Name	BAFTA Awards
Caption	Statue of the BAFTA Trophy
Description	Excellence in Film, Television and Computer Gaming
Presenter	British Academy of Film and Television Arts
Country	United Kingdom
Year	1947
Website	bafta.org

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.

Introduction

The British Film Academy was founded in 1947 by David Lean, Alexander Korda, Carol Reed, Laurence Olivier, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Roger Manvell and other leading figures in the British film industry. In 1958, the Academy merged with the Guild of Television Producers and Directors to form the Society of Film and Television Arts, which eventually became the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1976.

BAFTA is an independent charity with a mission to "support, develop and promote the art forms of the moving image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the public". In addition to high-profile awards ceremonies BAFTA runs a year-round programme of educational events including film screenings, tribute evenings, interviews, lectures and debates with leading industry figures. BAFTA is supported by a membership of around 6500 people from the film, television and video game industries. BAFTA's main headquarters is on Piccadilly in London, but it also has branches in Scotland, in Wales, in New York and in Los Angeles.

These four branches of the Academy initially operated under their own brands (BAFTA Scotland, BAFTA Cymru, BAFTA East Coast and BAFTA LA). In July 2010, all branches of the Academy were brought together as one fully affiliated BAFTA.

The Academy's awards are in the form of a theatrical mask designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe, which was commissioned by the Guild of Television Producers and Directors in 1955. It has since become an internationally-recognised symbol of excellence in the art forms of the moving image.

In November 2007 a special tribute programme was shown on ITV in the UK celebrating 60 years of the organisation called 'Happy Birthday BAFTA'.

The Academy has been associated with the British monarchy since HRH Prince Philip became the British Film Academy's first president in the 1940s. The Earl Mountbatten of Burma and HRH The Princess Royal have since held this position, and in 2010 HRH Prince William became the newest Academy president.

Awards presented in London

===Film===

BAFTA's annual film awards ceremony is known as the British Academy Film Awards. It aims to reward the best work of any nationality seen on British cinema screens during the preceding year. Since 2008 the ceremony has been held at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden having previously taken place at the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square since 2000. The ceremony previously took place in April or May, but from 2002 onwards has taken place in February, in order to precede the Oscars.

In order for a film to be considered for a BAFTA nomination its first public exhibition must be in a cinema and it must have a UK theatrical release for no fewer than seven days in the calendar year that corresponds to the upcoming awards. A film must be feature length and films from all countries are eligible in all categories, with the exception of Outstanding British Film, Outstanding Debut, Short Film and Short Animation which are for British films only.

Rising Star Award

Presented at the Orange British Academy Film Awards, the Orange Rising Star Award recognises exceptional new acting talent in the film industry. A shortlist of six nominees is selected by BAFTA juries regardless of the nominee's gender and nationality. The winner is then voted for by the public. This award is dedicated to the memory of Mary Selway, the highly respected BAFTA-winning British casting director who died in 2004.

Television

The British Academy Television Awards usually take place in April or May, with craft awards having a separate ceremony slightly later in the year.

The awards are also often referred to simply as "the BAFTAs" or, to differentiate them from the film awards, the "BAFTA Television Awards". They have been awarded annually since 1954. The first ever ceremony consisted of six categories. Until 1958, they were awarded by the Guild of Television Producers and Directors.

From 1968 until 1997, the BAFTA Film and Television awards were presented in one joint ceremony known simply as the BAFTA Awards, but in order to streamline the ceremonies from 1998 onwards they were split in two. The Television Craft Awards are presented for more technical areas of the industry, such as visual effects, production, and costume design.

The awards are only open to British programmes — with the exception of the audience-voted YouTube Audience Award — but any cable, satellite, terrestrial or digital television stations broadcasting in the UK are eligible to submit entries, as are independent production companies who have produced programming for the channels. Individual performances can either be entered by the performers themselves or by the broadcasters. The programmes being entered must have been broadcast on or between 1 January and 31 December of the year preceding the awards ceremony.

"Baftagate"

The 1991 awards were controversial when Prime Suspect beat G.B.H. to win the Best Drama Serial award. In what became known as "Baftagate", four of the jurors publicly declared that they had voted for G.B.H. and demanded to see the votes, but these had been destroyed.

Children's

The British Academy Children's Awards are presented annually in November to reward excellence in the art forms of the moving image aimed at children. They have been awarded annually since 1969.

The Academy has a long history of recognising and rewarding children's programming, presenting two awards at the 1969 ceremony – The Flame of Knowledge Award for Schools Programmes and the Harlequin Award for Children's Programmes.

As of 2010 the Awards ceremony includes 19 categories across film, television, video games and online content. The 2009 Awards ceremony took place on 29 November at the London Hilton Hotel. BAFTA Children's Awards winners in 2009

Since 2007 the Children's Awards have included a Kids Vote Award voted by children under 14 and a CBBC Me and My Movie award, a children's filmmaking initiative to inspire and enable children to make their own films and tell their own stories.

Television Craft

The Television Craft Awards are presented for the behind the camera skills involved television production. They have been awarded annually since 1999. In 2000 the awards were separated from the British Academy Television Awards. The Craft Awards also now include several categories associated with interactive media.

