Playboy open in Macau

HONG KONG - Hugh Hefner is planning to open a Playboy Mansion in the burgeoning gambling mecca of Macau, complete with female "bunny" dealers, a villa-style hotel and several dozen gaming tables, his daughter said.

The 40,000-square-foot Playboy Mansion Macau, scheduled to open in late 2009, will give Hefner's company a key foothold in China after a failed attempt several years ago to build a club in Shanghai, which some blamed on the Chinese government's conservative line on public morality.

Macau, located an hour by high-speed ferry from Hong Kong, has seen its gambling revenue grow rapidly since the government ended a monopoly in 2002, letting in Las Vegas casino brands like Wynn, Sands and Venetian.

As the only place on Chinese soil where gambling is legal, Macau draws many tourists from the mainland who can't bet at home. It overtook the Las Vegas strip in gaming revenue last year.

"Asia ... is a very important region for us," Christie Hefner, head of Playboy Enterprises Inc., told reporters Tuesday.

The company is attempting to rebound after reporting a loss in 2005 and earning profits of only $2.3 million in 2006. Christie Hefner said 40 percent of the $800 million made in retail consumer sales last year came from Asia.

The Playboy Mansion Macau, styled after the original Playboy Mansion in the U.S., will follow the company's planned opening of a club at the Palms Resort in Las Vegas in October. Christie Hefner declined to say how much the new mansion will cost.

Plans for Playboy's Shanghai club fell apart in 2004 ostensibly over a disagreement between investors and local officials over how to value the amount of the investment, although some questioned whether it had to do with the company's racy reputation.

While Playboy can sell men's clothing in China, its magazine is officially banned.

Playboy open in Macau

Serena Williams' Biography

Tennis player. Born Serena Jameka Williams on September 26, 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan. Raised in the turbulent Los Angeles suburb of Compton, Serena Williams and her siblings were taught tennis by their father in hopes it would lead them to a better life. Eventually she and her older sister, Venus, moved to West Palm Beach to attend coach Rick Macci’s elite tennis school.

Serena Williams’ first major achievement was capturing the US Open singles title in 1999. She partnered with her sister to gain doubles titles in the US Open (1999), French Open (1999), Wimbledon (2000, 2002), and Australian Open (2001, 2003). Further successes include singles titles at the French Open (2002), Wimbledon (2002, 2003), the US Open (2002), and the Australian Open (2003).

In 2002 and 2003, the Williams sisters faced off in four consecutive Grand Slam finals, the only siblings in the history of the sport to do so (Serena bested Venus each time). In all, Serena Williams won eight Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal in women's doubles (2000), which she shares with her sister.

Known for her flamboyant fashion choices on the court, Serena Williams has launched her own line for Puma and Nike, as well as a designer clothing line called Aneres.

Serena Williams' Biography

Paris Hilton is a Mamas Girl?

I TELL her everything.”
“She always takes a middle-of-the-night call.”

“I’m not comfortable not speaking to her every day.”

The women who uttered those words — professionals in their 20s and 30s — were not talking about their shrinks. They were talking about their mothers.

Alison Cochrane, 30, who teaches English as a second language in Flushing, Queens, has a boyfriend and a coterie of friends on whom to lean. Nevertheless she calls her mother, Denise Martinez, 54, at least four times a day.

“She’s the first person I tell everything to,” Ms. Cochrane said.

And she means everything.

“I talk to my mother about sex,” Ms. Cochrane said. “Intimately. I can say ‘Mom, Joe is absolutely amazing.’ And I’m not embarrassed.” (The same cannot be said for Joe.)

There have always been close-knit mother-daughter relationships. But social, demographic and technological changes have made it more common for adult daughters to keep their mothers’ apron strings tied tighter — and for longer, say researchers who study the transition into young adulthood.

Today, it is not unusual for unmarried middle-class women in their 20s or 30s to share with their mothers the diary-worthy details of their lives, plan weekly outings with them and call the Mommy Batphone when they need backup.

Even Paris Hilton — who has been labeled many things, though never a momma’s girl — revealed that it is her mother, Kathy Hilton, to whom she turns in a crisis. When last month a judge ordered the 26-year-old back to jail, she did not call out for a lover, her lawyer or God. In her hour of need, she cried, “Mom!” Upon being released Tuesday, she ran into her mother’s arms.

Developmental psychologists and sociologists say this phenomenon of attachment is only now beginning to be studied. They have identified several factors that could be contributing to an intensified mother-daughter symbiosis: technology that makes it easy to stay connected; the smaller number of children in each household; young adults who are prolonging decisions about career, marriage and children; parents who want to have a less-hierarchical relationship with their offspring; and parents who feel the need to keep their grown children close at a time when anxiety and depression levels among young adults are at some of their highest points ever.

Additionally, parent-child contact during the college years has dramatically increased. Professors say that many students these days stroll around campus talking into cellphones — and not to one another. It is not surprising, experts say, that some of that behavior spills over into the post-college years, including a reliance on parents to continue to pay the bills.

“There is a higher level of dependence,” said Vivian Gadsden, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. “In that way they are very much a product of this period in our history.”

Frank F. Furstenberg Jr., the chairman of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said the trend is ripe for research.

“The fact is that very little is known about this topic,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “Our research network is doing a slew of studies on changing relations among young adults and their parents, but the research is still in the field.”

Many of the women who spoke of their closeness to their mothers also said that they had a warm relationship with their fathers, though hardly as uncensored.

“My mom is absolutely my best friend,” said Jennifer White, 25, a paralegal in Manhattan. “We do everything and anything.”

Karen Bauer, 36, of Englewood, N.J., and her mother have spent every Saturday afternoon for 14 years having lunch and shopping. “I won’t give that up for anything,” said Ms. Bauer, an executive assistant. “I’ve turned down jobs because they wanted me to work on Saturday.”

Wendy Spero, 32, took the analogy further, likening the relationship to that of husband and wife: so long, significant other; hello, significant mother.

“I was on the phone with her for hours and hours in school,” said Ms. Spero, a comedian and writer in Los Angeles. “She would literally stay on the phone with me for six hours. No friend would do that. Such insane unconditional support. With a friend, at no point did I feel I could reveal that much of my neuroses.”

Paris Hilton is a Mamas Girl?

