of Laurer from the (kayfabe) "injury" culminated in her winning the Women's Championship from Ivory at WrestleMania X-Seven in a squash match.
Laurer was an extremely dominant champion, defeating challengers Molly Holly and Trish Stratus with little problem. She also defeated Lita, arguably the WWF's second toughest female at that time, at Judgment Day 2001. She vacated the Women's Championship in the process, as this was Laurer's final WWF match. During her contract re-negotiations, it was said that Laurer was unhappy with the pay she was offered and the fact that she was expected to compete principally in the women's division rather than against men. It was also rumored that the relationship between Triple H, her former boyfriend, and Stephanie McMahon, with whom Laurer claims he had an affair and then left Laurer for, was a factor in her departure. She left the company on November 30, 2001, several months after negotiations had broken down and she had been taken off television. Jim Ross later confirmed that she was not fired from the WWF, but rather chose to leave for personal reasons.
Independent circuit (2001-2002)
Laurer's in-ring career since then has been very limited. She sang and wrestled at an Ultimate Pro Wrestling event, and was scheduled to appear on a talk show hosted by Jonny Fairplay on a Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) pay-per-view. She did not appear.
New Japan Pro Wrestling (2002)
In 2002, Laurer joined the New Japan Pro Wrestling roster. She made her first appearance at the New Japan Thirtieth Anniversary Show, refereeing a bout between the Steiner Brothers and Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kensuke Sasaki. In September and October 2002, she wrestled four matches for the promotion. After losing to Masahiro Chono on October 14, 2002, Laurer wrestled her final match on October 26, 2002, teaming with the Fake Great Muta in a loss to Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenzo Suzuki.
Modeling and acting career
2000-2004
In her best selling autobiography, If They Only Knew, Laurer revealed that her breast implants were custom made after she complained to her plastic surgeon that their largest implants didn't suit her frame in the way she desired. Laurer's custom implants became the model for the Chyna 2000s, a model of breast implant marketed to large framed women and female bodybuilders. Laurer claims to have paid $6,000 for them. Later in the book, Laurer revealed that the structural integrity of the Chyna 2000 prototypes was relatively weak, and that one of them ruptured during a wrestling match, necessitating surgery.
In2001, Laurer was a guest on a special celebrity edition of Fear Factor. Each contestant played for a charity of his or her choice, and she received $25,000 for the Freedom Families Scholarship Fund. Her competition included Brooke Burke, David Hasselhoff, Kelly Preston, Donny Osmond, and the winner Coolio. She also appeared on the celebrity game show, Hollywood Squares, where she was introduced as 'Joanie Laurer' of New Japan Pro Wrestling. She also appeared on MTV Cribs showing off her home.
Laurer has modeled nude, notably for Playboy; the first issue which featured a pictorial of her was one of the ten best selling issues in the magazine's history. In 2002, following her departure from the WWF, Laurer also appeared in a Playboy adult documentary, entitled Joanie Laurer Nude: Wrestling Superstar to Warrior Princess, which followed Laurer on-set of her second Playboy nude pictorial.
Around the same time, Laurer was reportedly up for a part in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, but lost out on the role to Kristanna Loken.
Since 2003, Laurer has had a tumultuous relationship with wrestler Sean Waltman. They were engaged for a period in 2003, then broke up, then became engaged again, a pattern which continued for the next two years. In 2004, it was claimed that Laurer and Waltman made a sex tape during a vacation to China earlier that year, but Laurer did not go to China with Waltman. Eager for a repeat success, the company that released Paris Hilton's celebrity sex tape obtained the footage, edited it, and released it under the name 1 Night in China. The video sold over 100,000 copies, with both Laurer and Waltman earning a share of the profits, and boosted both their careers.
2005-2006
In January 2005, Laurer was arrested for domestic assault after allegedly beating Waltman.
In early 2005, Laurer appeared on The Surreal Life, with house mates Da Brat, Jane Wiedlin, Adrianne Curry, Christopher Knight, Marcus Schenkenberg, and Verne Troyer. She remains good friends with Adrianne Curry, and made a brief cameo on her reality show My Fair Brady. On a February 2007 edition of the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show, Sean Waltman claimed that Laurer also previously dated Ed "Brutus Beefcake" Leslie. In March 2005, Laurer re-appeared on The Howard Stern Show, where Stern noted that not only did Laurer look better than she did during her previous visit, but her entire general appearance and attitude were much better.
In late 2005, Laurer signed to star in a new movie entitled Illegal Aliens, Anna Nicole Smith's last movie before her death. She did a lot of promotional work for the movie, including appearances on talk shows and radio shows. On August 31, 2006, she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live as a singing barber singing with three other veterans. Laurer also appeared on The Howard Stern Show, Queer Edge, and Opie and Anthony. In November 2006, Laurer claimed on the Dr. Keith Ablow show that she did not leave the WWF because of money issues, but left because of the aforementioned issues between herself, Triple H, and Stephanie McMahon. Also in November 2006, Joanie announced a new musical project with the band "Plastic Jones".
2007-present
In January 2007, Laurer conducted an interview with "Lifted Magazine" where she talked about finding religion, overcoming a past full of drugs and violence, and promoted her new movies and TV series, The Surreal Life: Fame Games, which began to air on VH1 in January 2007. The filming took place in April 2006, during which she formed a close friendship with Brigitte Nielsen. Her elimination from the show, which occurred in the seventh episode, was controversial. Andrea Lowell had accumulated the lowest score in the "Celebrity Call-Back-A-Thon" challenge, but she manipulated Kennedy, the judge, to increase her score and got Laurer eliminated in the process.
On February 8, 2007 (the date of Anna Nicole Smith's death), a visibly upset Laurer appeared on Larry King Live to speak about her late friend. On the program, Laurer claimed that she "knew it was coming" because of the way the media had ridiculed Smith, and she drew parallels between the plight of Anna and herself. However, the wife of the CEO of Trim Spa, Monique Goen, claimed that Smith did not consider Laurer a friend.
On February 14, 2007, Laurer and Shane and Sia Barbi led an animal rights protest at UCLA. The trio led other protesters to the door of the Neuropsychiatric Institute, a scientific lab where they perform tests on monkeys. The group had to be split up by the police, but not before a violent protester, who was nowhere near Laurer or the Barbi twins, shouted obscenities and attempted to harm the workers

AKA Harvey Phillip Spector

Born: 26-Dec-1940
Birthplace: Bronx, NY
Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Music Producer, Business
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Creator of the Wall of Sound
Inventor of the "Wall of Sound." Now charged with murder.
Father: Benjamin (ironworker, d. 1949 suicide by carbon monoxide)
Mother: Bertha (seamstress)
Wife: Annette Lee Merar (known as Corie Sands, m. 1962, div.)
Wife: Ronnie Spector (m. 1968, div. 1974)
Wife: Janis Savala (m. 1980s, rumored)
Girlfriend: Nancy Sinatra (rumored)
Son: Gary (twin, adopted 1972)
Son: Louis (twin, adopted 1972)
Son: Donte (adopted 1969)
Daughter: Nicole
Son: Phillip
Early life
Spector was born into a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York.
Following his father's death by suicide in 1949, Spector and his mother and sister moved to Los Angeles, California in 1953, where he became involved with music, learning the guitar. At 16, he performed Leadbelly's "Rock Island Line" at a talent show at Fairfax High School. While there at Fairfax, he joined a loosely knit community of young aspirants, including Lou Adler, Bruce Johnston, and Sandy Nelson, the last of whom played drums on Spector's first record release, "To Know Him Is To Love Him."
The Teddy Bears
With three friends from high school, Marshall Lieb, Harvey Goldstein, and singer Annette Kleinbard, Spector formed a group, the Teddy Bears. During this period Spector also began hanging out at local recording studios, and he eventually managed to win the confidence of Stan Ross, co-owner of Gold Star Studios in Hollywood, who began to tutor the young man in record production and who exerted a major influence on Spector's production style.
By the spring of 1958 Spector and his bandmates had raised enough money to buy two hours of recording time at Gold Star. With Spector producing, the Teddy Bears recorded the Spector-penned "Don't You Worry My Little Pet," which helped them secure a deal with Era Records. At their next session, they recorded another song Spector had written — this one inspired by the epitaph on Spector's father's tombstone. Released on Era's subsidiary label, Dore Records, "To Know Him Is to Love Him" went to #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart, selling over a million copies by year's end.
Following the success of their debut, the group signed with Imperial Records, but their next single, "I Don't Need You Anymore," only reached #91. While several more recordings were released (including an album The Teddy Bears Sing!), the group never again charted in the Hot 100. The Teddy Bears went their separate ways in 1959.
Record producer
After the split, Spector's career quickly moved from performing and songwriting to production. While recording the Teddy Bears' album, Spector had met Lester Sill, a former promotion man who was a mentor to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. His next project, the Spectors Three, was undertaken under the aegis of Sill and his partner Lee Hazlewood. Though it reaped little commercial reward, Sill in 1960 arranged for Spector to work as an apprentice to Leiber and Stoller in New York.
Having perfect pitch, Spector quickly learned how to use a studio. He co-wrote the Ben E. King Top 10 hit "Spanish Harlem" with Jerry Leiber and also worked as a session musician, most notably playing the guitar solo on the Drifters' "On Broadway." His own productions during this time, while less conspicuous, included releases by LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, and Billy Storm, as well as the Top Notes' original version of "Twist and Shout."
Leiber and Stoller recommended Spector to produce Ray Peterson's "Corrina, Corrina," which reached #9 in January 1961. Later he produced another major hit for Curtis Lee, "Pretty Little Angel Eyes," which made it to #7.
Returning to Hollywood, Spector agreed to produce one of Lester Sill's acts. After both Liberty Records and Capitol Records turned down the master of "Be My Boy" by the Paris Sisters, Sill formed a new label, Gregmark Records, with Lee Hazlewood and released it. It only managed to reach #56, but the follow-up, "I Love How You Love Me," was a smash, reaching #5.
Philles Records
In the fall of 1961 Spector formed a new record company with Lester Sill, who by this time had ended his business partnership with Hazlewood. Philles Records combined the names of its two founders. Through Hill and Range Publishers, Spector found three groups he wanted to produce: the Ducanes, the Creations and The Crystals. The first two signed with other companies, but Spector managed to secure the Crystals for his new label. Their first single "There's No Other (Like My Baby)" was a success, hitting #20. Their next release, "Uptown," did even better, making it to #13.
Spector continued to work freelance with other artists. In 1962 he produced "Second Hand Love" by Connie Francis, which reached #7. In the early '60s he briefly worked with Atlantic Records' R & B artists Ruth Brown and LaVerne Baker. Ahmet Ertegün of Atlantic paired Spector with Broadway star Jean DuShon for "Talk to Me", the B-side of which was "Tired of Trying", written by DuShon.
Spector briefly took a job as head of A&R for Liberty Records. It was while working at Liberty that he heard a song written by Gene Pitney, for whom he had produced a #41 hit, "Every Breath I Take" a year earlier. "He's a Rebel" was due to be released on Liberty by Vicki Carr, but Spector rushed into Gold Star Studios and recorded a cover version using Darlene Love on lead vocals. The record was released on Philles, attributed to the Crystals, and quickly rose to the top of the charts.
By the time "He's a Rebel" went to #1, Lester Sill was out of the company, and Spector had Philles all to himself. He created a new act, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, featuring Darlene Love and Bobby Sheen, a singer he had worked with at Liberty. The group had hits with "Zip-a-Dee Doo-Dah" (#8), "Why Do Lovers Break Each Other’s Hearts?" (#38) and "Not Too Young To Get Married" (#63). Spector also released solo material by Darlene Love in 1963. In the same year, he released "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, which went to #2.
Although predominantly a singles-based label, Philles did release a few albums, one of which was the perennial seller A Christmas Gift for You in 1963.
The Wall of Sound
Main article: Wall of Sound
Spector's trademark during that era was the so-called Wall of Sound, a production technique yielding a dense, layered effect that reproduced well on AM radio and jukeboxes. To attain this signature sound, Spector gathered large groups of musicians (playing some instruments not generally used for ensemble playing, such as electric and acoustic guitars) playing orchestrated parts — often doubling and tripling many instruments playing in unison — for a fuller sound. Spector himself called his technique "a Wagnerian approach to rock & roll: little symphonies for the kids."
While Spector directed the overall sound of his recordings, he took a relatively hands-off approach to working with the musicians themselves (usually a core group that became known as The Wrecking Crew, including session players such as Hal Blaine, Steve Douglas, Carol Kaye, Glen Campbell, and Leon Russell), delegating arrangement duties to Jack Nitzsche and having Sonny Bono oversee the performances, viewing these two as his "lieutenants".
Spector frequently used songs from songwriters employed at the Brill Building, such as the teams of Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Spector often worked with the songwriters, receiving co-credit for compositions.
Spector was already known as a temperamental and quirky personality with strong, often unconventional ideas about musical and recording techniques. Despite the trend towards multi-channel recording, Spector was vehemently opposed to stereo releases, claiming that it took control of the record's sound away from the producer in favor of the listener. Spector also greatly preferred singles to albums, describing LPs as "two hits and ten pieces of junk".
The first time Spector put the same amount of effort into an LP as he did into 45s was when he utilized the full Philles roster and the Wrecking Crew to make what he felt would become a hit for the 1963 Christmas season. A Christmas Gift for You arrived in the shops the day of the assassination of President Kennedy, November 22, 1963. The somber mood of the country may have contributed to the album being a flop in its initial release. Despite its initially poor reception, selections from the album are now Yuletide mainstays on radio stations, and the album has since been a regular seller during the holiday season.
The mid-Sixties
In 1964 the Ronettes appeared at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Also on the bill were The Righteous Brothers. Spector, who was conducting the band for all the acts, was so impressed with Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield that he bought their contract from Moonglow Records and signed them to Philles. In early 1965, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" became the label's second #1 single. Three more major hits with the group followed: "Just Once in My Life" (#9), "Unchained Melody" (#4) and "Ebb Tide" (#5). Despite having hits, Spector lost interest in producing the Righteous Brothers and sold their contract and all their master recordings to Verve Records. However, the sound of the Righteous Brothers' singles was so distinctive that the act chose to replicate it after leaving Spector, notching a second #1 hit in 1966 with the Bill Medley-produced "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration".
The Spector-produced recording of "Unchained Melody" had a second wave of popularity 25 years after its initial release, when it was featured prominently in the hit movie Ghost. A re-release of the single recharted on the Billboard Hot 100, and went to number one on the Adult Contemporary charts. This also put Spector (as a producer) back on the U.S. Top 40 charts for the first time since his last appearance in 1971 with John Lennon's "Imagine", although he did have U.K. top 40 hits between this time with bands like The Ramones.
Spector's final signing to Philles was the husband-and-wife team of Ike and Tina Turner in 1966. Spector considered their recording of "River Deep - Mountain High", to be his best work, but it failed to go any higher than #88 in the United States. The single, which was essentially a solo Tina Turner record, was more successful in Britain, reaching #3.
Spector subsequently lost enthusiasm for his label and the recording industry. Already something of a recluse, he withdrew temporarily from the public eye, marrying Veronica "Ronnie" Bennett, lead singer of the Ronettes, in 1968. Spector emerged briefly for a cameo as a drug dealer in the film Easy Rider in 1969.
Comeback
In 1969 Spector made a brief return to the music business by signing a production deal with A&M Records. A Ronettes single ("You Came, You Saw, You Conquered") flopped, but Spector returned to the Hot 100 with "Black Pearl" by Sonny Charles and the Checkmates, Ltd. Although the record reached #13, the A&M deal was short-lived.
In 1970 Allen Klein, manager of the Beatles, brought Spector to England. While producing John Lennon's hit solo single "Instant Karma!," which went to #3, Spector was invited by Lennon and George Harrison to take on the task of turning the Beatles abandoned "Get Back" recording sessions into a usable album. Spector went to work using many of his production techniques, making significant changes to the arrangements and sound of some songs. The resulting album, Let It Be, was a massive commercial success and yielded a #1 single, "The Long and Winding Road." Although viewed as a major creative comeback for Spector, it may also have contributed to the contentious Beatles breakup, as Spector added what many considered inappropriate choir and orchestral arrangements to Lennon's "Across the Universe" and Harrison's "I Me Mine". His overdubbing of "The Long and Winding Road" infuriated its composer, Paul McCartney, especially since the work was allegedly completed without his knowledge and without any opportunity for him to assess the results. In 2003, McCartney spearheaded the release of Let It Be... Naked, which stripped the songs of Spector's input.
However, both John Lennon and George Harrison were satisfied with the results, and Let It Be led to Spector co-producing albums with both ex-Beatles. For George Harrison's multi-platinum album All Things Must Pass (#1, 1970), Spector provided a cathedral-like sonic ambiance, complete with ornate orchestrations and gospel-like choirs. The LP yielded two major hits: "My Sweet Lord" (#1) and "What Is Life" (#10). That same year, Spector co-produced John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band (#6) album, which featured a very different, spare and raw sound.
In 1971 Spector was named director of A&R for Apple Records. He only held the post for a year, but during that time he co-produced the single "Power To The People" with John Lennon (#11), as well as Lennon's chart-topping Imagine album, including the #3 title track. With George Harrison, Spector co-produced Harrison's "Bangla-Desh" (a #23 hit), Ronnie Spector's "Try Some, Buy Some" (which made it to #77), and the music for the #1 triple album The Concert For Bangla Desh.
Lennon retained Spector for the 1971 Christmas single "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," the poorly-reviewed 1972 album Some Time In New York City (#48) and the 1973 sessions for the album Rock 'n' Roll (#6). Spector's relationship with Lennon ended during these sessions; some versions claim that the producer suffered a breakdown in the studio, brandishing a gun and disappearing with the Rock 'n' Roll tapes, although Spector biographer Dave Thompson places most of the blame on the out-of-control behavior of Lennon and his entourage. After several months, Lennon retrieved the tapes and finished the album himself.
Later years
In 1974 Spector established the Warner-Spector label which undertook new recordings with Dion, Cher, Harry Nilsson and others, as well as several reissues. A similar relationship with Britain's Polydor Records led to the formation of the Phil Spector International label in 1975.
The majority of Spector's classic Philles recordings had been out of print in the U.S. since the original label's demise, although Spector had released several Philles Records compilations in Britain. Finally, he released an American compilation of his Philles recordings in 1977 which put most of the better known Spector hits back into circulation after many years.
As the seventies progressed, Spector became a recluse. Probably the single most significant reason for his withdrawal — recently revealed by biographer Dave Thompson — was that Spector was seriously injured when he was thrown through the windshield of his car in a crash in Hollywood. According to a contemporary report published in the New Musical Express, Spector was almost killed and it was only because the attending police officer detected a faint pulse that Spector was not declared dead at the scene. He was admitted to the UCLA Medical Centre on the night of 31 March 1974, suffering serious head injuries which necessitated several hours of surgery with over 300 stitches to his face and more than 400 stitches to the back of his head. His head injuries, Thompson suggests, were the reason that Spector began his habit of wearing outlandish wigs in later years.
Spector began to re-emerge in the late 1970s, producing a controversial album by Leonard Cohen (Death of a Ladies' Man, 1977) and the much-publicised Ramones album End of the Century, 1980. Worked with Yoko Ono in 1981 and co-produced Season of Glass, her first work after her husband's death.
Spector remained inactive throughout most of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. He attempted to work with Céline Dion on her album Falling Into You, but that fell through. His most recent released project has been "Silence Is Easy" by Starsailor, released in 2003. He was originally supposed to produce the entire album, but was fired due to personal and creative differences — however, one of the two Spector produced songs on the album was a U.K. top 10 single. Plans to work with The Vines were halted due to his murder trial. The latest song to be produced by Spector is a track by singer-songwriter Hargo. The track, "Crying For John Lennon", originally appears on Hargos 2006 album In Your Eyes, but on a visit to Spectors mansion for an interview for John Lennon tribute movie Strawberry Fields, Hargo played Spector the song and asked him to produce it. Spector and former Paul McCartney drummer Graham Ward produced it in the classic wall of sound style on nights after his murder trial.
Influence
Many producers have tried to emulate the Wall of Sound, and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys—a fellow adherent of mono recording—considered Spector his main competition as a studio artist. Bruce Springsteen emulated the Wall of Sound technique in his recording of "Born to Run". Shoegazing, a British musical movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was heavily influenced by the Wall of Sound.
For his contributions to the music industry, Spector was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him #63 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Spector's early musical influences included Latin music in general, and Latin percussion in particular. This is apparent from the percussion in many of his hit songs: shakers, guiros (gourds) and maracas in "Be My Baby" and the son montuno in "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling", heard clearly in the song's bridge. Phil would visit Spanish Harlem clubs and schools to hone his listening and practical skills. He would ask his pre-teen coffee boy from "El Barrio", Roberto Tirado, to borrow his parent's best Puerto Rican recordings in order to listen to these at odd times. Unknowingly, Phil instilled some of his musical influence on little Roberto as he also became enmeshed in the music field later as an adult. But the Latin influence is keenly perceptible in many, if not all, of Spector's recordings. Session bassist Carol Kaye plays the haunting son montuno in "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" while the same repeating refrain is played on harpsichord by keyboardist Larry Knechtel.
The Beach Boys paid tribute to Spector in the lyrics of their song "Mona":
"Come on/Listen to "Da Doo Ron Ron," now/Listen to "Be My Baby"/I know you're gonna love Phil Spector"
The character of Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a 1970 Russ Meyer film, is based upon Phil Spector.
Eccentricity
Spector has had many conflicts, sometimes bizarre, with the artists, songwriters and promoters he worked with. Describing the dissolution of their Philles Records partnership, Lester Sill said, "I sold out for a pittance. It was shit, ridiculous, around $60,000. I didn't want to but I had to. Let me tell you, I couldn't live with Phillip . . . I just wanted the fuck out of there. If I wouldn't have, I would have killed him. It wasn't worth the aggravation."
As a peevish farewell gesture, shortly after Lester Sill's departure from Philles Records, Spector wrote, and had The Crystals record, a single entitled "(Let's Dance) The Screw". Six minutes long and completely lacking Spector's customary Wall of Sound production techniques, "The Screw" was neither releasable (by 1963 music industry standards) nor intended for general release. Indeed, only a handful of copies of the single were pressed, one of which Spector had delivered to Sill as a parting shot at his former partner. (Legend has it that the recording of "The Screw" served a second purpose: to cheat Sill out of royalties due him from sales of the next Philles recording. However, this claim is considered unlikely.) It has also been said that Spector brought one of his own lawyers into the recording studio to yell out the chorus of the song ( "—do the screw!" )
Spector's domineering attitude toward Ronnie Spector led to the dissolution of their marriage. Ronnie Spector has claimed that Spector showed her a gold coffin with a glass top in his basement, promising to kill and display her should she ever choose to leave him; he had earlier forbidden her from speaking to the Rolling Stones or touring with the Beatles for fear of infidelity. During Spector's reclusive period in the late 1960s, he reportedly kept his wife locked inside their mansion. She claimed he also hid her shoes to dissuade her from walking outside, and kept the house dark because he didn't want anyone to see his balding head. Spector's son later claimed that he was kept locked inside his room, with a pot in the corner to be used as a toilet. Ronnie Spector did leave the producer and filed for divorce in 1972. She wrote a book about her experiences, and said years later, "I can only say that when I left in the early '70s, I knew that if I didn't leave at that time, I was going to die there." In 1998, Ronnie Spector and the other Ronettes sued Phil Spector for allegedly cheating them of royalties and licensing fees, winning a $3 million judgment; however, an appeals court later reversed the decision, upholding the terms of the group's 1963 contract as binding. In 2007, Ronnie Spector discussed her Ronettes' much-delayed entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: "He wrote the Hall of Fame to tell them not to put me in. He did everything he could to stop me. He's bitter that I left him. He wants everyone to think he's the mastermind. He thought everything was because of him."
Stories of Phil Spector's gunplay mounted over the years, including his discharging a firearm while in the studio with John Lennon during the recording of his cover album Rock 'n' Roll, placing a loaded pistol at Leonard Cohen's head during the sessions for Death of a Ladies' Man, and forcing Dee Dee Ramone to play bass guitar to Spector's specifications at gunpoint. Cohen told "Rolling Stone" magazine in 1978 that "Phil couldn't resist annihilating me. I don't think he can tolerate any other shadows in his darkness."
The Ramones reportedly had to play the opening chord to the song "Rock and Roll High School" for eight hours straight; years later, Johnny Ramone described Spector as "a little man with lifts in his shoes, the wig on top of his head and four guns." But he also described the session philosophically: "It was a positive learning experience. And that chord does sound really good." Marky Ramone said, "A lot of these things were overblown, and a lot of these things were alcohol-induced."
Murder Trial
On February 3, 2003, Spector was arrested on suspicion of murder after the body of 40-year-old nightclub hostess and B movie-actress Lana Clarkson of Los Angeles was found at his faux-castle mansion (called Pyrenees Castle) in Alhambra, California. Police responded to a 9-1-1 phone call from Spector's driver and discovered Clarkson, who had been shot. She was pronounced dead at the scene. On November 20, 2003, Spector was indicted for Clarkson's murder.
Four weeks before the death of Clarkson, Spector stated in an interview with the British Daily Telegraph that he has bipolar disorder and that he considered himself "relatively insane". In September 2004 he was ordered to stand trial in Los Angeles.
Spector has stated that Clarkson's death was an accidental suicide. However, on October 28, 2005, a judge ruled that potentially damning statements Spector allegedly made to police could be used against him at trial. Spector's lawyers had sought to suppress an apparent statement made by Spector after Clarkson was found dead. Spector allegedly said, "I think I killed somebody." His lawyer argued that comments attributed to the music producer should be thrown out because he was suffering from prescription-drug withdrawal symptoms at the time. The judge has also ruled that transcripts from a deposition Spector made several months before Clarkson's death could also be introduced by the prosecution at trial.
So far Spector has gone through at least three sets of attorneys. Defense attorney Robert Shapiro (an original O.J. Simpson "dream team" member) represented Spector at his arraignment and early pre-trial hearings, and arranged for his release on ($1 million) bail. He was later replaced by Leslie Abramson and Marcia Morrissey. They, in turn, were later replaced by Bruce Cutler, the long-time former lawyer of New York City mafia boss John Gotti. Cutler left Spector's defense on August 27, 2007 claiming "a difference of opinion between Mr. Spector and me on strategy." Attorney Roger Rosen became lead lawyer for closing arguments.
Spector was also involved in a civil suit against Shapiro, who refused to return his $1 million retainer. In December 2005, Spector dropped all claims against Shapiro.
Spector remained free on $1 million bail while awaiting trial, which had been scheduled to begin on April 24, 2006, but has been postponed several times since then, first to January 16, 2007, then to March 5 and finally to March 19. On February 16, 2007, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler stated that he would allow Spector's trial to be televised, though he also indicated that he would reverse course should the media abuse this access.
Jury selection began Monday, March 19, 2007 at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles. Three hundred prospective jurors were screened over two days. Those not granted hardship exemptions by Fidler completed 18-page questionnaires including queries as to whether celebrities are entitled to act as they please, and whether police treat celebrities with greater leniency. Voir dire began April 16, 2007. A jury of nine men and three women (along with four male and three female alternate jurors) was sworn in on April 19, 2007. A list of possible witnesses shown to prospective jurors included long-time Spector studio associates Hal Blaine and Nino Tempo, limo driver Adriano de Souza and writer Anne Beatts. Opening statements in the trial began April 25, 2007 in Los Angeles.
Since the beginning of the trial there has been controversy surrounding it. Famed forensic expert, Henry Lee (who provided key evidence in the O. J. Simpson trial), has been accused of hiding crucial evidence which the District Attorney's office claims can prove Spector's guilt.
Furthermore, a coroner who examined Clarkson's body concluded that bruising on her tongue indicated that the gun was shoved in her mouth. Despite these setbacks, Spector's defense team had a breakthrough on June 12, 2007 when Los Angeles Sheriff's criminalist DNA expert stated that only Clarkson's DNA was found on the handgun — which aids Spector's defense that she shot herself. The DNA expert also found none of Spector's DNA on Clarkson's fingernails, which hurts the prosecution's argument that Clarkson struggled with Spector.
The charge in the case against Spector is second-degree murder. Spector could receive a 15-year-to-life sentence (with another ten years added automatically since the crime involved a gun) if convicted.
Family
Spector was married to Veronica "Ronnie" Bennett, former lead singer of The Ronettes (a girl group that he had managed and produced), from 1968 to 1974. They adopted three children:
Louis Phillip - Born May 12, 1966 (Adopted: age 5)
Gary Phillip - Born May 12, 1966 (Adopted: age 5)
Donte Phillip - Born March 23, 1969 (Adopted: age 8 Months)
Other children:
Nicole - Born 1982
Phillip - Born 1982 (died Dec. 25, 1991)
Spector married aspiring singer and actress Rachelle Short on September 1, 2006. According to IMDB.com, the 26-year-old Pennsylvania native had a small role in 2000's "Tigerland," a film about soldiers training during the Vietnam-era, starring Colin Farrell. She also appeared in Playboy magazine before her marriage to Spector, although the appearance was not in a nude pictorial spread, the magazine said. Rather, a single, black & white topless photo of Short appeared in the magazine's "Grapevine" section.
Prior to the move to California, Short was a music major at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, NC, near Charlotte. Short also sang and modeled in the Charlotte area, and was a member of a short-lived group of promotional swimsuit models.

