Kidman has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF since 1994 and for UNIFEM since 2006. Kidman’s work has earned her a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, three Golden Globe Awards, one BAFTA, and an Academy Award. In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, and was also the highest-paid actress in the motion picture industry. As a result of being born to Australian parents in Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship in Australia and the United States. Nicole Kidman founded and owns the production company Blossom Films.
On 17 September 2010, ContactMusic.com said Kidman will return to Broadway to portray Alexandra Del Lago in David Cromer’s revival of Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth, with Scott Rudin producing. On 30 August 2011 Cromer spoke to The New York Times and explained that the production will not meet its original fall 2011 revival date but that it remains an active project. In February 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported Kidman is in talks to join the cast of Park Chan Wook’s Stoker. In May 2011 it was reported that Kidman would star and produce in Spectre, a supernatural thriller directed by James Wan. The film closed major territory deals at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In June, Kidman was cast in Lee Daniels’ adaptation of the Pete Dexter novel, The Paperboy; she began filming on the thriller on 1 August 2011, and The Paperboy was released in 2012.
On 2 November 2011, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Kidman is attached to star in My Wild Life, a Philip Noyce-directed biopic of conservationist, Daphne Sheldrick.
Production for the project is scheduled for the first quarter of 2012.In April 2012, various sources, including Variety, announced that Kidman was in talks to star in upcoming Grace Kelly biopic Grace of Monaco. The film will focus on the 1962 crisis, in which Charles de Gaulle blockaded the tiny principality, angered by Monaco’s status as a tax haven for wealthy French subjects.Her collaboration with Ewan McGregor on “Come What May” peaked at No.27 in the UK Singles Chart. Later she collaborated with Robbie Williams on “Somethin’ Stupid”, a cover of Williams’ swing covers album Swing When You’re Winning. It peaked at No.8 in the Australian ARIAnet Singles Chart, and at No.1 for three weeks in the UK.
In 2006, while voicing a role in the animated movie Happy Feet, she provided vocals for Norma Jean’s “heartsong”, a slightly altered version of “Kiss” by Prince. Kidman sang in Rob Marshall’s movie musical Nine.
In 2002, Kidman first appeared on the Australian rich list published annually in the Business Review Weekly with an estimated net worth of A$122 million. In the 2011 published list, Kidman’s wealth was estimated at A$304 million, down from A$329 million in 2010.
In 2003, Kidman received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In addition to her 2003 Academy Award for Best Actress, Kidman has received Best Actress awards from the following critics’ groups or award-granting organisations: the Hollywood Foreign Press (Golden Globes), the Australian Film Institute, Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, Empire Awards, Golden Satellite Awards, Hollywood Film Festival, London Critics Circle, Russian Guild of Film Critics, and the Southeastern Film Critics Association. In 2003, Kidman was given the American Cinematheque Award. She also received recognition from the National Association of Theatre Owners at the ShoWest Convention in 1992 as the Female Star of Tomorrow and in 2002 for a Distinguished Decade of Achievement in Film.
Her official website is http://nicolekidmanofficial.com
Cindy Crawford, Age 46 Years : Cynthia Ann “Cindy” Crawford was born on February 20, 1966. She is an American model. Crawford is known for her trademark mole just above her lip, and has adorned hundreds of magazine covers throughout her career. Her success at modeling made her an international celebrity that has led to roles in television and film, and to work as a spokesperson. In 1995, Forbes magazine named her the highest paid model on the planet. She was named No. 3 on VH1’s 40 Hottest Hotties of the 90s and was named one of the “100 Hottest Women of All-Time” by Men’s Health.
Crawford was born in DeKalb, Illinois, the daughter of Jennifer Sue Crawford-Moluf and John Crawford .She has stated that her family has been in the US for generations and that her ancestry is mostly German, English and French.
She was discovered at the age of 16 by a newspaper photographer, when he noticed Cindy at work during her summer job of detasseling corn and took a picture of her. The photo and positive feedback she received were enough to convince her to take up modeling. She entered the Elite Model Management’s Look of the Year contest at 17 and was the runner-up. The Elite modeling agency in Chicago then started representing her.
Crawford graduated from DeKalb High School in 1984, as valedictorian. She won an academic scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwestern University, which she attended for only one quarter. She dropped out in order to pursue a full-time modeling career. After working for photographer Victor Skrebneski in Chicago, Cindy moved to Manhattan in 1986; she was signed with the Elite New York modeling agency.
In July 1988, she posed nude for Playboy magazine in a shoot by photographer Herb Ritts. In October 1998, Crawford returned to the pages of Playboy for a second nude pictorial, again taken by Ritts.