Angelina Jolie's Biography

With her long legs, ample bee-stung lips and striking deep-set blue eyes, Angelina Jolie may have been destined for screen stardom even without the benefit of her acting lineage or her considerable talent. The daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, she began studying acting at age 11 at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in NYC. Even before commencing her formal training, Jolie made her screen debut as a tyke in a bit part in the Hal Ashby-directed comedy "Lookin' to Get Out" (filmed in 1980; released 1982). Co-scripted and co-produced by her father, the movie was savaged by reviewers but its littlest thespian emerged unscathed.

Abandoning her youthful plans to become a funeral director, Jolie segued to show business as a professional model and actress in music videos. She went on to appear in five student films directed by her older brother, James Haven Voight, and as part of the Met Theater in Los Angeles honed her craft alongside such veteran players as Holly Hunter, Ed Harris and Amy Madigan. Jolie returned to the screen in "Cyborg II: Glass Shadows" (1993), a better than average direct-to-video sci-fi actioner in which she played a heroic human-machine hybrid but garnered more attention and better notices in the cyber-thriller "Hackers" (1995). Playing Kate (a.k.a. 'Acid Burn'), she was paired with rising young British actor Jonny Lee Miller as teen computer whizzes battling an evil genius. The film fizzled at the box office but the romantic leads sizzled and were briefly married from 1996 to 1999.

More film work readily followed, initially in small-scale character-driven indies including an indifferently received adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novel "Foxfire" (1996), where she played a mysterious outsider named Legs Sadovsky--described in Variety as "sort of a female James Dean"--who helps some other teenaged girls stand up for their rights. Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna's romantic comedy-drama "Love Is All There Is" (also 1996) displayed Jolie in a humorous and innocent light as half of a pair of star-crossed lovers divided by their families' feud. That same year, she appeared in the high-minded suspense drama "Without Evidence", playing a drug-addicted teen, and "Mojave Moon", opposite car dealer Danny Aiello as what Variety called "a male fantasy figure who rapidly alternates between nymphomaniac and ice maiden". "Playing God" (1997) was next, and Jolie capably essayed a woman torn between her gangster boyfriend (Timothy Hutton) and a discredited doctor (David Duchovny) in his employ. While the films remained unseen by most moviegoers, Jolie received strong notices for each of these projects.

As with many performers, Jolie had no compunction about working on the small screen and, in fact, has appeared in a handful of exceptional productions, including a co-starring role alongside Annabeth Gish and Dana Delany as Texas pioneers in the 1997 CBS historical miniseries "True Women". Jolie then brought a fiery passion to her portrayal of Cornelia Wallace, the politician's first wife, in the biographical miniseries "George Wallace" (TNT, 1997). But it was her dazzling turn as another real-life figure that catapulted her into public consciousness. Her brave, sensitive performance as the drug-addicted, AIDS-stricken model Gia Carangi in HBO's "Gia" (1998) brought her widespread critical acclaim. Jolie was twice Emmy-nominated in 1998 in the supporting category for "George Wallace" (losing to co-star Mare Winningham) and as in the leading one for "Gia" (losing to Ellen Barkin). She did, however, win back-to-back Golden Globe Awards for the performances.

After this spate of acclaimed appearances in highly-rated television productions, Jolie found her way to roles in films that similarly showcased her acting strength. She received special notice for her work in the comedy-drama "Playing By Heart" (1998), as Joan, an outgoing club kid smitten with the sullen Keenan (Ryan Phillippe). Vivid and engaging, Jolie easily held her own among an ensemble cast featuring such luminaries as Gena Rowlands and Sean Connery. The actress joined John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton in Mike Newell's NYC-set comedy about air traffic controllers, "Pushing Tin" (1999), playing Thornton's raucous wife, and played a tough detective assisting a quadriplegic colleague (Denzel Washington) in the search for a serial killer in the crime thriller "The Bone Collector". Jolie rounded out the year landing the sought after co-starring role of a sociopathic inmate in a psychiatric hospital in "Girl, Interrupted", based on Susanna Kaysen's best-selling memoir of her own two-year stay in a similar institution. Her showy co-starring turn netted her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and her equally showy personal life--which included a eyebrow-raising close relationship with her lookalike brother James Haven, exotic tattoos, knife collections, provocative revalations and intimations of a profoundly edgy sex life--captivated the public.

Media saturation ensued when she became the fifth wife the equally eccentirc and significantly older actor Billy Bob Thornton, a match made in tabloid heaven, in May of 2000--the couple's constant declarations of love and erotic devotion to each other was capped by the revelation that they wore vials of one another's blood around their necks. On-screen, the actress continued portraying tough young women, this time a car thief, in the flashy but unfulfilling car heist thriller "Gone in 60 Seconds" (2000) opposite Nicolas Cage and as the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the titular, wildly popular, shorts-wearing video game action heroine "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" (2001), an Indiana Jones-style adventure which failed to impress critics but racked up a healthy box office take--the action flick also marked her first adult collaboration with her father, who played her character's father in the film. Jolie was unable to capitalize on her goth sex goddess image when she played opposite Antonio Banderas in the dismal wannabe noir "Original Sin" (2001) despite some steamy--and heavily hyped--erotic sequences, and her follow-up dramatic vehicle "Life or Something Like It" (2002), in which she played a superficial, platinum blonde newscaster forced to examine her existence more closely, also fizzled quickly.

Jolie subsequently took a significant hiatus from film but continued to make headlines in her personal life, including taking a significant interest in the plight of violence-torn nations, and publicly feuding with her father after he suggested on television that she was having emotional problems and ultimately divorcing Thornton in 2003 amid rumors of his infidelity (which he denied). The actress returned to familiar territory for her comeback screen vehicle, the sequel "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" (2003), a lackluster follow-up to a lackluster first outing; followed by a turn in the too-righteous political/romantic drama "Beyond Borders" (2003); then a dangerous foray into Ashley Judd territory by starring the routine thriller "Taking Lives" (2004) as an FBI profiler caught up in dangerous and erotic intrigue. Slowly squandered in subpar films, Jolie remained an actress who excites interest but whose projects to not capitalize on her potential. The actress adopted another arch accent as she winkingly played the eyepatch-sporting Captain Frankie Cook, the leader of an all-female amphibious attack squadron, in the retro action-adventure "Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow" (2004) opposite Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, battling giant robots in an Art Deco, 1930s-era envionment. Then she lent her voice to the finny femme fatale Lola in DreamWorks' CGI-animated underwater underworld opus "Shark Tale" (2004) and has a bizarrely seductive turn as Alexander the Great's mother Olympias, who raises her son to believe in his impressive destiny, in Oliver Stone's epic historical drama "Alexander the Great"--despite being only one year older than the actor playing her son, Colin Farrell.

