Saturday, January 29, 2011

Laurence Fishburne

Laurence John Fishburne III was born on july 30th 1961 in Augusta, Georgia. His mother Hattie Bell (née Crawford) was a junior high school mathematics and science teacher and his father Laurence John Fishburne, Jr. was a juvenile corrections officer.
When his parents divorced young Laurence and his mother moved to Brooklyn, New York. Where his father still was able to visit him once a month. Laurence graduated from Lincoln Square Academy in New York, which ended up closing in the 1980s.
I know him best for his role as Morpheus in the hit science fiction film series Matrix. He became the first African American to portray Othello in a motion picture by a major studio when he appeared in Oliver Parker's 1995 film adaption of the Shakespearean play.
Laurence Fishburne started acting at the age of twelve in the show called Mod Squad although it didn't last long it was a beginning to a very promising career.
He married actress Hajna O. Moss in 1985. They have two children together thier son, Langston, born in 1987 and their daughter Montana who was born in 1991. Laurence is now married to actress Gina Torres whom he wed on September 22, 2002. They have a child, Delilah born in 2007 and live in Hollywood. He also maintains a residence in New York City, in the Castle Village Co-Op in the Hudson Heights section of Washington Heights.
I like him in Apocalypse Now,Death Wish II,Boyz n the Hood,Searching for Bobby Fischer,Higher Learning, Just Cause, Fled, Event Horizon, Mystic River, Assault on Precinct 13, Fantastic Four:Rise of the Silver Surfer and 21.
I can't wait to see him in the Movie Predators.
Then in 2011 "Contagion" is coming out, which may be good?
(Interesting Fact)
He earned a supporting role in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, in which he played a 17-year-old sailor nicknamed 'Mr. Clean'. But when production began in March 1976 he was just fourteen! Apparently he lied about his age to get the part. Filming took so long though that he was seventeen when the film was finally completed.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Jaime Pressly

Jaime Elizabeth Pressly born on July 30th 1977 in Kinston North Carolina. I meant to mention this earlier on this month but got sidetracked. On the evening of January 5th 2011, Jaime was arrested for suspicion of Driving Under the Influence (DUI) in Santa Monica, California.
She is the daughter of Brenda Sue (née Smith) and James Liston Pressly. Jaime has two siblings: sister Jessica and brother James Liston Pressly.
Jaime attended Costa Mesa High School in California, where her mother had moved while her parents were going through the process of a divorce. She subsequently sought and succeeded in having herself legally emancipated from her parents at the age of 15 so she could attend a modeling job in Japan. Neither one of her parents could attend with her, so she had to be emancipated to go on her own.



I know her for her roles in such films as Can't Hardly Wait, Mortal Kombat, Not Another Teen Movie and Joe Dirt. Of course her role as Joy Turner is brilliant in "My Name is Earl" which she won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2007 for Oustanding Comedy Supporting Actress.
Friends for nine years since 1996, she started dating DJ Eric Calvo (aka DJ Eric Cubeechee) in 2004.
After Jaime became pregnant, the two became engaged in October 2006. She gave birth on May 11, 2007 at 7:31 a.m. in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to their first child Dezi James Calvo. In a February 2007 interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Jaime said she wants the child to be bilingual (English/Spanish) to reflect Calvo's Cuban heritage.
Jaime told People magazine the name is part of a running joke, as Cuban-American Calvo does a Desi Arnaz impersonation, calling her "Luuucy" when he comes home at night. In November 2008 the couple split up.
Pressly said in a 2006 interview with Esquire magazine that she almost purchased a ticket for a flight on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001, but decided not to take the flight because she felt it left too early in the morning. In July 2009, Pressly became engaged to entertainment lawyer Simran Singh. Then they got married on September 26,th 2009 at the Dick Clark Estate. Guests, including Pressly's two-year-old son Dezi James, attended the ceremony on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
She was also ranked #8 in Stuff magazine in the "102 Sexiest Women in the World" issue in 2002.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Jack Nicholson

