| Name | Daily Mirror |
|---|---|
| Type | Daily newspaper |
| Format | Tabloid |
| Foundation | 2 November 1903 |
| Owners | Trinity Mirror |
| Political | Left-wing/Pro-Labour |
| Headquarters | One Canada Square, London, United Kingdom |
| Editor | Richard Wallace |
| Website | www.mirror.co.uk |
| Oclc | 223228477 |
It was not an immediate success, and in 1904, he decided to turn it into a pictorial newspaper, changing the masthead to The Daily Illustrated Mirror and appointing Hamilton Fyfe as editor who then fired all the women journalists. This name ran from 26 January to 27 April 1904 (issues 72 to 150), then reverted to The Daily Mirror. The first issue did not have advertisements on the front page as previously, but instead news text and engraved pictures (of a traitor and an actress), with the promise of photographs inside. Two days later, the price was dropped to one halfpenny and to the masthead was added: "A paper for men and women". This combination was more successful: by issue 92, the guaranteed circulation was 120,000 copies and by issue 269, it had grown to 200,000: by then the name had reverted and the front page was mainly photographs. Circulation grew to 466,000 making it the second largest morning newspaper.
Alfred Harmsworth sold the newspaper to his brother Harold Harmsworth (from 1914 Lord Rothermere) in 1913. In 1917, the price was increased to one penny. Circulation continued to grow: in 1919, some issues sold more than 1 million copies a day, making it the largest daily picture paper.
By the mid 1930s, the Mirror was struggling – it and the Mail were the main casualties of the early 1930s circulation war that saw the Daily Herald and the Daily Express establish circulations of more than two million, and Rothermere decided to sell his shares in it.
With Cecil King (Rothermere's nephew) in charge of the paper's finances and Guy Bartholomew as editor, the Mirror in the late 1930s transformed itself from a conservative, middle-class newspaper into a left-wing paper for the working class. The Mirror was the first UK paper to adopt the appearance of the New York tabloids. By 1939, it was selling 1.4 million copies a day.
During World War II, the Mirror positioned itself as the paper of the ordinary soldier and civilian, critical of the incompetence of the political leadership and the established parties. At one stage, the paper was threatened with closure following the publication of a Philip Zec cartoon (captioned by William Connor), which was misinterpreted by Winston Churchill and Herbert Morrison. In the 1945 general election it strongly supported Labour in its eventual landslide victory. In doing so, the paper supported Herbert Morrison, who co-ordinated Labour's campaign, and recruited his former antagonist Philip Zec to reproduce, on the front page, a popular VE Day cartoon on the morning of the election, suggesting that Labour were the only party who could maintain peace in post-war Britain. The British Journalism Review said in 2002 that "Mirrorscope" was "a game attempt to provide serious analysis in the rough and tumble of the tabloids". It failed to attract any significant numbers of new readers, and the pull-out section was abandoned, its final issue appeared on 27 August 1974.
In 1978, The Sun overtook the Mirror in circulation, and in 1984 the Mirror was sold to Robert Maxwell. After Maxwell's death in 1991, David Montgomery became Mirror Group's CEO, and a period of cost-cutting and production changes ensued. The Mirror went through a protracted crisis before merging with the regional newspaper group Trinity to form Trinity Mirror in 1999. In recent years, the paper's circulation has also been overtaken by that of the Daily Mail. The Daily and Sunday Mirror are now printed at Watford and Oldham by Trinity Mirror.
The Mirror's front page on 4 November 2004, after the re-election of George W. Bush as U.S. President, read "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?". It provided a list of states and their average IQ, showing the Bush states all below average intelligence (except for Virginia), and all Kerry states at or above average intelligence. The source for this table was The Economist, though it was a hoax. Richard Wallace became editor in 2004.
Source: Tabloid Nation p. 248.
==Sunday Mirror==
| Name | Sunday Mirror |
|---|---|
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
| Format | Tabloid |
| Foundation | 1915 |
| Owners | Trinity Mirror |
| Political | Labour/Left |
| Headquarters | One Canada Square, London, United Kingdom |
| Editor | Tina Weaver |
| Website | mirror.co.uk |
| Issn | 9975-9950 |
| Oclc | 436610738 |
The Sunday Mirror's editor is Tina Weaver.
Source: British Political Facts, 1900-1975 p. 383.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Piers Morgan |
|---|---|
| Caption | Morgan in 2009. |
| Birth name | Piers Stefan O'Meara |
| Birth date | March 30, 1965 |
| Birth place | Guildford, Surrey, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Ethnicity | Irish |
| Known for | Newspaper editingTelevision work |
| Television | Britain's Got Talent America's Got Talent Winner of The Celebrity Apprentice The Dark Side of Fame with Piers Morgan Piers Morgan On... Piers Morgan's Life Stories Piers Morgan Tonight |
| Education | Chailey SchoolPreparatory School |
| Alma mater | Harlow College |
| Employer | South London News (1985–88)The Sun (1989–94)News of the World (1994–95)Daily Mirror (1995–04) |
| Occupation | Broadcaster, panellist, journalist, talk show host |
| Height | |
| Spouse | (divorced) |
| Children | Spencer, Stanley, Albert |
| Parents | Vincent O'Meara (father) (deceased)Gabrielle O'Meara (mother) |
| Website | http://www.officialpiersmorgan.com |
Morgan branched into television mainly as a presenter, but has become best known as a judge or contestant in reality television programmes. In the UK, he was a judge on Britain's Got Talent alongside Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell. Morgan is best-known in the United States as a judge on the show America's Got Talent, and as the winner of The Celebrity Apprentice. In January 2011, he will begin hosting Piers Morgan Tonight for CNN in the timeslot previously occupied by Larry King Live before the retirement of host Larry King.
Morgan has authored eight books including three volumes of his memoirs.
Morgan is a lifelong fan of cricket. Corresponding with Sir Donald "Don" Bradman as a child, and being a promising early youthful fast bowler, he has played for his local side in Newick since 1978. Every year since 2000 he has organised a game between a Morgan family team and the Newick side, which includes a famous "ringer" - 2008's ringer was England batsman Kevin Pietersen, which Morgan described as "the best day of my life." Morgan also revealed he is a fan of Arsenal F.C. during the fourth semi-final of the third series of Britain's Got Talent.
As editor of the Mirror, in 1996 Morgan was widely criticised and forced to apologise for the headline "Achtung! Surrender" a day before England met Germany in a semi-final of the Euro '96 football championships.
In 2000, he was the subject of an investigation after Suzy Jagger wrote a story in The Daily Telegraph revealing that he had bought £20,000 worth of shares in the computer company Viglen soon before the Mirror 's 'City Slickers' column tipped Viglen as a good buy. Morgan was found by the Press Complaints Commission to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism, but kept his job. The 'City Slickers' columnists, Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell, were both found to have committed further breaches of the Code, and were sacked before the inquiry. In 2004, further enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry cleared Morgan from any charges. On 7 December 2005 Bhoyrul and Hipwell were convicted of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act. During the trial it emerged that Morgan had bought £67,000 worth of Viglen shares, emptying his bank account and investing under his wife's name too.
In 2002, the Mirror attempted to move mid-market, claiming to eschew the more trivial stories of show-business and gossip. Morgan rehired John Pilger, who had been sacked during Robert Maxwell's ownership of the Mirror titles. Despite such changes, Morgan was unable to halt the paper's decline in circulation, a decline shared by its direct tabloid rivals The Sun and the Daily Star.
Morgan was fired from the Mirror on 14 May 2004 after authorising the newspaper's publication of photographs allegedly showing Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment. Within days the photographs were shown to be crude fakes. Under the headline "SORRY.. WE WERE HOAXED", the Mirror responded that it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and apologised for the publication of the photographs.
In May 2005, in partnership with Matthew Freud, he gained ownership of Press Gazette, a media trade publication together with its 'cash cow' the British Press Awards, in a deal worth £1 million. This ownership was cited as "one" of the reasons many major newspapers boycotted the 2006 awards. Press Gazette entered administrative receivership toward the end of 2006, before being sold to a trade buyer.
On 4 May 2006, Morgan launched First News, a weekly paper aimed at seven to fourteen-year-olds. Upon its launch Morgan claimed that the paper was to be "Britain's first national newspaper for children", although this claim was without foundation: other newspapers aimed at young audiences have included The Boy's Newspaper (1880–1882), The Children's Newspaper (1919–1965), and Early Times (launched in the late 1980s). Morgan was editorial director at First News, responsible for bringing in celebrity involvement. He referred to the role as "editorial overlord and frontman".