Jolie's profile as both a movie star and public figure was raised to more epic proporions when she co-starred with the equally gorgeous actor Brad Pitt in the Doug Liman-helmed action-fest "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (2005), in which the actors played a bored married couple surprised to learn that they are each secretly assassins, ultimately hired to kill each other. Rumors quickly abounded that a on-set romance between Jolie and Pitt was a contributing factor to Pitt's subsequent spit from his high-profile marriage to Jennifer Aniston. Though both actors initially refuted the rumors--and, after frequently being photographed together in their private lives, took a coyer stance later on--the intense media and public interest in their possible relationship propelled the film to huge box office receipts, thanks in large part to their palpable on-screen chemistry. Their "are they or aren't they?" coupling captivated star watchers and was the most written-about celebrity story of 2005 (prompting the coining of the term "Brangelina") as their relationship gradually emerged in the public eye as Pitt accompanied Jolie on her missions of mercy to third world nations, petitioned to adopt her two adopted children, and ultimately revealed that he and Jolie were expecting their own biological child together as well.

Away from the screen, Jolie's expressed a dedication and commitment to increasing awareness and aid to counties devastated by internal and external conflicts, disease and third world conditions. In 2001, after the actress made several trips to the war-torn nations of Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Pakistan, Jolie was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In 2002 she adopted a baby boy from a Cambodian orphange whom she named Maddox, and in 2005 she adopted an infant daughter from an Ethiopian orphanage whom she named Zahara.

* Also Credited As:
Angelina Jolie Voight, Angie
* Born:
Angelina Jolie Voight on 06/04/1975 in Los Angeles, California
* Job Titles:
Actor, Model

Family

* Brother: James Haven. born c. 1973; studied filmmaking at USC; directed sister in five student films
* Daughter: Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. born May 27, 2006 in Namibia; father is Brad Pitt. First pictures of baby Shiloh were sold to People Magazine for a reported sum of $4.1 million.
* Daughter: Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt. born January 8, 2005; adopted July 2005, from an Ethiopian orphanage at six months; mother died of AIDS and father is unknown; legally adopted by Brad Pitt in 2006
* Father: Jon Voight. separated from Jolie's mother when Angelina was one-year-old; estranged from father
* Mother: Marcheline Bertrand. born c. 1950; part-Iroquois; separated from Jolie's father when Angelina was one-year-old; died of cancer in 2007
* Son: Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt. adopted at seven months from a Cambodian orphanage in 2002; legally adopted by Brad Pitt in 2006
* Son: Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt. adopted at three years old from a Vietnamese orphanage in 2007; Jolie adopted the boy as a single parent because Vietnam's adoption regulations don't allow unmarried couples to co-adopt; name was legally changed to Jolie-Pitt three months after his adoption

Significant Others

* Companion: Brad Pitt. met while filming "Mr. and Mrs. Smith"; rumored to be romantically involved throughout filming, but this was denied by both parties; began being photographed together as a couple in spring 2005
* Companion: Colin Farrell. rumored to have dated for a brief period during the filming of "Alexander"
* Husband: Billy Bob Thornton. acted together in "Pushing Tin" (1999); eloped to Las Vegas on May 5, 2000; Jolie has a tatoo on her arm that reads "Billy Bob;" reportedly split in June 2002; Jolie filed for divorce on July 17, 2002
* Husband: Jonny Lee Miller. British; met during filming of "Hackers"; married in March 1996; separated in 1997; divorced in February 1999; rumored to have dated again in 2002 and in 2004
* Companion: Timothy Hutton. dated in 1998 and 1999; co-starred together in "Playing God"; Jolie was reportedly tattooed with an "H"; no longer together

Education

* New York University, New York, New York, film
* The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, New York, New York

Milestones

* 1976 Moved to Palisades, New York with mother and brother (date approximate)
* 1980 Feature film debut, bit role in Hal Ashby's "Lookin' to Get Out", co-produced and co-written by her father, credited as Angelina Jolie Voight; film not released until 1982
* 1986 At age 11, began studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in NYC (date approximate)
* 1993 Co-starred in "Cyborg II: Glass Shadows", a direct-to-video sci-fi actioner
* 1995 First lead in a theatrical release, "Hackers"; co-starred with future husband, British actor Jonny Lee Miller
* 1996 Starred in the feature "Foxfire"
* 1997 Portrayed the politician's first wife Cornelia Wallace in the TNT miniseries "George Wallace"; received 1998 Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actress
* 1998 Earned raves for her starring performance as Gia Carangi, a drug addicted, bisexual model who died of complications from AIDS, in the HBO biopic "Gia"; received 1998 Emmy nomination as Best Actress
* 1998 Had supporting role as a club kid in the ensemble comedy-drama "Playing By Heart"
* 1999 Cast as a tough detective assisting a quadriplegic colleague (Denzel Washington) in tracking a serial killer in "The Bone Collector"
* 1999 Co-starred in "Girl, Interrupted", a drama based on the memoirs of a woman's two-year stay in a psychiatric hospital
* 1999 Portrayed the wife of an air traffic controller (Billy Bob Thornton) in "Pushing Tin", directed by Mike Newell
* 2000 Acted opposite Nicolas Cage in "Gone in 60 Seconds"
* 2001 Had title role in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider"
* 2001 Starred opposite Antonio Banderas in "Original Sin"
* 2002 Appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
* 2002 Portrayed a TV reporter forced to question her choices in "Life or Something Like It"
* 2003 Returned to her starring role for the sequel "Lara Croft and the Cradle of Life: Tomb Raider 2 "
* 2003 Starred opposite Clive Owen in "Beyond Borders"
* 2004 Co-starred with Colin Farrell in Oliver Stone's "Alexander" playing Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great
* 2004 Portrayed Captain Franky Cook in the Sci-fi thriller "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" starring Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow
* 2004 Starred as Special Agent Illeana Scott in the thriller "Taking Lives" also starred Ethan Hawke and Kiefer Sutherland
* 2004 Voiced Lola in the animated feature "Shark Tale "
* 2005 Appeared in the MTV special "The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa," which will follow their trip to Sauri, a remote group of villages in western Kenya
* 2005 Starred opposite Brad Pitt, as a bored married couple that is surprised to learn that they are assassins hired to kill each other in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith"
* 2006 Played a CIA agent's (Matt Damon) long-suffering wife in Robert De Niro's "The Good Shepherd"
* 2007 Cast in "A Mighty Heart," as Marianne Pearl, the wife of Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and killed in 2002 while reporting in Pakistan; produced by her partner Brad Pitt
* 2007 Made directorial debut with the documentary "A Place in Time"
* Acted in five student films directed by her brother, James Haven Voight
* Appeared in music videos by Meat Loaf, The Lemonheads, Rolling Stones and others
* As part of the Met Theater group in Los Angeles, worked with such veteran actors as Holly Hunter, Ed Harris and Amy Madigan
* Made stage debut playing a German dominatrix in "Room Service"
* Reportedly planned to become a funeral director
* Will voice Grendel's Mother in Robert Zemeckis' big-budget film version of the epic poem "Beowulf" (lensed 2005)
* Worked briefly as a professional model