As of 2010, the awards included the following categories: {| |- valign=top |

Breakthrough Talent

Costume Design

Director – Factual

Director – Fiction

Editing – Factual

Editing – Fiction

Interactive Creative Contribution

Entertainment Production Team

Makeup and Hair Design

|

Original Television Music

Photography & Lighting – Fiction

Photography – Factual

Production Design

Sound – Factual

Sound – Fiction

Titles

Visual Effects

Writer

|}

The 2010 Television Craft Awards took place on 23 May. British Academy Television Craft Awards winners in 2010

Video Games

BAFTA first recognised video games and other interactive media at its inaugural BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards ceremony in 1998, ushering in the first change to its rules since the admittance of television thirty years earlier. Among the first winning games were GoldenEye 007, Gran Turismo and interactive comedy MindGym, sharing the spotlight with the BBC News Online website which won the news category four years running. These awards allowed the Academy to recognise new forms of entertainment that were engaging new audiences and challenging traditional expressions of creativity.

In 2003, the sheer ubiquity of interactive forms of entertainment and the breadth of genres and platforms in video games outgrew the combined ceremony, and the event was split into the BAFTA Video Games Awards and the BAFTA Interactive Awards. By December 2003 however, despite making huge headlines with high profile winners like Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 the interactive division was discontinued and disappeared from BAFTA's publicity material after only two ceremonies.

In 2006, BAFTA announced its decision "to give video games equal status with film and television", and the Academy now positions video games as its third pillar of activity in recognition of its importance as an art form of the moving image. The same year the ceremony was held at The Roundhouse by Chalk Farm Road in North London on 5 October and was televised for the first time on 17 October and was aired on the digital channel E4.

The 2011 ceremony took place on 16 March at the London Hilton Park Lane and was hosted by Dara Ó Briain. The full ceremony was filmed and streamed live online at the official BAFTA website.

Awards presented in Los Angeles

Britannia Awards

The BAFTA in Los Angeles Awards ceremony, the Britannia Awards, started in 1989 and happens in October/November each year. There are no awards given to films or TV programmes, only to individuals.

During the first ten years only one award was given at each event, called the "Britannia Award for Excellence in Film", but since 1999 the number of awards has grown.

In 2009 the Awards were: 'The Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film' (the original award was renamed in 2000 to honour Stanley Kubrick), 'The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing' (added in 2003 in honour of John Schlesinger), the ‘Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year’, the ‘Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year ‘ and the ‘BAFTA in Los Angeles Volvo Humanitarian Award’. With the exception of the Stanley Kubrick and John Schlesinger awards, which are always given, both the number of awards and their titles may vary from year to year.

1989 - Albert R. Broccoli

1990 - Michael Caine

1991 - No award held

1992 - Peter Ustinov

1993 - Martin Scorsese

1994 - No award held

1995 - Anthony Hopkins

1996 - Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein

1997 - Dustin Hoffman

1998 - John Travolta

The 1999 Recipients were:

Stanley Kubrick, Honoree for Excellence in Film

Aaron Spelling, Honoree for Excellence in Television

Tarsem Singh, Honoree for Excellence in Commercials Direction

BBC, Honoree for Corporate Excellence

The 2000 Recipients were:

Steven Spielberg - (Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film)

The 2001/2002 Recipients were:

George Lucas - (Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film)

HBO Original Programming - (The Britannia Award for Excellence in Television)

The 2003 Recipients were:

Hugh Grant – (Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film)

Angela Lansbury (Britannia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Television and Film)

Howard Stringer - (Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment)

Peter Weir – (The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing)

The 2004 Recipients were:

Tom Hanks – (Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film)

Helen Mirren - (Britannia Award for Excellence in International Entertainment)

Jim Sheridan – (The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing)

The 2005 Recipients were:

Tom Cruise – (Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film)

Elizabeth Taylor - (The Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in International Entertainment)

Mike Newell – (The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing)

Ronald Neame - (The Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film)

The 2006 recipients were:

Sidney Poitier – (The Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film)

Rachel Weisz – (The Britannia Award for Artist of the Year)

Anthony Minghella – (The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing)

The 2007 recipients were:

Denzel Washington – (Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film)

Martin Campbell – (The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing)

Kate Winslet – (The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year)

New Line Cinema's Bob Shaye & Michael Lynne – (Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film)

Richard Curtis – (The BAFTA/LA Humanitarian Award presented by Volvo)

The 2008 recipients were:

Sean Penn - (Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film)

Tilda Swinton - (The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year)

Stephen Frears - (The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing)

Don Cheadle - (The BAFTA/LA Humanitarian Award presented by Volvo)

The 2009 Recipients were:

Robert De Niro - (Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film)

Danny Boyle - (The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing)

Emily Blunt - (The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year)

Colin Firth - (The BAFTA/LA Humanitarian Award presented by Volvo)

Kirk Douglas - (Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment)

The 2010 Recipients were:

Jeff Bridges - (Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film)

Betty White - (Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy)

Christopher Nolan - (The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing)

Ridley Scott and Tony Scott - (Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment)

Michael Sheen - (The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year)

The 2011 Recipients are:

John Lasseter - (Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment)

David Yates - (The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing) Helena Bonham Carter - (Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year)

Awards presented in Scotland and in Wales

BAFTA in Scotland

BAFTA in Scotland is the branch of the Academy located in Glasgow, Scotland, mainly funded by the principal Scottish broadcasters. Formed in 1997, the BAFTA in Scotland branch holds an annual awards ceremony to recognise achievement by performers and production staff in Scottish film and television. The BAFTA Scotland Awards are separate from the UK-wide British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Film Awards, although films and programmes recognised by BAFTA in Scotland can also sometimes feature at BAFTA's UK awards. BAFTA Scotland Awards Winners in 2009

BAFTA in Scotland also holds an annual New Talent Awards ceremony focusing on new & emerging Scottish talent in the art forms of the moving image. New Talent Awards Winners in 2010.