Crawford has consistently ranked highly on lists of the world’s sexiest people. She was ranked number 5 on Playboy’s list of the 100 Sexiest Stars of the 20th century. A 1997 Shape magazine survey of 4,000 picked her as the second (after Demi Moore) most beautiful woman in the world. In 2002, Crawford was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People by People magazine. In her forties, she claimed No. 26 in the 2006 Hot 100 issue of Maxim magazine.
2012 Top 10 Most Beautiful Women in the World Above 40Fashion designer Michael Kors summed up her impact: “Cindy changed the perception of the ‘sexy American girl’ from classic blue eyed blonde to a more sultry brunette with brains, charm, and professionalism to spare”.
When Crawford was 10 years old, her younger brother Jeff—whom she continues to praise as “the fourth most influential person in my life”—died of leukemia. Since becoming a model, Crawford has made childhood leukemia a focal point of her charity work, donating proceeds of her calendars to medical research. Crawford has been a long-time supporter of the pediatric oncology program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Jeff was treated, stating that she believes he received the best care possible. She is also an honorary board member of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
In 2007, she became an official supporter of the Ronald McDonald House Charities and is a member of their celebrity board, called the Friends of RMHC.Crawford is on the Honorary Committee of the California Wildlife Center.
In 2011, Crawford endorsed Mitt Romney for President of the United States. The move was slightly controversial due to Crawford’s endorsement of President Barack Obama in 2008.
Her official website is http://www.cindy.com.
Monica Bellucci began modeling at age 13 by posing for a local photo enthusiast.In 1988, Bellucci moved to one of Europe’s fashion centers, Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. By 1989, she was becoming prominent as a fashion model in Paris and across the Atlantic, in New York City. She posed for Dolce & Gabbana and French Elle, among others. In that year, Bellucci made the transition to acting and began taking acting classes. The February 2001 Esquire’s feature on Desire featured Bellucci on the cover and in an article on the five senses. In 2003, she was featured in Maxim. Men’s Health also named her one of the “100 Hottest Women of All-Time”, ranking her at No. 21. AskMen named her the number one most desirable woman in 2002.
Bellucci’s modelling career is managed by Elite+ in New York City. She is considered an Italian sex symbol. From 2006 to 2010 she was the face of a range of Dior products. Bellucci is signed to D’management group in Milan and also to Storm Model Management in London.
In 2004, while pregnant with her daughter Deva, Bellucci posed nude for the Italian Vanity Fair Magazine in protest against Italian laws, that prevent the use of donor sperm. She posed pregnant and semi-nude again for the magazine’s April 2010 issue.
In 2012 she became the new face of Dolce & Gabbana.
Bellucci’s film career began in the early 1990s. She played some minor roles in La Riffa and Bram Stoker’s Dracula . In 1996 she was nominated for a César Award for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Lisa in L’Appartement and strengthened her position as an actress. She became known and popular with worldwide audiences, following her roles in Malèna , Brotherhood of the Wolf, and Irréversible . She has since played in many films from Europe and Hollywood like Tears of the Sun , The Matrix Reloaded , The Passion of the Christ , The Brothers Grimm, Le Deuxième souffle , Don’t Look Back , and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice .
She was supposed to be seen portraying Indian politician Sonia Gandhi in the biopic Sonia, originally planned for release in 2007, but it has been shelved.
Bellucci dubbed her own voice for the French and Italian releases of the film Shoot ‘Em Up . She also voiced Kaileena in the video game Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and the French voice of Cappy for the French version of the 2005 animated film Robots.
Empire magazine selected her as twenty-first on their list of “The Sexiest 25 Characters in Cinema – The Women” for her role of “Persephone” in the Matrix series.
Bellucci is married to French actor Vincent Cassel, with whom she has appeared in several films. They have two daughters, Deva was born in 2004 and Léonie born in 2010.
In the documentary movie The Big Question, about the film The Passion of the Christ, she stated: “I am an agnostic, even though I respect and am interested in all religions. If there’s something I believe in, it’s a mysterious energy; the one that fills the oceans during tides, the one that unites nature and beings.”
In September 2012 at a Toronto International Film Festival press conference for the Iranian movie Rhino Season, Monica stated that she can speak four languages: Italian, French, English and Persian.
Zeta-Jones subsequently starred as Velma Kelly in the 2002 film adaptation of the musical Chicago, a critical and commercial success, and received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Later, she appeared in the 2003 romantic comedy film Intolerable Cruelty and 2004 crime comedy film Ocean’s Twelve. Zeta-Jones starred in the 2005 sequel of the 1998 film, The Legend of Zorro. She also starred in the 2008 biopic romantic thriller Death Defying Acts. In 2010, she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Desiree in A Little Night Music.