Angelina Jolie's Biography

Bon Jovi's Biography

Few bands embodied the era of pop-metal like Bon Jovi. By merging Def Leppard's loud but tuneful metal with Bruce Springsteen's working-class sensibilities, the New Jersey-based quintet developed an ingratiatingly melodic and professional variation of hard rock -- one that appealed as much to teenagers as to housewives. Bon Jovi skillfully employed professional songwriters to give their songs, especially their power ballads, an appropriately commercial sheen, inaugurating a trend that dominated mainstream hard rock and metal for the next decade. They also made simple performance videos that emphasized lead singer Jon Bon Jovi's photogenic good looks, and these clips helped propel 1986's Slippery When Wet and 1988's New Jersey into multi-platinum status around the world. Both records were criticized for being more pop than metal, as well as being targeted toward teenyboppers, yet the group managed to subtly change its image in the early '90s, moving away from metal and concentrating on straightforward arena rock and big ballads. The shift in style worked, and Bon Jovi were the only American pop-metal band of the '80s to retain a sizable audience in the '90s.

Jon Bongiovi spent most of his adolescence ditching school to play rock & roll, usually in local bands with his friend David Rashbaum. Bongiovi's cousin Tony owned the famous New York recording studio the Power Station, which was where Jon hung out. He was hired as a janitor, and soon he was recording demos at the Power Station with several famous musicians, including members of the E Street Band and Aldo Nova. One of these demos, "Runaway," became a hit on local New Jersey radio, and Bongiovi formed Bon Jovi to support the song, recruiting not only Rashbaum, but also guitarist Dave Sabo, bassist Alec John Such, and drummer Tico Torres. Soon, Bon Jovi was the subject of a major-label bidding war, and the group -- or, according to some reports, just Bongiovi -- signed to Polygram/Mercury in 1983. Upon signing, Jon changed his last name to Bon Jovi in order to de-emphasize his ethnic background, and Rashbaum adopted his middle name Bryan as his last name. Before the group entered the studio, Bon Jovi replaced Sabo with Richie Sambora.

Bon Jovi's eponymous debut album was released in 1984, and "Runaway" became a Top 40 hit. Following its success, Tony Bongiovi sued the band, claiming he developed their successful sound; the group settled out of court. The following year, 7800 Fahrenheit was released and went gold. Despite the band's respectable success, Bon Jovi weren't becoming the superstars they had hoped, and they changed their approach for their next album, Slippery When Wet. Hiring professional songwriter Desmond Child as a collaborator, the group wrote 30 songs and auditioned them for local New Jersey and New York teenagers, basing the album's running order on their opinions. After ditching the original cover of a busty woman in a wet T-shirt for the title traced in water on a garbage bag, Slippery When Wet was released in 1986. Supported by several appealing, straightforward videos that showcased the photogenic Jon, the album eventually sold nine million copies in the U.S. alone, helping usher in the era of pop-metal. Two songs, "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Livin' on a Prayer," reached number one, while "Wanted Dead or Alive" reached the Top Ten, and Bon Jovi were established as superstars.

Bon Jovi replicated the Slippery When Wet formula for 1988's New Jersey, which shot to number one upon its release. New Jersey was only slightly less successful than its predecessor, selling five million copies and generating two number one singles, "Bad Medicine" and "I'll Be There for You," as well as the Top Ten hits "Born to Be My Baby," "Lay Your Hands on Me," and "Living in Sin." In 1989, the band supported Cher, who was then dating Sambora, on her Heart of Stone album, which was recorded while the group was in the midst of an 18-month international tour. Following the completion of the tour, the band went on hiatus. During their time off, Jon Bon Jovi wrote the soundtrack for Young Guns II, which was released in 1990 as the Blaze of Glory album. The record produced two hit singles in the number one title track and the number 12 "Miracle," as well as earning Grammy and Oscar nominations. The following year, Bon Jovi reunited to record their fifth album, Keep the Faith, which was released in the fall of 1992. While the album didn't match the blockbuster status of its predecessors, largely because musical tastes had shifted in the four years between New Jersey and Keep the Faith, it was nevertheless a big hit, and its more straightforward, anthemic sound produced the hit single "Bed of Roses." A hits collection, Cross Road, followed in 1994, and in the fall of 1995, they released These Days, which proved to be a bigger success in Europe than America. After appearing in the 1996 film Moonlight and Valentino, Jon Bon Jovi released his first official solo album in the summer of 1997. Three years later, Bon Jovi regrouped and released Crush. "It's My Life" and "Thank You for Loving Me" were a chart hits and Bon Jovi's star power soared beyond their wildest dreams. Crush eventually went double platinum in the U.S. and sold eight million copies worldwide, but Bon Jovi stayed focus. Within a year they returned with an eighth studio effort, Bounce, which appeared in fall 2002. Tours across the globe as well as dates with the Goo Goo Dolls fared well. In 2003 Bon Jovi re-recorded many of their most well-known songs for the release This Left Feels Right and followed it in 2004 with a DVD companion of the same title. The ambitious 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong, four-CD/one-DVD box set of rarities, arrrived later that November, followed by Have a Nice Day in Sepetember of 2005. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Bon Jovi's Biography

Britney Go Wild Again?