BAFTA Cymru

BAFTA in Wales or BAFTA Cymru is the branch of the Academy located in Wales. Formed in 1991, it holds an annual awards ceremony to recognise achievement by performers and production staff in films and television programmes made in Wales. The BAFTA Cymru Awards are separate from the UK-wide British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Film Awards, although films and programmes recognised by BAFTA Cymru may also feature at BAFTA's national awards.

Presidents and Vice Presidents

Presidents # HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (1959–1965) # The Rt. Hon. The Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1966–1972) # HRH The Princess Anne (1973–2001) # The Rt Hon. The Lord Attenborough (2001–2010) # HRH The Duke of Cambridge (2010–present)

Vice Presidents # The Rt Hon. The Lord Attenborough (1973–1995) # The Rt Hon. The Lord Puttnam (1995–2004) # Michael Grade (2004-2009) # Duncan Kenworthy (2009-present) # Sophie Turner Laing (2010-present)

See also

2011 BAFTA Ceremony

2010 BAFTA Ceremony

2009 BAFTA Ceremony

2008 BAFTA Ceremony

BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award

Notes

External links

BAFTA official site

BAFTA in Los Angeles site

BAFTA in Wales site

BAFTA in Scotland site

BAFTA in New York site

IMDB: BAFTA

Follow BAFTA on Twitter

Join BAFTA on Facebook

BAFTA Awards Category:Cinema of the United Kingdom Category:Television in the United Kingdom Category:Awards established in 1947 Category:1947 establishments in the United Kingdom

Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Enrique Martín Morales
Alias	Ricky Martin
Born	December 24, 1971San Juan, Puerto Rico
Genre	Pop, Latin pop, dance-pop, world, reggae, urban pop
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, actor
Years active	1984–present
Label	Columbia, Sony Music Latin, Sony Music Mexico
Associated acts	Menudo
Website

Enrique "Ricky" Martín Morales (born December 24, 1971), better known as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican pop singer and actor who achieved prominence, first as a member of the Latin boy band Menudo, then as a solo artist since 1991.

During his career he has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide. He is the founder of Ricky Martin Foundation (in Spanish Fundación Ricky Martin), a non-profit charity organization. Ricky Martin's exuberant 1999 single "Livin' la Vida Loca" made him a prominent figure of Latin dance-pop. Martin got his start with the all-boy pop group Menudo; after five years with the group, he released his Spanish-language solo album, Ricky Martin, in 1991. He also acted on stage and on TV in Mexico, becoming a modest star there. In 1994 he starred on the American TV soap opera General Hospital, playing a Puerto Rican singer. In 1999, after several albums in Spanish, he released his first English-language album (also titled Ricky Martin), which included the salsa-style "Livin' la Vida Loca". The album sold 22 million copies and brought Martin international fame. His other studio albums include: Me Amarás (1993), A Medio Vivir (1995), Vuelve (1998), Sound Loaded (2000), Almas del Silencio (2003), Life (2005), and Música + Alma + Sexo (2011). In 2010 Martin announced that he was a "fortunate homosexual man", ending years of fan speculation on the topic.

On the edge of the new millennium, Martin—almost by himself—gave Latino music an international face. An acclaimed performance at the 1999 Grammy Awards launched Martin into worldwide super-stardom. As Entertainment Weekly's Andrew Essex reported, "his leather-pants, electro-pelvis version of 'La Copa de la Vida' single-handedly goosed a very dull [Grammy] telecast, earning him a standing ovation."

Martin's twin sons, Matteo and Valentino, were born via a surrogate mother in 2008. Martin also co-owns a Miami restaurant, Casa Salsa, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007.

Early life

Martin was born on December 24, 1971, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the son of Nereida Morales, an accountant, and Enrique Martín Negroni, a psychologist. His parents divorced when he was two; his father remarried. Martin has two maternal half-brothers, Fernando and Ángel Fernández, and two paternal half-brothers, Eric and Daniel Martín, and a paternal half-sister Vanessa Martín. Martin grew up in a Roman Catholic home and was an altar boy until he joined Menudo. Martin has some Corsican and Spanish ancestry as his paternal fourth great-grandfathers were born in Rogliano, Cap Corse, Corsica, and Vilanova i la Geltrú, Catalonia (Spain).

Ricky Martin was a member of Puerto Rican boy band Menudo between 1984 and 1989.

After completing high school, Martin left San Juan and moved to New York City. Later, Martin moved to Mexico City where he attended the national school of space. He played lead role in a 1989 musical-theatre release named Mis Tennis Rojos (My Red Tennis Shoes) next to Angélica Vale and then followed another theater production Mama Ama el Rock (Mom Loves Rock).

