Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Emma Stone

Emily Jean Stone was born on November 6th 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona. She's  an American actress.
She first appeared in a stage production The Wind in the Willows at the early age of 11 as a member of the Valley Youth Theatre(a regional theater in Phoenix, Arizona).  Emma attended the Sequoya Elementary School and the Cocopah Middle School for the 6th grade.
Then she was home schooled for 2 years while she appeared in 16 productions at the Valley Youth Theatre.  She attended Xavier College Preparatory an all girl Catholic High School as a freshman for one semester.  I guess she wasn't havin it because around that time she gave a PowerPoint presentation to her parents set to the Madonna song "Hollywood" just to convince them to move to California to start acting.
Dropping out in 2004 she moved to a apartment in Los Angeles with her mother at the age of 15.  Auditioning during the day and home schooling at night.  Apparently it paid off after appearing in the TV movie The New Partridge Family and shows Medium,The Suite Life of Zack & Cody,Malcolm in the Middle,Lucky Louie and 7 episodes of Drive(1 unaired).
Then she was in the movie Superbad!  That may have been the first time I saw her acting but there was something about her, that made her stick out as an actress?  Though the movie was of acquired taste, I thought she did very well.  She was great in  The House Bunny along with the rest of the actresses that movie was hilarious!  I liked her in Paper Man even though the movie kind of sucked.
She was also good in Zombieland and Easy A.  I'm curious to see  her in The Amazing Spider-Man even though it's been done and redone again and again.  I still wouldn't mind seeing it, if only to see her performance.
A little more about Emma, her mother Krista (née Yeager) homemaker, her father  Jeff Stone a contractor.  She has a brother that is 2 years younger Spencer Stone.  Her fathers grandfather was of Swedish descent.  The name Stone was anglicized  when immigrating to the U.S. through Ellis Island.
Some of her ancestors also lived in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.  You might not know it but Emma Stone, her hair color is naturally blonde.
After dying her her hair brunette film producer Judd Apatow had her change her hair color to be a red head in Superbad.  In The Amazing Spider-Man she goes back to her original  hair color.  On the set she met actor Andrew Garfield and they started dating.
Her family and friends call her Emily.  She got the name Emma Stone when she registered for the Screen Actors Guild and found out that the name Emily Stone was already taken.  She has a low-pitched kind of husky voice as a result from having baby colic which is a condition of constant screaming as an infant that  results in the development of nodules.  She now has calluses on her vocal cords.  I believe she resides in Greenwich Village, New York.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Jude Law



David Jude Hayworth Law born December 29th 1972 in Lewisham, South London. He's an English actor,film director and producer. It is said that Jude's name came from both the book "Jude The Obscure" and the song "Hey Jude"? Both of his parents were comprehensive school teachers, his mother Margaret Anne (née Heyworth) and his father Robert Law, the youngest headmaster in London. They live in Vaudelnay, France where they enjoy running a drama school and theatre. He has one older sister Natasha who is an illustrator and artist. She still lives in London. He grew up in Blackheath, an area in the Borough of Lewisham. Jude went to John Ball Primary School in Blackheath and Kidbrooke School. Then he attended Alleyn's School. Jude met actress Sadie Frost while working on the film Shopping. They married on September 2nd 1997 and then divorced on October 29th 2003. He has a stepson, Finlay Munro who was born on September 20th 1990. He has three biological children with Sadie Frost which includes his son Rafferty born on October 6th 1996, daughter Iris born October 25th 2000 and son Rudy born on September 10th 2002.
Then in 2003 while making the film Alfie, Jude and co-star Sienna Miller got into a relationship. In 2004 they became engaged on Christmas Day. However in November of 2006, Sienna and Jude separated.
For a bit there Jude and American model Samantha Burke had a relationship but it didn't seem to last. Suddenly it was to be announced that Jude had once again become a father. Samantha Burke gave birth to their daughter Sophia on September 22nd 2009 in New York.

