Saturday 7 January 2012

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011.
Schwarzenegger began to weight train at the age of 15 years old. He was awarded the title of Mr. Universe at age 20 and went on to win the Mr. Olympia contest seven times. Schwarzenegger has remained a prominent presence in the sport of bodybuilding and he has written several books and numerous articles on the sport. Schwarzenegger gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action film icon. He was nicknamed the "Austrian Oak" and the "Styrian Oak" in his bodybuilding days, "Arnie" during his acting career and more recently the "Governator" (a portmanteau of "Governor" and "Terminator").
As a Republican, he was first elected on October 7, 2003, in a special recall election to replace then-Governor Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger was sworn in on November 17, 2003, to serve the remainder of Davis's term. Schwarzenegger was then re-elected on November 7, 2006, in California's 2006 gubernatorial election, to serve a full term as governor, defeating Democrat Phil Angelides, who was California State Treasurer at the time. Schwarzenegger was sworn in for his second term on January 5, 2007.
Schwarzenegger was married to Maria Shriver for over 25 years and the couple had four children together. In 2011, it was revealed that Schwarzenegger had engaged in an adulterous affair and fathered a son with an employee of his, Mildred Baena, 14 years earlier. This subsequently led to Schwarzenegger and Shriver separating and Shriver filing for divorce.
Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, Austria, a small village bordering the Styrian capital Graz, and was christened Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger. His parents were the local police chief, Gustav Schwarzenegger (1907–72), and Aurelia (née Jadrny; 1922–1998). His father served in World War II, after he voluntarily applied to join the Nazi Party in 1938. He served with the German Army as a Hauptfeldwebel of the Feldgendarmerie and was discharged in 1943 after contracting malaria. They were married on October 20, 1945 – Gustav was 38, and Aurelia was a 23-year-old widow with a son, Meinhard. According to Schwarzenegger, both of his parents were very strict: "Back then in Austria it was a very different world, if we did something bad or we disobeyed our parents, the rod was not spared." He grew up in a Roman Catholic family who attended Mass every Sunday.
Gustav had a preference for his stepson Meinhard, over his son, Arnold. His favoritism was "strong and blatant," which stemmed from unfounded suspicion that Arnold was not his child.Schwarzenegger has said his father had "no patience for listening or understanding your problems." Schwarzenegger had a good relationship with his mother and kept in touch with her until her death. In later life, Schwarzenegger commissioned the Simon Wiesenthal Center to research his father's wartime record, which came up with no evidence of atrocities despite Gustav's membership in the Nazi Party and SA. Schwarzenegger's father's background received wide press attention during the 2003 California recall campaign. At school, Schwarzenegger was apparently in the middle but stood out for his "cheerful, good-humored and exuberant" character. Money was a problem in their household; Schwarzenegger recalled that one of the highlights of his youth was when the family bought a refrigerator.
As a boy, Schwarzenegger played several sports, heavily influenced by his father. He picked up his first barbell in 1960, when his football (soccer) coach took his team to a local gym. At the age of 14, he chose bodybuilding over football as a career. Schwarzenegger has responded to a question asking if he was 13 when he started weightlifting: "I actually started weight training when I was 15, but I'd been participating in sports, like soccer, for years, so I felt that although I was slim, I was well-developed, at least enough so that I could start going to the gym and start Olympic lifting." However, his official website biography claims: "At 14, he started an intensive training program with Dan Farmer, studied psychology at 15 (to learn more about the power of mind over body) and at 17, officially started his competitive career." During a speech in 2001, he said, "My own plan formed when I was 14 years old. My father had wanted me to be a police officer like he was. My mother wanted me to go to trade school." Schwarzenegger took to visiting a gym in Graz, where he also frequented the local movie theaters to see bodybuilding idols such as Reg Park, Steve Reeves and Johnny Weissmuller on the big screen. "I was inspired by individuals like Reg Park and Steve Reeves." When Reeves died in 2000, Schwarzenegger fondly remembered him: "As a teenager, I grew up with Steve Reeves. His remarkable accomplishments allowed me a sense of what was possible, when others around me didn't always understand my dreams ... Steve Reeves has been part of everything I've ever been fortunate enough to achieve." In 1961, Schwarzenegger met former Mr. Austria Kurt Marnul, who invited him to train at the gym in Graz. He was so dedicated as a youngster that he broke into the local gym on weekends, when it was usually closed, so that he could train. "It would make me sick to miss a workout ... I knew I couldn't look at myself in the mirror the next morning if I didn't do it." When Schwarzenegger was asked about his first movie experience as a boy, he replied, "I was very young, but I remember my father taking me to the Austrian theaters and seeing some newsreels. The first real movie I saw, that I distinctly remember, was a John Wayne movie."
In 1971, his brother Meinhard died in a car accident. Meinhard had been drinking and was killed instantly. Schwarzenegger did not attend his funeral. Meinhard was due to marry Erika Knapp, and the couple had a three-year-old son, Patrick. Schwarzenegger would pay for Patrick's education and help him to immigrate to the United States. Gustav died the following year from a stroke. In Pumping Iron, Schwarzenegger claimed that he did not attend his father's funeral because he was training for a bodybuilding contest. Later, he and the film's producer said this story was taken from another bodybuilder for the purpose of showing the extremes that some would go to for their sport and to make Schwarzenegger's image more cold and machine-like in order to fan controversy for the film. Barbara Baker, his first serious girlfriend, has said he informed her of his father's death without emotion and that he never spoke of his brother. Over time, he has given at least three versions of why he was absent from his father's funeral.
In an interview with Fortune in 2004, Schwarzenegger told how he suffered what "would now be called child abuse" at the hands of his father:
My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door. It was just the way it was. Many of the children I've seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-Austrian mentality. They didn't want to create an individual. It was all about conforming. I was one who did not conform, and whose will could not be broken. Therefore, I became a rebel. Every time I got hit, and every time someone said, 'you can't do this,' I said, 'this is not going to be for much longer, because I'm going to move out of here. I want to be rich. I want to be somebody.'