BROODING BRITNEY?: While attention was diverted by Paris Hilton's release from jail, Britney Spears took the opportunity to go out clubbing with her cousin and some friends late Monday night. USMAGAZINE.COM reports that a "barely recognizeable" Britney arrived at Joseph's Club in LA around midnight, dressed in all black and wearing a dark wig under a newsboy hat. According to the report, Britney's mood seemed to match her attire, as she seemed less enthusiastic about being out on the town than usual. The normally dance-happy Spears was reportedly subdued (but occasionally smiling) as she sat at a table near the dance floor, only getting up to request a few songs from the DJ and "dance-walk" her way back to her seat. Her mood brightened, though, once she and her friends left the establishment and moved on to Carl's Jr. to get some late-night snacks. Spears reportedly got playful with photographers who had followed them there, turning the tables on them by snapping her own pictures of the paparazzi themselves.


MADONNA & PALS LIKE BUTTER: Another LA hotspot, Butter, was treated to a visitation by some A-list celebrities Monday night. THE NY POST's PAGE SIX reports that Madonna showed up for some fun, and was said to be "quite chummy" with fellow musician Shakira. The two pop divas reportedly showed up "hand in hand," according to a source. Shakira wasn't the only famous friend hanging out with Madonna, though, as Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore and Penelope Cruz reportedly joined her for a dance on the club's banquettes. Also at Butter that night was Janet Jackson, who reportedly sat a few booths down from Madonna and her crew.

JUDE DON'T MAKE IT BAD: While Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore share a close bond with Demi's ex-husband, Bruce Willis, another divorced couple seem to be setting an example for keeping things friendly post-separation as well. THE NY POST's CINDY ADAMS reports that Jude Law threw a birthday party for his ex-wife Sadie Frost, who just celebrated her 42nd birthday on June 19th. The cake Jude planned for Sadie's party reportedly said "Sexy Sadie" on it. According to Adams, Law and Frost "get on better now" since their 2003 split, and are planning a family safari vacation with their three children.

BALE CALLS IN THE TROOPS: Another sexy British actor, Christian Bale, was also focused on his family as he spoke to THE NY DAILY NEWS' RUSH & MOLLOY at the premiere of his new movie, "Rescue Dawn." The film, based on the true story of American POW Dieter Dengler, was reportedly an intense shoot that proved demanding on Bale and his co-stars, both emotionally and physically -- including dramatic weight losses for the roles. To help him get through the rigors of filming, Bale told RUSH & MOLLOY that he flew his wife, Sibi Blazic, and their two-year-old daughter to the Thailand location to "keep him level." "I had a life," Bale reportedly said, and then cracked a joke about his lonely co-stars: "Those poor bastards had to play PlayStation."

KIDMAN TRAINS HER BRAIN: Nicole Kidman is getting in on some video game action, as the new spokesperson for NINTENDO EUROPE's "Brain Training" series. Kidman is appearing in print ads and TV spots in Europe, keeping her brain in shape as part of a 60-day brain exercise program for "More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?" which launches across Europe on the Nintendo DS on 29th June. "I love the concept that Nintendo is reaching out to new audiences with their self improvement products like 'Brain Training,'" Nicole writes on Nintendo Europe's Web site. "Most importantly, I've quickly found that training my brain is a great way to keep my mind feeling young." A new ad, currently airing in Europe, features Kidman hard at work training her brain with a game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" on the console. The commercial can be viewed HERE.

APOLO CAN'T GIVE UP THE DANCE: And finally: Last season's "Dancing With the Stars" champion Anton Apolo Ohno has signed on to appear at five locations for the "Dancing With the Stars" summer tour, PEOPLE reports. "After the show, I started training again for the Olympics, but realized quickly that I couldn't go on without at least one more week of Samba," Ohno said in a statement. His appearances on the tour will only be in five select cities, starting in Raleigh, N.C., on Saturday, June 30. He'll also appear in Hershey, Pa., on July 2; Bridgeport, Conn., on July 3; Wilkes Barre, Pa., on July 5 and Atlantic City, NJ, on July 6. Joey McIntyre, Joey Lawrence, Drew Lachey and Joey Fatone are other "Dancing" stars currently on the tour.

Britney Go Wild Again?

Drew Barrymore's Biography

Drew Barrymore

Born: 22 February 1975
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
Best known as: Star of the movie Charlie's Angels and E.T.

Drew Barrymore was seven when she snagged a role in Steven Spielberg's hit film E.T. (1982). She was already a member of the famous Barrymore acting clan; her great-uncle Lionel tormented Jimmy Stewart in It's A Wonderful Life, and her great-aunt Ethel and grandfather John Barrymore also were popular thespians earlier in the century. For Drew, early success bred excess: by age 10 she was using alcohol and marijuana, by 13 she was in rehab, and by 17 she was posing nude for Interview magazine. She described this troubled period in a 1990 memoir, Little Girl Lost. Despite her tabloid-fodder personal life, in her twenties Barrymore became a prolific and respected actress in films like Boys on the Side (1995, with Matthew McConaughey), The Wedding Singer (1998, with Adam Sandler), Never Been Kissed (1999, with Jessica Alba) and Fever Pitch (2005, based loosely on a book by Nick Hornby). She also starred with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels (2000) and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), spoofy homages to the 1970s TV series.

Extra credit: Barrymore was married briefly to barkeep Jeremy Thomas in 1994... She married comedian and MTV personality Tom Green in July 2001; Green filed for divorce in December 2001 and the marriage ended the next year.

Drew Barrymore's Biography

Ben Affleck's Biography

Ben Affleck

Born: 15 August 1972
Birthplace: Berkeley, California
Best known as: Actor and co-writer of Good Will Hunting

Ben Affleck and his childhood friend

Matt Damon wrote and starred in the 1998 film Good Will Hunting. The resulting Oscar for best original screenplay catapulted both to stardom. Affleck has appeared in independent films such as Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy (1997) and Dogma (1999), but has also shown a taste for playing heroes in big-budget action movies such as Armageddon (1998, with Bruce Willis), Pearl Harbor (2001, with Josh Hartnett) and Daredevil (2003, with his future wife Jennifer Garner). In 2002 Affleck starred in The Sum of All Fears, becoming the third star to play Tom Clancy hero Jack Ryan; the CIA superstud was played by Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin in previous films. He also starred in Paycheck, the 2003 sci-fi adventure based on a story by Philip K. Dick. Affleck married Jennifer Garner on 29 June 2005; the couple's first child, a daughter, was born on 1 December 2005. In 2006 he played actor George Reeves in the movie Hollywoodland, part of an all-star cast that included Diane Lane and Adrien Brody.