AKA Humphrey DeForest Bogart

Born: 25-Dec-1899
Birthplace: New York City
Died: 14-Jan-1957
Location of death: Holmby Hills, Hollywood, CA
Cause of death: Cancer - Throat
Remains: Cremated, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, CA
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Casablanca
Father: Belmont DeForest Bogart (surgeon)
Mother: Maud Humphrey Bogart (illustrator)
Wife: Helen Menken (m. 20-May-1926, div. 1927)
Wife: Mary Philips (m. Apr-1928, div. 1938)
Wife: Mayo Methot (m. 21-Aug-1938, div. 10-May-1945)
Wife: Lauren Bacall (m. 21-May-1945, until his death, one son, one daughter)
Son: Stephen Humphrey Bogart
He was born Humphrey DeForest Bogart in New York City, the oldest child of Belmont DeForest Bogart and Maud Humphrey; he had English and Dutch ancestry. His father was a Republican and a Presbyterian, while his mother was a Tory and an Episcopalian; Bogart was raised in his mother's Episcopal church. He is one of the descendants of King Edward III of England. Through Thomas Dudley, Bogart was related to playwrights Tennessee Williams and Robert E. Sherwood, as well as John Brown. He was also descended from the Pilgrim John Howland.
Bogart's birthday has been a subject of controversy. It was long believed that his birthday on Christmas Day, 1899, was a Warner Bros. fiction created to romanticize his background, and that he was really born on January 23, 1899, a date that appears in many references. However, this story is now considered baseless: although no birth certificate has ever been found, his birth notice did appear in a Boston newspaper in early January 1900, which supports the December 1899 date.
In addition, the 1900 census for the household of Belmont Bogart lists his son Humphrey as having a birth date in December of 1899. There are also three different censuses attesting to his birth date in December, 1899. In addition, his last wife, actress Lauren Bacall, always maintained that December 25 was his true birth date.
Childhood
Bogart's father, Belmont, was a successful surgeon. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was a very successful commercial illustrator. Indeed, she used a drawing of baby Humphrey in a well-known ad campaign for Mellins Baby Food. In her prime, she made over $50,000 a year as an illustrator, then a vast sum. The Bogarts lived in a fashionable Upper West Side apartment, and had a cottage in upstate New York.
From his father, Bogart inherited a tendency for needling people, a fondness for fishing and a life-long love of sailing. Humphrey was the oldest of three children. When Lauren Bacall introduced him to her large family, he said, "Christ, you've got more goddamn relatives than I've ever seen."
As a boy, Bogart was teased for his curls, his tidiness, the "cute" pictures his mother had him pose for, the Little Lord Fauntleroy clothes she dressed him in—and the name "Humphrey."
School
The Bogarts sent their son to the Trinity School in New York and then to the prestigious preparatory school Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts. They hoped he would go on to Yale, but in 1918, Bogart was expelled from Phillips Academy.
The details of his expulsion are disputed: one story claims that he was expelled for throwing the headmaster (alternatively, a groundskeeper) into Rabbit Pond, a man-made lake on campus. Another cites smoking and drinking, combined with poor academic performance and possibly some intemperate comments to the staff. It has also been said that he was actually withdrawn from the school by his father for failing to improve his academics, as opposed to expulsion.
Navy
In spring 1918, Bogart enlisted in the U.S. Navy. It was during his naval stint that he got his trademark scar and developed his characteristic lisp, though the actual circumstances are hazy at best. One account is that his lip was cut by a piece of shrapnel during a shelling of his ship, the USS Leviathan (SP-1326), although some claim that Bogart didn’t make it to sea until after the Armistice was signed. Another version, which Bogart's long time friend, author Nathaniel Benchley, claims is the truth, is that Bogart was injured while on assignment to take a naval prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison in New Hampshire. Supposedly, while changing trains in Boston, the handcuffed prisoner asked Bogart for a cigarette and while Bogart looked for a match, the prisoner raised his hands, smashed Bogart across the mouth with his cuffs, cutting Bogart's lip, and fled. The prisoner was eventually taken to Portsmouth. An alternate explanation is that while in the process of uncuffing an inmate, Bogart was struck in the mouth when the inmate wielded one open, uncuffed bracelet while the other side was still on his wrist. This incident reportedly resulted in his trademark snarl and unique speaking voice. Nevertheless, by the time Bogart was treated by a doctor, the scar had already formed. "Goddamn doctor," Bogart later told David Niven, "instead of stitching it up, he screwed it up." In fact, Niven says that when he asked Bogart about his scar he said it was caused by a childhood accident, which seems to contradict the above stories; Niven claims the stories that Bogie got the scar during wartime were made up by the studios to inject glamour.
Early career in the theatre
Bogart took odd jobs, joined the Naval Reserve, and eventually drifted into acting. He liked the late hours that actors kept, and enjoyed the attention that an actor got on stage. Most of all, he enjoyed the challenge of putting on a difficult scene, making the audience believe it. He dug deeply into the characters he portrayed, and found them a welcome escape from his own self.[citation needed]
Bogart began his acting career on the Brooklyn stage in 1921, playing a Japanese butler. He never took acting lessons, and had no formal training. An early reviewer wrote of Bogart's work: "To be as kind as possible, we will only say that this actor was inadequate." Bogart loathed the trivial parts he had to play early in his career, calling them "White Pants Willie" roles.
Bogart appeared in 21 Broadway productions between 1922 and 1935. He played juveniles or romantic second-leads in drawing room comedies. He is said to have been the first actor to ask "Tennis, anyone?" on stage.
Early in his career, Bogart met Helen Menken. They married in 1926, divorced in 1927, and remained friends. In 1928, he married Mary Philips. Philips, like Menken, had a fiery temper, and once bit the finger off a police officer who tried to arrest her for drunkenness.
Spencer Tracy was a serious Broadway actor whom Bogart liked and admired, and they became good friends. It was Tracy, in 1930, who first called him "Bogie". (Spelled variously in many sources, Bogart himself spelled his nickname "Bogie.")
The Petrified Forest
In 1934, Bogart starred in the play Invitation to a Murder. The producer Arthur Hopkins saw the play and sent for Bogart when he chose to produce Robert E. Sherwood's new play, The Petrified Forest. Bogart arrived in Hopkins' office while Sherwood was there; Hopkins told him: "I've got a good role for you. A gangster role." Robert Sherwood was sure Hopkins was wrong; Bogart should play the football player. Bogart said later: "They argued back and forth, and I thought Sherwood was right. I couldn't picture myself playing a gangster. So what happened? I made a hit as the gangster."
The Petrified Forest had 197 performances in New York; Bogart played escaped killer Duke Mantee. Leslie Howard, who played the lead, knew how crucial Bogart was to the success of the play. He and Bogart became friends, and he promised to help Bogart reprise his role if Hollywood made the play into a film.
Bogart was proud of his success as an actor, but the fact that it came from playing a gangster weighed on him. He once said, "I can't get in a mild discussion without turning it into an argument. There must be something in my tone of voice, or this arrogant face—something that antagonizes everybody. Nobody likes me on sight. I suppose that's why I'm cast as the heavy."
Warner Bros. bought the screen rights to The Petrified Forest, signed up Leslie Howard, then tested several Hollywood veterans for the Duke Mantee role, and chose Edward G. Robinson. Bogart cabled news of this to Howard, who was in Scotland. Leslie Howard insisted that Bogart play Duke Mantee. When Warner Bros. saw that Howard would not budge, they gave in and cast him. Bogart never forgot this favor, and in 1952 he named his only daughter, Leslie, after Leslie Howard, who had died in World War II.
Early film career
Robert E. Sherwood remained a close friend of Bogart's. In 1936, the film version of The Petrified Forest came out. Bogart got excellent reviews, but he was then typecast as a gangster in a series of crime dramas for Warner Bros. All told, Bogart went to the electric chair 12 times, and was sentenced to over 800 years of hard labor. Jack Warner saw nothing wrong with that; as long as the movies made money, and the actors got paid, he saw no reason for anyone to complain.
Mary Philips refused to give up her Broadway career to come to Hollywood with Bogart, and soon they were divorced.
On August 21, 1938, Bogart entered into a disastrous third marriage, with Mayo Methot, a lively, friendly woman when sober, but a paranoid when drunk. She was convinced that her husband was cheating on her. The more she and Bogart drifted apart, the more she drank, got furious and threw things at him: plants, crockery, anything close at hand. Bogart sometimes returned fire, and the press dubbed them "the Battling Bogarts." "The Bogart-Methot marriage was the sequel to the Civil War," said their friend Julius Epstein. A wag observed that there was madness in his Methot. During this time, Bogart bought a sailboat, which he named "Sluggy" after his hot-tempered wife.
In 1938, Warner Bros. put him in a "hillbilly musical" called Swing Your Lady as a wrestling promoter; he later apparently considered this his worst film performance.[citation needed] In 1939, Bogart played a mad scientist in The Return of Doctor X. He cracked: "If it'd been Jack Warner's blood…I wouldn't have minded so much. The trouble was they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie."
The studio system, then in its heyday, largely restricted actors to one studio, and Warner Bros. had no interest in making Bogart a star. Shooting on a new movie might begin days or only hours after shooting on the previous one was completed. Any actor who refused a role could be suspended without pay. Bogart didn't like the roles chosen for him, but he worked steadily: between 1936 and 1940, Bogart averaged a movie every two months. He thought that Warner Bros.' wardrobe department was cheap, and often wore his own suits in his movies. In High Sierra, Bogart used his own mutt to play his character's dog "Pard."
The leading men ahead of Bogart at Warner Bros. included not just such classic stars as James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, but also actors far less well-known today, such as Victor McLaglen, George Raft and Paul Muni. Most of the studio's better movie scripts went to these men, and Bogart had to take what was left. He made films like Racket Busters, San Quentin, and You Can't Get Away With Murder. The only substantial leading role he got during this period was in Samuel Goldwyn's Dead End (1937), but he played a variety of interesting supporting roles, such as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) (in which he got shot by James Cagney). Bogart was gunned down on film repeatedly, by Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, among others; he rarely saw his own films and didn't attend the premieres.
Bogart had been raised to believe that acting was beneath a gentleman. Acting in movies was even worse than on the stage, and playing depraved gunmen in "B" pictures for Warner Bros. was not something to be mentioned in polite company.
In California in the 1930s, Bogart bought a 55-foot sailing yacht from Dick Powell. The sea was his sanctuary. He was a serious sailor, respected by other sailors who had seen too many Hollywood actors and their boats. About 30 weekends a year, he went out on his boat. He once said: "An actor needs something to stabilize his personality, something to nail down what he really is, not what he is currently pretending to be."
He had a lifelong disgust for the pretentious, fake or phony. Sensitive yet caustic, and disgusted by the inferior movies he was churning out, Bogart cultivated the persona of a soured idealist, a man exiled from better things in New York, living by his wits, drinking too much, cursed to live out his life among second-rate people and projects.
When he thought an actor, director or a movie studio had done something shoddy, he spoke up about it and was willing to be quoted. The Hollywood press, unaccustomed to candor, was delighted. Bogart once said, "All over Hollywood, they are continually advising me 'Oh, you mustn't say that. That will get you in a lot of trouble' when I remark that some picture or writer or director or producer is no good. I don't get it. If he isn't any good, why can't you say so? If more people would mention it, pretty soon it might start having some effect."
High Sierra
High Sierra, a 1941 movie directed by Raoul Walsh, was written by Bogart's friend and drinking partner, John Huston. The film was a step forward for Bogart. He still played the villain, "Mad Dog" Roy Earle, and he still died at the end, but at least he got to kiss Ida Lupino and play a character with some depth. In a climactic scene, Bogart's character slid 90 feet down a mountainside to his just reward. His stunt double, Buster Wiles, bounced a few times going down the mountain and wanted another take to do better. "Forget it," said Raoul Walsh. "It's good enough for the 25-cent customers."
Bogart and Huston enjoyed each other's company, and drew on each other's gifts. Bogart had always been self-conscious about his height (5'8"); Huston was 6'2" (and his rail-thin build made him appear to be even taller). Bogart had never been close to his father, while Huston was very close to his, actor Walter Huston.
Bogart admired and somewhat envied Huston for his skill as a writer. Though a poor student, Bogart was a lifelong reader. He could quote Plato, Pope, Ralph Waldo Emerson and over a thousand lines of Shakespeare. He admired writers, and some of his best friends were screenwriters, including Louis Bromfield, Nathaniel Benchley and Nunnally Johnson.
John Huston reported being easily bored, and admired Bogart not just for his acting talent but for his intense concentration.
The Maltese Falcon
Paul Muni and George Raft had both turned down Bogart's part in High Sierra. Raft then turned down the male lead in John Huston's directorial debut The Maltese Falcon (1941), due to it being a cleaned up version of the pre-Production Code The Maltese Falcon (1931), his contract stipulating that he did not have to appear in remakes.
Bogart grabbed the part and audiences saw him play a leading role with real complexity. His character, Sam Spade, was still capable of duplicity and violence, but he was a leading man: handsome, smart, fated to survive. When he discovered his sexy client was a murderess, he turned her in, with a speech he made famous: "I don't care who loves who. I won't play the sap for you! You killed Miles and you're going over for it. I hope they don't hang you by your sweet neck. If you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years and you'll come back to me. If they hang you, I'll always remember you."
Casablanca
Bogart got his first real romantic lead in Casablanca, playing Rick Blaine, the nightclub owner.
In real life, Bogart himself played tournament chess, one level below master level. It was reportedly his idea that Rick Blaine be portrayed as a chess player.
Off the set, Ingrid Bergman and Bogart hardly spoke during the filming of Casablanca. She said later, "I kissed him but I never knew him." Years later, after Bergman had taken up with Italian director Roberto Rossellini, and bore him a child, Bogart confronted her. "You used to be a great star," he said. "What are you now?" "A happy woman," she replied.
Casablanca won the 1943 Academy Award for Best Picture. Bogart was nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role, but lost out to Paul Lukas for his performance in Watch on the Rhine.
Only Bogart's fourth marriage, to Lauren Bacall ("Baby"), was a happy one. They met while filming To Have and Have Not. The director, Howard Hawks, once commented: "When two people are falling in love with each other, they're not tough to get along with, I can tell you that. Bogie was marvelous. I said, 'You've got to help,' and of course after a few days he really began to get interested in the girl. That made him help more." Hawks at some point began to disapprove of the pair. He fell for Bacall as well, and wanted her to feel the same way (although he was married). Out of jealousy, he said of Bacall: "She had to keep practicing for six to eight months to keep that low voice. Now, it's perfectly natural. And the funny thing is that Bogie fell in love with the character she played, so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life." They were married on May 21, 1945 in Lucas, Ohio, at Malabar Farm, the country home of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, who was a close friend of Bogart's. The wedding was held in the Big House.
Bogart and Bacall's relationship is at the heart of the film noir masterpiece The Big Sleep. Chandler thoroughly admired Bogart's performance: "Bogart can be tough without a gun. Also, he has a sense of humor that contains that grating undertone of contempt."
Bacall allowed Bogart lots of weekend time on his boat. She got seasick, and Bogart said, "The trouble with having dames on board is you can't pee over the side." Bogart would frequently sail to Catalina with friends or set some lobster traps.
Bacall wrote of Bogart: "You had to stay awake married to him. Every time I thought I could relax and do everything I wanted, he'd buck. There was no way to predict his reactions, no matter how well I knew him."
Bogart and Bacall moved into a $160,000 white brick mansion in Holmby Hills, an exclusive neighborhood between Beverly Hills and Bel-Air. Bogart and Bacall had two Jaguar cars, and three blooded Boxer dogs. Bogart said "We moved where all the creeps live." But he liked some of his neighbors, especially Judy Garland.
On January 6, 1949, Lauren Bacall gave birth to a son, Stephen Humphrey Bogart, making Bogart a father at 49. He had had months to absorb the news and even had his own baby shower. (Frank Sinatra brought him baby rattles.) On August 23, 1952, they had their second child, Leslie Howard Bogart (a girl named after British actor Leslie Howard, who had been killed in World War II).
The panda case
In 1950, Bogart and his friend Bill Seeman arrived at the El Morocco Club in New York after midnight. Bogart and Seeman sent someone to buy two 22-pound stuffed pandas because, in a drunken state, they thought the pandas would be good company. They propped up the bears in separate chairs, and began to drink.
Two young women at the club saw the stuffed animals, and one of the women picked up one of the pandas. She quickly ended up on the floor. The other woman tried to do the same and wound up in the same position. Club spokesperson Leonard MacBain later stated, "No blows were exchanged, it was just one of those things." The next morning Bogart was awakened by a city official who served him an assault summons. Knowing a media frenzy was imminent, he met the media still unshaved and in his pajamas. He told the press that he remembered grabbing the panda and "this screaming, squawking young lady. Nobody got hurt, I didn't sock anybody; if girls were falling on the floor, I guess it was because they couldn't stand up." At the same time Time reported that the alleged victim had three marks from the alleged assault and "she explained that they were swelling and contusions."
That following Friday, Bogart went to court to face the charges. After the woman admitted to touching the panda, "Magistrate John R. Starkey ruled that Bogart had been defending his property, said he suspected the actor had been mousetrapped in the cause of club publicity, and dismissed the case."
The Rat Pack and Romanoff's
Bogart was a founding member of the Rat Pack. During the spring of 1955, after a long party in Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra, Mike and Gloria Romanoff, Angie Dickinson and others, "Lauren Bacall surveyed the wreckage of the party" and declared, "You look like a god damn rat pack."
Romanoff's in Beverly Hills was where the Rat Pack became "official". "Sinatra was named Pack Leader. Betty [Bacall] was named Den Mother, Bogie was Director of Public Relations, and Sid Luft was Acting Cage Manager." When asked by columnist Earl Wilson what the purpose of the group was, Bacall responded "to drink a lot of bourbon and stay up late."
Even so, the Rat Pack under Bogart's presidency was pretty civilized compared to what it became later. Bogart actually got away with telling Sinatra that he had an immature attitude towards women.
Later career
The enormous success of Casablanca redefined Bogart's career. For the first time, Bogart could be cast successfully as a tough, strong man and, at the same time, as a vulnerable love interest. From 1943 to 1955, Bogart starred in many other films that reflected his diverse talent as an actor. In addition to being offered better, more diverse roles, he started his own production company in 1949 called Santana Productions, named after his private sailing yacht. Under Bogart's Santana Productions, Bogart starred in:
Knock on Any Door (1949)
Tokyo Joe (1949)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Sirocco (1951)
Beat the Devil (1954)
The African Queen
In 1951, Bogart starred in the movie The African Queen, with Katharine Hepburn, again directed by his friend John Huston. It was a difficult shoot, on location in Africa and just about everyone in the cast came down with dysentery except Bogart and John Huston. Bogart explained: "I built a solid wall of Scotch between me and the bugs. If a mosquito bit me, he'd fall over dead drunk."
One day during the African Queen shoot, the eponymous boat even sank. Lauren Bacall recalled: "The natives had been told to watch it and they did; they watched it sink."
John Huston recalled: "Bogie didn't particularly care for the Charlie Alnutt role when he started, but I slowly got him into it, showing him by expression and gesture what I thought Alnutt should be like. He first imitated me, then all at once he got under the skin of that wretched, sleazy, absurd, brave little man. He realized he was on to something new and good. He said to me, 'John, don't let me lose it.'"
Hepburn's proper spinster character scolded Bogart's Charlie Alnutt: "Nature, Mr. Alnutt, is what we are put in this world to rise above." Bogart had a famous put down too: "You crazy, psalm-singing, skinny old maid!"
The African Queen was the first Technicolor film in which Bogart appeared. Remarkably, he appeared in relatively few color films during the rest of his career, which continued for another five years. (His other color films included The Caine Mutiny, The Barefoot Contessa, We're No Angels, and The Left Hand of God.)
The role of Charlie Alnutt won Bogart his only Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 1951. He had vowed to friends that if he won, his speech would break the convention of thanking everyone in sight. He would say instead: "I don't owe anything to anyone! I earned this award by hard work and paying attention to my craft." But when Bogart won the Academy Award, he thanked John Huston, Katharine Hepburn, and the cast and crew.
Also in 1951, Bogart and Bacall co-starred in the syndicated radio drama Bold Venture, for which he was paid a reported $4,000 a week. He played a character very much like Steve in To Have and Have Not, and she played his "ward". He called her "Sailor".
Bogart organized a delegation to Washington, D.C., during the height of McCarthyism, against the House Unamerican Activities Committee's harassment of Hollywood writers and actors.
Final roles
He dropped his asking price to get the role of Captain Queeg in Edward Dmytryk's The Caine Mutiny, then griped with some of his old bitterness about it. ("This never happens to Cooper or Grant or Gable, but always to me. Why does it happen to me?")
Bogart gave a bravura performance as Captain Queeg, in many ways an extension of the character he had played in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep—the wary loner who trusts no one—but with none of the warmth or humor that made those characters so appealing. Like his portrayal of Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Bogart played a paranoid, self-pitying character whose small-mindedness eventually destroyed him.
Sabrina (dir. Billy Wilder) and The Barefoot Contessa (dir. Joseph Mankiewicz) in 1954 gave him two of his subtlest roles. During the filming of The Left Hand of God (1955) he noticed his co-star Gene Tierney was having a hard time remembering her lines and was also behaving oddly. He coached Tierney, feeding her lines. He was familiar with mental illness (his sister had bouts of depression), and Bogart encouraged Tierney to seek treatment.
In 1955, he made three films: We're No Angels (dir. Michael Curtiz), The Left Hand of God (dir. Edward Dmytryk) and The Desperate Hours (dir. William Wyler). Mark Robson's The Harder They Fall (released in 1956) was his last film.
Television work
Bogart rarely appeared on television. However, he and his wife appeared on Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person. Bogart was also featured on The Jack Benny Show. Bogart and Bacall worked together on a rare color telecast, in 1955, an NBC adaptation of The Petrified Forest for the Producer's Showcase. Only a black and white kinescope of the live telecast has survived.
Death
By the mid-1950s, Bogart's health was failing. Once, after signing a long-term deal with Warner Bros., Bogart predicted with glee that his teeth and hair would fall out before the contract ended. That sent a fuming Jack Warner to his lawyers.
Bogart, a heavy smoker and drinker, contracted cancer of the esophagus. He almost never spoke of it and refused to see a doctor until January of 1956, and by then removal of his esophagus, two lymph nodes and a rib was too little, too late.
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy came to see him. Bogart was too weak to walk up and down stairs. He tried to joke about it: "Put me in the dumbwaiter and I'll ride down to the first floor in style."
Hepburn has described the last time she and Spencer Tracy saw Bogart (the night before he died): "Spence patted him on the shoulder and said, 'Goodnight, Bogie.' Bogie turned his eyes to Spence very quietly and with a sweet smile covered Spence's hand with his own and said, 'Goodbye, Spence.' Spence's heart stood still. He understood."
Bogart had just turned 57 and weighed only 80 pounds (36 kg) when he died on January 14, 1957 after falling into a coma. He died at 2:25 am at his home at 232 Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills, California, nearby Hollywood. . His funeral was held at All Saints Episcopal Church with musical selections played from Bogart's favorite composers, Johann Sebastian Bach and Claude Debussy. Bacall had asked Spencer Tracy to give the eulogy but Tracy was too upset. John Huston gave the eulogy instead, and reminded the gathered mourners that while Bogart's life had ended far too soon, it had been a rich one. Huston said: "He is quite irreplaceable. There will never be another like him."
Huston also noted of Bogart:
"Himself, he never took too seriously—his work most seriously. He regarded the somewhat gaudy figure of Bogart, the star, with an amused cynicism; Bogart, the actor, he held in deep respect…In each of the fountains at Versailles there is a pike which keeps all the carp active; otherwise they would grow overfat and die. Bogie took rare delight in performing a similar duty in the fountains of Hollywood. Yet his victims seldom bore him any malice, and when they did, not for long. His shafts were fashioned only to stick into the outer layer of complacency, and not to penetrate through to the regions of the spirit where real injuries are done."
Katharine Hepburn said:
"He was one of the biggest guys I ever met. He walked straight down the center of the road. No maybes. Yes or no. He liked to drink. He drank. He liked to sail a boat. He sailed a boat. He was an actor. He was happy and proud to be an actor. He'd say to me, 'Are you comfortable? Everything okay?' He was looking out for me."
His cremated remains are interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California. Buried with him is a small gold whistle, which he had given to his future wife, Lauren Bacall, before they married. In reference to their first movie together, it was inscribed: "If you want anything, just whistle."
Humphrey Bogart's hand and foot prints are immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6322 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.
After his death, the "Bogie Cult" formed at the Brattle Theatre which contributed to his spike in popularity in the late '50s and '60s.