John Joseph Jack Nicholson born on April 22nd in 1937. Born in St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City, the son of a showgirl, June Frances Nicholson (stage name June Nilson). June had married Italian American showman Donald Furcillo (stage name Donald Rose) six months earlier in Elkton, Maryland on October 16, 1936.
The Elkton town was known for its "quickie" marriages. Furcillo however, was already married and although he offered to take care of the child, June's mother Ethel insisted that she bring up the baby, partly so that June could pursue her dancing career.
Although Donald Furcillo claimed to be Nicholson's father and to have committed bigamy by marrying June, biographer Patrick McGilligan asserted in Jack's Life that Latvian-born Eddie King (originally Edgar A. Kirschfeld), June's manager, may be the father, and other sources have suggested that June Nicholson was unsure of who the father was. Jack's mother was of Irish, English and Dutch descent though he and his family self-identified as Irish.
Nicholson grew up in Neptune City, New Jersey. He was raised in his mother's Roman Catholic religion. "Nick", as he was known to his high school friends, attended nearby Manasquan High School where he was voted "class clown" by the Class of 1954. A theatre and a drama award at the school are named in his honor. In 2004, Nicholson attended his 50th year high school reunion accompanied by his aunt Lorraine.
Jack was brought up believing that his grandparents, John Joseph Nicholson (a department store window dresser in Manasquan, New Jersey) and Ethel May Rhoads (a hairdresser, beautician and amateur artist in Manasquan), were his parents. Nicholson only discovered that his "parents" were actually his grandparents and his sister was in fact his mother in 1974, after a journalist for Time magazine who was doing a feature on Nicholson informed him of the fact.
By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). Nicholson has stated he does not know who his father is, saying "Only Ethel and June knew and they never told anybody" and has chosen not to have a DNA test or to pursue the matter.
A fantastic actor. The movies that he is in that I like are One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, Hoffa, Wolf, Mars Attacks!, As Good as it Gets and The Departed.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Snooki

Nicole Polizzi born November 23rd 1987 in Santiago Chile. She is know for her TV personality on the American reality reality show called Jersey Shore which started in 2009.
Snooki is Chilean descent (including Italian Chilean ancestry) and was adopted when she was six months old and was raised by Italian American parents. She earned her nickname, "Snooki" in middle school when her friends named her after "Snookie", a (male) character in Save the Last Dance because she was the first of her friends to kiss a boy.
Snooki grew up and attended school in Marlboro, New York where she was a cheerleader. During high school, she suffered from an eating disorder, at one point weighing a mere 80 lbs. The 4 ft. 9 in. (145 cm) she attributes maintaining her position as a cheerleader partly led to her disorder.
Snooki attended community college after graduating from Marlboro High School, where she studied to become a veterinarian.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Brad Pitt

I figured if I did Angelina Jolie naturally I would have to follow that with Mr. Pitt.
William Bradley Pitt born on December 18th 1963 in Shawnee Oklahoma. His Mother Jane Etta (née Hillhouse) a High School Counselor and his Father William Alvin Pitt was the owner of a truck company. He has a brother and a sister. Doug was born in 1966 and Julie was born 1969. Brad and his family grew up in Springfield Missouri and was raised as a conservative Southern Baptist.
Brad attended Kickapoo High School where he was a member of the golf, tennis and swimming teams. He participated in the school's Key and Forensics clubs, in school debates, and in musicals. Following his graduation from high school, Pitt enrolled in the University of Missouri in 1982, majoring in journalism, with a focus on advertising. As a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, he acted in several fraternity shows. As graduation approached, Pitt saw his friends getting jobs but did not feel ready to settle down himself. He loved films—"a portal into different worlds for me"—and, since films were not made in Missouri, he decided he would go to where they were made. Two weeks before earning his degree, Pitt left the university and moved to Los Angeles where he took acting lessons and worked odd jobs. He was a chauffeur and dressed up as an El Pollo Loco chicken to pay for acting lessons.
Brad has gotten involved with many of his co-stars including Robin Givens,Jill Schoelen,Juliet Lewis(who was sixteen at the time),Gwyneth Paltrow,Jenifer Aniston and of course Angelina Jolie.
My favorites films he has been in are Thelma and Louise,Contact,A River Runs Through It,Kalifornia,True Romance,Interview with the Vampire,Legends of the Fall,Seven,12 Monkeys,Meet Joe Black,Fight Club,Being John Malkovitch,Snatch and Ocean's Eleven.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Angelina Jolie

Angelina  Jolie Voight born June 4th 1975 in Los Angeles California.
Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie currently lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship that has attracted worldwide media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children, Maddox, Pax, and Zahara, as well as three biological children, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne.