In 2007, Morgan was filmed falling off a Segway, breaking three ribs. Simon Cowell and others made much of Morgan's previous comment in 2003, in the Daily Mail, after U.S. President George W. Bush fell off a Segway, that "You'd have to be an idiot to fall off, wouldn't you, Mr. President?"
He has co-hosted his own current affairs interview show on Channel 4 with Amanda Platell, Morgan & Platell. Morgan and Platell were put together because of their opposing political angles. Platell would interrogate guests from the right-wing, Morgan from the left-wing. The show was dropped after three series allegedly because of poor viewing figures, though the chairman of Channel 4, Luke Johnson, was reported not to like the programme.
Throughout 2006 Morgan appeared as a judge on the American television show America's Got Talent alongside Brandy Norwood and David Hasselhoff on NBC. Morgan was chosen by Simon Cowell as a replacement for himself because of the conditions of his American Idol contract. Morgan appeared as a celebrity contestant on Comic Relief Does The Apprentice in 2007, to raise money for Comic Relief. During filming, he and Alastair Campbell reduced fellow contestant Trinny Woodall to tears when they tried to sabotage her team's event, and were involved in a brawl with her. Upon his team losing, Morgan was selected by Sir Alan Sugar as the contestant to be fired.
Also in 2007, he appeared as a judge for the second season of America's Got Talent and also appeared as a judge on the British version of the show, Britain's Got Talent on ITV1, alongside Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell. He also presented You Can't Fire Me, I'm Famous on BBC One. In January 2008, Morgan fronted a new 3-part documentary about Sandbanks for ITV1 entitled Piers Morgan on Sandbanks.
Morgan was the winner of the U.S. celebrity version of The Apprentice, early in 2008. The most memorable feature of the programme was the rowdy disagreements he had with fellow contestant Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth. This was resolved in Morgan's favour on 6 March, after her team was defeated by Morgan's in the biggest victory in Apprentice history. Morgan ended up the overall winner, being named Celebrity Apprentice on 27 March, ahead of fellow finalist, American country music star, Trace Adkins (whom he surprised by kissing him on the cheek just moments after an on-air spat with Stallworth) and having raised substantially more cash than all the other contestants combined.
In May 2008, Morgan signed a two year "golden handcuffs" deal with ITV reportedly worth £2 million per year. As part of the deal, Morgan will continue as a judge on Britain's Got Talent for at least two more series and front a new chat show. He will also make some interview specials, plus three more documentaries from various countries. Morgan's golden handcuffs deal is the first signing by ITV's new director of television, Peter Fincham.
On 8 September 2008, a new series started, The Dark Side of Fame with Piers Morgan, produced by BBC Scotland.
Morgan returned to ITV1 in February 2009, with the series, Piers Morgan On..., which saw him visit Dubai, Monte Carlo and Hollywood. The series positioned Morgan as a modern day Alan Whicker and received strong viewing figures for the channel. Morgan was recently quoted in the Daily Express as saying his travelogue series is going to be recommissioned by ITV.
In 2009 Morgan's show, Piers Morgan's Life Stories, began on ITV1 with Sharon Osborne as the subject of the first episode.
In January 2010, a new series of Piers Morgan On... commenced with visits to locations including Las Vegas, Marbella, Shanghai and Monaco. In the Shanghai episode, broadcast on 29 June 2010, Morgan consumed foie gras in a restaurant and visited a Tesco store selling live terrapins. Since both foie gras production and live reptile sales are considered cruel, Morgan came under criticism on social networking sites, including Twitter. Ironically, any complaints on Twitter about China's animal cruelty record will not be visible in the communist country, since Twitter itself is banned there, as Morgan pointed out in the same programme.
On 8 September 2010, CNN announced Morgan would replace Larry King in the network's evening line-up, occupying the 9:00 PM eastern timeslot, with his show Piers Morgan Tonight, beginning 17 January 2011.
The ban on Madonna caused outrage in many of her fans. Hollywoodgiants.com creator Jim Straz posted a call to boycott Morgan's upcoming CNN show for his cavalier announcement.
PopEater.com obtained a quote from Liz Rozenberg, Madonna's publicist, who quipped, "Madonna doesn't know who Piers Morgan is but she's a big fan of Lady Gaga."
In 2007, Ian Hislop chose Morgan as one of his pet hates on Room 101. In doing so, Hislop spoke of the history of animosity between himself and Morgan and revealed that after their exchange on Have I Got News For You (which was shown as a clip), Morgan's reporters were tasked with trying to get gossip on Hislop's private life (including phoning acquaintances of Hislops), and photographers were sent in case Hislop did anything untoward or embarrassing while in their presence. Neither the reporters nor the photographers succeeded. Hislop also revealed that Morgan had recently attempted to quell the feud in an article in The Mail On Sunday, saying, "The war is over. I'm officially calling an end to hostilities, at least from my end. I'm sure it won't stop him carrying on his 'Piers Moron' stuff." Hislop, who had been engaged in work on a First World War documentary at the time, responded by asking "[I]s that an armistice or an unconditional surrender?" Although the show's host Paul Merton agreed to put Morgan into Room 101, he was comically rejected as being "too toxic", even for Room 101.
In December 2010 Morgan had an ongoing twitter argument with Alan Sugar resulting in their competing to see who has the greatest number of 'followers' by Christmas Day.
Category:1965 births Category:Living people Category:English journalists Category:English memoirists Category:English newspaper editors Category:English people of Irish descent Category:English television personalities Category:English television presenters Category:Participants in American reality television series Category:People from Newick Category:Reality show winners Category:Reality television judges Category:The Apprentice (U.S. TV series) contestants Category:People from Guildford
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Playername | Phil "The Power" Taylor |
|---|---|
| Fullname | Phil Douglas Taylor |
| Nickname | The Power |
| Dateofbirth | August 13, 1960 |
| Cityofbirth | Stoke-on-Trent |
| Countryofbirth | England |
| Hometown | Crewe |
| Homecountry | England |
| Since | 1976 |
| Darts | 26g Unicorn Phase 5 Rosso |
| Updated | 9 August 2010 |
Philip Douglas Taylor, nicknamed the Power, (born 13 August 1960) is an English professional darts player. He is recognised as one of the most successful individual sporting champions of all time, having won more than 150 professional tournaments and a record 15 World Championships.
He won PDC Player of the year three times (2006, 2008 and 2009) and has been twice nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award (2006 and 2010). He was the first person to hit two nine darters in one match, in the 2010 Premier League Darts final against James Wade. As of 26 September 2010, he has hit nine televised nine dart finishes, and is ranked World No. 1 in the PDC Order of Merit.
Taylor played in the British Darts Organisation (BDO) from 1988 to 1993 before he, and several other players, broke away to form the World Darts Council, now known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).
Taylor's defence of the world championship in 1991 ended at the quarter-final stage with a loss to Dennis Priestley, who went on to win his first world title. He picked up fewer titles in 1991 losing both his Danish Open and World Masters titles in finals to Rod Harrington. Taylor regained the world championship the following year, beating Mike Gregory 6–5 in the final. He called the win as the favourite of his career.
In the 1993 World Championship, the last unified World Championship to be held, Taylor lost in the second round to Kevin Spiolek. The BDO refused to allow the new organisation to set up and run their own tournaments, so the WDC players decided that they would no longer compete in the BDO World Championship. They founded the WDC World Darts Championship as an alternative.
He would improve his record at Blackpool during this spell. After he lost in the 1999 semi-final of the World Matchplay to Peter Manley, he would go on to win the title for the next five years (2000–2004) beating five different opponents in the final, Alan Warriner-Little (2000), Richie Burnett (2001), John Part (2002), Wayne Mardle (2003) and Mark Dudbridge (2004). By the end of 2004, he had won 11 World Championships and seven World Matchplays.
Taylor has faced the incumbent BDO World Champion in challenge matches on two occasions. In 1999, he beat Raymond van Barneveld by 21 legs to 10 in a one-hour challenge dubbed "The Match of the Century" at the Wembley Conference Centre. The second challenge match came in 2004 against Andy Fordham. Taylor was leading 5–2 in sets when Fordham, feeling unwell, abandoned the match.