Catherine Zeta-Jones was born in Swansea, Wales on 25 September 1969 to Patricia , a seamstress, and David James Jones, a sweet factory owner.Her father is Welsh and her mother is of Welsh and Irish descent.Catherine’s middle name, Zeta, came from her grandmother, who was named after a boat seen in Swansea Harbour. She was educated at Dumbarton House School, a co-educational independent school in Swansea, but left early to further her acting ambitions without obtaining O levels. While at Dumbarton, she once had her lunch money inadvertently stolen by fellow pupil, actor Rob Brydon. She then attended the independent The Arts Educational Schools in Chiswick, West London, for a full-time, three-year course in musical theatre.
In 2008, starred alongside Guy Pearce and Saoirse Ronan in Death Defying Acts, a biopic about legendary escapologist Harry Houdini at the height of his career in the 1920s. The film was well received by many critics; View London noted that “Zeta Jones also pulls off an extremely impressive Edinburgh accent and it’s great to see her in a decent role for once.” In 2009, Zeta-Jones starred in romantic comedy The Rebound, in which she played a 40-year old mother of two who falls in love with a younger man, played by Justin Bartha. The film was released in cinemas in several countries throughout 2009. The film is set to be released in the United States on 25 December 2010.
In August 2009, it was announced she would return to her musical roots and make her Broadway debut in the revival of A Little Night Music with Angela Lansbury, beginning December 2009. For her performance, Zeta-Jones received an Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk Award, as well as a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical.
In 2012, she features in Lay the Favorite starring Bruce Willis, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. She also appeared in Playing for Keeps with Gerard Butler and Rock of Ages, alongside Tom Cruise and Alec Baldwin. Her next projects include Broken City and Steven Soderbergh’s The Bitter Pill, being their third collaboration.
Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders parodied Zeta-Jones as a vacuous über-celebrity named “Catherine Spartacus-Zeta-Douglas-Jones”(variously described as a princess of the Spartacus dynasty or the Queen of Wales) on their show French & Saunders, in the series Back With a Vengeance. (Spartacus is a film role memorably played by Zeta-Jones’s father-in-law). “Catherine Spartacus-Zeta-Douglas-Jones” alternates between a strong Welsh accent and a strong American accent and uses Welsh phrases when she speaks.
Zeta-Jones is also parodied in the BBC’s The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson by Debra Stephenson reading Beauty and the Beast also alternating between strong Welsh and American accents. Zeta is also mentioned in the song Hollywood by Marina and the Diamonds in the line “Oh my God, you look just like Shakira no, no, you’re Catherine Zeta, actually my name’s Marina”. Adam DeVine mentioned Zeta-Jones on Workaholics, singing “Catherine Zeta-Joooones, she dips beneath laaaasers, whoooooa!”
Zeta-Jones is also an advertising spokeswoman, currently the global spokeswoman for cosmetics giant Elizabeth Arden. She has appeared in numerous TV commercials for the phone company T-Mobile, and one for Alfa Romeo. She is also the spokeswoman for Di Modolo jewellery. Zeta-Jones was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.
Zeta-Jones has appeared on several magazine covers, including Allure,Harper’s Bazaar, W, Vanity Fair, and Vogue. She was chosen one of “1998’s Most Beautiful People” by People magazine, she also was ranked number 68 in FHM’s “100 Sexiest Women in the World 2005” special supplement, and was named number 82 in 2006. She was ranked number 50 on VH1’s “100 Hottest Hotties”.
Zeta-Jones met actor Michael Douglas, with whom she shares a birthday, and who is exactly 25 years her senior, at the Deauville Film Festival in France in August 1998, after being introduced by Danny DeVito. They began dating in March 1999. Zeta-Jones claims that when they met, he used the line “I’d like to father your children.” They became engaged on 31 December 1999, and were married at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on 18 November 2000, just weeks after Douglas’s divorce was finalised. A traditional Welsh choir (Côr Cymraeg Rehoboth) sang at their wedding. Her Welsh gold wedding ring includes a Celtic motif and was purchased in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth.They have two children. Their son, Dylan Michael Douglas (named after Dylan Thomas), was born on 8 August 2000, with Zeta Jones’s pregnancy incorporated into her role in Traffic. Their daughter, Carys Zeta Douglas, was born on 20 April 2003.
Zeta-Jones has two brothers, Stephen and Craig. Her younger brother, Stephen, is her personal manager and producer for Milkwood Films, whereas Craig is a well renowned stuntman.
In 2004, Douglas and Zeta-Jones took legal action against stalker Dawnette Knight, who was accused of sending violent letters to the couple that contained graphic threats on Zeta-Jones’s life. Testifying, Zeta-Jones said the threats left her so shaken she feared a nervous breakdown. Knight claimed she had been in love with Douglas and admitted to the offences, which took place between October 2003 and May 2004. She was sentenced to three years in prison.