Born: 25-Dec-1968
Birthplace: Copenhagen, Denmark
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Model
Nationality: Denmark
Executive summary: Danish model dates rock stars
Father: (Danish typographer)
Mother: (Peruvian)
Boyfriend: Billy Corgan (lead singer, Smashing Pumpkins)
Boyfriend: Michael Hutchence (dated 1990-5)
Boyfriend: Chris Isaak
Boyfriend: Norman Reedus (actor, long term relationship, one son)
Son: Mingus Luchien Reedus (b. 22-Oct-1999)
Boyfriend: Peter Makebish (poet, dated 1998)
Slept with: Leonardo DiCaprio
She stepped into the limelight in 1986 by claiming the title of Miss Denmark at age eighteen, and representing her country at the Miss Universe pageant. This provided an invaluable springboard to launch herself as an international model. She left her home soon afterwards to pursue modeling in Paris.
Christensen is considered to be one of the more prominent supermodels of the 1990s. She has appeared on many magazine covers and fashion campaigns. She was in the Victoria's Secret catalog and in their television commercials.
In 1991, she starred in the music video for Chris Isaak's song "Wicked Game". In the video, she is depicted as Isaak's lover. Christensen and Isaak were both topless for much of the video, though her nudity is relatively concealed with clever camera angles. It was decided that full frontal nudity would not be suitable for mainstream release. Viewers still reacted to Christensen's sexually suggestive performance, and the video was later featured on MTV's "Sexiest Video of All-Time".
Business
Christensen has an antiques shop in Manhattan and sells some of her clothes in her mother's Yo-Yo Second Hand Shop in Christianshavn.
Helena co-founded Nylon magazine as the original creative director with American entrepreneur, Mic Neumann. She has launched her own clothing line Christensen & Sigersen, with long-term friend Leif Sigersen. The pair also run Butik, a shop in New York.
Breast cancer advocate
Christensen was in Ireland to launch the second Fashion Targets Breast Cancer campaign which involves the sale of exclusive designer t-shirts to raise millions for Action Breast Cancer (a project of the Irish Cancer Society) and Europa Donna Ireland to help younger women with breast cancer.
Personal life
Christensen lived with the late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, and has been romantically linked to Leonardo DiCaprio for a brief relationship and she has also been romantically linked to Billy Corgan. She has one child, son Mingus Luchien Reedus born October 22, 1999 with former model Norman Reedus. Norman and Helena split in 2003. Christensen dated Danish rock band Grand Avenue frontman Rasmus Walter-Hansen from 2004 to 2006.
Helena has claimed on several occasions to be a cheese addict, admitting that: "There've been times when I've bought a whole pound of cheese and walked down the street and eaten it in one go... I think it's incredibly sensual."
Christensen declares that: "Whenever my head is like a maze, I turn to the easy things in life, the things that mean the most to me: Sex and cheese. These things are connected. Truth be told, I love all cheese: French cheese, Italian cheese, even British cheese, but Danish cheese is the greatest. I get my best nightmares after I eat Danish cheese. Actually I've seriously thought about getting a cheese tattoo. A nice Edam on my shoulder, maybe."
In June 2006, Christensen admitted to smoking cannabis, saying: "I wouldn’t say no if somebody passed me a joint." She claimed that models are attracted to the apparent glamour of Class A narcotics, but she didn't use them, telling Britain's Grazia magazine: "It was never a problem for me. I was brought up with a lot of discipline so I wasn’t attracted to it. But there were a lot of young, beautiful girls on the party scene, with a lot of drugs around. I’m not a saint, but drugs were never my thing."
She drives a Morris Minor car at home in Monaco, and also has apartments in Copenhagen and Manhattan. Christensen is left-handed and is a fan of The Smiths and R.E.M.. She is also close friends with REM lead singer Michael Stipe.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"
Clement Clarke Moore (1779 - 1863)

Born: 23-Dec-1978
Birthplace: Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Model
Nationality: Canada
Executive summary: Synchronized swimmer turned model
Former synchronized swimmer (Canadian national champion.)
Father: (used car salesman)
Mother: (elementary school principal)
Boyfriend: Kip Pardue (ex-)
Boyfriend: Josh Hartnett (ex-)
Estella Dawn Warren is a Canadian actress, former fashion model, and a former synchronized swimmer.
As a synchronized swimmer, she represented Canada at the World Aquatic Championships. She moved to Toronto at the age of twelve to train with the national synchronized swimming team, and after becoming the senior national champion at seventeen, Warren had the chance to move on to the 1996 Summer Olympics. She is a three-time Canadian national champion, and the solo bronze medallist at the 1995 Junior World Championships.
In her free time, she enjoys horse riding, playing the piano, singing, and swimming.
Fashion Modelling
During a high school fashion show, a talent agent was present who spotted her, took a Polaroid picture of her and sent it to a New York City agency, which triggered the start of her modelling career.
Warren stands 5'9" tall (1.75 metres), with measurements of 36-24-34 (bust-waist-hips). She has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Snoecks 2000, Vogue, Vanity Fair, two television commercials for Chanel No. 5 perfume and was named Maxim Magazine's Hottest Woman in 2000.
Estella has also done major campaigns for the likes of Andrew Marc, Perry Ellis, Nine West and Cacharel, as well as having appeared in television advertisements for Samsung.
In 2000 Warren was the host of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2000. Damon Wayans was the co-host.
She has also appeared in the Victoria's Secret Catologue.
Acting
Warren has been in numerous movies, including 2001's Driven (with Sylvester Stallone) and Planet of the Apes, 2003's Kangaroo Jack and the critically acclaimed The Cooler in the same year.
Her acting abilities have been showcased on the small screen, too. She appeared in That '70s Show in 2003; in Law & Order, and in its spin-off SVU, both in 2005. She also appeared in Ghost Whisperer, in an episode entitled, "On the Wings of a Dove", where she portrayed Alexis ("Lexi") Fogerty, which aired on November 11, 2005.
In 2006, Warren was featured in the video for INXS' song Afterglow.
Estella was also featured in the Blank and Jones music video for their song Beyond Time.

Born: 22-Dec-1968
Birthplace: Queens, NY
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Starship Troopers
Grew up in Dix Hills, Long Island.
Father: (owns auto parts shop)
Brother: Evan
Meyer was born in Queens, New York to a father who owns an auto parts/repair shop. She has two brothers. Meyer loved dancing and acting from an early age, but it was not until after she graduated from university that she started to work to become an actress. She attended Long Island University, where she majored in business administration. Among her hobbies and interests are snowboarding, rollerblading and biking. She lives in Los Angeles. Meyer dated actor Shane West, after the movie A Walk to Remember and also was his date to the premiere.
Career
Meyer's film debut was in the TV film Strapped in 1993, although her role in the cyberpunk thriller Johnny Mnemonic was perhaps her breakthrough performance. Before that, however, she also had a role in the TV series Beverly Hills 90210 as Lucinda Nicholson. In addition to Johnny Mnemonic, she has had other roles in science fiction productions, such as Starship Troopers, Birds of Prey and Star Trek: Nemesis. Three of her most recent films were the 2004 horror/thriller hit Saw (film), followed by Saw II and its sequel Saw III. She made several guest appearances on Friends and Miss Match. She also played one of the leads on the now canceled Point Pleasant. In March 2006 Meyer was in the series premiere episode of Thief as Wanda the wife of Andre Braugher's character Nick. However, her character was killed in the first episode in a car wreck.
She reprised her role as Kerry in the third installment of the Saw series Saw III, released on October 27, 2006.

AKA Vanessa Chantal Paradis

Born: 22-Dec-1972
Birthplace: Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne, France
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor, Musician
Nationality: France
Executive summary: La Fille sur le Pont
Father: Andre
Mother: Corrine Paradis
Sister: Alysson Paradis (younger)
Boyfriend: Lenny Kravitz (musician, ex-)
Boyfriend: Johnny Depp (actor, one daughter, one son)
Daughter: Lily-Rose Melody Depp (b. 27-May-1999)
Son: Jack (b. 10-Apr-2002)
Vanessa Paradis was discovered on the TV show L'École des fans in 1980. She recorded her first single La Magie des surprises-parties in 1985. Although it was not a hit, it paved the way for the song with which she would become internationally famous - "Joe le Taxi" in 1987, while she was still only 14 years old. It was #1 in France for 14 weeks and, unusually for a song sung in French, was released in the UK the following year, where it reached #3. It was taken from her first album M&J (it stands for Marilyn & John) which, although it gained a number 13 placing in France, drew little attention in Britain and did not chart.
In 1992, now 19 and working in the U.S. with American rock musician Lenny Kravitz, who was her boyfriend for a while, Paradis began work on a new album sung in English, in which she had become fluent. Written and produced by Kravitz, the album, titled Vanessa Paradis, topped the French chart and briefly made the UK listings (number 45). One of the singles from it was Be My Baby, which made number 5 in France and gave her other Top 10 UK hit (number 6). She has since appeared in several films, most famously "Noce Blanche", for which she won the 1990 César Award for Most Promising Actress; 1999's La fille sur le pont, a black and white romance co-starring Daniel Auteuil; and 2004's Mon Ange.
In 1991, Paradis promoted a fragrance for Chanel, entitled Coco. In the advertisement, she is dressed in all black and feathers, portraying a bird swinging in a cage. In 2004 she promoted Chanel's new handbags called Ligne Cambon. She is now promoting Chanel's The New Mademoiselle handbag. On the musical side, she is included in the French children's album "Le Soldat Rose". Paradis currently released a new album (Divinidylle) and will be touring in October. She is also coming out with two new movies: La Clef and Le Soldat rose.
Family
Since 1998, Paradis has been in a relationship with American actor Johnny Depp. Paradis caught Depp's eye in a hotel lobby in Paris while he was there shooting the film The Ninth Gate (1999).
Depp and Paradis are not married because they feel they don't need a certificate to justify their love to one another. They have a daughter, Lily-Rose Melody Depp (born May 27, 1999), and a son, John Christopher "Jack" Depp III (born April 10, 2002). There have also been recent rumors of Paradis being pregnant with the couple's third child.
They divide their time between houses in the Hollywood Hills and their farm in the South of France, and also own apartments in Paris, Manhattan and an island in the Bahamas. Paradis' 2000 album Bliss, another French chart topper, was dedicated to Depp and their daughter.

AKA Frank Vincent Zappa, Jr.