Career

Early solo work: 1991–1994

In 1991, Ricky Martin participated in a telenovela titled Alcanzar una estrella II next to Sasha Sokol. Out of this soap opera a musical group was formed named Muñecos de Papel in which he was one of the six members; they toured several cities in Mexico and recorded two albums. His main single was "Juego de Ajedrez". A film based on the TV series was also produced in which Martin played Pablo, earning a Heraldo Award in 1993.

While acting in Mexico, Martin was signed to Sony Discos, the Sony Music Entertainment's Latin imprint, in 1990. He released his first solo album, the Spanish-language Ricky Martin, in November 1991, which included the hit singles: "Fuego Contra Fuego" and "El Amor de Mi Vida". Later, Ricky Martin performed a string of sold-out concert dates across South America.

In May 1993, Martin released his second solo album, Me Amarás, which featured a Spanish-language cover of the Laura Branigan song "Self Control", titled "Que Dia Es Hoy".

Martin moved to Los Angeles, California in 1994 and landed a role as bartender and singer Miguel Morez in the American soap opera General Hospital.

Breakthrough: 1995–1998

In 1995, Martin refocused on his music career, and his third album, A Medio Vivir, became an international breakthrough. With this album, Martin made a shift from formulaic hit ballads to a more risky fusion of music centered around traditional Latin sounds, epitomized by the hit "Maria". The song broke Martin into Europe via Spain. "Maria" went to number one in France, Belgium Wallonia and Australia, and reached the top ten in most European countries; it even charted on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number eighty-eight. With the ballad "Te Extraño, Te Olvido, Te Amo", Martin furthered his expansion from Latin American and Spanish-speaking audiences to the European and Asian markets. The album has sold over 3 million copies worldwide.

After the conclusion of a worldwide tour, Martin returned to New York to appear in a Broadway theatre production for the first time, joining the cast of the hit musical Les Misérables to play the romantic lead, Marius Pontmercy.

While on Broadway, Martin returned to the studio and recorded his fourth album, Vuelve (1998). The title track and the ballad "Perdido Sin Tí" both hit number one on the Hot Latin Songs. The album's pinnacle, however, was "La Copa de la Vida", which Martin made a major hit in an English version when he was chosen to sing the anthem of the 1998 FIFA World Cup. "La Copa de la Vida" reached number one on the charts around the world and went gold and platinum in various countries. It was awarded Pop Song of the Year at the 1999 Lo Nuestro Awards. Further singles included: "La Bomba", "Por Arriba, Por Abajo" and "Corazonado". Vuelve spent twenty-six weeks at number one on the Billboard Top Latin Albums. It became Martin's first top forty album on the Billboard 200 in the United States, where it was certified platinum by the RIAA. The album also went to number one in Spain and Norway, and sold over eight million copies worldwide.

Martin was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album for Vuelve, and was booked to sing on the 41st Grammy Awards live TV broadcast. The now-legendary performance of "The Cup of Life" stopped the show, earning Martin an unexpected standing ovation and introducing the star to the mainstream American audience. Martin capped off the evening by winning the Grammy Award.

Crossover to English: 1999–2002

After several years as a major star in Spanish-speaking countries, Martin prepared his first English album in 1999. The self-titled album contained material by writers and producers such as Desmond Child, Diane Warren, William Orbit, George Noriega and his longtime childhood friend Draco Rosa. The album also featured special guests: Madonna on the Spanish-English duet "Be Careful (Cuidado con mi Corazón)" and Meja on "Private Emotion".

The first and most prominent single was "Livin' la Vida Loca", which reached number one in many countries around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. It was followed by "She's All I Ever Had" which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Both tracks peaked at number one on the Hot Latin Songs. "Livin' la Vida Loca" is generally seen as the song that began the Latin pop explosion of 1999 and made the transition of other Latin artists (first Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias, then later Shakira) into the English-speaking market easier. Ricky Martin became one of the top-selling albums of 1999, and was certified 7× platinum in the United States, selling over 22 million copies worldwide. In Cctober 1999, Martin embarked on a very successful year-long Livin' la Vida Loca Tour.

After this success, a new English-language album, Sound Loaded, was released in November 2000. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and was certified 2× platinum by the RIAA. "She Bangs" and "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely" (duet with Christina Aguilera) peaked at number twelve and thirteen on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. Both singles reached number one on the Hot Latin Songs. Sound Loaded has sold over 8 million copies worldwide.

In February 2001, Martin released a Spanish greatest hits album entitled La Historia, which went to number one for five weeks on the Billboard Top Latin Albums and debuted at number eighty-three on the Billboard 200. It also topped the chart in Sweden for three weeks. The album contained reworkings of two of his early songs "Fuego Contra Fuego" and "El Amor de Mi Vida". In November 2001, an English-language greatest hits album, The Best of Ricky Martin was released outside North America. It contained two new remixes of "Amor".