Though she made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in the 1982 film Lookin' to Get Out, Jolie's acting career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interupted (1999). Jolie achieved wider fame after her portrayal of video game heroine Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and since then has established herself as one of the best-known and highest-paid actresses in Hollywood.  She has had her biggest commercial successes with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and the animated film Kung Fu Panda (2008).

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Edward Norton

Edward Harrison Norton born August 18th 1969.  Born and raised in Columbia, Maryland.  His mother, Lydia Robinson "Robin" (née Rouse), a teacher of English, died of a brain tumor in 1997; his father, Edward Mower Norton, Jr., is an environmental lawyer and conservation advocate working in Asia, as well as a former federal prosecutor under the Carter administration.


His maternal grandfather was the developer James Rouse (founder of The Rouse Company), who developed the city of Columbia, Maryland (where Norton grew up), helped develop Baltimore's Inner Harbor, Norfolk's Waterside Festival Marketplace and Boston's Quincy Market as well as co-founded Enterprise Community Partners with Norton's maternal stepgrandmother, Patty Rouse.  Norton has two younger siblings—Molly and Jim, with whom he has professionally collaborated.  From 1981 to 1985, along with his brother, he attended Camp Pasquaney, on the shores of Newfound Lake in Hebron, New Hampshire.  There, he won the acting cup in 1984 and later returned to the camp's council for two years, directing theater. He maintains close connections with the camp.  Edward was raised Episcopalian.
He graduated from Columbia's Wilde Lake High School in 1987.  He attended Yale University, where he acted in university productions alongside Ron Livingston and Paul Giamatti graduating in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in History.  Following graduation, Norton worked in Osaka, Japan consulting for his grandfather's company, Enterprise Community Partners.  Norton can speak some Japanese.  He appeared in an ESL textbook, Only in America, used by Nova, a formerly major English language school.
He is generally known for his reluctance to embrace his celebrity status, and has said, "If I ever have to stop taking the subway, I'm gonna have a heart attack."  Edward has stated in interviews that he is a fan of the Baltimore Orioles and was involved in many of Cal Ripken Jr.'s retirement activities in 2001 when he was asked to be a part of Ripken's biography for Major League Baseball.  He attended Ripken's ceremony at the Hall of Fame in July 2007.  Norton has a private pilot license and discussed his flight training when interviewed on episodes of The Late Show with David Letterman and Inside the Actor's Studio.
Ed was a strong supporter of former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer.  He is a member of the board of trustees of Enterprise Community Partners a non-profit developer of affordable housing based in his hometown. He is also well-known for his support for environmental causes and renewable energy projects, such as Enterprise's Green Communities Initiative and BP's Solar Neighbors program.  He also put time and money toward social activist causes, including improving the quality of living in low-income communities.
Norton's work with the HBO documentary  By the People: The Election of  Barack Obama led to a soundtrack, with proceeds going to Enterprise Community Partners and United Way.  Norton also participated in a 2008 Fast Company story about Enterprise's green affordable housing.
Norton is president of the American branch of the Massai Wilderness Conservation Trust.  To raise money for the trust, Norton fielded a team of 30 runners in the New York City Marathon on November 1, 2009.  The team included Alanis Morissette and David Blane.  Norton finished the event first among celebrities with a time of 3 hours, 48 minutes. Norton and his team raised over $1 million for the Trust.
He dated singer Courtney Love from 1996 to 1999, and actress Slama Hayek from 1999 to 2003.  He ended his relationships with both women.  Norton is 6 feet (1.83 m) tall, according to his interview on The Daily Show.  He lives in New York City.
In May 2010, Norton launched a website called Crowdrise, which uses a social networking platform to help raise funds for charity.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Betty White