Extra credit: Affleck became engaged to singer and actress Jennifer Lopez in 2002. The couple were dubbed "Bennifer" by tabloids, but broke up in January 2004... Affleck previously was known for his extended sometimes-romantic friendship with actress Gwyneth Paltrow... His brother Casey Affleck is also an actor... In August of 2001, Ben Affleck announced he had checked himself into a Malibu alcohol rehabilitation clinic, where he joined comedian Paula Poundstone and actor Robert Downey, Jr.

Ben Affleck's Biography

Jessica Alba's Biography

Jessica Alba

Born: 28 April 1981
Birthplace: Pomona, California
Best known as: Star of TV's Dark Angel

Jessica Alba is best known as TV's Dark Angel (2000-02, produced by James Cameron) and as Sue Storm in the movie version of The Fantastic Four (2005, starring Michael Chiklis). Alba began working in front of the camera in the mid-1990s, appearing in television commercials and small roles in feature films. She had a recurring role in the Nickelodeon series The Secret World of Alex Mack, followed by her first starring role in the 1995 series Flipper. In 1999 she scored a double whammy with appearances in the teen-friendly films Never Been Kissed and Idle Hands, and filmmaker Cameron cast her as one of the leads in his project for television, Dark Angel. Since then she has worked mostly in feature films, usually playing a tough-but-vulnerable babe, as in Honey (2003, with Lil' Romeo) and in the film version of Frank Miller's Sin City (2005, with Bruce Willis). Alba's other films include The Sleeping Dictionary (2003) Into the Blue (2005, with Paul Walker) Fantastic Four: Surf Silver(2007)

Jessica Alba's Biography

Pamela Anderson's Biography

Pamela Anderson

Born: 1 July 1967
Birthplace: Ladysmith, B.C., Canada
Best known as: Blonde lifeguard C.J. Parker on Baywatch

Pamela Anderson first became a star in the cast of the TV show Baywatch, where she played lifeguard C.J. Parker from 1992-96. She also posed for Playboy magazine, adding to her notoriety and positioning her perfectly for the Internet pinup boom of the mid-1990s. Anderson's wild blonde mane and spectacular store-bought bosom made her one of the Web's most-requested and most-downloaded stars (as well as a dependable punch line for comedians and talk show hosts). Her on-again, off-again marriage to rock star Tommy Lee and later romantic relationship with music star Kid Rock also became favorite topics for tabloids. (She and Kid Rock were engaged in 2002, broke it off in 2003, and then reunited and were married on 29 July 2006.) Anderson's film appearances include Barb Wire (1996) and Scary Movie 3 (2003, with fellow bombshell Jenny McCarthy). She also starred in the short-lived TV series, V.I.P. in the late 1990s and provided the voice for the animated series Stripperella. In 2004 she published Star, a novel which seemed to be closely based on her own Hollywood career, and in 2005 she starred in her own comedy television series, Stacked. Anderson began dating pop singer Kid Rock in 2001, and after many public ups and downs in their relationship, she married him in July of 2006. Four months later, in November of 2006, she filed for divorce.

Extra credit: Anderson once played the "Tool Time Girl" on the TV sitcom Home Improvement... In 2002, Anderson announced that she had hepatitis C, saying she had picked up the disease by sharing a tattoo needle with Tommy Lee... She was briefly engaged to actor Scott Baio... She has two sons with Lee: Brandon (b. 1996) and Dyla (b. 1997)... Other stars who got a career boost from Baywatch include Yasmine Bleeth, Carmen Electra, Gena Lee Nolin and Brooke Burns.

Pamela Anderson's Biography

Jennifer Aniston's Biography

Jennifer Aniston

Born: 11 February 1969
Birthplace: Sherman Oaks, California
Best known as: Rachel on the TV series Friends

When the sitcom Friends hit the airwaves in 1994, Jennifer Aniston, as the goofy and sexy Rachel, quickly became the show's breakout star. Her distinctively curvy haircut was soon a popular craze, and she was a favorite of tabloids and celebrity gossip columns throughout the show's long run (1994-2004). She married actor Brad Pitt in 2000 in a union of Hollywood superstars; they divorced in 2005 amid a flurry of rumors that Pitt had become interested in actress Angelina Jolie. (The rumors proved true.) Late that year Aniston began dating actor Vince Vaughn, her co-star in the film The Break-Up (released in 2006). Aniston's feature films include the cult favorite Office Space (1999), the animated film The Iron Giant (1999, with Vin Diesel), Rock Star (2000, with Mark Wahlberg), The Good Girl (2002, with Jake Gyllenhaal), Along Came Polly (2004, with Ben Stiller), the post-Graduate comedy Rumor Has It (2005, with Kevin Costner) and the ensemble chick flick Friends With Money (2006).

Jennifer Aniston's Biography

Katie Homes' Biography

Katie Homes

Born: 18 December 1978
Birthplace: Toledo, Ohio
Best known as: The Dawson's Creek actress who married Tom Cruise

Katie Holmes starred as Josephine "Joey" Potter on the coming-of-age TV series Dawson's Creek. (Joey was the best chum and sometime love interest for Dawson, played by James Van Der Beek; the show ran from 1998-2003.) Holmes parlayed her TV fame into roles in films like The Ice Storm (1997, with Tobey Maguire), Go (1999), and the academic dramedy Wonder Boys (2000, with Michael Douglas). She also played the lead in Pieces of April (2003, with Patricia Clarkson and First Daughter (2004, with Michael Keaton, co-starred with Christian Bale in the big summer movie Batman Begins, and played an insatiable reporter in Thank You for Smoking (2005). She became engaged to actor Tom Cruise in June of 2005 after a much-publicized courtship and a proposal from Cruise at the Eiffel Tower. Their daughter, Suri, was born 18 April 2006. They were married at a medieval castle in Italy on 18 November 2006.

Katie Homes' Biography

Tom Cruise' Biography

Tom Cruise

Born: 3 July 1962
Birthplace: Syracuse, New York
Best known as: Star of the Mission Impossible movie series
Name at birth: Thomas Cruise Mapother IV

Tom Cruise made a strong impression in the teen comedy Risky Business (1983) and then had his first box-office smash as the fighter jock Maverick in Top Gun (1986). Cruise and his cocky grin were propelled higher onto Hollywood's A-list thanks to a string of successful movies: Rain Man (1988, with Dustin Hoffman), The Color of Money (1986, with Paul Newman), A Few Good Men (1992, with Jack Nicholson) and Jerry Maguire (1996, with Cuba Gooding, Jr. saying "Show me the money!"). Cruise has remained one of Hollywood's busiest actors, taking on blockbuster franchises such as Mission: Impossible (Cruise played superspy Ethan Hunt in the original and two sequels in 1996, 2000 and 2006) as well as more diverse dramas such as Magnolia (1999), Vanilla Sky (2001) and the Steven Spielberg movies Minority Report (2002, co-starring Samantha Morton) and War of the Worlds (2005). Cruise began dating actress Katie Holmes in 2005. Dubbed "TomKat" by the tabloids, they had a daughter, Suri, on 18 April 2006, and were married in Italy on 18 November 2006.