The 2007 World Final was between Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld. The game was tied at 6–6 in sets and van Barneveld had a 2–1 lead in legs. van Barneveld missed four darts and Taylor tied the set at 2–2. The set went to 5–5, and van Barneveld won the sudden death leg for his fifth World Championship (four with BDO and one with PDC). Taylor had many opportunities to win the match, as he led 3–0, 4–2 and 5–3. He was defeated at the International Darts League and the World Darts Trophy in Holland. At the UK Open in Bolton, he suffered a 4–11 loss to van Barneveld. He lost to Mark Dudbridge at the Las Vegas Desert Classic, and lost at the World Matchplay in Blackpool. At the World Grand Prix in Dublin, he lost to Adrian Gray. Taylor feared his career was in decline or over but later vowed that he would continue.
Taylor's 100% appearance record in the Final of the PDC World Darts Championship came to an end in 2008 after 14 years when Taylor was beaten in the quarter finals. This was the first time that he had not reached the final stage of the PDC World Darts Championship.
Before the start of the Premier League tournament, Taylor unveiled some new black 26g darts. Despite a poor start to his Premier League Darts campaign, with three defeats in his first four matches, Taylor finished at the top of the Premier League standings. He beat Adrian Lewis 11–1 with a 112.68 average in the semi-final, and went on to take his fourth consecutive title with a 16–8 victory over Wade (average 108.36). He won his second US Open title in May 2008, defeating Colin Lloyd in the final. At the UK Open, Taylor broke the world record for highest average in a televised game by averaging 118.66 against Kevin Painter in round four. He won the match 9–0, but was defeated 10–9 in the quarter-finals by Raymond van Barneveld.
As he went to Las Vegas for the 2008 Las Vegas Desert Classic in July, he was in an unusual position for him of not holding any of the major televised ranking events, but corrected that by taking his fourth Vegas title. He then regained the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix, the first European Darts Championship. and the Grand Slam of Darts.
Success continued throughout the rest of 2009 winning the last Las Vegas Desert Classic (his fifth time), the World Matchplay, the World Grand Prix, European Darts Championship and the Grand Slam of Darts for the third successive time in November.
Taylor kicked off 2010 by winning his fifteenth World Championship title, beating Simon Whitlock seven sets to three with an average of more than 104 and winning the match with a 131 checkout. Taylor lost in the semi-finals of the Players Championship at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet. Whilst attempting to defend his title earned in the inaugural event of 2009, Taylor lost to eventual champion Paul Nicholson. Taylor admitted, following his defeat, that he had had little time to practice after his World Championship win. He made history again in the Premier League final against defending champion James Wade in the final by hitting two nine dart finishes, the first time this has been done in professional darts.
By the summer of 2010, he was the holder of the World Championship, World Matchplay, Premier League, UK Open, World Grand Prix and Grand Slam of Darts - with only the Players Championship Finals missing from a complete set of major televised titles. These performances, in addition to his longevity contributed to his nomination for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in 2010, where he was voted runner-up to A.P. McCoy. However, defeats in the World Grand Prix, the Grand Slam and a loss to Mark Webster in the quarter finals of the 2011 World Championship meant he started 2011 as holder of three major titles - the World Matchplay, Premier League and UK Open.
Taylor and Priestley first met in major competition in the 1990 World Masters. Taylor won that semi-final encounter en route to the title. Priestley then assumed the upper hand in their rivalry, however, with victories over Taylor in the 1991 World Championship and British Matchplay final later that year. Their early meetings in the WDC were also won by Priestley, who defeated Taylor in the finals of the 1993 UK Matchplay and 1994 World Championship.
However, since Taylor's defeat in the 1994 World Final, he has only lost twice in all competitions and hasn't been beaten on television by Priestley since 1995. and Taylor has claimed Priestley is the toughest opponent he has ever faced. At the 2009 Las Vegas championship Taylor was emotional when he beat Dennis Priestley 8–0 in the second round. He later said it was tough to beat such a great friend that way.
A turning point came in the 2003 World Championship, where Part and Taylor met in the final. Part took a 4–1 lead but Taylor hit back to take the lead, 5–4. At 6–6 Part held his nerve and beat Taylor 7–6 to end Taylor's eight tournament unbeaten run in the championship. Taylor's other losses to Part came in the 2003 Las Vegas Desert Classic (10–13 in the semi-final), the 2004 UK Open (6–8 in the quarter final) and at the 2005 World Matchplay (11–16 in the quarter final).
Part won the 2008 PDC World Championship and therefore is the only man other than Taylor to have won the tournament more than once,
They then met in the final of the 2007 PDC World Championship at the Circus Tavern. The match has been described as the greatest game of darts ever played. Despite being three sets to none up at one point, Taylor was defeated by van Barneveld seven sets to six in a sudden-death leg in the thirteenth set. Taylor responded to his loss by defeating van Barneveld on two occasions in the 2007 Premier League Darts and beating him in the final of the inaugural US Open. van Barneveld later defeated Taylor in the quarter-finals of the UK Open by 11 legs to 4. Taylor lost his top spot in the PDC World Rankings to van Barneveld in January 2008, but regained it in June.
In major PDC tournaments in 2008, Taylor defeated van Barneveld twice in the Premier League, lost by 10 legs to 9 in the quarter-finals of the UK Open, but won the World Grand Prix against his rival by 6 sets to 2. The rivalry continued into 2009 with the two meeting in the World Championship final for a second time, with Taylor winning 7–1 with a 110.94 three-dart average. The two then met in the 2010 World Matchplay final; Taylor won 18–12, averaging more than 105, which was higher than van Barneveld's 100.11 average. After the game Barneveld acknowledged "I'm the number two at the moment, and players like James Wade, Simon Whitlock and Gary Anderson are all trying but he's just too good for everyone".
They have now met more than 45 times, with Taylor having 35 victories.
He also has current rivalries with Mervyn King since he switched to the PDC in 2007 but has only suffered one televised defeat to-date (2009 Premier League semi-final). James Wade has won five PDC titles since he burst onto the scene in 2006, although he has yet to knock Taylor out of a tournament on his way to a title. Wade handed Taylor his first defeat in a Premier League match,
On 24 May 2010, in the final of the 2010 PDC Whyte & Mackay Premier League,
Despite PDC darts not being broadcast on the BBC, he has appeared on several BBC television shows over the years. On February 2, 2009, he made a guest appearance in the long-running popular soap opera Coronation Street, playing the part of 'Disco Dave', the captain of a rival darts team to the Rovers Return. Taylor was seen only briefly on screen and had no dialogue.
Taylor holds records for high scoring in darts. His three-dart average per match records are the highest in the history of the game. No player has a winning head-to-head record against him. Taylor has a 79% win rate against Raymond van Barneveld, the player with the most wins against him. Taylor is the first darts player to win more than £1 million in prize money.
On 9 January 2007 Taylor won the 2006 PDC Player of the Year award at the inaugural PDC Awards Dinner held at the Dorchester Hotel in London's Park Lane. He was one of ten nominees for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in 2006; the award went to Zara Phillips. Taylor was voted the 2007 Fans' Player of the Year following a vote conducted on the website Planet Darts. He received the award at the annual PDC Awards Dinner in January 2008. He won four gongs at the PDC Player Of The Year Awards in 2009. After his fifteenth world championship victory, Taylor was made an inaugural inductee to the Stoke-on-Trent Sporting Hall of Fame on 7 January 2010.
Category:English darts players Category:World darts champions Category:People from Burslem Category:People from Stoke-on-Trent Category:Professional Darts Corporation players Category:1960 births Category:Living people
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Caption | Portman at the premiere of Black Swan during the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Natalie Hershlag() |
| Birth date | June 09, 1981 |
| Birth place | Jerusalem, Israel |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Partner | Benjamin Millepied (2010-present) |
In 2001, Portman opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, alongside Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Portman's directorial debut, Eve, opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival's shorts competition in 2008.
In 2011, Portman was nominated for her third Golden Globe award for her performance in Black Swan. She is engaged to ballet dancer Benjamin Millepied. Her father, Avner Hershlag, is a fertility specialist. Her mother, Shelley Hershlag,
Portman's parents met at a Jewish student center at Ohio State University, where her mother was selling tickets. They corresponded after her father returned to Israel, and were married when her mother visited a few years later. In 1984, when Portman was three years old, the family moved to the United States, where her father received his medical training. The family first lived in Washington, D.C., where Portman attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, but relocated to Connecticut in 1988, and then settled on Long Island, New York, in 1990. She attended Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island. Portman has said that although she "really love[s] the States... my heart's in Jerusalem. That's where I feel at home." She is an only child and very close to her parents, Portman learned to speak Hebrew in addition to English and attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Glen Cove, New York. She graduated from the public Syosset High School in 1999.