Almas del Silencio and Life: 2003–2006

In May 2003, Martin released a new Spanish album Almas del Silencio. The first single, "Tal Vez", debuted at number one on the Hot Latin Songs and stayed there for eleven weeks. Martin said of the new album: "I really needed to go back to focus, to my center, to the beginning. I had the need to search within, and really dig deep, and find those emotions that, because of the adrenaline and the euphoria that I lived for a couple of years, were probably sabotaged." Almas del Silencio debuted at number twelve on the Billboard 200 and reached number one on the Billboard Top Latin Albums where it stayed for six weeks. The album sold more than one million copies worldwide. The next singles, "Jaleo" and "Y Todo Queda en Nada", reached number one on the Hot Latin Songs. "Jaleo" also topped the chart in Spain for four weeks.

In October 2005, Martin released his first English-language album since 2000's Sound Loaded and the tenth album of his career. Most of the songs on the album, called Life, were co-written by Martin. He commented on the album: "I was really in touch with my emotions. I think this album is very multi-layered, just like life is. It's about feeling anger. It's about feeling joy. It's about feeling uncertainty. It's about feeling. And all my emotions are part of this production." The album debuted at number six on the Billboard 200. The first single from the album, "I Don't Care", featured guest appearances by Fat Joe and Amerie. It peaked at number three on the Hot Dance Club Songs and number sixty-five on the Billboard Hot 100. Another song from the album, "It's Alright" was re-recorded as a duet with French singer M. Pokora. It was successful in French-speaking countries, reaching number four in France.

Soon after, Martin announced his One Night Only with Ricky Martin tour. Starting in Mexico City, the tour premiered on November 15, 2005. After finishing the first leg which included Latin America and the United States, Martin performed at the 2006 Winter Olympics closing ceremony in Turin. A few days later, he announced the second leg of his world tour, which included Europe and Africa. The second leg started on April 21, 2006 in Manchester, UK, and ended on June 3, 2006 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

MTV Unplugged and a world tour: 2006–2007

On August 17, 2006, Ricky Martin taped his MTV Unplugged concert in Miami. It premiered on MTV Latin America, MTV Tr3s and MTV Puerto Rico in October 2006 and was released on CD and DVD in November 2006. The album was a critical and commercial success. It debuted at number one on the Billboard Top Latin Albums and number thirty-eight on the Billboard 200. At the Latin Grammy Awards of 2008, MTV Unplugged received Latin Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Album and for Best Long Form Music Video. The first single, "Tu Recuerdo" which featured La Mari of Chambao, reached number one for three weeks on the Hot Latin Songs. The next single, "Pégate" peaked at number six on the Hot Dance Club Songs.

On February 19, 2007, Martin began his worldwide Black and White Tour debuting at number five on the Hardcover Nonfiction list. A Spanish-language edition entitled Yo was published simultaneously.

Martin's new single, "The Best Thing About Me Is You" featuring Joss Stone also premiered on November 2, 2010 and peaked at number seventy-four on the Billboard Hot 100. The Spanish version, "Lo Mejor de Mi Vida Eres Tú" topped the Hot Latin Songs for two weeks. It was followed by a new studio album, Música + Alma + Sexo released on January 31, 2011. It debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and became the highest charting, primarily-Spanish language album in the United States, since Dreaming of You by Selena. Música + Alma + Sexo also represents the highest ever chart debut on the Billboard 200 for a Sony Music Latin release. It spent two weeks at number one on the Billboard Top Latin Albums. On March 25, 2011, Martin started his Música + Alma + Sexo World Tour, which will end on November 12, 2011. The second single from the album, "Más" was released on April 5, 2011 and peaked at number seven on the Hot Dance Club Songs. "Frío" featuring Wisin & Yandel was chosen as the third single.

was released on July 11, 2011 exclusively in the United Kingdom.

Ricky Martin will be playing Ché in the Broadway revival of the show Evita, scheduled to begin previews on Broadway in March 2012, ahead of an opening in April 2012.

Personal life

in New York City]] In the past Martin stated he was in love with Mexican TV host Rebecca de Alba, with whom he had an off-and-on-again relationship for over 14 years. They even talked of starting a family together, and at one point Martin planned on proposing. However with the release of Life in 2005, Martin confirmed he and De Alba had parted ways.

In August 2008, Martin became the father of twin boys, Matteo and Valentino. The babies were birthed by a surrogate mother.

After the success of "Livin' la Vida Loca", Martin's personal life became a subject of interest due to his large gay following, and he was questioned about his sexual orientation. In a December 2000 interview with The Mirror, Martin was asked to comment on the rumors surrounding his sexuality. He replied that "I don't think I should have to tell anyone if I am gay or not, or who I've slept with or not." Along with this, Martin reportedly stated in an interview with Plus 7 Days magazine, "If I were gay, why not admit it? I am a normal man. I love women and sex. I am a real hot-blooded Puerto Rican, but I have never been attracted by sex with a man."

On March 29, 2010, Martin publicly acknowledged his homosexuality in a post on his official web site by stating, "I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am." Martin said that "these years in silence and reflection made me stronger and reminded me that acceptance has to come from within, and that this kind of truth gives me the power to conquer emotions I didn't even know existed." In 2010, prior to Martin coming out, Barbara Walters expressed some regret for pushing Martin in a 2000 interview to admit if he was gay. The Toronto Star quoted her as saying, "When I think back on it now, I feel it was an inappropriate question."