Born: 21-Dec-1940
Birthplace: Baltimore, MD
Died: 4-Dec-1993
Location of death: Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, CA
Cause of death: Cancer - Prostate
Remains: Buried, Unmarked grave, Westwood Memorial Park, Westwood, Los Angeles, CA
Gender: Male
Religion: Atheist
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Composer, Musician, Activist
Party Affiliation: Libertarian
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Joe's Garage
Father: Francis Zappa (teacher/meteorologist/mathematician)
Mother: Rose Marie Colimore
Brother: Bobby Zappa (musician, b. 1943)
Brother: Carl Zappa (b. 1947)
Sister: Patrice Zappa ("Candy", b. 1951)
Wife: Kay Sherman (m. 1960, div. 1964)
Wife: Adelaide Gail Sloatman (m. 1967, two sons, two daughters)
Daughter: Moon Unit Zappa (author/artist, b. 1967)
Son: Dweezil Zappa (musician, b. 1969)
Son: Ahmet Zappa (musician, b. 1974)
Daughter: Diva Muffin Zappa
Slept with: Lorraine Belcher
Slept with: Janice Dickinson
Slept with: Nigey Lennon (1971, according to her)
Slept with: Janis Joplin
Just as the year 1940 was coming to an end amidst the anxious tumult surrounding a rapidly-escalating world war, an unsuspecting Sicilian immigrant and his French-Sicilian wife welcomed the arrival of an organism that would grow to be one of the most gifted, innovative and irreverent musicans of the century. Frank Vincent Zappa, born in Baltimore to a Catholic family, spent his early years more inclined towards being a mad scientist than a musician (and this explains quite a bit, if you keep it in mind while listening to his records), occupying his time with the creation of various incendiary concoctions from toy caps, ping pong balls and other household materials. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was another mad scientist (or at least a guy with mad scientist's hair) who eventually ignited his enthusiasm for music -- this being the French avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse. By this time Frank and his family had moved to California, where he developed a parallel interest in the burgeoning doo-wop/R&B movement and took up playing the drums (or, more accurately, 'a drum'). Both of these musical influences would continue to impact his creative output throughout his entire career.
After moving to the desert town of Lancaster, Zappa formed his first band: an integrated R&B outfit called The Black-Outs. The still fundamentally racist social structure of the 50s excluded the band from performing at school functions, so they were forced to organize their own events -- much to the displeasure of local law enforcement. During this period his listening broadened to include international folk musics, sea shanties, modern jazz and a wide range of 20th century classical composers; before the end of high school Frank had given up the drums and switched to playing the guitar, while his stylistic concerns drifted somewhat from R&B towards classical composition. After graduation, Frank briefly attended Antelope Valley Junior College, and it was here that his first recordings were made with the help of his brother Bobby and friend Don Van Vliet (later to be known as Captain Beefheart). He then spent a few months studying music theory at Chaffey Junior College before taking a job as a greeting card designer, supplementing his income with various music projects: these included a commission from former high school English teacher Don Cerveris to score the film Run Home Slow, occasional performances as a folk duo with future co-founder of The Association Terry Kirkman, gigs with his R&B quartet The Boogie Men, a new version of The Black-Outs, and the lounge act Joe Perrino and the Mellow Tones. A second film score, commisioned by actor Timothy Carey for his completely deranged film The World's Greatest Sinner, was undertaken in 1961.
In the early 60s Zappa took a job working for Paul Buff, an innovative recording engineer who had built his own five-track recording studio in Cucamonga. For a year the pair attempted to churn out hit records for various labels, before Zappa assumed ownership of the studio with some of the money earned from Run Home Slow; he subsequently changed it's name to "Studio Z" and immersed himself in multi-tracking as a full-time lifestyle. A low-budget film project (Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People, featuring Van Vliet) was also being organized at the time, but both film and studio were lost after a San Bernardino County vice squad detective commissioned Zappa to create a "pornographic" audio tape, and then arrested him for making it. After completing the required ten days of his six-month sentence in county lock-up, the disillusioned musician emerged to find his life in a shambles. It was only a few days later, however, that he was contacted by vocalist Ray Collins (who had been a regular participant in the Zappa/Buff sessions) and invited to assume guitar duties for The Soul Giants -- a bar band founded by drummer Jimmy Carl Black and bassist Roy Estrada after a chance meeting in a pawn shop. Although a covers act at the time, Zappa soon convinced most of the other musicans that, in order to get anywhere in the music business, they should start performing his original material; after a brief period spent as Captain Glasspack and his Magic Mufflers, the band changed their name to The Mothers on Mother's Day, 1965.
The first year of The Mothers was not an easy one, and all of its members had become well-acquainted with poverty and hunger by the end of it. It wasn't until sometime club-owner and music promoter Herb Cohen assumed management duties that the fortunes of the band finally began to turn around. By October of '65 Cohen had provided them with a four-week stint at the hip LA club The Action, and soon after organized a residency at the even hipper Whiskey A-Go-Go; Cohen also arranged for MGM producer Tom Wilson to witness a Mothers performance, and by March 1966 Zappa had his first big-time record deal. Several months later, this arrangement resulted in a slice (or rather, two slices) of music history: Freak Out!, the world's first rock and roll double LP -- and definitely one of the most unusual. The record combined all of Zappa's musical interests, from doo-wop and R&B to modern classical and avant garde, while the lyric content ranged between social commentary, (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) tales of hearbreak, and Dadaistic absurdity. MGM, however, refused to allow the album to be credited under a name as outrageous as "The Mothers" (think of the scandal!), so the group was forced to lengthen it to The Mothers of Invention in order for a release to be possible. Zappa and his bandmates set off on their first tour immediately afterwards, where they were introduced to the joys of lip-synching on teen dance shows. It was at the conclusion this tour that Frank began what would be his most (and only) enduring partnership, after meeting a secretary at the Whisky named Gail Sloatman; the two married the following year, and Gail's role in supporting Frank's music (and, eventually, managing his business concerns) remained an essential one throughout his career.
In November of '66 the Mothers recorded their second album, Absolutely Free, further expanding on the methods and themes established with Freak Out!. By the time of its release the following year, Zappa had relocated to New York, where Cohen had arranged a residency for the band at the Garrick Theater -- the music scene in LA having fallen into a terminal slump, due to a growing political reaction against venues that catered to the long-haired "freak" crowd. The shows at the Garrick entered the realm of legend, featuring as they did extensive audience participation, an ever-changing array of props, vegetables, and the public administration of enormous quantities of whipped cream via a stuffed giraffe's rectum. Zappa correspondingly took his recorded work a step further at this time, integrating tape manipulation and extensive editing techniques into the already frothy musical stew. Two albums showcasing this painstaking approach materialized in '68: the first being the scathing social critique We're Only In It For The Money, and the second being the elaborate sonic collage Lumpy Gravy. 1968 also saw the Mothers' audience expand overseas as a result of their first shows in Europe and the UK, including a notorious performance at London's Royal Albert Hall that featured an 8 piece band line-up accompanied by ten members of the London Philharmonic. Never one to rest, upon his return to New York Zappa initiated two more projects before moving back to California in May: a tribute/parody of his doo-wop roots called Cruising With Ruben And The Jets and the homemade film and accompanying album Uncle Meat (the album was released in 1969, but the film remained unfinished until 1987).
After their contract with MGM expired in 1967, Zappa and Cohen set up their own label, aptly titled Bizarre Records. In addition to albums by the Mothers, the label also provided an outlet for offbeat performers such as Lenny Bruce, Wild Man Fischer, the GTOs and Alice Cooper (the latter two released through the Straight sub-label). On occasion, Frank also served as a producer for these other artist's records -- the most notable example being Trout Mask Replica, the third effort by Don Van Vliet's music cult Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band and arguably the most outlandish blues album in history. Despite their growing popularity (or, apparently, because of it), Zappa was becoming increasingly disenchanted with his own band -- having developed an adversarial, employer/employee relationship with the other musicians, many of whom took a dim view of his refusal to injest "recreational substances" -- and following a tour in the summer of 1969 he made the decision the disband the Mothers. Albums featuring live performances by the group (Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, both 1970) continued to be released after its dissolution, however, and material from this line-up would continue to surface more than two decades later (such as Ahead of Their Time, a recording of a 1968 performance at The Royal Festival Hall in London that was made available in 1993).
For his next project, Zappa assembled a group of accomplished players (including some Mothers veterans like Ian Underwood and Roy Estrada) to create the primarily instrumental, jazz-leaning collection Hot Rats (1969). Almost immediately afterwards, a similarly-oriented album titled King Kong was recorded for violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, featuring both Zappa's compositions and production. A brief "reunion" tour with the Mothers was then organized, but the fickle bandleader organized a new band under the same name not long afterwards, retaining only Underwood from the original line-up. It was this band -- fronted by the dual vocals of Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman (formerly of The Turtles) and also including British drummer Aynsley Dunbar -- that both performed the music and provided the principal actors for Zappa's second film/album project, 200 Motels (1971): a highly-stylized, comically nightmarish portrayal of life on the road, constructed around actual dialogue and behavior that Zappa had witnessed from his bandmates. The film also enlisted the acting skills of Ringo Starr (portraying a dwarf), Keith Moon (portraying a licentious nun) and Theodore Bikel (portraying the devil), with on-screen musical performances by the Royal Philharmonic integrated into the story. Frank continued to perform with this new line-up until the end of 1971, the shows featuring constantly-evolving, sexually-themed skits (primarily enacted by Kaylan and Volman) woven into his complex musical arrangements. This second incarnation of the Mothers was abruptly terminated at a show at the Rainbow Theatre in London on 10 December, mere days after the band had lost all its gear in a fire that had erupted during a performance in Montreaux: just as Frank was returning to the stage for an encore, a demented fan attacked him, pushing him into the orchestra pit ten feet below. He would spend the next several weeks in a London hospital, recovering from the numerous injuries brought about by the fall; surgery to repair his throat caused his voice to drop a third of an octave.
Despite being in a leg cast and confined to a wheelchair, Zappa resumed his musical activities as soon as was possible, once again exploring the largely-instumental fusion direction of Hot Rats with the aid of Dunbar, dynamic keyboardist George Duke and an extensive brass/wind section. The first result was the album Waka/Jawaka (1972), followed later in the year by The Grand Wazoo; various permutations of the band -- usually billed under the name The Grand Wazoo, although sometimes still referred to as The Mothers -- subsequently toured the material in the States and Europe, but Zappa found that he enjoyed the company of these more serious players less than the rowdy shenanigans of his previous bandmates. Frank then switched his focus back towards a more commercial, song-oriented approach with the albums Over-Nite Sensation (1973) and Apostrophe ('), which included some of the few songs in the Zappa catalogue that were ever given any airplay: "Montana", "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow" and "Cosmik Debris". Even with these more radio-friendly pieces, however, the musical complexity remained considerable, and all of the above songs include the compositional twists (often rendered by superhuman percussionist Ruth Underwood) that had become Zappa's trademark.
In 1975, the final two albums bearing the Mothers' name were released: One Size Fits All (whose content was a hybrid of the "Wazoo" and "Apostrophe" approaches) and Bongo Fury (a collaboration between Zappa and estranged friend Captain Beefheart). For the remainder of the decade, Frank divided his time between orchestral projects and a more rock-oriented band -- both of which allowed him to maintain his typical routine of perpetual rehearsal and touring. The next album, Zoot Allures (1976), displayed a shift in his recorded output, with his social satire pieces being given a heavier rock sound and his instrumental pieces alternating between complex ensemble arrangements and settings for his guitar solos. 1976 also saw the resolution of Frank's first lawsuit against a record label, his action against MGM resulting in an out-of-court settlement that gave him control of his master tapes; this activity was resumed once again only a year later, when he sued his new label Warner Brothers for breach of contract after they failed to pay him for the four albums he delivered (all at once) to fulfill his obligations. The albums did eventually surface as Zappa in New York (1978), Studio Tan (1978), Sleep Dirt (1979) and Orchestral Favorites (1979), but it would be nearly two decades before they were presented as in the multi-disc format (Läther, 1996) that he had intended for them.
By the end of 1979 Zappa had established his own record label, and had himself become established as one of the most accomplished and demanding bandleaders in the music industry. The players he enlisted during the following decade were generally not previously-established names, but even a short tenure as a member of Zappa's band would earn a musician a considerable amount of professional credibility, and several graduates from the 80s line-ups emerged to launch significant careers in their own right -- drummer Terry Bozzio, and guitarists Adrian Belew and Steve Vai amongst them. Zappa's recorded output during this period became more prolific than ever, with most of the material now being culled from a vast tape archive containing nearly every one of his live performances. Between 1981 and 1983, nine new albums (several of them double-disc sets) were issued: Tinsel Town Rebellion (1981), three volumes of collected guitar solos titled Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More and Return Of The Son Of Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar (all 1981), You Are What You Is (1981), Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch (1982), The Man From Utopia (1982), Baby Snakes (also a concert film, 1983), and the first of his classical collections with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Volume 1, 1983). In the midst of this outpour arrived "Valley Girl", the most commercially successful song of his career (included on the Drowning Witch album). Featuring the voice of his daughter Moon Unit Zappa imitating the cant of a San Fernando Valley teenager, the song gave Zappa a rare appearance in the top 40, while the revenue earned by this unexpected hit subsequently made it possible for the composer to finance several of his less lucrative orchestral projects.
In 1984 Zappa released Thing-Fish, a demented and profane 3-album story that he had initially intended to turn into a full-scale stage musical. Although Zappa continued to put out numerous live documents and archival collections, the majority of his studio-recorded releases from 1984 onwards were oriented towards "serious" compositions rather than songs, either assembled by means of the Synclavier -- Francesco Zappa (1984), Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers Of Prevention (1985), Jazz From Hell (1986) -- or performed by an orchestra -- the part-synclavier/part-Pierre Boulez-conducted collection The Perfect Stranger (1984) and LSO Volume 2 (1987). In the period from mid-1988 to mid-1992, his output remained focused on the You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore archival series, six volumes of primarily live recordings that ranged across the entire span of his career; these were only interrupted by a pair of more contemporary live collections in 1991, The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life and Make A Jazz Noise Here, both culled from recordings of his final tour in 1988.
By the mid-1980s Zappa's reputation as an outspoken social critic had drawn him into various non- or extra-musical contexts, the most visible of these being precipitated by the public hearings held in September 1985 to address the record ratings system demanded by the Parents' Music Resource Center. Amongst the list of music industry figures called to speak -- ranging from Twisted Sister's Dee Snider to country boy John Denver -- Zappa delivered the most thoroughly researched and well-considered testimony; this increased public profile immediately resulted in several invitations to speak as a guest lecturer, most often on the topic of censorship. In 1989 he composed a score to the Cousteau Society documentary Outrage at Valdez in order to draw more attention to the ecological disaster it portrayed, and for which he donated his fee back to the Society. As the 1980s came to a close, Frank also became more active in different business ventures, establishing Why Not?, a consulting company geared towards facilitating U.S. investment in the Soviet Union just prior to the fall of communism; these dealings eventually led to a request in 1990 from Czech president Vaclav Havel for Zappa to officially represent Czechia's trade interests in the United States (an arrangement that was forcibly terminated by the first Bush administration soon afterwards). For a brief period in 1991, he even researched the possibility of running for president himself, and a few grassroots groups continued to pursue this idea independently until Zappa's death two years later.
In 1992, Frank began work on two projects that proved to be the successful culmination of various career-long musical threads. The first of these was brought about by the Ensemble Modern, a musician-run classical outfit that specialized in performing modern works; with their dedicated perseverence, he created The Yellow Shark, a series of European concerts and ultimately a CD release that at last provided the composer with satisfactory performances of his classical pieces. The Ensemble also contributed somewhat to the other project: a double disc set titled Civilization Phaze III (1993), which revisited the compositional collage approach established on Lumpy Gravy twenty-four years earlier. This album saw both the realization of the kind of work he had been striving to achieve on the synclavier, and the only-recently-possible manipulation of a series of absurdist discussions that he had recorded in a piano during the sessions for Gravy. Towards the end of 1993 his worsening prostate cancer (first detected in 1990) prevented him from pursuing any further projects. The disease would ultimately claim his life on 4 December 1993.

Born December 20, 1978
New York City, New York
Amanda Swisten is an American actress who has appeared in various hit films and TV shows.
Swisten was born in New York City, New York. Her first credited appearance was in the film American Wedding in 2003. After which she appeared in films such as The Last Run (2004), The Girl Next Door (2004), and Freezerburn (2005). She has had guest appearances on TV series such as I'm with Her, Two and a Half Men, Quintuplets, and Joey. Her free time is spent dealing with significant charities and travelling.
To date her career seems to have stalled.
Swisten was ranked #99 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2004.

AKA Alyssa Jayne Milano

Born: 19-Dec-1972
Birthplace: Brooklyn, NY
Gender: Female
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor, Singer
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Who's the Boss, Charmed
Father: Tom Milano (music editor, b. 1947)
Mother: Lin Milano (executive, SafeSearching, b. 1948)
Brother: Cory Milano (b. 24-Oct-1982)
Boyfriend: Kirk Cameron (actor, dated 1985)
Boyfriend: Jason London (actor, dated 1986)
Boyfriend: Corey Haim (actor, dated 1987)
Boyfriend: Scott Wolf (actor, b. 1968, dated and engaged 1990-93)
Boyfriend: Brian Bloom (actor, dated 1996)
Husband: Cinjun August Tate (lead singer, Remy Zero, m. 1-Jan-1999, div. 20-Nov-1999)
Boyfriend: Greg Vaughan (actor, together 2000)
Boyfriend: Brian Krause (actor, dated 2000-01)
Boyfriend: Justin Timberlake (musician, dated 2002)
Boyfriend: Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit, dated 2002-03)
Boyfriend: Eric Dane (actor, dated 2003)
Boyfriend: Jimmy Federico (dancer, dated 2003)
Boyfriend: Carl Pavano (baseball player, dated 2004)
Boyfriend: Barry Zito (baseball player, dated 2004)
Boyfriend: Brad Penny (baseball player, dated 2005)
At the age of eight, Alyssa Milano played one of the orphans in a stage production of Annie. At 11, she became famous as Samantha Micelli, the sweet albeit unlikely TV daughter of Tony Danza on Who's the Boss?, a role she played for eight years. At 16, she starred in a popular workout video called Teen Steam, performing such exercises as ankle-grab torso-jiggle and flat-back leg-splits. She later played the sexy and conniving Jennifer Mancini on Melrose Place, and the sexy witch Phoebe Halliwell on Charmed. She has at least six tattoos and a pierced belly button, and had breast implants at the age of 20.
In the late 1990s, when naked photos and films of Milano began circulating widely on the internet, she formed a company with her mother, Lin Milano, called Cybertrackers. It sends threatening letters and, if necessary, sues businesses distributing unauthorized Milano nudes -- generally either pictures of her head photoshopped onto another woman's body, or stills from movies in which she appeared nude. Another Lin Milano company, SafeSearching, provides webhosting and site design for mostly low-level celebrities who want kid-friendly websites.
In 2003, saying that she felt the need to use her celebrity to make the world a better place, Milano became a UNICEF Ambassador. She has worked with AIDS patients at a hospital in Angola, worked with tsunami survivors in India, and visited Hurricane Katrina survivors in Houston's Astrodome.

AKA Kristen N Swanson

Born: 19-Dec-1969
Birthplace: Mission Viejo, CA
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Original Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Father: Robert Swanson (phys-ed teacher)
Mother: Rosemary Albrecht (phys-ed teacher)
Boyfriend: Jonathan Kahn (screenwriter, b. 1969, ex-)
Boyfriend: David Spade (comic, ex-)
Boyfriend: Alan Thicke (ex)
Boyfriend: Lloyd Eisler (figure skater)
Son: Magnus Hart Swanson Eisler (b. 16-Feb-2007 with Eisler)
Played Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the original movie, and later played Susan Crawford on Grapevine. Best known for her 2006 appearance on Fox's reality competition Skating with Celebrities, where she was paired with Canadian figure skater Lloyd Eisler. They had an affair during filming, and Eisler left his pregnant wife, Marcia O'Brien, to shack up with Swanson. In June 2007 Swanson and O'Brien had a fist-fight, Swanson was arrested, and both women claimed the other was the aggressor.

Born: 18-Dec-1943
Birthplace: Dartford, England
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Guitarist
Nationality: England
Executive summary: The Rolling Stones
Father: Bert Richards (d. 2002)
Mother: Doris Richards (d. 21-Apr-2007)
Girlfriend: Anita Pallenberg (actress, two sons, one daughter)
Son: Marlon
Daughter: Angela
Wife: Patti Hansen (former model, m. 1983, two daughters)
Daughter: Theodora
Daughter: Alexandra
Richards, the only child of Bert Richards and Doris Dupree, was born in Dartford, Kent. His father was a factory labourer slightly injured during World War II, and Richards' paternal grandparents were socialists and civic leaders. His maternal grandfather (Augustus Theodore Dupree), who toured Britain in a jazz/big band, influenced Richards' musical ambitions. Richards' mother introduced him to the music of Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
Richards attended Wilmington Grammar School for Boys, and then Sidcup Art College where he devoted more time to playing guitar than his proper studies. As an adolescent, Richards was a teddy boy who played in various skiffle groups as was common at the time. Richards left the College and moved into a flat with Jagger and Brian Jones, the Stones' other guitarist, in 1962. His parents subsequently divorced.
Guitar playing
Richards has derived inspiration from Chuck Berry throughout his career. While The Rolling Stones were conceived as a rhythm and blues band, both Jagger and Richards were responsible for bringing the rock 'n' roll songs of Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry to the band. With Stones founding member and guitarist Brian Jones, Richards developed a two-guitar style of interwoven leads and rhythms. Jones was replaced by the virtuoso guitarist Mick Taylor (1969 – 1974), who contributed to some of the group's most well-regarded records. Taylor's addition also led to a pronounced separation in the duties of lead and rhythm guitar. Taylor's replacement in 1975 was the more rhythmically-oriented Ron Wood. Richards says the pairing with Wood has resulted in his most musically satisfying years with in The Stones.
Richards often uses guitars with open tunings which allow for syncopated and ringing I-IV chording that can be heard on "Start Me Up" and "Street Fighting Man." A five-string variant of the open G (borrowed from Don Everly of the Everly Brothers) which uses GDGBD unencumbered by a rumbling, lower 6th string, is prominent on "Honky Tonk Women," "Brown Sugar" and "Start Me Up". Though he still uses standard tunings, Richards claimed that his adoption of open tunings in the late sixties led to a musical "rebirth". When Jones' declining contributions left Richards to record all guitar parts - including slide guitar. After Taylor and later Wood, both accomplished slide players, joined the band, Richards almost completely stopped playing slide .
Richards - who has over 1000 guitars, some of which he has not played but was simply given - is often associated with the Fender Telecaster, but his main guitar of late appears to be an ebony Gibson ES-355, and he has often played Fender Stratocasters. It is often hard to detect by ear what guitar he plays. In Guitar World he joked that no matter what make of guitar, he can make them sound the same. On The Stones "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" Richards recorded the first top ten hit to feature a guitar fuzz effect which has since become commonplace. Though in the 1970s and early 80s he used guitar effects frequently, since then he has rarely used effects. Richards considers the acoustic guitar as the basis for his playing[citation needed], and many Stones hits including "Not Fade Away", "Satisfaction", "Street Fighting Man" and "Brown Sugar" feature acoustic guitar parts.
Richards' backing vocals appear on every Stones album, and since 1969's Let It Bleed, most Stones' releases contained a Richards lead vocal. He has also contributed occasional bass and keyboard parts. Richards has always been active in record production for the Stones and for himself, often in tandem with Mick Jagger (as the Glimmer Twins) and outside producers.