On June 5, 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in psychology. "I don't care if [college] ruins my career," she told the New York Post, according to a Fox News article. "I'd rather be smart than a movie star." At Harvard, Portman was Alan Dershowitz's research assistant in a psychology lab. While attending Harvard, she was a resident of Lowell House and wrote a letter to the Harvard Crimson in response to an anti-Israeli essay.
Portman took graduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the spring of 2004.
Portman has professed an interest in foreign languages since childhood and has studied French, Japanese, and Arabic.
As a student, Portman co-authored two research papers that were published in professional scientific journals. Her 1998 high school paper, "A Simple Method To Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar," was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search, in which she was named a semifinalist. In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal Lobe Activation During Object Permanence" during her psychology studies at Harvard.
Due to her scientific publications, Portman is among a very small number of professional actors with a defined Erdős–Bacon number, a concept which reflects the "small world phenomenon" in academia and entertainment by measuring the "collaborative distance" between that person and Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős—and the number of links, through roles in films, by which the individual is separated from American actor Kevin Bacon.
Portman spent her school holidays attending theater camps. When she was 10, she auditioned for the off-Broadway show Ruthless!, a musical about a girl who is prepared to commit murder to get the lead in a school play. Portman and future pop star Britney Spears were chosen as the understudies for star Laura Bell Bundy. Léon opened on November 18, 1994, marking her feature film debut at age 13. That same year she appeared in the short film Developing, which aired on television.
In July 2001, Portman opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Mike Nichols; she played the role of Nina alongside Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. That same year, she was one of many celebrities who made cameo appearances in the 2001 comedy Zoolander. Portman was cast in a small role in the film Cold Mountain alongside Jude Law and Nicole Kidman.
The final Star Wars prequel, , was released on May 19, 2005. The film was the highest grossing domestic film of the year, and was voted Favorite Motion Picture at the People's Choice Awards. Also in 2005, Portman filmed Free Zone and director Miloš Forman's Goya's Ghosts. Forman had not seen any of her work but thought she looked like a Goya painting, so he requested a meeting.
V for Vendetta opened in early 2006. Portman portrayed Evey Hammond, a young woman who is saved from the secret police by the main character, V. Portman worked with a voice coach for the role, learning to speak with an English accent, and she famously had her head shaved.
Portman has commented on V for Vendetta's political relevance and mentioned that her character, who joins an underground anti-government group, is "often bad and does things that you don't like" and that "being from Israel was a reason I wanted to do this because terrorism and violence are such a daily part of my conversations since I was little." She said the film "doesn't make clear good or bad statements. It respects the audience enough to take away their own opinion".
Both Goya's Ghosts and Free Zone received limited releases in 2006. Portman starred in the children's film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, which began filming in April 2006 and was released in November 2007; she has said that she was "excited to do a kids' movie."
In 2006, she filmed Wong Kar-wai's road movie My Blueberry Nights. She won acclaim for her role as gambler Leslie, because "[f]or once she's not playing a waif or a child princess but a mature, full-bodied woman... but she's not coasting on her looks... She uses her appeal to simultaneously flirt with and taunt the gambler across the table." Portman voiced Bart Simpson's girlfriend Darcy in the episode "Little Big Girl" of The Simpsons' 18th season.
She appeared in Paul McCartney's music video "Dance Tonight" from his 2007 album Memory Almost Full, directed by Michel Gondry. Portman co-starred in the Wes Anderson short film Hotel Chevalier, opposite Jason Schwartzman, in which she performed her second nude scene (her first being Goya's Ghosts). In May 2008, Portman served as the youngest member of the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival jury,
In 2008, Portman at age 27 made her directorial debut at the Venice Film Festival. "Eve", a short movie about a young woman who is dragged along on her grandmother's romantic date, was screened out of competition. Portman said she had always had a fascination with the older generation, and drew inspiration for the character from her own grandmother.
Portman's next film is No Strings Attached, which will be released on January 21, 2011. She has also been cast in the role of Jane Foster in Kenneth Branagh's upcoming film adaptation of Thor. Portman dropped out of the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet in the 2010 novel adaptation Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but she continues as producer.
In 2007, Portman traveled to Rwanda with Jack Hanna, to film the documentary Gorillas on the Brink. Later, at a naming ceremony, Portman christened a baby gorilla Gukina, which means "to play." Portman has been an advocate of environmental causes since childhood, when she joined an environmental song and dance troupe known as World Patrol Kids. She is also a member of the One Voice movement.
Portman has also supported antipoverty activities. In 2004 and 2005, she traveled to Uganda, Guatemala, and Ecuador as the Ambassador of Hope for FINCA International, an organization that promotes micro-lending to help finance women-owned businesses in developing countries. In an interview conducted backstage at the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia and appearing on the PBS program Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria, she discussed microfinance. Host Fareed Zakaria said that he was "generally wary of celebrities with fashionable causes," but included the segment with Portman because "she really knew her stuff."
In the "Voices" segment of the April 29, 2007, episode of the ABC Sunday morning program This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Portman discussed her work with FINCA and how it can benefit women and children in Third World countries. In fall 2007, she visited several university campuses, including Harvard, USC, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, New York University, and Columbia, to inspire students with the power of microfinance and to encourage them to join the Village Banking Campaign to help families and communities lift themselves out of poverty.
In 2010, Portman's activist work and popularity with young people earned her a nomination for VH1's Do Something Awards, which is dedicated to honoring individuals who do good.
Portman is a supporter of the Democratic Party, and in the 2004 presidential race she campaigned for the Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry. In the 2008 presidential election, Portman supported Senator Hillary Clinton of New York in the Democratic primaries. She later campaigned for the eventual Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, during the general election. However, in a 2008 interview, she also said: "I even like John McCain. I disagree with his war stance — which is a really big deal — but I think he's a very moral person."
On the concept of the afterlife, Portman has said, "I don't believe in that. I believe this is it, and I believe it's the best way to live."
Category:1981 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from Connecticut Category:Actors from New York Category:Actors from Washington, D.C. Category:American child actors Category:American film actors Category:American Jews Category:American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Israeli descent Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent Category:American people of Romanian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:American vegans Category:Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Israeli film actors Category:Israeli immigrants to the United States Category:Israeli Jews Category:Israeli people of Austrian origin Category:Israeli people of Polish origin Category:Israeli people of Romanian origin Category:Israeli people of Russian origin Category:Israeli vegetarians Category:Jewish actors Category:People from Connecticut Category:People from Jerusalem Category:People from Long Island Category:People from Nassau County, New York Category:People from New York City Category:People from Washington, D.C. Category:Saturn Award winners
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| Alt | Head shot of Damon looking into the camera smiling slightly. He is wearing a black polo shirt. |
|---|---|
| Caption | Damon in 2009 |
| Birth date | October 08, 1970 |
| Birth name | Matthew Paige Damon |
| Birth place | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States |
| Spouse | |
| Occupation | Actor, screenwriter, producer |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (attended) |
| Years active | 1988–present |
Damon has since starred in commercially successful films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), the Ocean's trilogy, and the Bourne series, while also gaining critical acclaim for his performances in dramas such as Syriana (2005), The Good Shepherd (2006), and The Departed (2006). He garnered a Golden Globe nomination for portraying the title character in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and was nominated for an Academy Award as a supporting actor in Invictus (2009). He is one of the top forty highest grossing actors of all time. In 2007, Damon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine.
Damon has been actively involved in charitable work, including the ONE Campaign, H2O Africa Foundation, and Water.org.
Damon attended Harvard University from 1988 to 1992 but did not graduate. While at Harvard, he studied English and lived in Lowell House. He took part in student theater, appearing in plays such as Burn This in Winthrop House and A... My Name is Alice (in one of the three male roles usually performed by women). Damon dropped out of the university to pursue his acting career in Los Angeles because he mistakenly expected to become a big success. "By the time I figured out I had made the wrong decision, it was too late. I was living out here with a bunch of actors, and we were all scrambling to make ends meet," Damon has said.
Also in 1997, Damon was the lead in the critically-acclaimed drama The Rainmaker, where he was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as "a talented young actor on the brink of stardom." After meeting Damon on the set of Good Will Hunting, director Steven Spielberg cast Damon as the titular character in the 1998 World War II film Saving Private Ryan. to the low budget experimental film Gerry (2002), which he co-wrote with Casey Affleck and Gus Van Sant. Damon garnered generally positive critical reaction for his Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of Ripley, with Variety stating, "Damon outstandingly conveys his character's slide from innocent enthusiasm into cold calculation."
Damon's attempts at essaying leading characters in romantic dramas such as 2000's All the Pretty Horses and The Legend of Bagger Vance were commercially and critically unsuccessful. He was similarly deemed "uncomfortable being the center" of Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance.