Martin announced on The Oprah Winfrey Show that he is in a relationship. Martin has also expressed support for same-sex marriage in an interview on Larry King Live, and commented on his experience of being closeted and coming out. "[E]verything about saying [that I am gay] feels right...", Martin stated, adding "if I’d known how good it was going to feel, I would have done it ten years ago."

Martin was raised Catholic, but says he is open to all sorts of religious beliefs, especially the Buddhist philosophy, although he does not identify as a Buddhist.

Humanitarian work

Martin is the founder of Fundación Ricky Martin (), a non-profit organization. Among the events promoted by the foundation was a summer camp, which included Martin's personal participation.

Martin has been honored with many accolades for his humanitarian efforts including: Leadership in the Arts Award, Billboard's Spirit of Hope Award, ALMA Award, Vanguard Award, International Humanitarian Award by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, Hispanic Heritage Award for his humanitarian work through the Sabera Foundation in rescuing three orphan girls from the streets of Kolkata (September 2002).

Martin has also collaborated with the International Organization for Migration on the Llama y Vive (Call and Live), a campaign which is aimed to facilitate prevention of human trafficking, protection of the youngest victims of child trafficking, and prosecution of the traffickers. For his work against human trafficking, the United States Department of State named Martin one of its Heroes in Ending Modern-Day Slavery in 2005.

Politics

(far left) and Tom Lantos.]] Martin was a headliner in the 2001 inauguration ball for President George W. Bush; he even invited the newly elected president to join him on stage to dance. This image was captured by photographers and broadcast in various media throughout the world. Martin referred to it in a later song, "Asignatura Pendiente".

Martin has since changed his position on the former President. In a concert in Puerto Rico during the song Asignatura Pendiente Martin thrust his middle finger disapprovingly in the air while singing the line "photo with Bush". The gesture met with audience approval but caused a minor controversy with the media. Martin said in an e-mail statement sent to the Associated Press via a spokesman: "My convictions of peace and life go beyond any government and political agenda and as long as I have a voice onstage and offstage, I will always condemn war and those who promulgate it".

Martin supported Hillary Rodham Clinton over Barack Obama in the landslide Clinton victory in the Puerto Rican Democratic primary on June 3, 2008.

Discography

Ricky Martin (1991)

Me Amarás (1993)

A Medio Vivir (1995)

Vuelve (1998)

Ricky Martin (1999)

Sound Loaded (2000)

Almas del Silencio (2003)

Life (2005)

Música + Alma + Sexo (2011)

Filmography

1987 : Por siempre amigos (TV series) as Ricky

1990 : Alcanzar una estrella (TV series) as Pablo Loredo

1991 : Alcanzar una estrella II (TV series) as Pablo Loredo

1992 : Más que alcanzar una estrella as Enrique

1993 : Getting By (TV series) as Martin

1993 : General Hospital (TV series) as Miguel Morez (1994–1996)

1996 : Barefoot in Paradise (TV series) as Sandoval

1997 : Hercules (Spanish Language, Voice Only) as Hercules.

2002 : Les Diables as Brian Rodriquez

2003 : Ricky Martin: En la intimidad (TV) as a guest star

;Television appearances

Phua Chu Kang (2003) – as himself (guest appearance in season 6)

General Hospital (1995) (television series) – Miguel Morez (unknown episodes, 1994–95)

Alcanzar una estrella (1991) (television series)

Sos mi vida (2006) – as himself

The Oprah Winfrey Show (2011) – as himself (guest appearance in season 25)

The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2010) - as himself

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (2011) - as himself

Theatre

Les Misérables (1996), Broadway – Marius

Evita, (2012), Broadway – scheduled

Tours

{| |- ! style="width:350px;"| ! style="width:350px;"| |- ||Ricky Martin Tour || (1992) |- ||Me Amaras Tour || (1993–1994) |- ||A Medio Vivir Tour || (1995–1997) |- ||Vuelve World Tour || (1998) |- ||Livin' la Vida Loca Tour || (1999–2000) |- ||One Night Only with Ricky Martin || (2005–2006) |- ||Black and White Tour || (2007) |- ||Música + Alma + Sexo World Tour || (2011) |}

Records and achievements

Martin was chosen along with Félix Trinidad in 1999, to lead Puerto Rico's worldwide tourism campaign, both exemplifying Puerto Rico's youthfulness, enthusiasm and indefatigable character.

In February 2004, Martin received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Lo Nuestro Awards in Miami.

Martin was honored as the 2006 Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year by the Latin Recording Academy on November 1, 2006. He was chosen for his accomplishments as a world renowned entertainer, consummate performer and passionate humanitarian. A portion of the proceeds from the evening's tribute dinner was used for benefitting Ricky Martin's charitable efforts.

On October 16, 2007, Martin received the 2351st Hollywood Walk of Fame star, shortly after receiving the key to the city of Miami Beach, Florida on October 11. The star is located besides the Hollywood and Highland complex. Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Rita Moreno were invited to the unveiling ceremony.