In April 2011, Zeta-Jones sought treatment for bipolar II disorder, checking herself into Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California, the second of four children of Richard Pfeiffer, a heating and air-conditioning contractor and Donna , a housewife. She has one elder brother, Rick and two younger sisters, Dedee Pfeiffer, a television and film actress and Lori Pfeiffer . Her father was of German, Dutch, and Irish descent, and her mother was of Swiss and Swedish ancestry. The family moved to Midway City, where Pfeiffer spent her childhood. She attended Fountain Valley High School, graduating in 1975. She worked as a check-out girl at Vons supermarket, and attended Golden West College. After a short stint training to be a court stenographer, she decided upon an acting career. She won the Miss Orange County beauty pageant in 1978, and participated in Miss California the same year, finishing in sixth position. Following her participation in these pageants, she acquired an acting agent and began to audition for television and films.
During the 1990s, Pfeiffer attracted comment in the media for her beauty. In 1990, she appeared on the cover of People magazine’s first 50 Most Beautiful People In The World issue. She was again featured on the cover of the annual issue in 1999, having made the “Most Beautiful” list a record six times during the decade (1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1999). Pfeiffer is the first celebrity to have appeared on the cover of the annual issue twice, and the only person to be featured on the cover twice during the 1990s.
The Hitchcockian thriller What Lies Beneath with Harrison Ford, was a commercial success, opening number one at the box office in July 2000. She then accepted the role of highly strung lawyer Rita Harrison in I Am Sam opposite Sean Penn. The movie received unfavorable reviews, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote: “Pfeiffer, apparently stymied by the bland clichés that prop up her screechy role, delivers her flattest, phoniest performance ever”.
For her performance as murderous artist Ingrid Magnussen in White Oleander , alongside Alison Lohman in her film début, Renée Zellweger and Robin Wright Penn, Pfeiffer garnered a substantial amount of critical praise. Stephen Holden of the New York Times wrote that “Ms. Pfeiffer, giving the most complex screen performance of her career, makes her Olympian seductress at once irresistible and diabolical.” Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times described her as “incandescent,” bringing “power and unshakable will to her role as mother-master manipulator” in a “riveting, impeccable performance.” She earned Best Supporting Actress Awards from the San Diego Film Critics Society and the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.
Pfeiffer also did voice work in two animated films during this period, voicing Tzipporah in The Prince of Egypt , in which she introduced the Academy Award–winning song, ‘When You Believe’, and Eris in Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas Pfeiffer appeared in Garry Marshall’s 2011 romantic comedy New Year’s Eve, and appeared opposite Chris Pine in People Like Us in 2012. She starred in an adaptation of former television series Dark Shadows, directed by Tim Burton , alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Chloë Grace Moretz. In the film, she plays the family Matriarch, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Pfeiffer is set to play the “tough mother” and wife of actor Robert De Niro’s character in Luc Besson’s mob-comedy Malavita which started production in August 2012. The film is slated for an October 18, 2013 North America release. On November, 7, 2012, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Pfeiffer will star alongside Tim Robbins and Chloë Grace Moretz in the dark comedy, Man Down. “The movie is described as being in the vein of American Beauty and The Royal Tenenbaums. It is about a dysfunctional Yonkers, New York family whose lives are changed after a photo of them ends up in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, turning them into celebrities.
In January 1993, Pfeiffer was set up on a blind date with television writer and producer David E. Kelley, who took her to the movies to see Bram Stoker’s Dracula the following week, and they began dating seriously. They married on November 13, 1993. Since then, she has made an uncredited cameo appearance in one episode of Kelley’s television series Picket Fences and played the title character in To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday, for which Kelley wrote the screenplay. Pfeiffer and Kelley have two children, Claudia and John. Pfeiffer had entered into private adoption proceedings before she met Kelley. In March 1993, she adopted a newborn daughter, Claudia Rose, who was christened on Pfeiffer and Kelley’s wedding day. In August 1994, Pfeiffer gave birth to a son, John Henry.
Having been a smoker for ten years and having a niece who suffered from leukemia for ten years, she decided to support the American Cancer Society. Her charity work also includes her support for the Humane Society. Pfeiffer is vegan.
In 1990, Moore starred in Ghost, which was the highest-grossing film of that year and brought her a Golden Globe nomination. She had a string of additional box-office successes over the early 1990s with A Few Good Men , Indecent Proposal , and Disclosure . In 1996, Moore became the highest-paid actress in film history when she was paid a then-unprecedented salary of $12.5 million to star in Striptease. The high-profile disappointment of that film as well as her next, G.I. Jane , was followed by a lengthy hiatus and significant downturn in Moore’s acting career, although she has remained a subject of substantial media interest during the years since.
Moore took her professional name from her first husband, musician Freddy Moore, and is the mother of three daughters from her second marriage to actor Bruce Willis. She married her third husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, in 2005, and separated from him in November 2011.