If you're going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet
Keith Richards

AKA Christina Maria Aguilera

Born: 18-Dec-1980
Birthplace: Staten Island, NY
Gender: Female
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: Multiracial
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Singer
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Genie in a Bottle
Father: Jim (from Ecuador)
Mother: Shelly (from Newfoundland)
Sister: Rachel
Brother: Michael
Sister: Stephanie (step-)
Brother: Casey (step-)
Husband: Jordan Bratman (music executive, b. 1977, m. 19-Nov-2005)
Christina María Aguilera is an American pop singer, songwriter and record producer. She was signed to RCA Records after recording "Reflection" for the film Mulan. She came to prominence following her debut album Christina Aguilera (1999), which was a critical and commercial success. A Latin pop album Mi Reflejo, and a Christmas album, My Kind of Christmas, followed during this period and also sold very well.
After parting from her management, Aguilera took creative control over her second studio album Stripped (2002), which received mixed reviews and produced substantial sales. The overtly sexual image Aguilera displayed during the promotion of the album became the subject of intense criticism and ridicule. The second single, "Beautiful" was of commercial success and sustained the album's sales.
Aguilera's third studio album Back to Basics (2006) included elements of soul, jazz, and blues music. Mainly produced by DJ Premier, it was released to strong sales and positive critical reception. Aside from being known for her vocal ability, musically she includes themes of dealing with public scrutiny, her childhood, and female empowerment. Aguilera's work has earned her numerous awards including five Grammy Awards amongst eighteen nominations. She has sold 30 million albums worldwide.
Life and music career
Early life and career
Aguilera was born in Staten Island, New York, to Fausto Wagner Xavier Aguilera, a Sergeant in the U.S. Army at the time and Shelly Loraine Fidler, a Spanish teacher. Aguilera's father was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, while her mother is of Irish descent (Christina's maternal grandmother emigrated from County Clare). Her father, Fausto, was stationed at Earnest Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville, Newfoundland, Canada and Japan. Aguilera lived with her father and mother until she was seven years old. When Aguilera's parents divorced, her mother took her, and her younger sister Rachel, to her grandmother's home in Wexford, Pennsylvania, a blue-collar suburb outside of Pittsburgh. According to both Aguilera and Fidler, her father was very controlling, as well as physically and emotionally abusive. She later wrote about her difficult childhood in the songs "I'm OK" in Stripped, and "Oh Mother" in Back to Basics. Although her father has written to Aguilera, she has ruled out any chance to reunite with him. Since then, Fidler has married a paramedic named Jim Kearns, and has changed her name to Shelly Kearns.
As a child, Aguilera aspired to be a singer. Her musical influences included Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Nina Simone, and Madonna. She also cites the musical The Sound of Music as an early inspiration for singing and performing. As a child, she was known locally as "the little girl with the big voice", singing in local talent shows and competitions.
According to VH1's Driven, whenever competitors learned they would be up against her in any given week, they would immediately withdraw, prompting insiders to claim it was "like sending a lamb to the slaughter." Her peers soon became jealous of her and would frequently subject her to ridicule, ostracism, and, in one gym class, attempted assault. Acts of vandalism around her house included the slashing of the tires on the family car. Eventually, the family relocated to another suburb in the Pittsburgh area and took to secrecy about Aguilera's talent lest another backlash occur.
On March 15, 1990, she appeared on Star Search singing Etta James' "A Sunday Kind of Love", but lost the competition. Soon after losing on Star Search, she returned home and appeared on Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV's Wake Up with Larry Richert to perform the same song. People remarked that the then ten-year-old "sounded 20".
Throughout her youth in Pittsburgh, Aguilera sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before Pittsburgh Penguins hockey, Pittsburgh Steelers football and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games. Her first major role in entertainment came in 1993 when she joined the Disney Channel's variety show The New Mickey Mouse Club. Her co-stars included Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Rhona Bennett (who later became a member of En Vogue), Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, and Keri Russell. According to the documentary Driven, Aguilera's Mickey Mouse Club co-stars called her "the Diva". One of her most notable performances was of Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing". When the show was canceled 1994, Aguilera began recording demos in an attempt to get signed to a record label.
At the age of fourteen, Aguilera recorded her first song, "All I Wanna Do", a hit duet with Japanese singer Keizo Nakanishi. In 1997, she represented the United States at the "Golden Stag" International Festival with a two-song set which included Sheryl Crow and Diana Ross.
1998-2001: Pop music beginnings and Christina Aguilera
In 1998, she sang the High "E" in full voice (E6) on a cover of Whitney Houston's "Run to You" which she recorded with a tape recorder in her bathroom. She was then selected to record the song "Reflection" for the Disney production of Mulan (1998). Recording "Reflection" led to Aguilera earning a contract with RCA Records the same week. "Reflection" peaked within the top twenty on the Adult Contemporary Singles Chart, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for "Best Original Song" in 1998.
Under the exclusive representation of Steve Kurtz, Aguilera's self-titled debut album Christina Aguilera was released on August 24, 1999. It reached the top of the Billboard 200 and Canadian album charts, selling eight million copies in the U.S. and over 13 million copies worldwide. The album is also included in the Top 100 Album of All Time list of The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) based on album sales in the US.
Her singles "Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants" and "Come on Over Baby (All I Want Is You)" topped the Billboard Hot 100 during 1999 and 2000, and "I Turn to You" reached #3. According to the album's songwriters who appeared on the documentary Driven, Aguilera wanted to display the range and audacity in her voice during the promotion of the album, and performed acoustic sets and appeared on television shows accompanied only by a piano. She ended the year on MTV's 2 Large New Year's Special, as she performed and was MTV's first artist of the millennium. Aguilera won the "Best New Artist" award at the 2000 Grammys, and she was nominated for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" for "Genie in a Bottle".
Later in 2000, Aguilera first emphasized her Latin heritage by releasing her first Spanish album, Mi Reflejo on September 12, 2000. This album contained Spanish versions of songs from her English debut as well as new Spanish tracks. Though some criticized Aguilera for trying to "cash in" on a Latin-music boom that included Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and Marc Anthony, the album still managed to peak at #27 on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Latin album charts. In 2001, it won Aguilera a Latin Grammy Award for "Best Female Pop Vocal Album". The Album has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide and has been certified Gold (500,000) in the USA and 3x Platinum (600,000* Latin album) under the RIAA's Los Premios de Oro y Platino program. She also won the World Music Award as the best selling Latin artist that year. Aguilera also released a Christmas album on October 24, 2000 called My Kind of Christmas. It peaked at #28 on the Billboard 200, has sold over 3 million copies worldwide, and has been certified Platinum (1 million) in the USA. Ricky Martin asked her to duet with him on the track "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely" from his album Sound Loaded; released in 2001 as the album's second single, which reached #1 on the World Chart.
In 2001, Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya, and Pink were chosen to remake Patti LaBelle's 1975 single "Lady Marmalade" for the film Moulin Rouge! and its soundtrack. The Missy Elliott produced single hit number one on the Hot 100 for five weeks and reached number one in eleven other countries, and it earned all four performers a Grammy Award for "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals". Aguilera's appearance in the music video was compared to that of Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider. The video won two MTV Video Music Awards including Video of the Year in 2001, where Aguilera accepted the award saying, "I guess the big hair paid off."
That year a single emerged into record stores called "Just Be Free", one of the demos Aguilera recorded when she was around fifteen years old. When RCA Records discovered the single, they advised fans not to purchase it and had German authorities pull the single off shelves. Months later, Warlock Records was set to release Just Be Free, an album which contains the demo tracks. Aguilera filed a breach of contract and unfair-competition suit against Warlock and the album's producers to block the release. Instead, the two parties came to a settlement to release the album. Aguilera lent out her name, likeness and image for an unspecified amount of damages. Many of the details of the lawsuit remain confidential. When the album was released in August 2001, it had a photograph of Aguilera when she was fifteen years old.
Although Aguilera's debut album was very well received, she was dissatisfied with the music and image her management had created for her. Aguilera was marketed as a bubblegum pop singer because of the genre's upward financial trend. She mentioned plans of her next album to have much more depth, both musically and lyrically. Aguilera's views of Steve Kurtz's influence in matters of the singer's creative direction, the role of being her exclusive personal manager and overscheduling had in part caused her to seek legal means of terminating their management contract.
In October 2000, Aguilera filed a Breach of Fiduciary Duty lawsuit against Kurtz for improper, undue and inappropriate influence over her professional activities, as well as fraud. According to legal documents, Kurtz did not protect her rights and interests. Instead, he took action that was for his own interest, at the cost of hers. The lawsuit came about when Aguilera discovered Kurtz used more of her commissionable income than he was allotted, and had paid other managers to assist him. She also petitioned the California State Labor Commission to nullify the contract. After terminating Kurtz's services, Irving Azoff was hired as her new manager.
Kurtz countersued later that month for breach of contract, claiming that the singer violated the same agreement she had sued to void. In the lawsuit, he included others close to Aguilera, alleging their intent to sabotage his business relationship with her. He also singled out Azoff for being in violation of the terms of Kurtz's contract. During this time, while she was also working on her second album, she later revealed that she was betrayed by several friends, and hit rock bottom. She used her then-upcoming album as therapy, saying "this record saved me from insanity."
2002–2003: Stripped era
On October 29, 2002, after much delay, Aguilera's second full-length English album, Stripped, was released, selling more than 330,000 copies in the first week and peaking at #2 on the Billboard 200. Unlike previous work, the album showcased Aguilera's raunchier side. The majority of Stripped was co-written by Aguilera (who had recently signed a global music publishing contract with BMG Music Publishing), and was influenced by many different subjects and music styles, including rhythm and blues, gospel, soul, balladry, pop rock, hip-hop and jazz. Upon initial release, the album was very well-received by critics, although Aguilera's vocals were overlooked as she began to cultivate a more sexually provocative image. After the release of the album, she took part in photoshoots for magazines such as Maxim, Rolling Stone, and CosmoGirl!. Many of these photographs featured her nude or semi-nude. It was during this time Aguilera referred to herself as "Xtina", even getting a tattoo of her nickname on the back of her neck and several piercings.
Initially, the raunchy image had a negative effect on Aguilera in the U.S., especially after the release of her controversial "Dirrty" music video. She denied that this change was a matter of publicity, claiming that the image better reflected her true personality than did the image she cultivated back in 1999. While the video for "Dirrty" became very popular on MTV, it disappointed on the U.S. singles chart. However, the single was a hit worldwide, reaching number one in the UK and Ireland. The album reached the top five on the U.K., U.S. and Canadian album charts, though it was initially considered a "sophomore slump." The second single, "Beautiful", became highly successful on the radio and earned her another Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Three more singles from the album ("Fighter", "Can't Hold Us Down" featuring Lil' Kim, "The Voice Within") were released in the following two years and were hits that helped the album stay on the charts for the next two years - "Infatuation" was only released as single in Spain instead of "The Voice Within". Stripped stayed on the U.S. and UK album charts well into 2004, and went on to be certified four-times platinum in the U.S. with over ten million copies sold worldwide. It appeared at number ten on Billboard's year-end album chart. Kelly Clarkson's second single "Miss Independent" was co-written by Aguilera, having been half-finished for Stripped.
Aguilera joined Justin Timberlake that June on the final leg of his international Justified tour, held in the U.S. This portion of the tour became a co-headliner called the Justified & Stripped Tour. In August, an overhead lighting grid collapsed from the ceiling of the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, causing major damage to the sound and video equipment below. Because the collapse occurred hours before the show, only a few stagehands were injured, but a few shows were cancelled or postponed. In the fourth quarter of that year, Aguilera continued to tour internationally without Timberlake, and changed the name of the tour to the Stripped World Tour. She also dyed her hair black. It was one of the top-grossing tours of that year, and sold out most of its venues. Rolling Stone readers named it the best tour of the year. She became the muse and model for fashion house Versace. She also topped Maxim's Hot 100 list, setting record sales for the issue later saying, "We had fun working with certain clothes, or the lack thereof".
In light of the tour's success, another U.S. tour was scheduled to begin in mid 2004 with a new theme. The tour however was scrapped because of the vocal cord injuries Aguilera suffered shortly before the tour's opening date. In a tribute to Madonna's performance at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards, Aguilera performed a kiss with the singer-actress at the 2003 edition of the ceremony in August. The incident occurred during the opening performance of Madonna's songs "Like a Virgin" and "Hollywood" with fellow popstar Britney Spears.
2004–2005: Post-Stripped activities
Aguilera later decided to embrace a more mature image; this move was met with more praise than criticism, with articles using punch lines such as "From Crass to Class". She eventually dyed her hair cherry blonde and recorded a jingle, "Hello", for a Mercedes-Benz ad, becoming the new face of Mercedes-Benz. However, the jingle was never completed, as Aguilera has already started working on new material. Shortly after, she dyed her hair blonde and cut it short, and took on a Marilyn Monroe look; many of her fans believe she is one of the main proponents (along with Dita Von Teese, Gwen Stefani, the Puppini Sisters and Ashley Judd) in bringing back the 1920s-1940s Hollywood glamour look.
In the run-up to the 2004 United States presidential election, Aguilera was featured on billboards for the "Only You Can Silence Yourself" online voter registration drive run by the nonpartisan, non-profit campaign "Declare Yourself". In these political advertisements, shot by David LaChapelle, Aguilera was shown with her mouth sewn shut, to symbolize the effects of not voting. She appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss the importance of voting.
In late summer 2004 Aguilera released two singles. The first, "Car Wash", was a remake of the Rose Royce disco song recorded as a collaboration with rapper Missy Elliott for the soundtrack to the film Shark Tale. The second song was also a collaboration, but this time as a second single from one of Nelly's double-release albums, Sweat, titled "Tilt Ya Head Back". Both singles failed commercially in the U.S., but did considerably better in other parts of the world. After much delay, Aguilera's first DVD live-recording from a concert tour, Stripped Live in the UK, was released in November 2004. In late December she officially released a fragrance, Xpose, which has only been available in a few European countries.
Aguilera collaborated with jazz artist Herbie Hancock on a cover of Leon Russell's "A Song for You" recorded for Hancock's album Possibilities, released in August 2005. Aguilera and Hancock were later nominated for the Grammy Award for "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals". Aguilera went back to her Mickey Mouse Club roots when she helped open the 50th Anniversary for Disneyland by performing "When You Wish Upon a Star", and she also collaborated with Andrea Bocelli on the song "Somos Novios" for his album Amore, released in early 2006. In late 2005, she performed at "Unite of the Stars", a charity banquet in aid of Unite Against Hunger in Johannesburg, South Africa, with stars such as Diana Ross and Westlife. She also performed at the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund at the Coca-Cola Dome in November.
2006–2007: Back to Basics
In March 2006, Aguilera signed a contract with European cell phone operator Orange to promote the new Sony Ericsson Walkman phone. She was featured in a Pepsi commercial alongside Lebanese singer Elissa, as well as Korean pop singer Rain in May. The spot aired during the 2006 World Cup.
She posed nude for a Marilyn Monroe-inspired photoshoot in the May 2006 issue of GQ magazine. In the issue she expressed disappointment in fellow singer Mariah Carey, saying, "She was never cool to me... to the point that one time we were at a party, and I think she got really drunk, and she had just really derogatory things to say to me." In response, Carey issued a press release saying, "It is sad yet predictable that she would use my name at this time to reinvent past incidents for her promotional gain." Aguilera then released her own statement claiming, "My intentions were not to upset Mariah with any statements that were published or taken out of context. I have all the respect in the world for her."
Aguilera's third English studio album, Back to Basics, released August 15, 2006, went to #1 in thirteen countries. The critically-acclaimed lead single "Ain't No Other Man" was a substantial success, reaching #2 on the United World Chart, #6 in the U.S., and the top 5 in Europe. Aguilera described the double CD as "a throwback to the 20s, 30s, and 40s-style jazz, blues, and feel-good soul music, but with a modern twist." Producers on the album included DJ Premier, Kwamé, Linda Perry, and Mark Ronson. One track, "F.U.S.S.", was written as a response to the animosity between Aguilera and Scott Storch during the recording of Stripped. In the interview with Maxim, she said, "That’s a way of burying my experience with him. We did great work on Stripped... When I tried to work with him again, he made uncalled-for demands. It was disappointing that someone would get affected like that." She received writing credit for every track and was the executive producer for the album, which debuted at number one in the U.S. and the U.K. The follow-up singles did very well in different regions, "Hurt" in Europe and "Candyman" in the Pacific. She co-directed both music videos, the former with Floria Sigismondi who directed her "Fighter" video, and the latter, "Candyman", with director/photographer Matthew Rolston which was inspired by The Andrews Sisters. The Back To Basics album has sold 4.2 million copies around the world as of 2007.
In late 2006 Aguilera collaborated with Sean "Diddy" Combs on a track, titled "Tell Me", from his album "Press Play". The single reached the top 10 in the UK and peaked at #47 in the U.S.
The "Back to Basics Tour" began late 2006 in Europe followed by a 41-date North American tour in early 2007. After this, she toured Asia and Australia, where it was supposed to end on August 3 in Auckland. She however canceled her last two dates in Melbourne and her final two in Auckland due to an illness. Her extravagent arena tour included cabaret, three-ring circus and juke joint sets with her 10 piece costumes designed by Roberto Cavalli. It was the most successful US tour by a female in 2007.
At the 49th Grammy Awards, Aguilera again won the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Ain't No Other Man". She made a noteworthy performance at the ceremony paying tribute to James Brown with her rendition of his song "It's a Man's Man's Man's World". In January 2007, she was named the 19th richest woman in entertainment by Forbes, with a net worth of US$60 million.
Aguilera performed Steppin' Out With My Baby with Tony Bennett on the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards. That same evening, Bennett won 2 Emmys for Tony Bennett: An American Classic, which Aguilera was a part of. In addition, the Saturday Night Live episode in which Aguilera was the musical guest won an Emmy. "Steppin' Out" is nominated for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, along with a Best Female Pop Vocal Performance nomination for her third single "Candyman".
2007-present Future: fourth album
Mayor of Hollywood, Johnny Grant, announced that in 2008, Aguilera will get a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In June 2007, Aguilera said that she was gathering inspiration for her next album, which she said would be "short and sweet" and "completely different" from Back to Basics, although she did not elaborate on what the style of the album would be.
In an interview with Blender magazine Aguilera stated that recording a song with her once rival Eminem is on her agenda. She will appear in the upcoming Martin Scorsese documentary Shine A Light from a Rolling Stones concert performance where she performed with Mick Jagger.
Film and television
Aside from being a cast member of The New Mickey Mouse Club Aguilera has done numerous television appearances and guest appearances. She made a cameo appearance performing on an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, and hosted a Saturday Night Live episode in 2004. The episode included a Sex & The City skit where she portrayed Samantha Jones revealing to everyone she was a man the entire time. She's mentioned in several interviews that she intends to pursue edgy acting roles similar to Angelina Jolie. She voiced a small singing part in the animated film Shark Tale playing a rastafarian jellyfish in the film's closing musical number. The film's stars included, among others, Jolie herself. Musically she included herself in soundtracks for several Hollywood films including Mulan, What Women Want and the musical Moulin Rouge! More recently, she is reported to play the notorious burlesque stripper Tempest Storm in a new film biopic.
Personal life
In 2000, Aguilera was rumored to have dated MTV VJ Carson Daly. The relationship was the subject of much discussion after the release of Eminem's song "The Real Slim Shady", in which Eminem satirically suggests that Aguilera had performed fellatio on both Daly and Fred Durst, the lead singer of Limp Bizkit, and had given the rapper himself a venereal disease. Aguilera called the song's innuendo "disgusting" and "untrue." Aguilera and Eminem reportedly resolved the issue three years later backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards.
She dated Puerto Rican-born dancer Jorge Santos, he appeared on her tour and music videos throughout 2000. They dated for nearly two years until the relationship ended in September 2001. He remained her dancer well into 2002.
In early 2002, Aguilera began dating music marketing executive Jordan Bratman. Their engagement was announced in February 2005, and they married on November 19, 2005, in the Napa Valley. The couple celebrated their one year anniversary in Dublin, Ireland where she was on tour at the time. E! News reported that they are expecting their first child together. Producer Dallas Austin alleged in a video interview with SOHO Magazine that Aguilera had sex with him and several of his friends. He also alleged details about Bratman, who Dallas referred to as his old best friend. Several days following the incident, Dallas issued an apology stating, "My statement about Christina Aguilera was a reaction to an incident I care not to discuss in any forum - I do owe an apology to Christina." Aguilera's rep responded with, "She's not commenting on such ridiculous statements, and we are consulting a lawyer to explore her options."
On September 9, 2007, Paris Hilton confirmed that the singer is currently pregnant, saying, "Congratulations to the most beautiful pregnant woman in the world." Aguilera, however, had not yet publicly confirmed her pregnancy at the time. On November 4, 2007, Aguilera confirmed her pregnancy in an interview with "Glamour" magazine by saying "That'll be about the time I enter into mommyhood, so... I'm hoping to have started a beautiful family with my husband!." She said about her husband's feeling on the pregnancy, "Oh, he's thrilled! He's just great." She also appeared on the January 2008 cover of "Marie Claire" magazine pregnant and nude with only a crop jacket.
Other
Christina Aguilera is yet another former Mouseketeer that has moved on to become a pop star, of course making your life so much more worthwhile as a result. Being in her childhood what is referred to as an "army brat" -- as well as being a "Star Search brat" and (as has been mentioned) a "Disney brat" -- Christina was well prepared for the rough-and-tumble world of being a corporate pop princess. At the tender age of 18, Ms. Aguilera released her first single Genie in a Bottle -- a release choice she was unhappy with as she felt it did not adequately demonstrate her vocal ability. It was however successful, hopefully making her aware that pop music consumers are hardly interested in such things.
An excessively-publicized feud between Christina and another former "slave to the mouse", Britney Spears has been ongoing since both began their solo careers. While it is generally accepted that Christina's voice is the better of the two, Britney has maintained the greater degree of popularity. As the two little vixens foray into young-adulthood, the competition has moved from the arena of artistic merit into that of self-exploitation, both seeking to display themselves with smaller bits of clothing, larger quantities of make-up, and gyrating their buttocks more furiously than the other. It is only a matter of waiting to see which one moves into the porn industry first, a step that can not be that far away.