In addition to the numerous awards received throughout his musical career, Martin has also been honored with many accolades for his humanitarian efforts.

|- style="background:#ddd;" | colspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| Grammy |- style="background:#ddd;" | colspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| Latin Grammy

See also

List of best-selling music artists

List of Puerto Ricans

Honorific nicknames in popular music

White Latin American

Notes

External links

Category:1971 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:American humanitarians Category:American philanthropists Category:English-language singers Category:Gay actors Category:Hispanic and Latino American actors Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Latin Grammy Award winners Category:Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year Honorees Category:Latin pop singers Category:LGBT Christians Category:LGBT parents Category:LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people Category:LGBT people from Puerto Rico Category:LGBT television personalities Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:Menudo members Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:People from San Juan, Puerto Rico Category:Puerto Rican male singers Category:Puerto Rican people of Catalonian descent Category:Puerto Rican people of Corsican descent Category:Puerto Rican people of Spanish descent Category:Puerto Rican pop singers Category:Puerto Rican Roman Catholics Category:Puerto Rican soap opera actors Category:Puerto Rican stage actors Category:Spanish-language singers Category:World Music Awards winners

Imgsize	220px
Caption	Rourke at the 2009 premiere of City Island
Birth name	Philip Andre Rourke, Jr.
Birth date	September 16, 1952
Birth place	Schenectady, New York, U.S.
Other names	Sir Eddie Cook
Occupation	Actor, professional boxer, screenwriter, music supervisor
Years active	Actor (1979–present)Boxer (1991-1994)

Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. (born September 16, 1952) is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films.

During the 1980s, Rourke starred in Diner, Rumble Fish, and the erotic drama 9½ Weeks, and received critical praise for his work in Barfly and Angel Heart. In 1991, Rourke, who had trained as a boxer in his early years, left acting and became a professional boxer for a period. He had supporting roles in several later films, including The Rainmaker, Buffalo '66, The Pledge, Get Carter, Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Man on Fire.

In 2005, Rourke made his comeback in mainstream Hollywood circles with a lead role in Sin City, for which he won awards from the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Irish Film and Television Awards and the Online Film Critics Society. In the 2008 film The Wrestler, Rourke portrayed a past-his-prime wrestler, and garnered a 2009 Golden Globe award, a BAFTA award, and a nomination for an Academy Award.

In 2010, he appeared in the blockbusters Iron Man 2 and The Expendables.

Early life

Rourke was born Philip Andre Rourke, Jr., in Schenectady, New York, He was raised Roman Catholic and still practices his faith. His father, Philip Andre Rourke, Sr., an amateur body builder, left the family when Mickey was six years old. After his parents divorced, his mother, Ann, married Eugene Addis, a Miami Beach police officer with five sons, and moved Rourke, his younger brother, and their sister to southern Florida. There, he graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School in 1971.

During his teenage years, Rourke focused his attention mainly on sports. He took up self-defense training at the Boys Club of Miami. It was there that he learned boxing skills and decided on an amateur career. At age 12, Rourke won his first boxing match as a 118-pound bantamweight (53.5 kg), fighting some of his early matches under the name Andre Rourke. He continued his boxing training at the famed 5th Street Gym, in Miami Beach, Florida, where Muhammad Ali began his career. In 1969, Rourke, then weighing 140 lbs. (63.5 kg), sparred with former World Welterweight Champion Luis Rodríguez. Rodriguez was the number one-rated middleweight boxer in the world and was training for his match with world champion Conor Scullion. Rourke boxed Scullion and claims to have received a concussion in this sparring match.

At the 1971 Florida Golden Gloves, Rourke suffered another concussion in a boxing match. After being told by doctors to take a year off and rest, Rourke temporarily retired from the ring. From 1964 to 1972, he compiled an amateur record of 20 wins (17 by knockout) and 6 defeats, which included wins over Ron Carter, Charles Gathers and Joe Riles.

Career

Early acting roles

In 1971, as a senior at Miami Beach Senior High School, Rourke had a small acting role in the Jay W. Jensen-directed school play, The Serpent. However, Rourke's interests were geared to boxing, and he never appeared in any other school productions. Soon after he temporarily gave up boxing, a friend at the University of Miami told Rourke about a play he was directing, Deathwatch, and how the man playing the role of Green Eyes had quit. Rourke got the part and immediately became enamored with acting. Borrowing 400 dollars from his sister, he went to New York in order to take private lessons with an acting teacher from the Actors Studio, Sandra Seacat. He received critical praise for his work in Barfly as the alcoholic writer Henry Chinaski (the literary alter ego of Charles Bukowski) and in Year of the Dragon. In 1987, Rourke appeared in Angel Heart. The film was nominated for several awards. It was seen as controversial by some owing to a sex scene involving Cosby Show cast member Lisa Bonet, who won an award for her part in the film. Although some of Rourke's work was viewed as controversial in the U.S., he was well-received by European, and especially French, audiences, who loved the "rumpled, slightly dirty, sordid ... rebel persona"

Rourke's acting career eventually became overshadowed by his personal life and career decisions. Directors such as Alan Parker found it difficult to work with him. Parker stated that "working with Mickey is a nightmare. He is very dangerous on the set because you never know what he is going to do." In a documentary on the special edition DVD of Tombstone, actor Michael Biehn, who plays the part of Johnny Ringo, mentions that his role was first offered to Rourke.

Boxing career

In 1991, Rourke decided that he "had to go back to boxing" because he felt that he "was self-destructing … (and) had no respect for (himself as) an actor."

During his boxing career, Rourke suffered a number of injuries, including a broken nose, toe, ribs, a split tongue, and a compressed cheekbone. He also suffered from short term memory loss.