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Jessica Aalba

Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981) is an American television and film actress. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994). Alba rose to prominence as the lead actress in the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002). Alba later appeared in various films including Honey (2003), Sin City (2005), Fantastic Four (2005), Into the Blue (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Good Luck Chuck both in 2007.
Alba is considered a sex symbol. She appears on the "Hot 100" section of Maxim and was voted number one on AskMen.com's list of "99 Most Desirable Women" in 2006, as well as "Sexiest Woman in the World" by FHM in 2007. The use of her image on the cover of the March 2006 Playboy sparked a lawsuit by her, which was later dropped. She has also won various awards for her acting, including the Choice Actress Teen Choice Award and Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television, and a Golden Globe nomination for her lead role in the television series Dark Angel.
Alba was born in Pomona, California to Catherine (née Jensen) and Mark Alba. Her mother is of Danish and French Canadian descent and her father is Mexican American. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in California when she was nine years old. Alba described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from collapsed lungs twice, had pneumonia four to five times a year, as well as a ruptured appendix and a tonsillar cyst. Alba became isolated from other children at school, because she was in the hospital so often due to her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. Alba has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. She has acknowledged that she has suffered from obsessive–compulsive disorder during her childhood. Alba graduated from high school at age 16, and she subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Alba expressed interest in acting since the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, California, whose grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job in a leading role when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J.C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of The Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S..After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet.
Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique in the Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, and as the female lead in the 1999 comedy-horror film Idle Hands, opposite Devon Sawa.
Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically-engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002, earning her critical acclaim as well as a Golden Globe nomination. Alba later admitted to practicing anorexia while in preparation for Dark Angel.
Alba has been well-received in popular culture. She received the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress and Saturn Award for Best Actress for her role in Dark Angel. In 2006, Alba received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance" for Sin City. Her acting has also drawn criticism, however, as she was nominated for a 2007 Razzie Award for Worst Actress for her performances in Awake, Good Luck Chuck, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. She was also nominated for the same award in 2005 for her performances in Fantastic Four and Into the Blue.
Alba's most notable film roles have included an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, and as the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four. She then appeared in its sequel, in Into the Blue later that year, and Good Luck Chuck a few years later. Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible 3, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by talent agents Patrick Whitesell and Brad Cafarelli.
In 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance was both positively and negatively received. Alba won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Also in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in "box office bomb" The Love Guru. Alba was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Actress.
In late 2008, Alba signed on to star as the lead role in An Invisible Sign of My Own. The movie finished filming in November 2008. The film is in post-production and set to be released in 2011.
Alba starred alongside Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck in the film adaption of the book of the same name, The Killer Inside Me. In the movie, Alba played Joyce Lakeland, a prostitute. The film was released in 2010. Also in 2010, Alba starred in the romantic comedy Valentine's Day,alongside Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel, Emma Roberts, Ashton Kutcher, and Jennifer Garner. The film was released on February 12, 2010.
In August 2010, it was announced that Alba will appear in Spy Kids 4. She appeared on Maxim's 2011 Hot 100 list, finishing 21.