Moore was born in Roswell, New Mexico. Prior to Moore’s birth, her biological father, Air Force man Charles Harmon, Sr.left her mother, Virginia , after a two-month marriage. When Moore was three months old, her mother married Dan Guynes, a newspaper advertising salesman who frequently changed jobs; as a result, the family moved a great many times. Moore said in 1991, “My dad was Dan Guynes. He raised me. There is a man who would be considered my biological father who I don’t really have a relationship with.” Moore learned of him at age 13, when she found her mother and stepfather’s marriage certificate and inquired about the circumstances since “I saw my parents were married in February 1963. I was born in ’62.” Dan Guynes committed suicide in October 1980 at age 37, two years after divorcing Moore’s mother. Moore’s biological father appeared on Inside Edition in 1995, making an appeal to see his grandchildren. Virginia Guynes had a long record of arrests for crimes, including drunk driving and arson. Moore broke off contact with her in 1990, when Guynes walked away from a rehab stay Moore had paid for at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota. Guynes later embarrassed her daughter by posing nude for the low-end magazine High Society in 1993, where she spoofed Moore’s controversial Vanity Fair pregnancy and bodypaint covers, and parodied her love scene from the film Ghost. Moore and Guynes briefly reconciled shortly before Guynes died of cancer in July 1998 at age 54.
In August 1991, Moore appeared nude on the cover of Vanity Fair under the title More Demi Moore. Annie Leibovitz shot the picture while Moore was seven months pregnant with her daughter Scout LaRue, intending to portray “anti-Hollywood, anti-glitz” attitude. The cover sparked an intense controversy for Vanity Fair and Moore. It was widely discussed on television, radio, and in newspaper articles.The frankness of Leibovitz’s portrayal of a pregnant sex symbol led to divided opinions, ranging from complaints of sexual objectification to celebrations of the photograph as a symbol of empowerment.
The photograph was subject to numerous parodies, including the Spy magazine version which placed Moore’s then-husband Bruce Willis’ head on her body. In Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp., Leibovitz sued over one parody featuring Leslie Nielsen, made to promote the 1994 film Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult. In the parody, the model’s body was attached to what is described as “the guilty and smirking face” of Nielsen. The teaser said “Due this March”. The case was dismissed in 1996 because the parody relied “for its comic effect on the contrast between the original”. In November 2009, the Moroccan magazine Femmes du Maroc emulated the infamous pose with Moroccan news reporter Nadia Larguet, causing controversy in the majority Muslim nation.
In August 1992, Moore again appeared nude on the cover of Vanity Fair, modeling for body painting artist Joanne Gair in Demi’s Birthday Suit.
Moore was a founding “celebrity investor” in the Planet Hollywood chain of international theme restaurants modeled after the Hard Rock Cafe and launched in New York on October 22, 1991 along with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and former husband Bruce Willis. She was the executive producer of all three of the films in the successful Austin Powers franchise, as well as an interview series for the Lifetime network called The Conversation.
One source has estimated Moore’s net worth to be $150 million as of approximately 2011 up from $75 million as of approximately 2010.
She is a follower of Philip Berg’s Kabbalah Centre religion, and initiated Kutcher into the faith, having said that she “didn’t grow up Jewish, but … would say that she has been more exposed to the deeper meanings of particular rituals than any of her friends that did.”
According to The New York Times, Moore is “the world’s most high-profile doll collector,” and among her favorites is the Gene Marshall fashion doll. At one point, Moore kept a separate residence to house her 2,000 dolls.
While she landed on PETA’s Worst-Dressed List in 2009 for wearing fur two years later she supported the group’s efforts to ban circus workers’ use of bullhooks on elephants.
In 2009 Moore and Kutcher launched The Demi and Ashton Foundation (DNA), a nonprofit, non-governmental organization directed towards fighting child sexual slavery. Its first campaign was “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls.” In November 2012, the foundation said it was announcing “a new name and refined mission” as Thorn, which aimed “to disrupt and deflate the predatory behavior of those who abuse and traffic children, solicit sex with children or create and share child pornography.”
Before becoming an actress, Berry entered several beauty contests, finishing as the 1st runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant , and coming in 6th place in the Miss World Pageant in 1986. She made her film debut in 1991 with a brief appearance in Jungle Fever. Her breakthrough was in 1992’s Boomerang, which led to roles in films such as The Flintstones and Bulworth . In addition to her Academy Award win, the 21st century brought a new level of prominence to Berry, with roles in films such as X-Men , Die Another Day , where she played Bond Girl Jinx, and Cloud Atlas . She also won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress in 2005 for Catwoman and accepted the award in person, one of the few performers to do so.