From 2001 to 2007, Damon gained wider international recognition as part of two major film franchises. He co-starred as thief Linus Caldwell, alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts, in Steven Soderbergh's 2001 remake of the Rat Pack's 1960 caper film Ocean's 11; the successful crime dramedy spawned two sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). In August 2007, financial magazine Forbes created a list of actors who generated the best box office performance related to their salaries; the list placed Damon as the most bankable star of the actors reviewed, revealing that Damon had averaged U.S.$29 at the box office for every dollar he earned for his last three films.
in Berlin in February 2007 for the premiere of The Good Shepherd]] Damon played a fictionalized version of Wilhelm Grimm in Terry Gilliam's fantasy adventure The Brothers Grimm (2005), which was a critically panned commercial failure; Later that year, he appeared as an energy analyst in Syriana. In 2006, Damon joined Robert De Niro in The Good Shepherd as a career CIA officer, and played an undercover mobster working for the Massachusetts State Police in Martin Scorsese's The Departed, a remake of the Hong Kong police thriller Infernal Affairs. The Departed was a success amongst critics and audiences alike.
Damon had an uncredited cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth (2007) and another cameo in the 2008 Che Guevara biopic Che. He lent his voice to the English version of the animated film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, which was released in the United States in August 2009. He also made a guest appearance in 2009 on the sixth season finale of Entourage as himself, where he tries to pressure Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) into donating to his charity OneXOne—a real foundation for which Damon is an ambassador—and gets increasingly irritated when Chase does not seem to comply.
Damon next appeared in Steven Soderbergh's dark comedy, The Informant! (2009), in which his Golden Globe-nominated work was described by Entertainment Weekly as such: "The star – who has quietly and steadily turned into a great Everyman actor – is in nimble control as he reveals his character's deep crazies." Also in 2009, Damon portrayed South Africa national rugby union team captain François Pienaar in the Clint Eastwood-directed Nelson Mandela film Invictus, which is based on the 2008 John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation and features Morgan Freeman as Mandela. Invictus earned Damon an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The New Republic observed, "It is not a demanding role, but the ever-more-actorly Damon brings it off with low-key charm and integrity."
In 2010, Damon re-teamed with director Paul Greengrass, who directed him in the Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum, for the action thriller Green Zone, which flopped commercially and received ambivalent reception from critics.
In motion pictures that feature him either as a leading actor or as a supporting co-star, his films have grossed a total of U.S.$1.94 to U.S.$2.42 billion (based on counting his roles as strictly lead or including supporting roles, respectively) at the North American box office, placing him in the top forty grossing actors of all time.
He has appeared as a guest star in an episode of Arthur, titled The Making of Arthur, as himself. During Season 5 of 30 Rock, he appeared as guest star in the role of Liz Lemon's boyfriend in the episodes "When It Rains, It Pours" and "Live Show".
Damon's 2010 projects included The Adjustment Bureau, Clint Eastwood's Hereafter, and the Coen Brothers' remake of the 1969 John Wayne-starring Western True Grit; the latter movie started filming in March 2010 and was released in December of that year.
Damon has taken part in philanthropy since the age of 12, deciding what to do with his $5 allowance. Damon was the founder of H2O Africa Foundation, the charitable arm of the Running the Sahara expedition, which merged with WaterPartners to create Water.org in July 2009. He, along with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub, is one of the founders of , an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur. Damon supports the ONE Campaign, which is aimed at fighting AIDS and poverty in Third World countries. He has appeared in their print and television advertising. Damon is also an ambassador for OneXOne, a non-profit foundation committed to supporting, preserving and improving the lives of children at home in Canada, the United States, and around the world. Damon is also a spokesperson for Feeding America, the largest USA-focused hunger-relief organization, and a member of their Entertainment Council, participating in their Ad Council PSAs.
Damon is a board member of Tonic Mailstopper (formerly GreenDimes), a company that attempts to halt junk mail delivered to American homes each day. Appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show on April 20, 2007, Damon promoted the organization's efforts to prevent the trees used for junk mail letters and envelopes from being chopped down. Damon stated: "For an estimated dime a day they can stop 70 per cent of the junk mail that comes to your house. It's very simple, easy to do, great gift to give, I've actually signed up my entire family. It was a gift given to me this past holiday season and I was so impressed that I'm now on the board of the company."
On September 10, 2008, a video was released on YouTube by the Associated Press in which Damon criticized the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom he found unready to lead the country in case John McCain were to not make it through his first term. Damon referred to Palin as a "...bad Disney movie... 'I'm just a hockey mom from Alaska here to take on the White House'," and added, "It's absurd ... I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. Because she’s gonna have the nuclear codes."
Damon narrated the audiobook version of historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, published in 2003.
Damon enjoys playing poker and has competed in several World Series of Poker (WSOP) events including the 2010 World Series of Poker main event. He dropped $25,000 at the WSOP while researching his role as a professional poker player in Rounders (1998) and after filming the movie Damon was busted out of the 1998 WSOP by poker professional Doyle Brunson.
Category:1970 births Category:American film actors Category:American screenwriters Category:Best Original Screenplay Academy Award winners Category:Harvard University people Category:Living people Category:Actors from Massachusetts Category:People from Cambridge, Massachusetts
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| Caption | During the Paris premiere of Public Enemies in July 2009 |
|---|---|
| Birth date | June 09, 1963 |
| Birth place | Owensboro, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Birth name | John Christopher Depp II |
| Spouse | Lori Anne Allison (1983–1986) |
| Partner | Sherilyn Fenn (1985–1988)Winona Ryder (1989–1993)Kate Moss (1994–1998)Vanessa Paradis (1998–present) |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Occupation | Actor, screenwriter, director, producer, musician |
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor and musician known for his portrayals of offbeat, eccentric characters in a wide variety of dramas and fantasy films. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for major roles in recent films.
Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, quickly becoming a teen idol. Turning to film, he was notable as the title character of Edward Scissorhands (1990), and later found box office success in films such as Sleepy Hollow (1999), (2003), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).
He has collaborated with director and close friend Tim Burton in seven films, the most recent of which are (2007) and Alice in Wonderland (2010). Depp has gained acclaim for his portrayals of people such as Edward D. Wood, Jr., in Ed Wood, Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brasco, Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and George Jung in Blow. More recently, he portrayed the bank robber John Dillinger in Michael Mann's 2009 film Public Enemies.
Films featuring Depp have grossed over $2.6 billion at the United States box office and over $6 billion worldwide. He has been nominated for top awards numerous times; he won the Best Actor Awards from the Golden Globes for his role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and from the Screen Actors Guild for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
On December 24, 1983, Depp married Lori Anne Allison, a makeup artist and sister of his band's bass player and singer. During Depp's marriage, his wife worked as a makeup artist while he worked a variety of odd jobs, including a telemarketer for pens. His wife introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage, who advised Depp to pursue an acting career. They divorced in 1985. Depp later dated and was engaged to Sherilyn Fenn (whom he met on the set of the 1985 short film Dummies).
and goatee similar to the style used in .]]
Critics have described Depp's roles as characters who are "iconic loners." Depp has noted this period of his career was full of "studio defined failures" and films that were "box office poison," but he thought the studios never understood the films and did not do a good job of marketing. but the character became popular with the movie-going public. The film's director, Gore Verbinski, has said that Depp's character closely resembles the actor's personality, but Depp said he modelled the character after Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Depp was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the role.
In 2004, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, for playing Scottish author J. M. Barrie in the film Finding Neverland. Depp next starred as Willy Wonka in the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a major success at the box office and earning him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.
Depp returned to the role of Jack Sparrow for the sequel , which opened on July 7, 2006 and grossed $135.5 million in the first three days of its U.S. release, breaking a box office record of the highest weekend tally. The next sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, , was released May 24, 2007. Depp has said that Sparrow is "definitely a big part of me", and he wants to play the role in further sequels. Depp voiced Sparrow in the video game, . Johnny Depp's swashbuckling sword talents as developed for the character of Jack Sparrow, were highlighted in the documentary film Reclaiming the Blade. Within the film, Swordmaster Bob Anderson shared his experiences working with Depp on the choreography for The Curse of the Black Pearl. Anderson who also trained Errol Flynn, another famous Hollywood pirate, described in the film Depp's ability as an actor to pick up the sword to be, "about as good as you can get."