Tuesday 3 January 2012

Megan fox

Megan Denise Fox (born May 16, 1986) is an American actress and model. She began her acting career in 2001 with several minor television and film roles, and played a regular role on the Hope & Faith television show. In 2004, she launched her film career with a role in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. In 2007, she was cast as Mikaela Banes, the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character, in the blockbuster film Transformers, which became her breakout role. Fox reprised her role in the 2009 sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Later in 2009, she starred as the titular lead character in the film Jennifer's Body.
Fox is considered a sex symbol and frequently appears on men's magazine "Hot" lists, including Maxim and FHM
Fox is of Irish, French and Native American ancestry, and was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee to Darlene and Franklin Fox. She was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic school for 12 years. Fox's parents divorced when she was young and she and her sister were raised by her mother and her stepfather, Tony Tonachio. She said that the two were "very strict" and that she was not allowed to have a boyfriend or invite friends to her house. She lived with her mother until she made enough money to support herself.
Fox began her training in drama and dance at age five, in Kingston, Tennessee. She attended a dance class at the community center there and was involved in Kingston Elementary School's chorus and the Kingston Clippers swim team. At 10 years of age, after moving to St. Petersburg, Florida, Fox continued her training. When she was 13 years old, Fox began modeling after winning several awards at the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina. At age 17, she tested out of school via correspondence in order to move to Los Angeles.
Fox has spoken extensively of her time in education; that in middle school she was bullied and picked on and she ate lunch in the bathroom to avoid being "pelted with ketchup packets". She said that the problem was not her looks, but that she had "always gotten along better with boys" and that "rubbed some people the wrong way". Fox also said of high school that she was never popular and that "everyone hated me, and I was a total outcast, my friends were always guys, I have a very aggressive personality, and girls didn’t like me for that. I’ve had only one great girlfriend my whole life". In the same interview, she mentions that she hated school and has never been "a big believer in formal education" and that "the education I was getting seemed irrelevant. So, I was sort of checked out on that part of it"
At 16, Fox made her acting debut in the 2001 film Holiday in the Sun, as spoiled heiress Brianna Wallace and rival of Alex Stewart (Ashley Olsen), which was released direct-to-DVD on November 20, 2001. In the next several years she guest-starred on What I Like About You and Two and a Half Men, as well as being an uncredited extra in Bad Boys II (2003). In 2004, she made her film debut in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen co-starring opposite Lindsay Lohan, playing the supporting role of Carla Santini, a rival of Lola (Lohan). Fox was also cast in a regular role on the ABC sitcom Hope & Faith, in which she portrayed Sydney Shanowski, replacing Nicole Paggi. Fox appeared in seasons 2 to 3, until the show was cancelled in 2006.
In 2007, Fox won the lead female role of Mikaela Banes in the 2007 live-action film Transformers, based on the toy and cartoon saga of the same name. Fox played the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character Sam Witwicky. Fox was nominated for an MTV Movie Award in the category of "Breakthrough Performance", and was also nominated for three Teen Choice Awards. Fox had signed on for two more Transformers sequels. In June 2007, Fox was cast in a minor role in How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, starring alongside Jeff Bridges, Simon Pegg and Kirsten Dunst. She portrayed Sophie Maes, a love interest of Sydney Young (Simon Pegg). The film premiered on October 3, 2008, but was considered a box-office failure
Fox reprised her role as Mikaela Banes in the Transformer sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. There was some controversy surrounding Fox's appearance while filming the sequel of Transformers when Michael Bay, the film's director, ordered the actress to gain 10 pounds. The film was released worldwide on June 24, 2009. Fox was to star in the third installment, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, but was not included because of her statements comparing working under director Bay to working for Hitler (see below). Co-star Shia LaBeouf said, "Criticism is one thing. Then there's public name-calling, which turns into high-school bashing. Which you can't do." Bay similarly amended his previous statements of support of Fox, and told GQ in June that Fox was fired on orders of executive producer Stephen Spielberg.
In between Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon, Fox had her first lead role playing the title character in Jennifer's Body, written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody. She played Jennifer Check, a mean-girl cheerleader possessed by a demon who begins to feed off the boys in a Minnesota farming town. The film was released on September 18, 2009, and co-stars Amanda Seyfried and Adam Brody.
In April 2009, Fox began filming Jonah Hex, in which she portrayed Leila, a gun-wielding beauty and Jonah Hex's (Josh Brolin) love interest. The film was released on June 18, 2010 and co-starred Will Arnett; Despite receiving top billing, Fox has described her role in the film as being a cameo. Jonah Hex was universally panned by critics and was a box office bomb in the U.S., having its international distribution cancelled after its poor performance. The film was named the "worst picture of the year by the Houston Film Critics Society. Fox next starred alongside Mickey Rourke in Passion Play. The film received such bad reviews after its screening at the Toronto Film festival that its plans for a conventional theatrical distribution were withheld for a direct-to-video release with only two screens briefly showing the film to fulfill contractual obligations. Mickey Rourke remarked that Passion Play was "terrible. Another terrible movie."
In early April 2009, Fox signed on to star as the lead female role in the upcoming 2011 film The Crossing, about a young couple who get caught up in a drug trafficking scheme during their vacation to Mexico. In March 2009, Variety reported that Fox was set to star as the lead role of Aspen Matthews in the film adaption of the comic books Fathom which she will also co-produce with Brian Austin Green. Fathom is currently in pre-production. Fox appeared with Dominic Monaghan in the music video for Eminem and Rihanna's single "Love the Way You Lie"
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