Extra credit: Cruise is a prominent member of the Church of Scientology... Cruise proposed to Holmes at the Eiffel Tower after a highly-publicized whirlwind romance. He came in for a ribbing from pundits after he hopped up and down on the talk-show couch of Oprah Winfrey while proclaiming his love for Holmes... Cruise's marriage to Holmes is his third. He and actress Nicole Kidman were married in 1990, separated in 2000, and were divorced in 2001. They met while filming one of Cruise's few duds, Days of Thunder (1990), and appeared together in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999). They adopted two children: Isabella (in 1993) and Connor (in 1995). Cruise also was married to actress Mimi Rogers, a fellow Scientologist, from 1986-1990... Cruise dated actress Penelope Cruz, his co-star in Vanilla Sky, from 2001-2004... Most sources say Cruise's height is 5'7".

Tom Cruise' Biography

Nicole Kidman's Biography

Nicole Kidman

Born: 20 June 1967
Birthplace: Honolulu, Hawaii
Best known as: Oscar-winning star of The Hours

Nicole Kidman won the Academy Award as best actress for her portrayal of writer Virginia Woolf in the film The Hours (2002). Kidman was born in Hawaii but grew up in Australia, where she began acting in her teens. She married screen heartthrob Tom Cruise after they met while filming the race-car soap opera Days of Thunder (1990) and they were one of Hollywood's most talked-about couples throughout the '90s. Her films during that era included Gus Van Sant's To Die For (1995, based on the Pamela Smart case) and Stanley Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), in which she starred with Cruise. After a decade of marriage, Cruise and Kidman divorced, but her career soared as she continued to star in both mainstream Hollywood films and smaller, independent features. In 2001 she turned in an Oscar-nominated performance in Moulin Rouge and appeared in two other highly-acclaimed movies, Birthday Girl and The Others. She also starred in the Civil War drama Cold Mountain (2003, with Renee Zellweger) and the comedy Bewitched (2005, co-starring Will Ferrell).

Extra credit: Kidman married country singer Keith Urban on 25 June 2006... Kidman and Cruise adopted two children while they were married: Isabella (in 1993) and Connor (in 1995).

Nicole Kidman's Biography

Oprah Winfrey's Biography

Oprah Winfrey

Born: 29 January 1954
Birthplace: Kosciusko, Mississippi
Best known as: Host of TV's Oprah

Orpah Winfrey is the most successful female talk show host in American TV history. She went into broadcasting in the early 1970s; after anchoring and reporting TV news in Nashville, Tennessee and Baltimore, Maryland, she landed a job on the morning show of A.M. Chicago in 1984. The next year she made her movie debut in The Color Purple (based on the Alice Walker book) and was nominated for an Oscar. In 1986 she launched The Oprah Winfrey Show, a TV talk show which featured celebrity interviews and discussions of social issues. The show was a smash hit and within a decade she was one of the richest women in the United States. "Oprah's Book Club," a feature of her show highlighting new books, became famous for its ability to create bestsellers. In 2000 she launched her own lifestyle magazine, O.

Extra credit: Winfrey launched the career of relationship specialist Dr. Phil, who became famous while making regular guest appearances on her show... Oprah's production company is named Harpo Productions -- "Oprah" spelled backwards... In a 1991 interview with the Academy of Achievement, Winfrey said that her name was spelled "Orpah" on her birth certificate, but that she has always been called Oprah instead.

Oprah Winfrey's Biography

Steven Spielberg's Biography

Steven Spielberg

Born: 18 December 1946
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio
Best known as: The director of Jurassic Park

Steven Spielberg directed many of the top-grossing films in Hollywood history, including the blockbusters Jaws (1975), E.T. (1982), and many more. His first TV movie, Duel (1971), was successful enough to earn a theatrical release. The shark thriller Jaws (1975) made Spielberg a hot property, and over the next 20 years he grew into the most successful movie mogul alive. His directing credits include hits like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, co-produced by

George Lucas), the cuddly-alien flick E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, the dinosaurs-on-the-loose classic Jurassic Park (1993), and War of the Worlds (2005). Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park each spawned two sequels and are among the most lucrative film series of all time. Spielberg's huge box office successes have allowed him to make more serious films as well, including The Color Purple (1985), Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Munich (2005). In 1994, with fellow Hollywood moguls Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, he founded the studio Dreamworks SKG; the company was sold to Viacom in 2006. Spielberg went many years without winning an Academy Award, but he broke through with best director and best picture Oscars for Schindler's List, given in 1994. He also won a best director Oscar for Saving Private Ryan and was given the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1987 for his contributions to the industry.

Extra credit: Spielberg married actress Kate Capshaw in 1991. He was married to actress Amy Irving from 1985-89... He took over

Stanley Kubrick's long-planned film A.I. (2001) after Kubrick's 1999 death... Spielberg directed Joan Crawford in a 1969 episode of the TV series Night Gallery... Many of Spielberg's films have been scored by composer John William

Steven Spielberg's Biography

Penelope Cruz' Biography

Penelope Cruz

Born: 28 April 1974
Birthplace: Madrid, Spain
Best known as: Star of the film Woman On Top

A sultry and sometimes playful Spanish actress, Penelope Cruz became famous internationally when she played the motion-sick heroine in the 2000 film Woman on Top. She was already a star in Spain: she had a major role in the Oscar-winning 1992 film Belle Epoque and then began a long association with the famed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. Her films with Almodovar include Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999) and Volver (2006). In Hollywood her most prominent roles have been in the westerns The Hi-Lo Country (1998) and All the Pretty Horses (with Matt Damon, 2000), the druglord drama Blow (with Johnny Depp, 2001) and Vanilla Sky (2001), in which she co-starred with her real-life boyfriend at the time, Tom Cruise.

Extra credit: Cruz donated her salary from The Hi-Lo Country to Mother Teresa's charity... Cruz and Cruise dated from 2001 through 2004, when they announced through publicists that they were no longer a couple... Cruz is occasionally confused with the Mexican actress Salma Hayek.