In December 2009 Jude was in some broadway shows that just happened to be at the same time as Sienna Miller was on broadway. I'm not saying there's a connection there but they seemed to rekindle their relationship around that time. A couple years later though they announced they had split up again in February of 2011. I say at least they tried. That's more than most people do.
The first movie I saw Jude Law in that impressed me was Gattaca. If you havn't seen that movie I would recommend watching it. Other movies I really liked him in was Midnight in the Garden of Evil,eXistenZ,Enemy at the Gates(Ed Harris),A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Road to Perdition(Tom Hanks),Cold Mountain,The Holiday and Repo Men.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Julia Scarlett Louis-Dreyfus was born on January 16th 1961 in Manhattan, New York.  She is an American actress best known for her role in Seinfeld as Elaine Benes.  One of my favorite female actresses of all time.
She was seen performing with Chicago's well known improvisational theater groups,  The Practical Theater Group and the renowned Second City.  It was then at one of her performances the former's "Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee" that led to her being asked to join the cast of Saturday Night Live at the age of 21.
She was on Saturday Night Live for a few years from 1982 to 1985.  At the time Julia and cast member Abby Eliot were the youngest female cast members in history to be on Saturday Night Live.
She met up with writer Larry David during her career at SNL who would later co-create Seinfeld.  Recently Julia commented that her casting on SNL was a "Cinderella getting to go to the ball kind of experience".  She also admitted that at times it was often quite tense, stating that she "didn't know how to navigate the waters of show business in general and specifically doing a live sketch comedy show."
She appeared in almost all the episodes of Seinfeld excluding three of them.
Her father Gérard Louis-Dreyfus(also known as William Louis-Dreyfus), is a French attorney and business executive.  Her parents divorced one year after the birth of Julia.  Her mother Judith was a writer and special needs tutor.  Julia's paternal grandfather was Pierre Louis-Dreyfus (1908-2011).  He was a French Jew who fought in the French Resistance during World War II.  Both her paternal grandmother and her mother were American.
When Julia was eight years old they relocated to Washington D.C. and her mother married L. Thompson Bowles, Dean of the George Washington University Medical School.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus has two half-sisters on her father's side, Emma and Phoebe.  Through her father, a billionaire heir to the Louis Dreyfus Group, she had a cousin Robert Louis-Dreyfus (1946-2009), former CEO of Adidas and the owner of the Olympique de Marseille football/soccer team.  Her half sister Lauren Bowles is also an actress, appearing with her on Seinfeld, and The New Adventures of Old Christine.  Lauren was also in Veronica Mars and in the film Ghost World.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus spent her childhood in several states and countries in connection with her stepfather's work with Project HOPE, including Sri Lanka, Colombia and Tunisia.  She graduated from the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, MD in 1979 and attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where she studied theatre for several years before dropping out due to a professional acting job offer.
In 2007 she was invited back to Northwestern to receive an honorary Doctor of Arts degree.
Julia met her husband Brad Hall while she was at Northwestern and they married in 1987.  Brad Hall is a comedian and was on SNL as well.  They have two children together Henry born in 1992 and Charles born in 1997.
Julia stated once that she holds much respect for "women who are not afraid of making themselves look bad or foolish to get a laugh" and cites her acting idols as Lucille Ball,Mary Tyler Moore,Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr, Valerie Harper and Cloris Leachman.
I thought she was great in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Curb Your Enthusiasm!  I guess more recently she's on the HBO show Veep.  Which I've had yet to see.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Roald Dahl