AKA Militza Natasha Jovovich

Born: 17-Dec-1975
Birthplace: Kiev, Ukraine
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor, Model
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: The Fifth Element
Father: Bogic Jovovic (pediatrician, Serbian)
Mother: Galina Jovovich (actress, Russian)
Husband: Shawn Andrews (m. 2-Oct-1992, annulled 25-Nov-1992 because Milla was only 16)
Husband: Luc Besson (film director, m. 14-Dec-1997, div. 12-Jun-1999)
Boyfriend: Paul W.S. Anderson (film director, engaged since 2003)
Jovovich (pronounced "Yo-vo-vitch" (/ˈjɔvɔviʧ/ in IPA)) was born in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union to Bogdanovitch "Bogich" Jovoviæ, a Serbian medical doctor, and Galina Loginova (after marriage, Galina Jovoviæ), a Soviet actress of Russian origin.
Her paternal family's estate was at Metohija in Zlopek near Peæ. Her paternal great-grandfather, Bogiæ Camiæ Jovoviæ, was a flag-bearer of the Montenegrin Serb Vasojeviæi clan and officer of the guard of the King Nicholas I of Montenegro; his wife's name was Milica. Her paternal grandfather, Bogdan Jovoviæ, was a commander in the Pristina military area, and later investigated finances in military areas of Skopje and Sarajevo, where he uncovered massive gold embezzlement. He was punished for refusing to convict his friend for the crime. Later, the communist government imprisoned him on Goli Otok. When he feared that he could be arrested again, he escaped to Albania and later moved to Kiev. Another version of the story claims that he was the one to have taken the gold. Milla's father later joined her grandfather in Kiev, where he and his sister graduated in medicine.
In 1981, when Milla was five years old, her family had to leave the Soviet Union for political reasons and move to London; they subsequently lived in Sacramento, California, USA. Seven months later, they settled in Los Angeles, California. She also has a brother named Marco Jovovich born in 1988.
Career
Modeling
At the age of eleven, Jovovich was spotted by the photographer Richard Avedon, who featured her in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements. In October 1987, she was featured on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine Lei, which was the first of her many cover shoots. In 1988, she also made her first professional model contract. Later she made it to the cover of The Face, which led to new contracts and covers of the Vogue and Cosmopolitan.
Jovovich is also an "international spokesmodel" for L'Oreal cosmetics and was the highest paid supermodel in 2004. In 2006 Jovovich was picked up by Spanish clothing line Mango as their new spokesmodel and is currently featured in ads for Etro. Mango told Vogue.com that Jovovich is "the image of the woman that [we] wish to dress: a very modern woman, with personality and self-confidence". She has said that she enjoys having both a modelling and an acting career, and that she is "very grateful for [her] looks", which allow her to "make really great film choices".
Acting
Milla's mother was directing her in her artistic career, by signing her up to an actors' school in California; she finished as the best pupil, as she did in the ballet school. She continued to act and in 1988, appeared in her first film role, the romance thriller Two Moon Junction. In 1991, Jovovich had a starring role in the romance adventure sequel Return to the Blue Lagoon, opposite Brian Krause, which led to comparisons between her and child model-turned-actress, Brooke Shields (who had starred in the original Blue Lagoon). For her role, she was nominated for both 'Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture' in the 1991 Young Artist Awards, and 'Worst New Star' in the 1991 Golden Raspberry Awards. Most of Jovovich's film appearances during the late 1980s and early 1990s were in supporting or cameo roles in shows such as Married with Children. Also notable was her role in Dazed and Confused in 1993 wherein she sang lines from "The Alien Song" from her album The Divine Comedy.
Jovovich received top billing by entering the world of action heroes, with her performances in The Fifth Element (1997) and in two popular films based upon the survival horror series, Resident Evil. Jovovich's latest film, the science fiction/action thriller Ultraviolet, was released on March 3, 2006. It was not screened for critics, but when reviewed, it was critically panned. It has grossed $17 million at the domestic box office. She will appear in the third film in the Resident Evil series titled Resident Evil: Extinction.
Singing
In 1994, Jovovich, billed under her first name, released her critically acclaimed first musical album, The Divine Comedy. Featuring unique-sounding songs that fused pop with traditional Ukrainian folk music influences, the album led to comparisons with musicians Tori Amos and Kate Bush.
1998 saw the release of The Peopletree Sessions, a CD of "electronic folk music". Jovovich now claims that she did not authorize this CD, but its producer counters that she personally approved the CD and the liner notes and photos in its packaging, and authorized its release to the "underground" market (online and indie record shops). The CD featured electronic beats merged with scattered lyrics, a big change from her wistful first release.
Jovovich also led a band called Plastic Has Memory that played about a dozen shows in Los Angeles and New York City in 1999. Though Plastic Has Memory was featured on Hollywood Goes Wild, a benefit celebrity compilation CD, the group never formally released a record and is no longer together.
Jovovich recorded the single Rocket Collecting, which appeared on the soundtrack for the film Underworld. Her vocals also appeared on the 2004 album Legion of Boom by The Crystal Method.
Milla continues to write songs, which she calls "demos". These demos are provided for free in MP3 format on her website and Jovovich provides license to freely download and remix the tracks, but reserves the right to sell and issue the tracks.
Jovovich has reportedly been working with Maynard James Keenan of Tool on his side project Puscifer.
Fashion design
Jovovich and fellow model Carmen Hawk launched a line of clothing called Jovovich-Hawk in 2003. The two also opened a showroom in New York City's Greenwich Village on September 13, 2005. The line is currently in its third season. The atelier is based in Los Angeles, but pieces can be found at Fred Segal in Los Angeles, Harvey Nichols, and over 50 stores around the world. Vogue has praised the line for its "girl-about-town cult status most designers spend years trying to achieve."
In April 2006, Jovovich and Hawk launched the Jovovich-Hawk clothing range at Harvey Nichols in London. In November, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and US Vogue nominated Jovovich-Hawk as for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award. The award was founded three years ago and underwritten by Vogue, Barneys New York, Coach, Juicy Couture, Kellwood Co., Nordstrom and Theory, with additional support from Gucci. The winner would receive $200,000 as well as a year of industry guidance and support. Although not winning, Jovovich-Hawk was nominated as a finalist, with Doo-Ri Chung taking the top prize.
In Jovovich's upcoming film, Resident Evil: Extinction, the costume she will be wearing is a Jovovich-Hawk design. The shorts Alice, her character, wears are a variation on the 'Alice Star' Shorts from the Spring 2007 collection.
Jovovich-Hawk has signed a deal to design a diffusion collection for Target's Go International campaign, following in the footsteps of Luella, Paul & Joe and Proenza Schouler. The collection is set to debut in Spring 2008.
Personal life
Jovovich married actor Shawn Andrews (played Pickford) in October of 1992, while filming Dazed and Confused together; the marriage was annulled by her mother a month later. She married The Fifth Element director Luc Besson in 1997, but the two divorced in 1999. Jovovich also dated Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante for several months in 2000 and was linked to actor Stephen Dorff. She also had a relationship with Jamiroquai ex-bassist Stuart Zender, during which time they both lived in London. Most recently she has appeared in public with Japanese soccer star Hidetoshi Nakata, but is purported to be engaged to writer/director Paul W. S. Anderson. She is pregnant with Paul W.S. Anderson's child; a girl, expected in November 2007. The couple has stated that they "would love to [get married], but maybe after the baby."
Jovovich is also planning to publish her private diaries as an autobiography. Jovovich says, "I've been keeping a diary ever since I was a little girl. I've written about all the places I've been to and all the mad things that I've done, so it would be good to get it all into a book - like an autobiography, but with more of a diary feel to it. I'm not sure how interested anyone would be in publishing it, or reading it, for that matter."
Jovovich is a polyglot - she fluently speaks Russian, French and English.

AKA Billy F. Gibbons

Born: 16-Dec-1949
Birthplace: Houston, TX
Gender: Male
Religion: Unitarian
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Guitarist
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: ZZ Top
Gibbons founded the Texas psychedelic group the Moving Sidewalks, which recorded several singles and one full-length album, "Flash". The Moving Sidewalks were most prominent for opening for The Jimi Hendrix Experience during the Texas leg of Hendrix's first American tour. Also notable was the Gibbons-penned song "99th Floor," it's title a nod to the influence on Gibbons of fellow Texans and pioneering psychedelic band The 13th Floor Elevators. Before that, he was in a band called The Saints with fellow guitarists David Crosswell and Philip Taft.
He formed ZZ Top in late 1969 with bassist/vocalist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard (both alumni of the bands American Blues, the Warlocks, and the Cellar Dwellers). After honing their trademark Texas Boogie-Blues-Rock style, they released the aptly titled "ZZ Top's First Album" on London Records in 1971.
The band rolled on, intensively touring and recording/releasing albums until 1977, when they took an extended hiatus. Their long-time manager/producer/image maker Bill Ham used this time to negotiate a deal that allowed the band to keep control of their previous recordings, to be distributed by their new label, Warner Bros. Records. They reunited two and a half years later in order to start recording under a new Warner Bros. Records contract. Unbeknownst to the other, both Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons had grown the chest-length beards that quickly became a part of their "wildman" image. Drummer Frank Beard does not have a beard.
The band hit international prominence and their commercial peak with the release of 1983's multi-platinum-selling disc "Eliminator". Named after Gibbon's customized 1933 Ford Coupe (which, along with leggy party girls was featured in several music videos), "Eliminator" featured the hits "Legs", "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "TV Dinners".
In 1994, the band signed a five-disc deal with RCA Records.
In 2003, a comprehensive collection of recordings from the London and Warner Bros. years entitled "Chrome, Smoke & BBQ" was released. In 2004, ZZ Top was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They have the distinction of being among a very small group of bands with a 30 year plus history that still has all of its original members.
An excellent source of anecdotes, history and photos of Gibbons and his extensive car and guitar collections is the autobiographical coffee-table tome "Billy F. Gibbons-Rock + Roll Gearhead".
As of 2006, it is reported that ZZ Top is recording their 15th studio album. He also made an unforeseen appearance on the 2006 Revolting Cocks album "Cocked and Loaded."
Gibbons' most recent television performance was with The Raconteurs at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. Gibbons' was part of ensemble chosen to play with the band, which included Lou Reed and Jim Jarmusch. During the performance, in a sign of approval, Gibbons respectfully pointed at Jack White, a fellow blues-influenced guitarist. The performance was heavily edited and cut short by MTV for broadcast, however the full unedited performance is available on MTV's Website for the VMAs. Although not a full length performance, Gibbons can also be heard playing a few bars of the ZZ Top classic "La Grange" in the Season 2 finale of the television series Bones.

Born: 16-Dec-1967
Birthplace: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: Australia
Executive summary: Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings
Father: Barry Otto (Australian actor, b. 1941)
Mother: Lindy Otto (Australian stage actress, fashion designer, video store owner)
Boyfriend: Richard Roxburgh (Australian actor, ex-)
Husband: Peter O'Brien (Australian actor, m. 1-Jan-2003)
Miranda Otto (born December 16, 1967) is an Australian Film Institute-nominated and Logie Award-winning Australian actress. The daughter of actors Barry and Lindsay Otto, she began acting at age nineteen, and has performed in a variety of low-budget and major studio films.
Otto's first major film appearance was in the 1986 film Emma's War, in which she played a teenager who moves to Australia's bush country during World War II. After a decade of critically acclaimed roles in Australian films, Otto gained Hollywood's attention after appearing in supporting roles in The Thin Red Line (1998) and What Lies Beneath (2000). Her breakthrough role was in 2002, when her character Éowyn was introduced to audiences in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Otto's private life, including her relationships with actors Richard Roxburgh and Peter O'Brien, has been much discussed in the media. In 2007, she is scheduled to appear in the miniseries The Starter Wife and the American television series, Cashmere Mafia.
Biography
Early life and education
Otto was born in Brisbane, Queensland, to stage and film actor Barry Otto and former actress Lindsay Otto (who retired from acting upon Otto's birth). Gracie Otto, Miranda's half-sister, is also an actress. Otto was raised in Newcastle and Brisbane, and briefly resided in Hong Kong following her parents' separation in 1973.[2] She spent weekends and holidays with her father in Sydney and developed an interest in acting through him.
In her childhood, Otto and her friends wrote scripts and designed costumes and flyers in their spare time. She appeared in several plays at the Nimrod Theatre, which attracted the attention of casting director Faith Martin. Subsequently, Otto received a role in the 1986 World War II drama Emma's War. As a teenager, Otto excelled in academics and in ballet, which she considered as a career option. However, she had to abandon this goal due to moderate scoliosis. Otto graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney in 1990. Prior to graduation, she appeared in minor film roles including Initiation (1987) and The 13th Floor (1988).Early career, 1990–1998
Otto's first post-graduation film role in 1991, as Nell Tiscowitz in The Girl Who Came Late, was her breakthrough role, which brought her to the attention of the Australian film industry and the general public. In the film, directed by Kathy Mueller, she starred as a young woman who could communicate with horses. Her appearance garnered Otto her first Australian Film Institute nomination for "Best Actress" the following year.
Otto's next role was in the film The Last Days of Chez Nous, which portrayed the complex relationships between the members of an Australian family. The film earned Otto her second Australian Film Institute nomination, this time for "Best Supporting Actress". In 1993, Otto co-starred with Noah Taylor in the sexually provocative comedy film The Nostradamus Kid, which was based on the memories of author Bob Ellis during the 1960s. Otto was drawn to the film because she was "fascinated by the period and the people who came out of it." A small role in the independent film Sex Is a Four Letter Word followed in 1995.
In 1995, Otto began to doubt her career choice as she failed to get the parts for which she auditioned. She fled to her home in Newcastle for almost a year, during which she painted her mother's house. In 1996, director Shirley Barrett cast Otto as a shy waitress in the film Love Serenade. She played Dimity Hurley, a lonely young woman, who competes with her older sister Vicki-Ann for the attention of a famous DJ from Brisbane. The film was met with positive reviews and Otto's performance was praised: Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews felt that Otto's performance was "the most interesting and funniest" of the film.
Otto's first starring roles were in the 1997 films, The Well and Doing Time for Patsy Cline. When Otto received the film script for The Well, she refused to read it, fearing that she would not get the part. Otto believed that she could not convincingly play the role of Katherine, who is supposed to be eighteen, as she was thirty years old at the time. The film, directed by Samantha Lang, starred Otto as a teenager involved in a claustrophobic relationship with a lonely older woman. The Well received mixed reviews; critic Paul Fisher wrote that Otto's performance was not "convincing" as she was "playing another repetitious character about whom little is revealed", while Louise Keller stated that Otto had delivered "her best screen performance yet." Otto earned her third Australian Film Institute nomination for the film. Later that year, she co-starred with Richard Roxburgh in the drama Doing Time for Patsy Cline. The low-budget Australian film required Otto to perform country music standards and also received mixed reviews from film critics.
Soon after the release of The Well and Doing Time for Patsy Cline, magazines and other media outlets were eager to profile the actress. In 1997, Otto began dating her Doing Time for Patsy Cline co-star Richard Roxburgh. Her involvement with Roxburgh made her a regular subject of Australian tabloid magazines and media at the time, a role to which she was unaccustomed.
Otto's next project was the romantic comedy Dead Letter Office (1998). The film was Otto's first with her father, Barry, who makes a brief appearance. In the Winter Dark, directed by James Bogle, followed later that year. Otto played Ronnie, a pregnant woman recently abandoned by her boyfriend. The film was a critical success in Australia, and Otto was nominated for her fourth Australian Film Institute Award. A small role in the big-budget World War II film The Thin Red Line, starring George Clooney and Sean Penn, led to further film roles outside of Australia.
Hollywood, 1999–present
Otto's first Hollywood role was opposite Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer in the suspense thriller What Lies Beneath in 2000. She played Mary Feur, a mysterious next-door neighbor. The film was met with mixed reviews, but was an international success, grossing US$291 million. In 2001, Otto was cast as a naturalist in the comedy Human Nature. Writer and director Spike Jonze, impressed by her audition two years earlier for his film Being John Malkovich, arranged for Otto to audition and meet with the film's director Michel Gondry. Human Nature was both a commercial and critical disappointment. Critic Jeffrey M. Anderson criticized Otto's French accent and wrote that she "doesn't seem to mesh with what's going on around her." That same year, she also appeared in the BBC adaptation of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now, as a strong-willed American Southerner determined to manipulate Cillian Murphy into marrying her.
In 1999, Otto was cast as Éowyn, a shieldmaiden of Rohan, in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Director Peter Jackson cast her immediately after viewing the audition video she had filmed in Australia. For the role, Otto spent six weeks learning stunt choreography and horseback riding. Otto's character was introduced in the trilogy's second film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in 2002 and appeared in the third film, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the following year. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a critical and financial success, and the third film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2004. Otto's performance earned her an Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films nomination for Best Supporting Actress. At the 2005 Logie Awards, Otto won "Most Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series" for her role.
Otto's next project was the Australian television miniseries Through My Eyes: The Lindy Chamberlain Story (2004). The film is a drama that portrays the true story of Lindy Chamberlain; in 1982 she was convicted of killing her baby daughter, Azaria, in one of Australia's most publicized murder trials. Otto was cast as Chamberlain after her husband, Peter O'Brien, had been cast as prosecutor Ian Barker. She was drawn to the role because it provided her with the "prospect of exploring an unconventional character." At the 2005 Logie Awards, Otto won "Most Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series" for her role.
Impressed by her performance in The Lord of the Rings, Otto received a phone call from director Steven Spielberg asking if she would play opposite Tom Cruise in the big-budget science fiction film War of the Worlds (2005). Otto, pregnant at the time, believed she would have to turn down the role, but the script was reworked to accommodate her. After the birth of her daughter in 2005, Otto took a rest from films to concentrate on motherhood and theatre roles in Australia.
Otto recently finished filming the television miniseries The Starter Wife, a comedy in which she plays Cricket Stewart, the wife of a successful director, opposite Debra Messing and Judy Davis. She has recently agreed to star in the Darren Star-produced television series Cashmere Mafia. In the series she will play Juliet Draper, a successful female executive who must rely on her friends to juggle the demands of a career and family in New York City.
Theatre
Otto made her theatrical debut in the 1986 production of The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant for the Sydney Theatre Company. Three more theatrical productions for the Sydney Theatre Company followed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 2002, she returned to the stage playing Nora Helmer in A Doll's House opposite her future husband Peter O'Brien. Otto's performance earned her a 2003 Helpmann Award nomination and the MO Award for "Best Female Actor in a Play".
Her next theatre role was in the psychological thriller Boy Gets Girl (2005), in which she played Theresa, a journalist for a New York magazine. Otto committed to the project days before she found out she was pregnant. Robyn Nevin, the director, rescheduled the production from December 2004 to September 2005 so Otto could appear in it. In 2005, Nevin began pre-production on a play that she commissioned especially for Otto.
Personal life
In 1997, Otto began dating actor Richard Roxburgh, whom she met while filming Doing Time for Patsy Cline. Their relationship ended in 2000, reportedly because they had spent too little time together due to their busy acting schedules.
On January 1, 2003, she married actor Peter O'Brien, after the two had met while performing in A Doll's House. Otto and O'Brien have one child, a daughter Darcey (b. 2005). Since the birth of her daughter, Otto has limited her work so she can spend time with her family at their home in Australia.
Otto's avoidance of the spotlight is a result of the tabloid and media attention she received while dating Roxburgh. In a 2004 interview, Otto stated that she hopes she will never be as famous as fellow Australian actress Nicole Kidman because she believes that she "could never deal with that."

AKA Helen Schlacter

Born: 15-Dec-1963
Birthplace: Massapequa, NY
Gender: Female
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Supergirl
Helen Slater was the unknown blonde starred as Supergirl in that 1984 epic bomb. With Judge Reinhold playing her husband, they kidnapped Bette Midler in Ruthless People, and in The Secret of My Success she was the woman Michael J. Fox fell for, after watching her swallow water at a drinking fountain in slow motion. She was the only woman on the cattle drive with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance in City Slickers. Her best film might be The Legend of Billie Jean, where she played a fiercely lovable teenaged vigilante, with a not-yet-famous Christian Slater as her brother. In real life, these Slaters are not related.
Throughout her career, Slater has starred in more than her share of total turkeys, including Sticky Fingers and Betrayal of the Dove. Her last film you might remember was Lassie in 1994, notable only as 13-year-old Michelle Williams' first film. Slater continues to work in low-budget films, and occasionally takes guest roles on TV shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Gray's Anatomy. She also voiced Talia al Ghul, Batman's sometimes girlfriend, in Batman: The Animated Series, and she has recorded and released two albums of old-fashioned songs, all written and sung by Slater.

AKA Sophie Charlene Akland Monk

Born: 14-Dec-1979
Birthplace: England
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Singer, Actor
Nationality: Australia
Executive summary: Calendar Girl
Boyfriend: Jude Law (actor, ex)
Boyfriend: Benji Madden (guitarist, engaged to be married)
Sophie's the blonde beauty from Queensland who was training to be an opera singer before being derailed from her classical path by a stint as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator and a growing passion for pop music.
Her climb to pop stardom started in earnest in 1999 when she drove all night to make it to an audition for the first ever Australian series of Popstars. It's now a matter of Australian pop history that she made the final cut and went on to release a string of gold and platinum-selling singles with five fellow reality-TV graduates who were, by then, called Bardot.
The group's self-titled debut album racked up multi-platinum sales and won the girls fans in Australia, NZ and throughout Asia. The follow-up, Play It Like That, rebirthed the group as a tight four-piece and continued their assault on the charts with hit singles including ASAP and I Need Somebody.
The group made the amicable decision to disband in early 2002, but instead of kicking-back and taking a breather or exploring her options Sophie immediately threw herself into forging her own distinctively up-beat pop path.
What was there to think about? This is a girl who knew what she wanted to do long before she had the chance to do it.
As an ambitious 15-year-old she wrote in her diary that she wanted to have a hit album and single out by the year 2000. With that well and truly achieved (the first Bardot single, Poison, debuted at #1 in 2000 as did the album) it was time for the next challenge.
Just a matter of months after the break-up Sophie simultaneously launched her first solo single, the pretty pop hit Inside Outside, and a modelling career (as the face Expozay swimwear).
A hot follow-up track, Get The Music On, was released from the debut album Calendar Girl, she filmed her first major acting role, as Marilyn Monroe in a big-budget US television mini-series, and knocked back the chance to host a weekly TV show.
"That one wasn't really me at all," she confides. "I'm trying so many things, but to take me away from the music, even part-time, it would have to be just the right thing. Especially at a time when I've got my first album to think about."
"The album is very much a representation of who I am, and I think that's why it has ended up being such an up-tempo bunch of songs," Sophie says. "When I buy an album, that's what I want. Ballads are beautiful, but too many and I start to miss the exciting stuff. This is the kind of stuff that's cool for parties!"
After the success of Calendar Girl, and the hugely positive responses from her acting role as Marilyn Monroe in the telemovie The Mystery of Natalie Wood, started the ball rolling for exciting acting roles. She appeared in Blink-182’s video clip for their single Always, opening up recognition from the US.
Sophie moved to LA to pursue her acting career, landing roles in Date Movie (from the makers of Scary Movie) and Click (alongside Adam Sandler), much to the excitement of fans in Australia and internationally, and getting her invaluable industry exposure and media interest.
Sophie’s career is growing each day, working on new roles and enjoying the challenges and the rewards they bring.
Was selected to be part of 'Bardot' after competing against over 2000 ambitious girls on national television
Her favorite actor and actress are Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie.
She was born in England but moved to Queensland, Australia when she was little.
Engaged to Good Charlotte guitarist Benji Madden.

AKA Taylor Alison Swift

Born: 13-Dec-1989
Birthplace: Wyomissing, PA
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Country Musician
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Teen country music sensation
Taylor Alison Swift is a Platinum-selling, American country pop singer-songwriter. In 2006, she had her first hit at 16, "Tim McGraw", about a summer love. Since then, she has risen to fame, with an especially large Internet following.
She has a soft and clean voice that appeals to many country music fans. Taylor is also known for her blue eyes, long curly blond hair, and her height (5'11" - 1.80m).
She won CMT's "Breakthrough Video of the Year" award in 2007 for her hit "Tim McGraw", and was also nominated by the Academy of Country Music for "Top New Female Vocalist".
Biography
Taylor Swift was born in Reading, Pennsylvania and lives near her parents in Dunlap, Tennessee. Swift's influences include her grandmother, who was a singer, and LeAnn Rimes. At the age of ten, Swift began to perform around her hometown, Wyomissing, singing at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs. Her first exposure to the music business consisted of recording demo tapes at a studio. At age 11, Taylor made her first trip to Nashville in hopes of attaining a record deal by handing out a demo tape she had made of her singing along to karaoke songs. She handed this tape to receptionists at every label on Music Row. Taylor returned to Pennsylvania without a record deal but remained confident in her ability, writing her first song, "Lucky You". Her big break came at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, when her rendition of the national anthem moved the crowd. Within a few months she was featured as a rising star in an Abercrombie & Fitch campaign. In Nashville she wrote songs with local songwriters. The family decided to move to Hendersonville, Tennessee, an outlying Nashville suburb. When she performed at Nashville's premier songwriters' cafe, The Bluebird Café, she caught the attention of Scott Borchetta. Scott signed her to his new label, Big Machine Records.
2006-present: Rise to Fame
Swift's first single, "Tim McGraw", was released to radio in Summer of 2006. The video debuted in July 2006 on Great American Country. On October 24, 2006, her self-titled CD was released.
The album, on which Swift wrote or co-wrote all of the songs, peaked at #19 on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 61,000 during its first week. In 2007, it peaked at #1 at Billboard Top Country Albums and #13 at Billboard 200]]. It also spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of Top Country Albums.
The song "Tim McGraw" peaked at #6 on the chart week of January 27, 2007. The video set a record by appearing for 30 consecutive weeks on GAC's fan-voted weekly Top 20 music countdown show, and reached #1 on CMT's video charts.
Since her success, she has appeared on Good Morning America and at the 2006 Academy of Country Music Awards. She also won "Breakthrough Video of the Year" on the 2007 CMT Music Awards with "Tim McGraw". Her pursuit of country music stardom was the subject of "GAC Short Cuts", a part-documentary, part-music video series airing since the summer of 2006 on the country music channel Great American Country.
Swift has sung the national anthem and performed at various events since then. One of her biggest mainstream performances was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on February 13, 2007, where she performed her single, "Tim McGraw." Swift also appeared on Ellen, singing "Our Song."
On May 15, 2007, Swift performed her Gold single, "Tim McGraw," at the Academy of Country Music Awards. She sang the song to Tim McGraw in the audience, and introduced herself for the first time to him. Taylor has been an opening act for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on their Soul2Soul 2007 tour. She is currently touring with Brad Paisley and has opened in the past for George Strait and Rascal Flatts as well.
More recently, she was named a presenter and performer at the prestigious American Women in Radio and Television event in New York in June 2007. Her second album is about to be recorded and planned for a 2008 release, the same year she is scheduled to graduate high school through her home-school program.
Taylor is one of the first country music artists to use the Internet as a primary source of communication, such as her MySpace, which has over 26,000,000 music plays. She has directed much of her attention to her "MySpace friends" and attracts younger audiences because she is often as young as many of her fans.
On November 7, 2007, Swift won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award.