Penelope Cruz' Biography

Johnny Depp's Biography

Johnny Depp

Born: 9 June 1963
Birthplace: Owensboro, Kentucky
Best known as: Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies

Johnny Depp was first famous as a heartthrob cop on the teenybopper drama 21 Jump Street (1987-1990). Then he gave up TV for the movies, playing the fantastical title character in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990) and winning critical acclaim in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993, co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio). Depp became known as a handsome and thoughtful actor who craved variety; In the 1990s he took a wide range of roles, from the lead in Don Juan DeMarco (1995, with Faye Dunaway and Marlon Brando) to Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow (1999, with Christina Ricci). In 2001 he played real-life cocaine trafficker George Jung in the movie Blow (co-starring with Penelope Cruz), and in 2003 he played the comically swaggering pirate Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (co-starring Orlando Bloom), helping turn that movie into the summer's surprise hit. Two sequels, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, appeared in 2006 and 2007. Depp also took on the role of fictional chocolatier Willy Wonka in the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Extra credit: Depp owns the Viper Room lounge in Los Angeles... He turned down the lead role in Speed (1994), which was then taken by Keanu Reeves... Pirates of the Caribbean was loosely based on the Disneyland thrill ride of the same name... Depp's longtime companion is French pop singer and actress Vanessa Paradis. They began dating in 1998 and have two children together: daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp (b. 1999) and son John Christopher Depp III (also known as Jack, b. 2002).

Johnny Depp's Biography

Orlando Bloom's Biography

Orlando Bloom

Born: 13 January 1977
Birthplace: Canterbury, Kent, England
Best known as: Legolas in The Lord of the Rings

The actor Orlando Bloom was classically trained at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Shortly after his graduation he was cast as the elf Legolas in the feature film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, directed by Peter Jackson and based on the hit fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. The role made him a star and a favorite pinup for teenage girls. His other films include Wilde (1997), Black Hawk Down (2001, starring Josh Hartnett), The Kelly Gang (2003, with Naomi Watts and Heath Ledger) and Elizabethtown (2006, with Kirsten Dunst). Bloom He starred alongside Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley in the swashbuckling adventures Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and its sequels Dead Man's Chest (2006) and At World's End (2007).

Orlando Bloom's Biography

Kirsten Dunst's Biography

Kirsten Dunst

Born: 30 April 1982
Birthplace: Point Pleasant, New Jersey
Best known as: Mary Jane in the Spider-Man film series

Kirsten Dunst is known to mainstream movie audiences as Mary Jane in the 2002 super-hero flick Spider-Man. (She reprised the role in the sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007); all three movies starred Tobey Maguire as the web-spinner.) Dunst was only seven when she made her movie debut in the Woody Allen-directed portion of the trilogy New York Stories (1989). She made her mark as a young up-and-comer by playing the creepy tot Claudia in Interview With the Vampire (1992, with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt). As the century turned she was suddenly grown up in a raft of movies including the drama The Virgin Suicides (2000, directed by Sofia Coppola), the battle-of-the-cheerleaders comedy Bring It On (2000, with Gabrielle Union) and the high school romance Get Over It (2001). Her other films include The Cat's Meow (2002), Mona Lisa Smile (2003, with Julia Roberts) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, starring Jim Carrey). She had the title role in the 2006 Sofia Coppola film Marie Antoinette.

Kirsten Dunst's Biography

Tobey Maguire's Biography

Tobey Maguire

Born: 27 June 1975
Birthplace: Santa Monica, California
Best known as: Spider-Man in the movies

Born a stone's throw from Hollywood, Tobey Maguire began acting in commercials as a boy and had his first film role in This Boy's Life (1994, with Leonardo DiCaprio). He went on to play confused and thoughtful teens in several films, including the trouble-in-suburbia classic The Ice Storm (1997, with Christina Ricci), the dreamy Pleasantville (1998, with Reese Witherspoon) and the literary campus comedy The Wonder Boys (2000, with Michael Douglas). In 2002 he had the high-swinging lead in the hit film Spider-Man, with Kirsten Dunst as his love interest Mary Jane. The actors reunited (along with James Franco and director Sam Raimi) for the sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). Maguire also starred as jockey Red Pollard in the 2003 film Seabiscuit.

Tobey Maguire's Biography

Tricia Helfer's Biography

Tricia Helfer's Biography

While modeling, Helfer also worked as a correspondent reporter for Canada’s “Ooh La La” Fashion Television where she realized a passion for acting during an on-camera class. This prompted her move to Los Angeles in 2002 where she quickly landed the role of ‘Sarah,’ in the two-hour premiere of the Showtime series, “Jeremiah.” Helfer memorably guest starred as a model who tries to cut off her own face on the hit series “C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation,” and the lead role of ‘Eva’ in the independent feature “White Rush.”
Helfer started 2003 off by starring in the Scifi miniseries “Battlestar Galactica” where she played the humanoid Cylon ‘Number Six’ and also filmed the lead role of ‘Farrah Fawcett’ in the “Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie’s Angels” on NBC. In 2004, Helfer reprised her role of ‘Number Six’ in the first season of “Battlestar Galactica.”
2005 was busy for Helfer as she filmed the lead role of ‘Stephanie Jacobs’ in the independent feature “Mem(o)re” opposite Dennis Hopper, guest starred on “The Collector” as ‘Janis’, filmed the mockumentary, “The Green Chain” as ‘Leila Cole’, filmed the independent feature “Spiral” as ‘Sasha’ with David Joel Moore and reprised ‘Number Six’ for the second season of the critically acclaimed series Battlestar Galactica.
Starting off 2006, Helfer filmed the lead role of ‘Ally’ in the independent feature “The Genius Club” and then headed into new territory, hosting and producing “Canada’s Next Top Model” before filming the third season of the award winning show “Battlestar Galactica,” where she again brought back the chilling ‘Number Six.’ Tricia finished off the year by playing ‘General Kilian Qatar’ in the video game, “Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.”
Tricia began 2007 by guest staring as ‘Molly McNamara’ on “Supernatural” and playing ‘Naomi’ in a new Fox pilot, “Them.” Tricia is currently filming an independent feature with LeeLee Sobieski, “Walk All Over Me” where she plays the role of ‘Celene’ before returning to her infamous role as the seductive ‘Number Six’ for the fourth season of “Battlestar Galactica.”

Tricia Helfer's Biography