Depp and Gore Verbinski were executive producers of the album Rogues Gallery, Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys. Depp played the title role of Sweeney Todd in Tim Burton's of , for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Depp thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and praised Tim Burton for his "unwavering trust and support." He portrayed the Mad Hatter in Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and will play Tonto in a future Lone Ranger film. Disney Studios announced a of the Pirates series is in development. At the time, the actor was depressed about films and filmmaking. This part gave him a "chance to stretch out and have some fun"; he said working with Landau "rejuvenated my love for acting".
Depp did not work with Burton again until 2005 in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which he played Willy Wonka. Depp modeled the character's hair on Anna Wintour. The film was a box office success and received positive critical reception. Gene Wilder, who played Willy Wonka in the 1971 film, initially criticized this version. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released in July, followed by Corpse Bride, for which Depp voiced the character Victor Van Dort, in September.
(2007) followed, bringing Depp his second major award win, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy as well as his third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Burton first gave him an original cast recording of the in 2000. Although not a fan of the musical genre, Depp grew to like the tale's treatment. He cited Peter Lorre in Mad Love (1935) as his main influence for the role, and practiced the songs his character would perform while filming . Although he had performed in musical groups, Depp was initially unsure that he would be able to sustain Stephen Sondheim's lyrics. Depp recorded demos and worked with Bruce Witkin to shape his vocals without a qualified voice coach. In the DVD Reviews section, Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty gave the film an A minus, stating, "Depp's soaring voice makes you wonder what other tricks he's been hiding... Watching Depp's barber wield his razors... it's hard not to be reminded of Edward Scissorhands frantically shaping hedges into animal topiaries 18 years ago... and all of the twisted beauty we would've missed out on had [Burton and Depp] never met."
In his introduction to Burton on Burton, a book of interviews with the director, Depp called Burton "...a brother, a friend,...and [a] brave soul". The next Depp-Burton collaboration was Alice in Wonderland (2010). Depp played the Mad Hatter alongside Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway and Alan Rickman.
In 1994, Depp was arrested and questioned by police for allegedly causing serious damage to a New York City hotel suite. Since 1998, following a relationship with British supermodel Kate Moss, Depp has had a relationship with Vanessa Paradis, a French actress and singer whom he met while filming The Ninth Gate. He was arrested again in 1999 for brawling with paparazzi outside a restaurant while dining in London with Paradis.
The couple have two children. Daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp was born May 27, 1999, and son John "Jack" Christopher Depp III was born April 9, 2002. In 2007, his daughter recovered from a serious illness, an E. coli infection that began to cause her kidneys to shut down and resulted in an extended hospital stay. To thank Great Ormond Street Hospital, Depp visited the hospital in November 2007 dressed in his Captain Jack Sparrow outfit and spent 4 hours reading stories to the children. He later donated £1 million (about $2 million) to the hospital in early 2008.
Although Depp has not remarried, he has stated that having children has given him "real foundation, a real strong place to stand in life, in work, in everything." Depp also acquired a vineyard estate in the Plan-de-la-Tour area in 2007.
Depp has 13 tattoos, many of them signifying important persons or events in his life. They include a Native American in profile and a ribbon reading "Wino Forever" (originally "Winona Forever", altered after his breakup with Winona Ryder) on his right biceps, "Lily-Rose" (his daughter's name) over his heart, "Betty Sue" (his mother's name) on his left biceps, and a sparrow flying over water with the word "Jack" (his son's name; the sparrow is flying towards him rather than away from him as it is in Pirates of the Caribbean) on his right forearm.
In 2003, Depp's comments about the United States appeared in Germany's Stern magazine: "America is dumb, is something like a dumb puppy that has big teeth — that can bite and hurt you, aggressive."
On October 8, 2010, Depp made an unannounced appearance at a London Primary School near where he was filming scenes for the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. He turned up dressed as his character Jack Sparrow after receiving a letter from a pupil asking for his help with a class mutiny.
As a guitar player, Depp has recorded a solo album, played slide guitar on the Oasis song "Fade In-Out" (from Be Here Now, 1997), as well as on "Fade Away (Warchild Version)" (b-side of the "Don't Go Away" single). He also played acoustic guitar in the movie Chocolat and on the soundtrack to Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He is a friend of The Pogues' Shane MacGowan, and performed on MacGowan's first solo album. He was also a member of P, a group featuring Butthole Surfers singer Gibby Haynes and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. He has appeared in Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' music video "Into the Great Wide Open".
Some of the awards that Depp has won include honors from the London Film Critics Circle (1996), Russian Guild of Film Critics (1998), Screen Actors Guild Awards (2004) and a Golden Globe for Best Actor. At the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, he won the award for "Best Villain" for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd and "Best Comedic Performance" for Jack Sparrow. Depp has been nominated for three Academy Awards, in 2004 for , in 2005 for Finding Neverland, and in 2008 for . Depp won his first Golden Globe for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in 2008.
{| class="wikitable" |+ Producer |- ! Year ! Title ! Notes |- | 2010 | The Rum Diary | post-production |- | 2011 | Hugo Cabret | filming |- | 2004 | King of the Hill | Yogi Victor (voice) | Episode: "Hank's Back" |- | 2009 | SpongeBob SquarePants | Jack Kahuna Laguna (voice) || Episode: "SpongeBob vs. The Big One"
}}
Category:American expatriates in France Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American film producers Category:American people of Cherokee descent Category:American actors of German descent Category:American television actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Actors from Kentucky Category:Actors from Florida Category:American people of Irish descent
Category:People from Owensboro, Kentucky Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:American actors of French descent Category:People of Huguenot descent
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| Name | Ashton Kutcher |
|---|---|
| Caption | Kutcher at the Time 100 Gala, May 4, 2010 |
| Birth date | February 07, 1978 |
| Birth place | Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S. |
| Birth name | Christopher Ashton Kutcher |
| Occupation | Actor Comedian Model (former) Producer |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Spouse | Demi Moore (m. 2005-present) |
Christopher Ashton Kutcher (; born February 7, 1978), best known as Ashton Kutcher, is an American actor, producer, former fashion model and comedian, best known for his portrayal of Michael Kelso in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show. He also created, produced and hosted Punk'd, and played lead roles in the Hollywood films Dude, Where's My Car?, Just Married, The Butterfly Effect, The Guardian, and What Happens in Vegas. He is also the producer and co-creator of the supernatural TV show Room 401 and the reality TV show Beauty and the Geek.
In 2003, Kutcher produced and starred in his own series on MTV's Punk'd as the host. The series involved various hidden camera tricks performed on celebrities. Kutcher is also an executive producer of the reality television shows Beauty and the Geek, Adventures in Hollyhood (based around the rap group Three 6 Mafia), and The Real Wedding Crashers and the game show Opportunity Knocks. Many of his production credits, including Punk'd, come through Katalyst Films, a production company he runs with partner Jason Goldberg.
Because of scheduling conflicts with the filming of The Guardian, Ashton was forced not to renew his contract for the eighth and final season of That 70s Show, although he did appear in the first four episodes of it (credited as a special guest star) and returned for the show's series finale.
Kutcher guest hosted WWE Monday Night Raw on May 31, 2010. There was controversy over the event due to Kutcher only being seen on screen and not in person by many in attendance.
He currently advertises for Nikon cameras.
Kutcher has invested in an Italian restaurant, Dolce
On September 17, 2008, Kutcher was named the assistant coach for the freshman football team at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. However, he was unable to return in 2009 because he was filming Spread.
Category:1978 births Category:Actors from Iowa Category:American film actors Category:American male models Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American television actors Category:American television producers Category:American voice actors Category:Living people Category:Male pageant winners Category:Participants in American reality television series Category:People from Cedar Rapids, Iowa Category:Pranksters Category:Twin people from the United States Category:University of Iowa alumni
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| Name | Angelina Jolie |
|---|---|
| Caption | Jolie at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010 |
| Birth name | Angelina Jolie Voight |
| Birth date | June 04, 1975 |
| Birth place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress, humanitarian |
| Years active | 1982; 1993–present |
| Spouse | Jonny Lee Miller (1996–1999) |
| Partner | Brad Pitt (2005–present) |
| Parents | Jon VoightMarcheline Bertrand (deceased) |
| Children | 3 sons, 3 daughters |
| Height | 5' 8" (1.73 m) |
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, Interrupted (1999). Jolie achieved wider fame after her portrayal of video game heroine Lara Croft in (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).
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.
After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother were raised by their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions and moved with them to Palisades, New York. As a child, Jolie regularly saw movies with her mother and later explained that this had inspired her interest in acting; she had not been influenced by her father. When she was eleven years old, the family moved back to Los Angeles and Jolie decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions.
At the age of 14, she dropped out of her acting classes and dreamed of becoming a funeral director. During this period, she wore black clothing, dyed her hair purple and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend.