Berry was born Maria Halle Berry, though her name was legally changed to Halle Maria Berry in 1971. Berry’s parents selected her middle name from Halle’s Department Store, which was then a local landmark in her birthplace of Cleveland, Ohio. Her mother, Judith Ann who is of English and German descent, was a psychiatric nurse. Her father, Jerome Jesse Berry, was an African American hospital attendant in the same psychiatric ward where her mother worked; he later became a bus driver. Berry’s maternal grandmother, Nellie Dicken, was born in Sawley, Derbyshire, England, while her maternal grandfather, Earl Ellsworth Hawkins, was born in Ohio. Berry’s parents divorced when she was four years old; she and her older sister Heidi were raised exclusively by her mother. Berry has said in published reports that she has been estranged from her father since her childhood, noting in 1992, “I haven’t heard from him since he left. Maybe he’s not alive.”
Berry graduated from Bedford High School. She worked in the children’s department at Higbee’s Department store. She then studied at Cuyahoga Community College. In the 1980s, she entered several beauty contests, winning Miss Teen All American in 1985 and Miss Ohio USA in 1986. She was the 1986 Miss USA first runner-up to Christy Fichtner of Texas. In the Miss USA 1986 pageant interview competition, she said she hoped to become an entertainer or to have something to do with the media. Her interview was awarded the highest score by the judges. She was the first African-American Miss World entrant in 1986, where she finished sixth and Trinidad and Tobago’s Giselle Laronde was crowned Miss World.
Berry is involved in production of films and television. She served as executive producer on Introducing Dorothy Dandridge in 1999, and Lackawanna Blues in 2005. Berry both produced and starred in the thriller Perfect Stranger with Bruce Willis and in Things We Lost in the Fire with Benicio del Toro, the first film in which she worked with a female director, Danish Susanne Bier, a new feeling of “thinking the same way”, which she appreciated. Berry then starred in the film Frankie and Alice, in which she plays Frankie Murdoch, a young multiracial American women with dissociative identity disorder struggling against her alter personality to retain her true self. She was awarded the African-American Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and also was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama.
Berry is one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, earning $10 million per film. In July 2007, she topped In Touch magazine’s list of the world’s most fabulous 40-something celebrities. On April 3, 2007, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the Kodak Theatre at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to the film industry. As of 2011, Berry’s worldwide box office gross has been more than 2.7 billion US$. In 2011, she appeared in New Year’s Eve. She played one of the leads in the film Cloud Atlas, which was released in October 2012. Berry has served for many years as the face of Revlon cosmetics and also as the face of Versace. The Coty Inc. fragrance company signed Berry to market her debut fragrance in March 2008. Berry was delighted, saying that she had created her own fragrances at home by mixing scents.
Along with Pierce Brosnan, Cindy Crawford, Jane Seymour, Dick Van Dyke, Téa Leoni, and Daryl Hannah, Berry successfully fought in 2006 against the Cabrillo Port Liquefied Natural Gas facility that was proposed off the coast of Malibu. Berry said, “I care about the air we breathe, I care about the marine life and the ecosystem of the ocean.” In May 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the facility. Hasty Pudding Theatricals gave her its 2006 Woman of The Year award.
Berry took part in a nearly 2000-house cell-phone bank campaign for Barack Obama in February 2008.
Berry was ranked No. 1 on People’s “50 Most Beautiful People In The World,” in 2003 after making the top ten list seven times and appeared No. 1 on FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World the same year. She was named Esquire magazine’s “Sexiest Woman Alive” in October 2008, about which she stated “I don’t know exactly what it means, but being 42 and having just had a baby, I think I’ll take it.” Men’s Health ranked her at No. 35 on their “100 Hottest Women of All-Time” list. In 2009, she was voted #23 on Empire’s 100 Sexiest Film Stars. The same year, rapper Hurricane Chris released a song entitled “Halle Berry “She’s Fine ” extolling Berry’s beauty and sex appeal.
Hurley has been associated with the cosmetics company Estée Lauder for over 15 years since the company awarded Hurley her first modelling job at the age of 29. It has featured her as a representative and model for its products, especially perfumes such as Sensuous, Intuition, and Pleasures, since 1995. As an actress, her best known cinematic works to date have been as Vanessa Kensington in Mike Myers’ hit spy comedy, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and as the Devil in Bedazzled .Hurley owns an eponymous beachwear line.
Hurley was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, the younger daughter of Angela Mary and Roy Leonard Hurley. Her father was a Major in the British Army; her Anglican mother was a teacher at Kempshott Infant School. She has an older sister, Kate, and a younger brother, Michael James Hurley.
Aspiring to be a dancer as a young girl, she took ballet classes and later briefly studied dance and theatre at the London Studio Centre. While in her teens, she became involved with punk fashion, dyeing her hair pink and piercing her nose. “When I was 16 – this was about 1981, 1982 – the thing to be in Basingstoke, the suburb I grew up in, was punk,” she explained. She also reportedly associated with New Age travellers in her youth.