Betty Marion White born on January 17th 1922 in Oak Park, Illinois. I know her mostly from the Golden Girls show. She was also on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Hot in Cleveland.
Her Mother Tess Curtis (née Cachikis) a homemaker she was of Greek, English, and Welsh descent and her Father Horace Lawrence White, a traveling salesman and electrical engineer. He was of Danish and English.
Betty attended Horace Mann School in Beverly Hills, California and Beverly Hills High School.
Betty's career was put on hold when World War II broke out. At the time she was modeling and acting at the Bliss Hayden Little Theatre. During the 1940's she worked in Radio on the shows Blondie, The Great Gildersleeve and This Is Your FBI.
In 1945, White married Dick Barker, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot. Unfortunately that marriage was short-lived. In 1947, she married Lane Allen, a Hollywood agent. This marriage ended in divorce in 1953.
On June 14, 1963, White married television host and personality Allen Ludden whom she had met on Ludden's game show Password where she was a celebrity guest in 1961. He proposed to White at least twice before she accepted. The couple appeared together in an episode of The Odd Couple featuring Felix's and Oscar's appearance on Password. Allen appeared as a guest panelist on Match Game with White sitting in the audience. (She was prompted to rip apart one of Ludden's wrong answers on camera during an episode of Match Game '74). The two appeared together on the Match Game panel in 1975.
Allen Ludden died from stomach cancer on June 9, 1981, in Los Angeles. They had no children together. White has not remarried since Ludden's death. When asked about her real-life heroes Betty told Vanity Fair that "Charles Darwin" was her hero.
Betty White has won seven Emmy awards including Funniest Female in 1987 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990. In all she received 20 Emmy nominations.
She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6747 Hollywood Boulevard next to the star of her late husband Allen Ludden.  Betty has also released several books over the span of her career including Pet-Love: How Pets Take Care if US, Betty White in Person, The Leading Lady: Dinah's Story, Here We Go Again: My Life In Television.  In August 2010, she entered a deal with G.P. Putnam Sons to produce two more books, the first of which is scheduled for release in 2011 called If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't).  So keep an eye out for those as well.
Here is a song she sang in 1954 "Never The Less (I'm In Love With You)"

2 minutes 33 seconds

Friday, January 7, 2011

Jack Black

Thomas Jacob Black born on August 28th 1969 in Santa Monica, California.
His parents Judith (née Cohen) and Thomas William Black. Both were satellite engineers, who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. Black's mother is Jewish and his father converted to Judaism. On The Tonight Show, he said his surname may have come from the occupational name Blacksmith.
His parents divorced when he was only 10. It was then he moved away to Culver City with his Father but continued to visit his Mother often.
Jack went to Poseidon High School. He also attended the Crossroads School, where he excelled in drama. Black later attended UCLA but dropped out during his sophomore year to pursue a career in the entertainment business, at which point his father discontinued his financial support.
Here is Jack Black when he was younger in the Pitfall commercial in 1982.

31 seconds

I thought this was both talented and funny. It actually sounds good! Kids Choice Awards 2006 on April Fools Day.

44 seconds

My favorite movies with him in them are Demolition Man,Dead Man Walking,Waterworld,Bio-Dome,The Cable Guy,Mars Attacks,The Jackal,Enemy of the State,I Still Know What You Did Last Summer,High Fidelity,Saving Silverman,Shallow Hal,Orange County,School of Rock,Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy,Envy,King Kong,The Holiday,Nacho Libre,Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny,Tropic Thunder and Year One.
He is in a band Tenacious D, my favorite song is Wonderboy.

4 minutes 14 seconds

The cartoons he has voices in are great too. Like Ice Age,Shark Tale and Kung Fu Panda are good children movies that adults can enjoy as well.
His movie Gulliver's Travels and Rush: Behind the Lighted Stage came out in 2010.
Movies coming out in 2011 are Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil,The Big Year,The Muppets,Kung Fu Panda 2 and Parker Redding's Big Movie.
This guy keeps busy.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Christina Aguilera

Christina Maria Aguilera born December 18th 1980. Another celebrity who got her start on star search. She has an amazing voice, a beautiful body and a great personality to go with it.
She auditioned to be on The Mickey Mouse Club in 1991 even though she did not meet the age requirements and made it. I remember the first thing that got my attention, was her song "Genie in a Bottle" from her self titled album. Then one of my favorite songs by her "Beautiful" from her second album Stripped.
Aguilera was born in Staten Island, New York. Her Father Fausto Wagner Xavier Aguilera, a sergeant in the US Army at the time, and her Mother Shelly Loraine (née Fidler), a teacher of Spanish. Christina's father was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador and her mother is of German, Irish, Welsh, and Dutch ancestry.
As a child, Christina aspired to be a singer. She was known locally as "the little girl with the big voice", singing in local talent shows and competitions.
She attended Marshall Middle School near Wexford and North Allegheny Intermediate High School until she was later home schooled.
Following her many television appearances Christina experienced resentment and bullying from her peers including an incident in which her peers slashed the tires on her family's car. She later recalls, "doing what I did and maybe being a little smaller, I was definitely picked on and bullied for the attention that I got. It was definitely unwanted attention and there was a lot of unfairness about it."
"Beautiful"

5 minutes 58 seconds