She later recalled her time as a student at Beverly Hills High School (and later Moreno High School), and her feeling of isolation among the children of some of the area's more affluent families. Jolie's mother survived on a more modest income, and Jolie often wore second-hand clothes. She was teased by other students who also targeted her for her distinctive features, for being extremely thin, and for wearing glasses and braces.
Jolie was estranged from her father for many years. The two tried to reconcile and he appeared with her in (2001). In August of the same year, Voight claimed that his daughter had "serious mental problems" on Access Hollywood. Jolie later indicated that she no longer wished to pursue a relationship with her father, and said, "My father and I don't speak. I don't hold any anger toward him. I don't believe that somebody's family becomes their blood. Because my son's adopted, and families are earned." She stated that she did not want to publicize her reasons for her estrangement from her father, but because she had adopted her son, she did not think it was healthy for her to associate with Voight. In February 2010, Jolie publicly reunited with her father when he visited her while filming The Tourist in Venice.
She appeared as Gina Malacici in the 1996 comedy Love Is All There Is, a modern-day loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set among two rival Italian family restaurant owners in the Bronx, New York. In the road movie Mojave Moon (1996) she was a youngster, named Eleanor Rigby, who falls for Danny Aiello's character, while he takes a shine to her mother, played by Anne Archer. In 1996, Jolie also portrayed Margret "Legs" Sadovsky, one of five teenage girls who form an unlikely bond in the film Foxfire after they beat up a teacher who has sexually harassed them. The Los Angeles Times wrote about her performance, "It took a lot of hogwash to develop this character, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to overcome the stereotype. Though the story is narrated by Maddy, Legs is the subject and the catalyst."
In 1997, Jolie starred with David Duchovny in the thriller Playing God, set in the Los Angeles underworld. The movie was not received well by critics and Roger Ebert noted that "Angelina Jolie finds a certain warmth in a kind of role that is usually hard and aggressive; she seems too nice to be [a criminal's] girlfriend, and maybe she is." She then appeared in the television movie True Women, a historical romantic drama set in the American West, and based on the book by Janice Woods Windle. That year she also appeared in the music video for "Anybody Seen My Baby?" by the Rolling Stones.
In 1998, Jolie starred in HBO's Gia, portraying supermodel Gia Carangi. The film depicted a world of sex, drugs and emotional drama, and chronicled the destruction of Carangi's life and career as a result of her drug addiction, and her decline and death from AIDS. Vanessa Vance from Reel.com noted, "Angelina Jolie gained wide recognition for her role as the titular Gia, and it's easy to see why. Jolie is fierce in her portrayal—filling the part with nerve, charm, and desperation—and her role in this film is quite possibly the most beautiful train wreck ever filmed." For the second consecutive year, Jolie won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award. She also won her first Screen Actors Guild Award. In accordance with Lee Strasberg's method acting, Jolie reportedly preferred to stay in character in between scenes during many of her early films, and as a result had gained a reputation for being difficult to deal with. While shooting Gia, she told her then-husband Jonny Lee Miller that she would not be able to phone him: "I'd tell him: 'I'm alone; I'm dying; I'm gay; I'm not going to see you for weeks.'"
Following Gia, Jolie moved to New York and stopped acting for a short time, because she felt that she had "nothing else to give". She enrolled at New York University to study filmmaking and attended writing classes. She described it as "just good for me to collect myself" on Inside the Actors Studio.
Jolie returned to film as Gloria McNeary in the 1998 gangster movie Hell's Kitchen, and later that year appeared in Playing by Heart, part of an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe and Jon Stewart. The film received predominantly positive reviews and Jolie was praised in particular. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble." Jolie won the Breakthrough Performance Award by the National Board of Review.
In 1999, she starred in Mike Newell's comedy-drama Pushing Tin, co-starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. Jolie played Thornton's seductive wife. The film received a mixed reception from critics and Jolie's character was particularly criticized. The Washington Post wrote, "Mary (Angelina Jolie), a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of turquoise rings and gets real lonely when Russell spends entire nights away from home." She then worked with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector (1999), an adapted crime novel written by Jeffery Deaver. Jolie played Amelia Donaghy, a police officer haunted by her cop father's suicide, who reluctantly helps Washington track down a serial killer. The movie grossed $151 million worldwide,
Jolie next took the supporting role of the sociopathic Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted (1999), a film that tells the story of mental patient Susanna Kaysen, and which was adapted from Kaysen's original memoir of the same name. While Winona Ryder played the main character in what was hoped to be a comeback for her, the film instead marked Jolie's final breakthrough in Hollywood. She won her third Golden Globe Award, her second Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Variety noted, "Jolie is excellent as the flamboyant, irresponsible girl who turns out to be far more instrumental than the doctors in Susanna's rehabilitation".
In 2000, Jolie appeared in her first summer blockbuster, Gone In 60 Seconds, in which she played Sarah "Sway" Wayland, ex-girlfriend of car-thief Nicolas Cage. The role was small, and the Washington Post criticized that "all she does in this movie is stand around, cooling down, modeling those fleshy, pulsating muscle-tubes that nest so provocatively around her teeth." She later explained that the film was a welcome relief after the heavy role of Lisa Rowe, and it became her highest grossing movie up until then, earning $237 million internationally. The movie was an international success nonetheless, earning $275 million worldwide, In 2002, she played Lanie Kerrigan in Life or Something Like It, a film about an ambitious TV reporter who is told that she will die in a week. The film was poorly received by critics, though Jolie's performance received positive reviews. CNN's Paul Clinton wrote, "Jolie is excellent in her role. Despite some of the ludicrous plot points in the middle of the film, this Academy Award–winning actress is exceedingly believable in her journey towards self-discovery and the true meaning of fulfilling life."
Jolie reprised her role as Lara Croft in in 2003. The sequel, while not as lucrative as the original, earned $156 million at the international box-office.
at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007]]
In 2004, Jolie starred alongside Ethan Hawke in the thriller Taking Lives. She portrayed Illeana Scott, an FBI profiler summoned to help Montreal law enforcement hunt down a serial killer. The movie received mixed reviews and The Hollywood Reporter concluded, "Angelina Jolie plays a role that definitely feels like something she has already done, but she does add an unmistakable dash of excitement and glamour." She also provided the voice of Lola, an angelfish in the animated DreamWorks movie Shark Tale (2004) and she had a brief appearance in Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), a science fiction adventure film shot with actors entirely in front of a bluescreen. Also in 2004, Jolie played Olympias in Alexander, Oliver Stone's biographical film about the life of Alexander the Great. The film failed domestically, with Stone attributing its poor reception to disapproval of the depiction of Alexander's bisexuality, but it succeeded internationally, with revenue of $139 million outside the United States. The movie earned $478 million worldwide, one of the biggest hits of 2005.
, November 2007]]
In 2007, Jolie made her directorial debut with the documentary A Place in Time, which captures the life in 27 locations around the globe during a single week. The film was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and is intended to be distributed through the National Education Association, mainly in high schools. Jolie starred as Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom's documentary-style drama A Mighty Heart (2007), about the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. The film is based on Mariane Pearl's memoirs of the same name and had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter described Jolie's performance as "well-measured and moving", played "with respect and a firm grasp on a difficult accent." The film earned her a fourth Golden Globe Award and a third Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Jolie also played Grendel's mother in Robert Zemeckis' animated epic Beowulf (2007) which was created through the motion capture technique.
Jolie co-starred alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman in the 2008 action movie Wanted, an adaptation of a graphic novel by Mark Millar. The film received predominately favorable reviews and proved to be an international success, earning $342 million worldwide. It is based on the true story of a woman in 1928 Los Angeles who is reunited with her kidnapped son — only to realize he is an impostor. The Chicago Tribune noted, "Jolie really shines in the calm before the storm, the scenes [...] when one patronizing male authority figure after another belittles her at their peril." Jolie received her second Academy Award nomination, and also was nominated for a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award.
It was confirmed that Jolie would star as Cleopatra in the remake of Queen of the Nile, Cleopatra: A Life, based on the book by Stacy Schiff.
Jolie has been on field missions around the world and met with refugees and internally displaced persons in more than 20 countries. Asked what she hoped to accomplish, she stated, "Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon." In 2002, Jolie visited the Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand and Colombian refugees in Ecuador. Jolie later went to various UNHCR facilities in Kosovo and paid a visit to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with refugees mainly from Sudan. She also met with Angolan refugees while filming Beyond Borders in Namibia.