Roald Dahl was born in born in Whales. September 13th 1916 to November 23rd 1990. British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter. I grew up reading his famous kids books which were introduced to me by my 3rd grade teacher. I believe her name was Mrs. Klarich? Anyways, I got lost in his books. Recently I read this in the newspaper(and yes, to answer your question. Some people do still read the newspaper... Just not usually me). It stated "You know Roald Dahl for his kids' books, especially "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," starring Willy Wonka.
You may not know that during World War II, Dahl worked as a British spy in Washington, D.C. Part of the job seemed to involve sleeping with Georgetown's wealthiest women, including, apparently, Clare Booth Luce. He also drummed up pro-British and anti-Nazi propaganda to battle elements of the American public that were against U.S. entry into World War II." I myself, did not know this about him. Roald's parents Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl (née Hesselberg)were both Norwegian . His father had moved from Sarpsborg in Norway and was said to have settled in Cardiff in the 1880's. As lovers do, his mother came over to marry his father in 1911. Roald Dahl was named after the polar explorer Roald Amundsen, a national hero in Norway at the time.
He spoke Norwegian at home along with his sisters Astri, Alfhild and Else. Roald and his sisters were christened at the Norwegian Church, Cardiff. After the War Roald married American actress Patricia Neal on July 2nd 1953 at Trinity Church in New York City. Roald and Patricia's marriage lasted for over 30 years and had 5 children during that time. Including Olivia,Tessa, Theo, Ophelia and Lucy. On December 5th 1960 something tragic happened. Their 4 month old Theo Dahl was severely injured when his baby carriage was struck by a taxicab in New York City.
For awhile he suffered from hydrecephalus and as a result Roald became involved in the development of what became known as the "Wade-Dahl-Till" (or WDT) valve, a device to alleviate the condition. Then in November 1962 Olivia Dahl died of measles encephalitis at the early age of 7. Roald Dahl subsequently became a proponent of immunisation and dedicated his 1982 book The BFG to his daughter. He must have had a rough time when later his wife Patricia suffered three burst cerebral aneurysms while pregnant with their 5th child Lucy. Roald took care of her rehabilitation and she eventually re-learned to talk and walk. She even returned to her acting career.
He ended up divorcing Patricia Neal though in 1983 and married Liccy Crosland. Rumor has it they had been previously in a relationship before the divorce from Neal? 1983 quote from Roald Dahl "There's a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity ... I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason." Roald states that he was anti-Israel rather than anti-Semitic and he maintained friendships with a number of Jews including philosopher Isaiah Berlin who said "I thought he might say anything. Could have been pro-Arab or pro-Jew. There was no consistent line." In the 1986 New Years Honours List Roald Dahl was offered the Order of the British Empire (OBE) but turned it down.
He also is the father of author Tessa Dahl and grandfather of author, cookbook writer and former model Sophie Dahl as in Sophie in "The BFG".
James and the Giant Peach was one of the first books I've ever reak and it really opened up my imagination. Did you know that he wrote The Gremlins? Probably not the Gremlins your thinking of though. I also liked The Witches.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Gina Carano

Gina Joy Carano born April 16th 1982 in Dallas County, Texas. Gina is mostly known for her MMA fighting. She is also an American actress, fitness model and know as "Crush" on the television show American Gladiators. Not to mention, she is smoking hot as well.
Out of three siblings Gina is the middle daughter amongst two other sisters. Dana Joy (née Cason) their mother and Glenn Thomas Carano her father who was the backup quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys from 1977-1983. In 1984 Glenn was a starter for the USFL Pittsburgh Maulers. Unfortunately in 1984 was the only year of operations for the Maulers. Gina says that she has a small percentage of Italian ancestry. Gina graduated from Trinity Christian High School in good 'ol Las Vegas, Nevada.


She played softball,volleyball and was on the girls basketball team where the won the state title. She went to the University of Nevada, Reno for a year and then majored in Psychology in Las Vegas after three years. ESPN featured a story for the series E:60 and Gina was voted "Hottest Woman In America" by Big Biz Magazine in the spring 2008 issue. On May 13, 2008 Gina Carano was the fastest rising search on Google and the third most searched person on Yahoo. Gina was ranked #5 on the "Top Ten Influential Women of 2008" list on Yahoo. As of 2009 Maxim's Hot 100 list, Gina Carano ranked 16th. Gina Carano became the first recipient of the Chuck Norris or Best Female Action Star Award in April of 2012. Gina Carano and Serena Williams were cover girls for ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue, on October 19th 2009.  This is one chick I would not want to mess with!