In April 2005, Elizabeth Hurley Beach, her beachwear line that she also models every summer, was launched at Harrods in the UK. It debuted later that year in select Saks Fifth Avenue stores in the United States and other European countries. She told Tatler magazine, “I was on Necker Island for a fashion shoot and even as Richard Branson was lying back in a hammock, he was on the phone, doing deals, managing his empire. But then I thought I am never going to have even a holiday home, let alone an island, unless I start a business that I can do without disrupting Damian’s school days.” In May 2008, Hurley designed and modelled a capsule collection of 12 swimsuits for the Spanish clothes brand MANGO.Hurley has appeared three times on the cover of British Vogue. She is signed to TESS Management in London
Hurley made her first film appearance in Aria . She has since appeared in the movies Passenger 57, EDtv, Bedazzled, and Serving Sara. In 1997, she received her first and only acting award, the ShoWest Supporting Actress of the Year, for her performance in the spy spoof Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. When Hugh Grant founded and became the director of Simian Films in 1994, Hurley was credited as one of the producers for the company’s two Grant vehicles, Extreme Measures and Mickey Blue Eyes.
Hurley has been active in Estée Lauder’s Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, as part of which the company created an “Elizabeth Pink” lipstick whose sales benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Hurley, whose grandmother died of breast cancer, was the mistress of ceremonies at “The Hot Pink Party” that marked the tenth anniversary of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
Hurley supported the Prince’s Trust by co-presenting the 2003 Fashion Rocks event in its aid and helping launch the Get Into Cooking youth initiative in 2004. She has also helped raise funds for End Hunger Network ARK children’s charity and the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre.
She is a patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
Her official website is http://www.elizabethhurley.com
Her breakthrough role was in the 2002 film Frida as Frida Kahlo which she received an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress. The movie received widespread attention and was a critical and commercial success. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Children/Youth/Family Special in 2004 and received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2007 after guest-starring in the ABC television series Ugly Betty.
Hayek’s recent films include Grown Ups acting alongside Adam Sandler, and Puss in Boots , which also features former collaborator Antonio Banderas, wherein she is the voice of the character ‘Kitty Softpaws’.
Hayek was born Salma Hayek Jiménez in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico. She is the daughter of Diana Jiménez Medina, an opera singer and talent scout, and Sami Hayek Dominguez, an oil company executive who once ran for mayor of Coatzacoalcos. Hayek’s father is of Lebanese descent while her mother is of Spanish descent. Her first given name, Salma, is Arabic for “safe”. Raised in a wealthy, devoutly Roman Catholic family, she was sent to the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, at the age of twelve. While there, she was diagnosed with dyslexia. She attended university in Mexico City, where she studied International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana
In April 2007, Hayek finalized negotiations with MGM to become the CEO of her own Latin themed film production company, Ventanarosa. The following month, she signed a two year deal with ABC for Ventanarosa to develop projects for the network.
Hayek stars as the wife of Adam Sandler in Grown Ups, which also co-stars Chris Rock and Kevin James. At his insistence, Hayek co-starred with Antonio Banderas in the Shrek spin-off film Puss in Boots as the voice of the character Kitty Softpaws, who serves as Puss’s female counterpart and love interest.
Hayek has been a spokesperson for Avon cosmetics since February 2004. She formerly was a spokesperson for Revlon in 1998. In 2001, she modeled for Chopard and was featured in 2006 Campari adverts, photographed by Mario Testino. On April 3, 2009, she helped introduce La Doña, a watch by Cartier inspired by fellow Mexican actress María Félix.
In 2011, Hayek launched her own line of cosmetics, skincare and haircare products called Nuance by Salma Hayek, to be sold at CVS stores in North America. She was inspired to create a cosmetic line from her grandmother, who used to make her own facial care products.
Hayek was also featured in a series of Spanish language commercials for Lincoln cars.
In spring 2006, the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center in San Antonio, Texas displayed 16 portrait paintings by muralist George Yepes and filmmaker Robert Rodriguez of Hayek as Aztec goddess Itzpapalotl.
Hayek’s charitable work includes increasing awareness on violence against women and discrimination against immigrants.On July 19, 2005, Hayek testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary supporting reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. In February 2006, she donated $25,000 to a Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, shelter for battered women and another $50,000 to Monterrey based anti-domestic violence groups. Hayek is a board member of V-Day, the charity founded by playwright Eve Ensler.
Since the birth of her daughter, Hayek has worked to help mothers in developing nations worldwide, teaming up with Pampers and UNICEF to help stop the spread of life-threatening maternal and neonatal tetanus. She is a global spokesperson for the Pampers/UNICEF partnership 1 Pack = 1 Vaccine to help raise awareness of the program.
Hayek also advocates breastfeeding. During a UNICEF fact-finding trip to Sierra Leone, she breastfed a hungry week-old baby whose mother could not produce milk.
In 2010, Hayek’s humanitarian work earned her a nomination for the VH1 Do Something Awards.