In 2003, Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania where she traveled to western border camps hosting Congolese refugees, and she paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka, meeting Tamil refugee orphans in Jaffna. She later concluded a four-day mission to Russia as she traveled to North Caucasus. Concurrently with the release of her movie Beyond Borders she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions (2001–2002). During a private stay in Jordan in December 2003 she asked to visit Iraqi refugees in Jordan's eastern desert and later that month she went to Egypt to meet Sudanese refugees.
On her first U.N. trip within the United States, Jolie went to Arizona in 2004, visiting detained asylum seekers at three facilities and the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix. She flew to Chad in June 2004, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. Four months later she returned to the region, this time going directly into West Darfur. Also in 2004, Jolie met with Afghan refugees in Thailand and on a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays, she visited UNHCR's regional office in Beirut, as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital.
In 2005, Jolie visited Pakistani camps containing Afghani refugees, and she also met with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; she returned to Pakistan with Brad Pitt during the Thanksgiving weekend in November to see the impact of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. In 2006, Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean. While filming A Mighty Heart in India, Jolie met with Afghan and Burmese refugees in New Delhi. She spent Christmas Day 2006 with Colombian refugees in San José, Costa Rica where she handed out presents. In 2007, Jolie returned to Chad for a two-day mission to assess the deteriorating security situation for refugees from Darfur; Jolie and Pitt subsequently donated $1 million to three relief organizations in Chad and Darfur. Jolie also made her first visit to Syria and twice went to Iraq, where she met with Iraqi refugees as well as multi-national forces and U.S. troops.
at World Refugee Day, June 2005]]
Over time, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. She has regularly attended World Refugee Day in Washington, D.C., and she was an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2005 and 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital, where she met with members of Congress at least 20 times from 2003. Jolie also pushed for several bills to aid refugees and vulnerable children in the Third World. Jolie also co-chairs the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, founded at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2006, which helps fund education programs for children affected by conflict.
Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In 2003, she was the first recipient of the newly created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association, and in 2005, she was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA. Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country on August 12, 2005; she has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there. In 2007, Jolie became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she received the Freedom Award by the International Rescue Committee.
After she and Pitt donated $1 million to relief efforts in Haiti following a devastating 2010 earthquake, Jolie visited Haiti and the Dominican Republic to discuss the future of relief efforts. She also donated $100,000 to the United Nations for the 2010 August flood relief operations in Pakistan.
On March 28, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film Hackers (1995). She attended her wedding in black rubber pants and a white shirt, upon which she had written the groom's name in her blood. Jolie and Miller separated the following year and subsequently divorced on February 3, 1999. They remained on good terms and Jolie later explained, "It comes down to timing. I think he's the greatest husband a girl could ask for. I'll always love him, we were simply too young." Jolie and Thornton divorced on May 27, 2003. Asked about the sudden dissolution of their marriage, Jolie stated, "It took me by surprise, too, because overnight, we totally changed. I think one day we had just nothing in common. And it's scary but... I think it can happen when you get involved and you don't know yourself yet."
at the Deauville American Film Festival in 2007]]
Jolie has said in interviews that she is bisexual and has long acknowledged that she had a sexual relationship with her Foxfire (1996) co-star Jenny Shimizu, "I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband. I fell in love with her the first second I saw her." In 2003, asked if she was bisexual, Jolie responded, "Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it's okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely! Yes!"
In early 2005, Jolie was involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal when she was accused of being the reason for the divorce of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The allegation was that she and Pitt had started an affair during filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). She denied this on several occasions, but admitted that they "fell in love" on the set. In an interview in 2005, she explained, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife." In September 2010, Jolie said in an interview with Sanjay Gupta on CNN that Brad Pitt was the only one she could really talk to.
On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child, seven-month-old Maddox Chivan.
Jolie adopted a six-month-old girl from Ethiopia, Zahara Marley, on July 6, 2005. Zahara was born on January 8, 2005. She was originally named Yemsrach by her mother, and was later given the legal name Tena Adam at an orphanage. Jolie adopted her from Wide Horizons For Children orphanage in Addis Ababa. Shortly after they returned to the United States, Zahara was hospitalized for dehydration and malnutrition. In 2007, media outlets reported Zahara's biological mother, Mentewabe Dawit, was still alive and wanted her daughter back, but she later denied these reports, saying she thought Zahara was "very fortunate" to be adopted by Jolie. On January 19, 2006 a judge in California approved Pitt's request to legally adopt Jolie's two children. Their surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt".
Jolie gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel, in Swakopmund, Namibia, by a scheduled caesarean section, on May 27, 2006. Pitt confirmed that their newly born daughter would have a Namibian passport, and Jolie decided to sell the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images herself, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these valuable photographs. People paid more than $4.1 million for the North American rights, while British magazine Hello! obtained the international rights for roughly $3.5 million. All profits were donated to an undisclosed charity by Jolie and Pitt. Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it was the first infant re-created in wax by Madame Tussauds.
On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted a three-year-old boy from Vietnam, Pax Thien, who was born on November 29, 2003 and abandoned at birth at a local hospital, where he was initially named Pham Quang Sang. Jolie adopted the boy from the Tam Binh orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City. She revealed that his first name, Pax, was suggested by her mother before her death.
Following months of tabloid speculation, Jolie confirmed, at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, that she was expecting twins. She gave birth to a boy, Knox Léon, and a girl, Vivienne Marcheline, by caesarean section at the Lenval hospital in Nice, France, on July 12, 2008. The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to People and Hello! for $14 million—the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. The money went to the Jolie/Pitt Foundation.
Jolie consciously furthers her children understanding not only what is going on in their home countries, but also the nature of the states their siblings come from. and plans to familiarize them with all faiths (in particular Christendom, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism) so that they would be able to decide themselves which religion they want to choose. She is also engaged on familiarizing all of her children with the French language.
Jolie appeared in the media from an early age due to her famous father Jon Voight. At seven she had a small part in Lookin' to Get Out, a movie co-written by and starring her father, and in 1986 and 1988 she attended the Academy Awards with him. However, when she started her acting career, Jolie decided not to use "Voight" as a stage name, because she wished to establish her own identity as an actress. She quickly became a tabloid's favorite, since she presented herself as very outspoken in interviews, discussing her love life and her interest in BDSM openly, it was also noted that her association with Brad Pitt had "accentuated" the frequency of requests for Jolie's looks. The media speculated that Jolie is a Buddhist, but she said that she teaches Buddhism to her son Maddox because she considers it part of his culture. When asked in 2000 if there was a God, she said, "For the people who believe in it, I hope so. There doesn't need to be a God for me."
in February 2009]]
Starting in 2005, her relationship with Brad Pitt became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After Jolie confirmed her pregnancy in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding them "reached the point of insanity" as Reuters described it in their story "The Brangelina fever". Trying to avoid the media attention, the couple went to Namibia for the birth of Shiloh, "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ", as it had been described. Two years later, Jolie's second pregnancy again fueled a media frenzy. For the two weeks she spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth.
Today, Jolie is one of the best known celebrities around the world. According to the Q Score, in 2000, subsequent to her Oscar win, 31% of respondents in the United States said Jolie was familiar to them, by 2006 she was familiar to 81% of Americans. Jolie was among the Time 100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2006 and 2008. She was described as the world's most beautiful woman in the 2006 "100 Most Beautiful" issue of People, voted the greatest sex symbol of all time in the British Channel 4 television show The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols in 2007, She also topped Forbes' annual Celebrity 100 list in 2009; she had previously been ranked No. 14 in 2007, and No. 3 in 2008. Jolie was named one of the 50 People Who Matter 2010 by New Statesman Magazine.
Jolie's numerous tattoos have been the subject of much media attention and have often been addressed by interviewers. Jolie stated that, while she is not opposed to film nudity, the large number of tattoos on her body have forced filmmakers to become more creative when planning nude or love scenes. Make-up has been used to cover up the tattoos in many of her productions. Jolie has thirteen known tattoos, among them the Tennessee Williams quote "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages", which she got together with her mother, the Arabic language phrase "العزيمة" (strength of will), the Latin proverb "quod me nutrit me destruit" (what nourishes me destroys me), and a Yantra prayer written in the ancient Khmer script for her son Maddox. She also has six sets of geographical coordinates on her upper left arm indicating the birthplaces of her children. Over time she covered or lasered several of her tattoos, including "Billy Bob", the name of her former husband Billy Bob Thornton, a Chinese character for death (死), and a window on her lower back; she explained that she removed the window, because, while she used to spend all of her time looking out through windows wishing to be outside, she now lives there all of the time.
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