AKA Amy Lynn Lee

Born: 13-Dec-1981
Birthplace: Riverside, CA
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Singer
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Evanescence
Born in California, grew up in Florida, Illinois, and Arkansas.
Father: John Lee
Mother: Sara Cargill
Brother: Robbie
Sister: Carrie
Sister: Laurie
Lee was born to parents John Lee, a disc jockey and TV personality, and Sara Cargill. She has one brother, Robby, and two sisters, Carrie and Lori. Lee had a third sister, who died in 1987 at the age of three from an unidentified illness. The song "Hello" from Fallen has been reported to have been written for her late sister, as well as the song "Like You" from The Open Door with the lyrics, "I long to be like you, sis, Lie cold in the ground like you, did" also hinting at the death of her sister and her grief for it. Lee took classical piano lessons for nine years. Her family moved to many places, including Florida and Illinois, but finally settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Evanescence started. She graduated from Pulaski Academy in 2000 and also briefly attended Middle Tennessee State University.
Evanescence
Founding
She co-founded the band with Ben Moody. The two met at a youth camp after he heard Lee playing Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That)" on the piano. Within a month, the pair were playing acoustic sets at Arkansas book stores and coffee houses, and they eventually recorded two EPs, Evanescence EP (1998) and Sound Asleep EP (1999), selling them at various local venues. In 2000, Evanescence recorded the longer EP Origin. This demo contains three songs from the debut album Fallen and was written by Lee and Moody: "Whisper", "Imaginary" and "My Immortal". Whereas "Whisper" and "Imaginary" underwent further modifications before being included on Fallen, "My Immortal" is virtually identical. A later band version of "My Immortal" was made available for download for those who had bought an official version of Fallen through their official web site, but required that a CD checker program also be downloaded for verification before it would play. The band version was included on later copies of Fallen, notably the Brazilian and Argentinian editions.
Departure of Ben Moody
On October 22, 2003, guitarist Ben Moody left the band citing "creative differences". In an interview several months later, Amy said: "We'd gotten to a point that if something didn't change, we wouldn't have been able to make a second record". She also said "We're finally a real band, not just Ben and I and a few others thrown together". Ex-Cold guitarist Terry Balsamo replaced Moody in the band, both on guitar and as Lee's writing partner.
Lawsuit
On December 1, 2005, former Evanescence manager Dennis Rider filed a lawsuit against Lee for breach of contract. The suit claims Rider was prematurely and unjustly terminated from his position as manager of Evanescence.
In return, Lee filed a counter-suit against Rider for "breach of fiduciary duty, sexual assault and battery, professional negligence, currency conversion, and other charges". The suit also claims Rider "neglected Lee's career and business and has focused his efforts on having extramarital affairs, hiding them from his wife, becoming intoxicated during business meetings, physically abusing women and boasting about it, making repeated unwelcome sexual advances toward Lee, receiving fees in excess of what was provided for in his management agreement and using Lee's corporate credit card to purchase gifts for his mistress."
Rider's attorney, Bert Deixler, claimed in a statement that Rider had fully performed all of the duties and obligations owed by the firm under the management agreement, and that he had always conducted himself by the highest professional standards
The Open Door
Lee had claimed to be working on music for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but that the music was rejected for being "Too dark and epic." However, the producers of Narnia stated that Lee was never asked to compose any music for the film, whose score was written by Harry Gregson-Williams, and that "No Evanescence music was planned for the soundtrack."
While there was some speculation that one of the supposed songs had been cut and used in several tracks of The Open Door, Lee stated this was not true except for part of it being used to segue into the last track of the album, "Good Enough".
Engagement and marriage
Lee revealed during the taping of MuchMusic's January 9, 2007 episode of Live @ Much that she had become engaged the previous evening. She later confirmed on EvThreads.com that she had been proposed to by Josh Hartzler, a 29-year-old therapist and longtime friend. She noted in an interview that the songs "Good Enough" and "Bring Me To Life" were inspired by him. The couple were married on May 6, 2007, and honeymooned near The Bahamas. She has posted on EvThreads that she is "now officially Mrs. Amy Hartzler."
Image
Lee has a recognizable goth style, marked by her occasional use of Gothic make-up and taste for Victorian-styled clothing. She also designs many of her own clothes, including those worn in the music video for "Going Under" and the dress she wore at the 2004 Grammy awards. After she designed it she chose Japanese designer H. Naoto to make it for her. In concerts, she often wears a corset and fishnets, as well as long skirts and knee-high boots. She used to have a notable piercing on her left eyebrow which is visible on the cover of Fallen.
She has stated on a number of occasions that she would never flash her breasts or engage in other publicity stunts that would draw attention to herself. In fact, in the music video for "Everybody's Fool," she aimed to mock such artists by suggesting that celebrities who use sex to appeal to an audience are, in fact, merely peddling "lies" (the unifying theme of the music video). Many fans praise Lee for her refusal to emulate other celebrities by using sex appeal in her music.
In 2006, Blender listed Lee as one of the hottest women in rock alongside such singers as Joan Jett, Courtney Love and Liz Phair.
Other projects
In 2000, Lee sang guest vocals on two of former Evanescence keyboardist David Hodges' songs: "Breathe" (The Summit Church: Summit Worship) and the unreleased "Fall Into You". She performed backup vocals for "Missing You", a song on Big Dismal's 2003 debut album Believe, and sang backup vocals on two songs with 'supergroup' The Damning Well, though her vocals were taken off the final release due to record label issues. Lee later performed a duet with her then-boyfriend Shaun Morgan on the track "Broken" for Seether's 2004 album Disclaimer II. The song was also featured as part of the soundtrack for the 2004 film The Punisher.
In 2006, Lee become the American Chairperson for Out of the Shadows, an international foundation with the goal of educating others about epilepsy. Lee's younger brother, Robbie, was previously diagnosed with this condition.
The singer also made a brief guest appearance in the music video for Johnny Cash's God's Gonna Cut You Down, where she chose to appear laying flowers on a grave. She was recorded in Trinity Church in Manhattan. During the shoot, she wore a 'long-sleeve black velvet coat' that was Tim Burton's.
On Korn's MTV Unplugged: Korn, Lee was featured in the song "Freak on a Leash". The song is also the first single from the album and was released to television and radio in early February 2007.

AKA Jennifer Lynn Connelly

Born: 12-Dec-1970
Birthplace: Catskill Mountains, NY
Gender: Female
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Betty Ross in The Hulk
Father: Gerard (clothing manufacturer)
Mother: Eileen Connelly (antique dealer, masseuse at Esalen)
Boyfriend: David Dugan (photographer, one son)
Son: Kai Dugan
Boyfriend: Billy Campbell (actor, dated 1991-95)
Husband: Paul Bettany (m. 1-Jan-2003, one son)
Son: Stellan Bettany (b. 5-Aug-2003)
Connelly was born in the Catskill Mountains, New York, to Eileen, an antiques dealer, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer who worked in the garment industry. Connelly's paternal grandfather was Irish American and her paternal grandmother was a Norwegian American; her maternal grandparents were Jewish, their families having come from Russia and Poland. Connelly was raised in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, near the Brooklyn Bridge, attending St. Ann's School, except for four years the family spent living in Woodstock, New York. One of her father's friends was an advertising executive, who suggested that she audition at a modeling agency.
At the age of ten, her career started in newspaper and magazine ads, then moved to television commercials. These led to movie auditions and at the age of eleven, her first film role was as "young Deborah Gelly," a supporting role in Sergio Leone's 1984 gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. She next starred in Italian horror director Dario Argento's Phenomena (1985) and in the coming-of-age movie Seven Minutes in Heaven.
Early career
Connelly became a star on her next picture, the fantasy Labyrinth (1986) playing Sarah, a teenager who wishes her baby brother into the world of goblins ruled by goblin king Jareth (David Bowie). The film disappointed at the box office, but gained a huge cult following.
Connelly made a Japanese pop single record, "Jennifer's X'mas" (Toshiba-EMI, 1986)[citation needed], an Italian Balcannica record and starred in several obscure films, such as Etoile (1988) and Some Girls (1988). The Dennis Hopper-directed The Hot Spot (1990) was underwhelming, both critically and commercially. Another film, Career Opportunities, was more successful and is considered a teen cult classic. It and Hot Spot threatened to typecast her in the "sexpot" stereotype with both films emphasizing her voluptuous figure, particularly Hot Spot, which contained her first topless scene. It would be the first of seven movies in which she appeared nude. Connelly was featured on the cover of Esquire in August 1991, as part of the "Women We Love" feature. She appeared alongside Jason Priestley in the Roy Orbison music video for "I Drove All Night" in 1992. Connelly began studying English at Yale, and two years later transferred to Stanford.
The big-budget Disney film The Rocketeer (1991) similarly failed to ignite Connelly's career; after its failure she took some time off from acting. The 1996 indie film Far Harbor played her against type and hinted at a much broader range than she had previously shown. Connelly began to appear in smaller but well-regarded films, such as 1997's Inventing the Abbotts and 2000's Waking the Dead. She played a collegiate lesbian in John Singleton's 1995 ensemble drama, Higher Learning. The critically favored 1998 science fiction film Dark City afforded her the chance to work with such actors as Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Ian Richardson and Kiefer Sutherland. Connelly revisited her ingenue image, though in a more understated way, for the 2000 Jackson Pollock biopic Pollock, in which she played Pollock's mistress.
Breakthrough
Arguably, Connelly's big breakthrough was the 2000 film Requiem for a Dream. Connelly starred alongside Jared Leto and Marlon Wayans as heroin addicts on the edge of a breakdown. The film firmly established her as a serious actress. Connelly next starred in Ron Howard's film A Beautiful Mind (2001), essaying the role of Alicia Nash, the long-suffering wife of the brilliant, schizophrenic mathematician John Nash (played by Russell Crowe). The film was a critical and commercial success and earned Connelly an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her appearance in A Beautiful Mind led to a featured article in TIME magazine.
Connelly starred in two films in 2003: Hulk and House of Sand and Fog. Hulk was something of a box office disappointment, but afforded Connelly the chance to work with noted director Ang Lee. House of Sand and Fog, based on the novel by Andre Dubus III, was reminiscent of much of her independent film work of the late 1990s. Connelly appeared in the 2005 horror film Dark Water, which was based on a Japanese film. In 2006, Connelly appeared in two films, both of which were nominated for multiple Academy Awards. She played a major role in an adaptation of the novel Little Children alongside Kate Winslet. Though her role as Kathy Adamson was very important in the novel, the director gave her character less screen time, instead focusing on the characters played by Winslet and Patrick Wilson. She also played a journalist in Blood Diamond opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.
Three of her more critically-acclaimed films (Dark City, Requiem for a Dream, and House of Sand and Fog) feature very similar scenes of Connelly standing alone on a pier overlooking the ocean. According to the directors, this was entirely a coincidence.
She turned down the leading role in The Ring due to scheduling conflicts. She also turned down the role of Katherine Thorn in The Omen because the original movie disturbed her. The role of Veronica in Heathers was written with her in mind but she turned it down. She also lost out at the last minute to Ione Skye in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything As of 2007, she is on set filming Reservation Road with Joaquin Phoenix, planned for release in the fall of 2007.
Connelly also will star in a small independent thriller across her husband, she also will have a small role across Drew Barrymore in He's Just Not That Into You.

AKA Brenda Mae Tarpley

Born: 11-Dec-1944
Birthplace: Lithonia, GA
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Country Musician
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Little Miss Dynamite, I'm Sorry
Country music performer. From 1957 until 2000 she was the youngest person to have a single on Billboard's country chart (age 12).
Lee's father, Ruben Tarpley, was born roughly halfway between Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia. He was the son of a hardscrabble farmer in Georgia's red-clay belt, which was devastated by soil depletion and the boll weevil. Although he stood only 5'7", he was an excellent left-handed pitcher, and spent 11 years in the Army playing baseball. Her mother, Annie Grayce Yarbrough, had a similar background of an honest, uneducated working class family in Greene County, Georgia, although she had the distinction of a Cherokee great-grandparent.
Brenda was born Brenda Mae Tarpley in the charity ward of Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 11, 1944. She weighed 4 pounds 11 ounces at birth. She attended grade schools wherever her father found work, primarily in the corridor between Atlanta and Augusta. Her family was poor, living hand-to-mouth; she shared a bed with her two siblings in a series of three-room houses without running water. Life centered around her parents' finding work, their extended family, and the Baptist Church (where she sang solos every Sunday).
She was a musical prodigy. Although her family did not have indoor plumbing until after her father's death, they had a battery-powered table radio that fascinated Brenda as a baby. By the time she was two, she would hear songs on the radio once and be able to whistle the complete tune. Both her mother and sister remember taking her repeatedly to a local candy store before she turned three; one of them would stand her on the counter and she would earn free candy or small coins for singing.
Her voice, pretty face, and complete absence of stage fright won her wider attention from the time she was five years old. At age 6, she won a local singing contest sponsored by the elementary schools. The reward was a live appearance on an Atlanta radio show, "Starmakers Revue".
Her father died in 1953. By the time she turned ten, she had become the primary breadwinner of her family by singing at events and on local radio and television shows.
Her break into big-time show business came when she turned down paid employment -- $30 to sing on a local television station in Atlanta -- in order to hear Red Foley and the Ozark Jubilee in Augusta. An Augusta DJ convinced Foley to hear her sing before the show. Foley was as transfixed as everyone else who heard the huge voice coming from the tiny girl and immediately agreed to let her to perform the Hank Williams standard Jambalaya on stage that night, unrehearsed. Foley later recounted the moments following her introduction:
I still get cold chills thinking about the first time I heard that voice. One foot started patting rhythm as though she was stomping out a prairie fire but not another muscle in that little body even as much as twitched. And when she did that trick of breaking her voice, it jarred me out of my trance enough to realize I'd forgotten to get off the stage. There I stood, after 26 years of supposedly learning how to conduct myself in front of an audience, with my mouth open two miles wide and a glassy stare in my eyes.
The audience erupted in applause and refused to let her leave the stage until she had sung three more songs. She was eleven years old and well under five feet tall. (As an adult, she was variously reported to stand between 4' 7" and 4' 9" tall.)
Less than two months later -- on July 30, 1956 -- Decca Records offered her a recording contract. She began her recording career at age 11 with rockabilly songs like "BIGELOW 6-200" (pronounced six two oh oh) and "Little Jonah." The song "Dynamite," coming out of a 4 foot 9 inch (1.45 meter) frame, led to her lifelong nickname, "Little Miss Dynamite."
Along with Connie Francis, she was one of the first female idols, achieving huge popularity with a long string of hits. At Christmas 1958, she released "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," which sold only 5,000 copies during its initial release. However, it would eventually go on to sell over five million copies. Then, disc jockeys also dubbed her "Little Miss Razz Matazz" after her husky, pounding voice belted out her first U.S. Top 10 hit, "Sweet Nothin's," in late 1959.
Over the ensuing years, Lee has continued to record and perform all around the world, previously cutting records in four different languages. She is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
Chuck Berry wrote a song about Brenda Lee on the album St. Louis to Liverpool. She was also immortalized in the hit Golden Earring song "Radar Love:" "Radio's playing some forgotten song / Brenda Lee's 'Coming on Strong'." She was also remembered as a heroine to Burton Cummings on his self-titled 70's album in the song "Dream of a Child," including the closing line, "I love Brenda Lee / Brenda Lee loves me / yeah..."
Although her songs have often centered on lost loves, and although she did lose her father at a young age, her marriage to Ronnie Shacklett in 1963 was a success. He was able to deal with the notoriously rapacious music industry, which had exploited her badly, and is credited with ensuring her long-term financial success. They have two daughters, Jolie and Julie (who was named for Patsy Cline's daughter) and three grandchildren.
Celebrating over 50 years as a recording artist, Brenda Lee was given the Jo Meador-Walker Lifetime Achievement award by Source Nashville in September 2006. She is the second recipient of the award, Jo Meador-Walker being the first.

AKA Susan Hallock Smith

Born: 10-Dec-1952
Birthplace: Pekin, IL
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor, Model
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: The Partridge Family
Father: Robert Smith (newspaper editor)
Mother: Gail Dey (nurse, d.1960, pneumonia)
Sister: Lesley
Slept with: David Cassidy (actor, one-night stand)
Boyfriend: Dale McCraven (cohabited in early 1970s)
Husband: Lenny Hirshan (agent, m. 1976, div. 1981, one daughter)
Daughter: Karen Hirshan (stepdaughter, artist)
Daughter: Sarah Dey Hirshan (stage actress, b. Nov-1978, with Lenny Hirshan)
Husband: Bernard Sofronski (producer, b. 1940, m. 20-Feb-1988)
Susan Dey is an actress, best known as the keyboard-miming Laurie on The Partridge Family and the uptight district attorney Grace Van Owen on L.A. Law.
Her mother, a nurse, died of pneumonia when Dey was eight years old. After her father remarried, Dey's stepmother tried to break her out of a teenaged funk by sending photos of Dey to a modeling agency, and she became a successful teen model, a cover girl on magazines like Seventeen. Prior to playing a Partridge, though, Dey had no acting experience, nor any interest in acting. She was offered her Partridge audition after studio executives visited the agency and looked through several models' portfolios to find just the right fresh and innocent-looking face. Dey was already somewhat famous among young girls, an audience producers hoped would tune in, and she was also attractive enough to pull an older male audience.
During the run of The Partridge Family, Dey had difficulties coping with fame, and she suffered both bulimia and anorexia. Her weight dropped to just 92 pounds, and she stopped menstruating. Her fingers occasionally turned orange from eating almost nothing but carrots. In 1971, during the program's second season, she wrote an article for a teen magazine titled, "How I Licked My Weight Problem," but the article was about how she had successfully lost weight. Eating disorders were not yet common knowledge, so when viewers worried about Dey's skinniness, they often wrote in wondering whether she had some form of cancer or wasting disease. She has said it was only when Partridge Danny Bonaduce saw her in a bikini and grimaced, "You look disgusting," that she knew she had a problem.
During the Partridge years, Dey moved in with the program's story editor, a man at least twenty years older than her. In the years since, she has married twice, both times to men many years older than her.
Immediately after The Partridge Family was cancelled, it was resurrected as a cheesy Saturday morning cartoon set in outer space, The Partridge Family, 2200 A.D. Dey performed Laurie Partridge's voice, but only for the first two episodes. The cast of The Partridge Family gathered for a clip-show reunion in 1977, sharing their TV special with the reunited cast of My Three Sons. Dey was invited, of course, but sent a videotape instead. She has since gained a reputation for being unwilling to talk about her Partridge years.
Post-Partridge, she starred in a women-in-prison flick, Imprisoned Women, several TV movies, and a few failed TV series, including the sitcom Loves Me, Loves Me Not and the soapy drama Emerald Point N.A.S. with Richard Dean Anderson and Sela Ward. L.A. Law revived her career in 1986, and after that series, she was in the first season of Love & War before being replaced by Annie Potts. Since then Dey has worked almost exclusively in forgettable TV movies.
In articles about Dey, her traumatic Partridge years are somewhat exaggerated by reports that she started modeling at 15, and debuted on The Partridge Family at 16. These numbers are based on a long-ago lie about Dey's age; all indications are that she was actually 17 when she began modeling, 18 when she became an actress.

AKA Lloyd Vernet Bridges III

Born: 9-Dec-1941
Birthplace: Los Angeles, CA
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: The Fabulous Baker Boys
Father: Lloyd Bridges (actor, Sea Hunt)
Mother: Dorothy (Simpson) Dean Bridges (former film actress)
Brother: Jeff Bridges (actor, b. 4-Dec-1949)
Sister: Lucinda Bridges-Cunningham (b. 1954)
Brother: Gary Bridges (d. 1947 SIDS)
Wife: Julie Landifield (m. 1964, div. 1984, two children)
Son: Casey Bridges (b. 16-Mar-1969, adopted)
Son: Jordan Bridges (actor, b. 13-Nov-1973)
Wife: Wendy Treece Bridges (m. 10-Apr-1984, three children)
Son: Dylan Bridges (b. 25-Oct-1984)
Daughter: Emily Bridges (b. 2-Jul-1986)
Son: Ezekiel Jeffry Bridges
Lloyd Bridges III is the older brother of B-list movie star Jeff Bridges, and son of TV star Lloyd Bridges. The nickname "Beau" stuck to Bridges from an early age, and was originally based on his resemblance to the young actor who played Leslie Howard's son in Gone with the Wind. He made his film debut at the age of seven in No Minor Vices with Dana Andrews, and had his first major role the next year, in The Red Pony with Robert Mitchum and Myrna Loy. In adolescence, he stopped acting, and in high school he lettered in basketball. He was good enough to play college ball for John Wooden's UCLA Bruins, but he wanted more playing time so he transferred to the University of Hawaii. There, he again sat on the bench, and quickly dropped out. He tried making music with his brother, and in 1969 they were signed to a recording contract by Quincy Jones, but nothing noteworthy ever came from that partnership.
At 19, Bridges co-starred in The Clear Horizon, a weekday science fiction serial with Ted Knight and Lee Meriwether. When that show was cancelled, he jumped to prime time, playing Seaman Howard Spicer on the sitcom Ensign O'Toole with Dean Jones and Jack Albertson. He also appeared on several episodes of his father's Sea Hunt, and made occasional appearances on My Three Sons with Fred MacMurray, Ben Casey with Vince Edwards, and Mr. Novak with James Franciscus. He has been both leading man and supporting actor, with memorable roles in The Incident, a subway thriller co-starring Ruby Dee and Ed McMahon; The Landlord, a groundbreaking 1970 interracial romance with Diana Sands; Norma Rae, as Sally Field's husband; and The Fabulous Baker Boys, opposite his brother and Michelle Pfeiffer. On TV's The Agency, he replaced Ronny Cox as the Director of the CIA, and in assorted TV movies and miniseries he has played P. T. Barnum, Colonel Tom Parker, Richard M. Nixon, and White House Press Secretary James Brady.