Honors and Awards
- Recipient of Glamour magazine Woman of the Year Award in October 2001.
- Recipient of Producers Guild of America Celebration of Diversity Award in 2003.
- Recipient of Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year Award in February 2006.
- Recipient of Time magazine 25 Most Influential Hispanics in 2005.
- Knight (Chevalier) of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, France, December 30, 2011.
In July 2007, The Hollywood Reporter ranked Hayek fourth in their inaugural Latino Power 50, a list of the most powerful members of the Hollywood Latino community. That same month, a poll found Hayek to be the “sexiest celebrity” out of a field of 3,000 celebrities (male and female); according to the poll, “65 percent of the U.S. population would use the term ‘sexy’ to describe her”. In 2008, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television In December of that year, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hayek number 17 in their list of the “25 Smartest People in TV.”
Jennifer Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles to actors John Aniston and Nancy Dow. Her father is Greek and a native of Crete, while her mother was born in New York City. One of her maternal great-grandfathers was an Italian immigrant and her mother’s other ancestry is Scottish, Irish, and a small amount of Greek. Aniston has two half-brothers, John Melick, her maternal older half-brother, and Alex Aniston, her younger paternal half-brother. Aniston’s godfather was actor Telly Savalas, one of her father’s best friends. As a child, Aniston lived in Greece for one year with her family. They later relocated to New York City. Aniston attended the Rudolf Steiner School in New York, and graduated from Manhattan’s Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. She worked in Off Broadway productions such as For Dear Life and Dancing on Checker’s Grave and supported herself with several part-time jobs, which included working as a telemarketer, waitress, and bike messenger. In 1989, Aniston moved back to Los Angeles.
In 2007, Aniston guest starred in an episode of Courteney Cox Arquette’s series Dirt, playing Arquette’s rival, Tina Harrod. She appeared in the third episode of Season 3 of NBC’s 30 Rock playing Liz Lemon’s old college roommate who stalks Jack Donaghy. On July 16, 2009, Aniston received an Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on 30 Rock. Aniston was a guest star on the Season 2 premiere of ABC’s sitcom Cougar Town, playing a psychiatrist
By June 20, 2010, Aniston’s movies had grossed more than $1 billion in the United States and over $1.7 billion worldwide. Aniston’s Just Go with It, with Adam Sandler was released on Valentine’s Day weekend in 2011. The story is about a plastic surgeon, played by Sandler, who asks his office manager, played by Aniston, to pose as his wife, to prove his honesty to his much younger girlfriend, played by Brooklyn Decker. Also in 2011, Aniston starred in the comedy movie Horrible Bosses, with Colin Farrell, Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jamie Foxx, directed by Seth Gordon. The film focuses on a trio of employees who plot to murder their titular tyrannical supervisors. Aniston played one of the bosses, a sexually aggressive dentist who harasses Charlie Day’s character.
In 2012, Aniston appeared in Wanderlust with Paul Rudd with whom she co-starred in the 1998 movie The Object of My Affection and also Friends. The script, bought by Universal Pictures, was written by Rudd, Ken Marino, and David Wain, with the latter also directing the film, and was produced by Judd Apatow. The movie was about a married couple who join a commune after losing their money and deciding modern life is not for them.
EUE/Screen Gems Productions is expected to start work on We’re the Millers in summer 2012 in the Wilmington, North Carolina, area. Aniston and Jason Sudeikis star in the comedy about a drug dealer with a fake family.
In 2007, Forbes rated Aniston as one of the top 10 richest women in entertainment and estimated her net worth to be about $110 million. Aniston was also included in the annual Star Salary Top 10 of trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter for 2006. According to Forbes, in October 2007, Aniston was the top-selling celebrity face of the entertainment industry. She was also Hollywood’s most profitable actress. Aniston has been on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, based on “earnings and fame”, every year since 2001, topping the list in 2003.For the year of 2008, Forbes listed Aniston’s earnings as $27 million.
In 2005, Aniston became the first-ever GQ Woman of the Year. She has appeared on People’s annual list of The Most Beautiful every year since 1995, and came in at #1 in 2004. She also topped the magazine’s Best Dressed List in 2006. She has been a regular on FHMs 100 Sexiest Women list since 1996, ranking at #79 in 2012, #81 in 2010, #24 in 2009 and #27 in 2008. In 2011 The Telegraph reported the most sought after body parts of the rich and famous revealed by two Hollywood plastic surgeons who carried out a survey among their patients to build up the picture of what the perfect woman would look like. Under the category of the most sought after body shape Aniston was voted in the top three alongside Gisele Bündchen and Penélope Cruz. In the same year, readers of Men’s Health magazine voted Aniston the “Sexiest Woman of All Time”.
Although Aniston disliked the hairstyle she wore during her first two years on Friends, “The Rachel” became and remains very popular among women.