Born: 8-Dec-1993
Birthplace: Denver, CO
Gender: Female
Religion: Christian
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Because of Winn-Dixie
Robb was born in Denver, Colorado to Janet and Dave Robb. She was named after her maternal great-grandmother, Anna Sophie, and her paternal grandmother, Anna Marie. She has a dog, Bella, and enjoys singing, snowboarding, rafting, dancing, and reading, especially fantasy and historical fiction. Robb competed in dance and gymnastics for four and a half years, having quit when she began acting; she was once home-schooled and now attends a private school in Colorado, having stated that she is quite serious about it and would like to attend college. Robb is a Christian and has said that she is really close with her family.
Career
After starring in a commercial for McDonald's, Robb made her acting debut in 2004, appearing in a television special titled Samantha: An American Girl Holiday and in an episode of the television series Drake & Josh, "Number One Fan". She unsuccessfully auditioned for the roles of Emily Callaway in Hide and Seek and Rosemary Telesco in Little Manhattan.
Robb appeared in two 2005 films; playing Opal, the lead character in Because of Winn-Dixie, a film which performed well at the domestic box office, grossing $32 million; and starring as Violet Beauregarde in director Tim Burton's remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was a major box office success, raising Robb's popularity among pre-teen audiences. The same year, Robb was the face of Trad Clothing, helping to design and model a fashion line for girls. In 2006, she had a guest role on the cartoon show Danny Phantom, as the voice of Danielle "Dani" Fenton.
Robb played Leslie Burke in Bridge to Terabithia, a fantasy drama which opened on February 16, 2007 and also starred Josh Hutcherson. She recorded a song, "Keep Your Mind Wide Open", for the film's soundtrack, and appeared in a music video for the song that aired on the Disney Channel. The song appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 at #90 during the week of March 1, 2007, being her first song to chart. Robb was a fan of the book that the film is based on before being cast in the role, specifying that the book "touched [her] in a way [she] hadn’t been touched by a book before". Robb's films include The Reaping, a thriller that opened April 5, 2007; Doubting Thomas, an adventure film; Sleepwalking, a drama ; Jumper, an action film in which she plays the younger version of Rachel Bilson's character; and the 1960s-set drama Have Dreams, Will Travel (filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico), playing one of two children who are faced with neglectful parents. On June 10, 2007, Robb appeared in an interview on Disney's Really Short Report. In June of 2007, she attended the "A Time For Heroes" benefit. She also attended the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix premiere in Los Angeles in July 2007.
Filmography
2004 Drake & Josh Lisa episode "Number One Fan"
Samantha: An American Girl Holiday Samantha made-for-television; aired on November 23
2005 Because of Winn-Dixie: India Opal Buloni, released on February 18
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Violet Beauregarde, released on July 15
2006 Danny Phantom Danielle Phantom episode "Kindred Spirits"
2007 Bridge to Terabithia: Leslie Burke, released on February 16
The Reaping: Loren McConnell, released on April 5
2008 Jumper: Young Millie, released on February 14
Have Dreams, Will Travel: Cassie Kennington, Cannes Film Festival premiere on May 21, 2007. Official release TBA in 2008.
Sleepwalking: Tara, released March 14
Lies And Spies (A.K.A Doubting Thomas): Jackie Hoffman, made-for-television, aired on August 13 (USA) and now available on DVD (UK)
2009 Race to Witch Mountai: Sara, post-production; set to release March 13
The White Giraffe: Martine, Pre-production

AKA Teri Lynn Hatcher

Born: 8-Dec-1964
Birthplace: Sunnyvale, CA
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Susan Mayer on Desperate Housewives
Father: Owen Hatcher (nuclear physicist)
Mother: Esther Beshur (computer programmer)
Boyfriend: Kevin Lyon (high school sweetheart, dated 1981-85)
Husband: Marcus Leithold (personal trainer, m. 4-Jun-1988, div. 1989)
Boyfriend: Richard Dean Anderson (actor, dated late 1980s)
Boyfriend: James Woods (actor, dated early 1990s)
Boyfriend: James Wilder (actor)
Boyfriend: Michael Bolton (singer, dated 1992)
Boyfriend: Dean Cain (actor, rumored during Lois & Clark)
Husband: Jon Tenney (actor, m. 27-May-1994, div. 17-Jan-2003, one daughter)
Daughter: Emerson Rose (b. 10-Nov-1997)
In high school, Hatcher was a cheerleader, head of the dance team, and was voted "Most Likely to become a Solid Gold dancer". She never danced for that show, but she did spend a year on the cheerleading team for the San Francisco 49ers. She studied math and engineering at De Anza College simultaneous with drama at The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where Annette Bening was one of her teachers. At 21, she joined the cast of The Love Boat for its final season, playing a singing and dancing mermaid. She had a recurring role on MacGyver opposite Richard Dean Anderson, and they were also together off the set for about three years. In the late 1980s she was briefly in the cast of Capitol with Rory Calhoun.
Her first film was Christopher Guest's The Big Picture, and her first starring role was in Tango and Cash. She was nominated for a Golden Raspberry as Worst Supporting Actress in 1996, for her work in Heaven's Prisoners and 2 Days in the Valley. She later played Lois Lane in the series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and now plays single mother Susan Mayer on Desperate Housewives, a program that has been an enormous success, fueled by snarky writing and media speculation about catfights among the five leading actresses.

AKA Shiri Freda Appleby

Born: 7-Dec-1978
Birthplace: Los Angeles, CA
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Liz on Roswell
Father: Jerry Appleby
Mother: Dina Appleby
Brother: Evan Appleby
Appleby was born in Los Angeles, California. She and her younger brother, Evan, were raised in the San Fernando Valley (northwest of downtown Los Angeles, over the Hollywood Hills, in Los Angeles County). Her father, Jerry, is a telecommunications executive and her mother, Dina Bouader, is an Israeli-born school Hebrew teacher of Sephardic Jewish background. In Hebrew, "Shiri" means either "my song" or simply "sing". She has a scar above her left eyebrow, resulting from a dog bite when she was young. To get over her fear of dogs, she went on the show Emergency Vets, accompanying staff veterinarian Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald (she also overcame another phobia in the same episode by holding a live snake, one of Fitzgerald's patients) and shortly after adopted a Tabby, which she named Abby.
Appleby graduated from Calabasas High School (Calabasas, California) in 1997 and went on to major in English literature at the University of Southern California while also studying theater arts. She is known for her work in the community and active participation in charity events.
Personal life
She once dated Linkin Park drummer Rob Bourdon, with whom she attended the same high school. In June 2007, she began dating actor Zach Braff and she was with him in her summer vacation in Hawaii (September 05, 2007).
Career
Appleby began her acting career at the age of four, starting with advertising for various products such as Cheerios and M&M's. Her first advertisement was for Raisin Bran but it was never aired. She has had guest appearances on many television programs, most notably thirtysomething (1987), Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989), ER (1994), Baywatch (1989), Xena: Warrior Princess (1995), 7th Heaven (1996) and Beverly Hills 90210 (1990). For Roswell, she tried out for the roles of both Isabel and Maria before landing the role of Liz Parker. On 7th Heaven, she played a gang member who hid weapons underneath her little brother's mattress.
Appleby was in Bon Jovi's music video for "It's My Life" with Will Estes. She was also featured in the 2004 music video for the song "I Don't Want To Be" by Gavin DeGraw, opposite Scott Mechlowicz. She also appeared in Sense Field's music video for "Save Yourself" which is part of the Roswell soundtrack and featured in the first season DVD boxset.
As of 2006, she could be seen in a recurring role on the now cancelled ABC drama Six Degrees as Anya, a young assistant in a relationship with a much older photographer.

Born: 6-Dec-1976
Birthplace: Arcadia, CA
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: Multiracial
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Coupling
Brother: Bryan
Husband: Shawn Piller (producer, m. 31-Jul-2004)
Lindsay Jaylyn Price is an American television actress, known for her work on soap operas such as All My Children, The Bold and the Beautiful, and Beverly Hills 90210. She also starred on the short-lived American version of Coupling and had a recurring role on Becker, where she played Amanda, Jake Malinak (Alex Désert)'s girlfriend (a role that spanned three seasons).
She is the daughter of a Korean mother and a German-Irish American father who grew up as a family, when Lindsay's mother was adopted from Korea by her grandparents. She married Shawn Piller, creator of the hit television show, The Dead Zone, on July 31, 2004 on Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu, California. One of her bridesmaids was Shawn's sister, Brent Piller. The groomsmen included actors Christopher Masterson and Danny Masterson (That '70s Show). The best man was Lindsay's brother, Bryan Price. Guests included producers Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Ira Steven Behr and actors Anthony Michael Hall, Nicole de Boer, and Tom Welling (Smallville).
Price wrote and performed on a self-titled album in 2005 and recently co-starred on the WB television show Pepper Dennis.
Trivia
Was a contestant on I'm Telling! with her older brother, Bryan. They only missed one question and amassed the second highest score in the show's history.
Sang the theme song "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" to the short lived American remake of the British series Coupling.
Studied at the Pasadena College of Arts and Crafts (now called the Art Center College of Design) in Pasadena, California.
Her favorite body part is her collarbone. She likes wearing clothes that show them off, like strappy tops or off-the-shoulder dresses.
Was a guest at Tiffani Thiessen's wedding to Brady Smith.
Eurasian like fellow actresses Jessica Anderson, Devon Aoki, Moon Bloodgood, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, China Chow, Kristin Kreuk, Jaymee Ong, Maggie Q, Nicole Scherzinger, Monica Young and actors Andrew Johnston, Brandon Lee, Keanu Reeves, Rob Schneider, Russell Wong and Michael Wong.
Her favorite color is red.
Appeared in a Toys-R-Us television commercial in the early 80s.

AKA Jean Jacques Cale

Born: 5-Dec-1938
Birthplace: Oklahoma City, OK
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Songwriter
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Wrote Cocaine and After Midnight
J.J. Cale (born John W. Cale on December 5, 1938, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) is an American songwriter and musician best known for writing two songs that Eric Clapton made famous, "After Midnight" and "Cocaine", as well as the Lynyrd Skynyrd hit "Call Me The Breeze". Some sources incorrectly give his real name as "Jean Jacques Cale". According to keyboard player, Rocky Frisco, "The 'Jean Jaques' was created by a drunk French 'journalist' who got thrown out of the venue and made it up to pretend he had done an interview". In fact, a Sunset Strip nightclub owner employing Cale in the mid-1960's came up with the "J.J" moniker to avoid confusion with the Velvet Underground's John Cale.
Cale is one of the originators of the Tulsa Sound, a very loose genre drawing on blues, rockabilly, country, and jazz influences. Cale's personal style has often been described as "laid back", and is characterized by shuffle rhythms, simple chord changes, understated vocals, and clever, incisive lyrics. Cale is also a very distinctive and idiosyncratic guitarist, incorporating both Travis-like fingerpicking and gentle, meandering electric solos. His recordings also reflect his stripped-down, laid-back ethos; his album versions are usually quite succinct and often recorded entirely by Cale alone, using drum machines for rhythm accompaniment. Live, however, as evidenced on his 2001 Live album and 2006 To Tulsa And Back film, he and his band regularly stretch the songs out and improvise heavily.
Many artists, including Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Neil Young and Bryan Ferry, have noted Cale's influence on their music; several artists in addition to Clapton have made hits of Cale songs, and many more have covered them. Cale has often noted that he writes and records songs primarily so that other artists will cover them, but given the texturally spare but fine craftsmanship on his albums, this sentiment is far from universal. His most covered songs include "Call Me the Breeze", "Sensitive Kind", "After Midnight", and "Cocaine".
Cale is also well known for his longstanding aversion to stardom, extensive touring, and even continual recording. He has happily remained a relatively obscure cult artist for the last 35 years.
The release of his album, To Tulsa and Back in 2004, his appearance at Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival, and the 2006 release of the film documentary, To Tulsa and Back: On Tour with J. J. Cale, have brought his understated discography and songwriting to a new audience. This mainstream exposure continued into late 2006 with the release of a collaborative album with Eric Clapton, The Road to Escondido.

Born: 4-Dec-1964
Birthplace: Brooklyn, NY
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: My Cousin Vinny
Father: Gary Tomei
Mother: Patricia "Addie" Tomei
Brother: Adam Tomei
Boyfriend: Dana Ashbrook (1999)
Boyfriend: Frank Pugliese
Tomei, an Italian American, was born in Brooklyn, New York to Patricia, an English teacher, and Gary A. Tomei, a trial lawyer of Lebanese origin. She has a younger brother, Adam, and was partially raised by her paternal grandparents, Rita and Romeo Tomei. Tomei grew up in Midwood. While there she became captivated by the Broadway shows that her theater-loving parents took her to, and became drawn to acting as a career. After graduating from Edward R. Murrow High School she attended Boston University for a year, then transferred to New York University in 1983 after landing a role in the soap opera As The World Turns. Soon after, she dropped out of school altogether as her career began to take off.
Career
Tomei followed up As the World Turns in 1987 with a role on the sitcom A Different World. Her breakthrough performance came in My Cousin Vinny (1992), for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. After her Oscar win, she received a Screen Actor's Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Female Supporting Actor for Unhook the Stars. Next, she received an American Comedy Award nomination for Funniest Supporting Actress for Slums of Beverly Hills. She was nominated for a Satellite Award as Best Supporting Actress for What Women Want.
She received a second Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for In The Bedroom (2001). Tomei has also done substantial work in the theater, including taking lead roles on Broadway in Wait Until Dark (1998) and Salomé (2003), and many Off-Broadway plays.
In 1996, Tomei made a guest appearance on the sitcom Seinfeld, playing herself in "The Cadillac, Part 1" and "2." She has also made an appearance on The Simpsons, as a movie star who falls in love with Ned Flanders. In 2005, Tomei featured in an ad campaign for Hanes with the slogan "Look who we've got our Hanes on now", featuring various other celebrities including Michael Jordan, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Damon Wayans, Matthew Perry and, on Spanish-language advertising, Aracely Arambula and Pablo Montero.
In 2006, Tomei had a recurring role on the TV series Rescue Me, playing Johnny's ex-wife Angie.
Personal life
In the early 1990s, Tomei dated Robert Downey, Jr. (her co-star in Only You). In 1999, she dated actor Dana Ashbrook and had a relationship with Frank Pugliese. She usually likes to keep her personal life away from the media. In 2005, she stated that she would like to return to NYU to study civics.
As of August 2007, it was reported on WrestleZone.com that Marisa is currently dating former WWE, WCW, and ECW wrestler Vito

Born: 3-Dec-1980
Birthplace: Chicago, IL
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: My Girl
Known only for her starring role alongside Macaulay Culkin as Vada Sultenfuss in My Girl (1991) and its sequel (1994). Presently employed by Zagat, the restaurant reviewers.
Father: Frank Chlumsky
Mother: Nancy L. Chlumsky (b. 1952)
She entered show business at an early age modeling with her mother in an advertising campaign. She is best known for playing Vada Sultenfuss in the 1991 movie My Girl and the 1994 sequel My Girl 2.
She was in Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain with Christina Ricci, in which they "clown around" on a "haunted" mountain.
Chlumsky graduated from the University of Chicago in 2002 and had worked in New York City as a researcher for Zagat, a restaurant review company, for a short while.
Chlumsky appeared on the March 8, 2007 episode of 30 Rock called "The Fighting Irish." She played Liz Lemler who is the girlfriend of Floyd (Jason Sudeikis) who sent the flowers to Lemler in "Up All Night" that ended up with Liz Lemon.
She also appeared as "Mary Calvin" in an episode of NBC drama series Law & Order (Season 17, Episode 12) first airing January 12th 2007.
She will star in the new CW series Eight Days a Week.

Born: 3-Dec-1973
Birthplace: San Diego, CA
Gender: Female
Religion: Protestant
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Piper Halliwell on Charmed
Mother: Lauralei Combs (musician, b. 1958)
Husband: Bryan Travis Smith (actor, The Secrets of Lake Success, m. 1993, div. 1997)
Boyfriend: Storm Lyndon (school teacher, dated and broken engagement, 2000-01)
Husband: David W. Donoho (key grip, b. 1962, cohabited 2001-04, m. 14-Feb-2004, one son)
Son: Finley Arthur Donoho (b. 26-Apr-2004, with David Donoho)
Holly Marie Combs had a fairly rough childhood, born to a 15-year-old mother in a punk band, moving to New York when she was seven, there wandering from one low-rent apartment to another through most of her adolescence. She began acting professionally when she was 10, with a brief appearance in Walls of Glass, with Geraldine Page and Olympia Dukakis. She was an advertising model both in commercials and in print, and at 16 she landed small parts in Francis Ford Coppola's New York Stories and Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July.
At 19, she auditioned and interviewed for Picket Fences, but producer David E. Kelley told her, "I don't think you're quite right. The character has a really big heart and I just don't think you fit the bill." Shocked, she retorted: "Then why the hell are you looking in New York?" He was startled, and she left in a huff, but he called back a few weeks later, and she played Tom Skerritt's defiant daughter Kimberly Brock on Picket Fences for four years.
On Charmed, she was originally instructed to wear a push-up bra, but rebelled and refused after a few episodes. She has six dogs, five rabbits, four horses, three lovebirds, two cats, three tattoos, and one son. The boy's father, her husband David Donoho, works behind the scenes in film and television, primarily as a key grip. Donoho also created sound effects for the John Waters film Polyester (1981).

AKA Britney Jean Spears

Born: 2-Dec-1981
Birthplace: McComb, MS
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Singer
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Oops!... I Did it Again
Father: Jamie Parnel Spears
Mother: Lynne Irene Bridges
Brother: Bryan Spears (b. 19-Apr-1977)
Sister: Jamie Lynn Spears (b. 4-Apr-1991)
Husband: Jason Allen Alexander (m. 3-Jan-2004, annulled 5-Jan-2004)
Boyfriend: Justin Timberlake
Boyfriend: Columbus Short (choreographer/actor, together 2003)
Slept with: Fred Durst (she disputes this)
Husband: Kevin Federline (dancer, b. 1978, m. 18-Sep-2004, sep. 2006, div 30-Jul-2007, two sons)
Son: Sean Preston Federline (b. 14-Sep-2005)
Son: Jayden James Federline (b. 12-Sep-2006)
Boyfriend: Isaac Cohen (model, b. circa 1981, dated 2007)
Boyfriend: John Sundahl (her Alcoholics Anonymous counselor, dated 2007-)
Slept with: Criss Angel (magician, 2007)
Apparently the most successful of their numerous experiments, Britney Spears was genetically engineered by the Disney Corporation to bring western culture to its knees. Ok, so that's a bit of an exaggeration: in fact, she was engineered to bring the enormous sex-deprived male population to its knees.
Immediately upon trading in her mouse ears for a push-up bra, Ms. Spears became a pop music phenomenon (that's really not as impressive a thing as it sounds), storming the charts with her first single Baby One More Time (1998). Then came her mega-hit Oops!...I Did it Again (2000) –- and millions of you loved it, didn't you? Don't be ashamed: it is a catchy little number, but that is more a credit to the skill of her slick-as-vaseline producers than to the singer's marginal talents. And then –- oops! –- she did it repeatedly, the hits coming again and again like a large lunch after a bad case of food poisoning. In 2002 she made the inevitable attempt at being a film star with Crossroads and –- oops –- that didn't turn out so well. More attempts are sure to follow.
As the singer enters full adulthood, a definite conundrum has emerged for her marketing department: is she the fresh-faced, wholesome girl that made her the idol of teen girls the world over? Or is she a depraved slut, ready to rub against anything that's still breathing, like all those dirty old men are hoping? Or is there a way to be both? It's fascinating (in a trainwreck kind of way) to watch the struggle between the various unhealthy sexual attitudes contained within a culture play themselves out through the marketing image of one person -- although this is not to suggest that there is any deliberate intent by Ms. Spears to undetake such a thing. Ultimately, she is little more than another product being offered by corporate interests. The real struggle is taking place in the homes of all those teen-age girls seeking to emulate her (minus the million-dollar paycheck, of course).
The question that remains is: what lies in store for the bodacious, bum-shaking Britney? Will she wind up rattling around the pop music dustbin with Leif Garrett? Will she bare it all in an attempt to restore lagging interest like Tiffany? Or will she continually find a way to fasten herself, leech-like, onto the public consciousness like Madonna? It's no mystery why those two have gotten so friendly: both are hoping to stuck a carefully-manicured thumb into the other and pull out the nice, juicy plum of commercial longevity.

AKA Charlene L Tilton

Born: 1-Dec-1958
Birthplace: San Diego, CA
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Lucy Ewing on Dallas
Father: (never met)
Mother: Katherine (secretary)
Husband: Johnny Lee (m. 14-Feb-1982, div. 1984)
Husband: Domenick Allen (m. 1985, div. 1992)
Daughter: Cherish Lee-Tilton (with Johnny)
Charlene L. Tilton (born December 1, 1958) is an American actress. She was born in San Diego, California. Notably, Tilton is 4'11" (1.50 m) tall.
Blonde, attractive and with a sexy, sultry manner, Charlene has had a varied career in show business. She is best known for playing Lucy Ewing, the sly, vixenish, frequently frustrated grand-daughter of Jock Ewing in the popular television series Dallas from 1978 to 1985 and from 1988 to 1990.
In addition to several appearances on various TV shows, Charlene has also appeared in feature films (including a cameo in the John Milius film Big Wednesday), although most of these did not achieve much stature. She appeared on Circus of the Stars in 1979 and 1991, on one occasion famously featuring as a knife thrower's target girl in a gold bikini. In 2005, she appeared in the British reality TV show, The Farm.
Charlene did a number of commercials in the 1990s for the abdominizer workout equipment. She appeared as herself in an episode of Married... with Children where her involvement with the "abdominizer" was spoofed.
Charlene was married to country singer Johnny Lee from 1982 to 1984 and to Domenick Allen from 1985 to 1992. She has one daughter, Cherish Lee, born in 1982.