His trainer during most of his boxing career was Hells Angels member, actor and celebrity bodyguard Chuck Zito. Freddie Roach also trained Rourke for seven fights. Rourke's entrance song into the ring was often Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine."

Boxing promoters said that Rourke was too old to succeed against top-level fighters. Indeed, Rourke himself admits that entering the ring was a sort of personal test: "[I] just wanted to give it a shot, test myself that way physically, while I still had time." In 1995, Rourke retired from boxing and returned to acting.

Rourke's boxing career resulted in a notable physical change in the 1990s, as his face needed reconstructive surgery in order to mend his injuries. His face was later called "appallingly disfigured." In 2009, the actor told The Daily Mail that he had gone to "the wrong guy" for his surgery, and that his plastic surgeon had left his features "a mess."

|- | style="text-align:center;" colspan="8"|Boxing record |- | style="text-align:center;" colspan="8"|6 Wins (4 knockouts, 2 decisions), 0 Losses, 2 Draws |- style="text-align:center; background:#e3e3e3;" | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Result | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Record | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Opponent | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Type | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Rd., Time | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Date | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Location | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Notes |- style="text-align:center;" |style="background:#abcdef;"|Draw || 6-0-2 || align=left| Andrew Banks |MD || 4 || September 8, 1994 || align=left| Davie, Florida, USA |align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 6-0-1 || align=left| Thomas McCoy |TKO || 3 || November 20, 1993 || align=left| Hamburg, Germany || |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 5-0-1 || align=left| Bubba Stotts |TKO || 3 || July 24, 1993 || align=left| Joplin, Missouri, USA || |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 4-0-1 || align=left| Tom Bentley |KO || 1 || March 30, 1993 || align=left| Kansas City, Missouri, USA || |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 3-0-1 || align=left| Terry Jesmer |PTS || 4 || December 12, 1992 || align=left| Oviedo, Spain || |- style="text-align:center;" |style="background:#abcdef;"|Draw || 2-0-1 || align=left| Francisco Harris |MD || 4 || April 25, 1992 || align=left| Miami Beach, Florida, USA |align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 2–0 || align=left| Darrell Miller |KO || 1 , 2:14 || June 23, 1991 || align=left| Tokyo, Japan || |- style="text-align:center;" |Win || 1–0 || align=left| Steve Powell |UD || 4 || May 23, 1991 || align=left| Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA |align=left|

1990s: return to acting

In the early 1990s, Rourke was offered and declined the role of Butch Coolidge, which later became Bruce Willis' role in Pulp Fiction. After his retirement from boxing, Rourke did accept supporting roles in several 1990s films, including Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of John Grisham's The Rainmaker, Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66, Steve Buscemi's Animal Factory, Sean Penn's The Pledge and Sylvester Stallone's remake of Get Carter. Rourke also has written several films under the name "Sir Eddie Cook", including Bullet, in which he co-starred with close friend Tupac Shakur.

While Rourke was also selected for a significant role in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line; his part ended up on the editing room floor. Rourke also played a small part in the film Thursday, in which he plays a crooked cop. He also had a lead role in 1997's Double Team, which co-starred martial arts actor Jean-Claude Van Damme. It was Rourke's first over-the-top action film role, in which he played the lead villain. During that same year, he filmed Another 9½ Weeks, a sequel to 9½ Weeks, which only received limited distribution. He ended the 1990s with the direct-to-video films Out in Fifty, Shades and television film Shergar, about the kidnapping of Epsom Derby-winning thoroughbred racehorse Shergar. Rourke has expressed his bitterness over that period of his career, stating that he came to consider himself a "has-been" and lived for a time in "a state of shame." Christopher Heard stated that actors/musicians Tupac Shakur, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn and Brad Pitt have "…animated praise for Rourke and his work." During a roundtable session of Oscar nominated actors held by Newsweek, Brad Pitt cited Rourke as one of his early acting heroes along with Sean Penn and Gary Oldman.

Despite having withdrawn from acting at various points, and having made films that he now sees as a creative "sell-out" (the action film Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man), Rourke has stated that "…all that I have been through…[has] made me a better, more interesting actor." Rourke's renewed interest in pursuing acting can be seen in his statement that "… my best work is still ahead of me."

Rourke had a role in the film version of The Informers, playing Peter, an amoral former studio security guard who plots to kidnap a small child.

In 2008, Rourke played the lead in The Wrestler, winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, about washed-up professional wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson. In regards to first reading the screenplay, he stated that he originally "didn't care for it."

}}

He also spoke on personal concern and hesitance of being in a film about wrestling, for he perceived it as being "prearranged and prechoreographed." However, as he trained for the film, he developed an appreciation and respect for what real-life pro wrestlers do to prepare for the ring:

}}

He trained under former WWE wrestler Afa the Wild Samoan for the part, and has received a British Academy (BAFTA) award, a Golden Globe award, an Independent Spirit Award, and an Oscar nomination as Best Actor. Rourke was pessimistic about his chances to win the Oscar as he had been, in the past, very vocal against Hollywood's establishment. Rourke lost the Oscar to Sean Penn, while Penn did acknowledge Rourke in his acceptance speech.

Rourke has written or co-written six scripts: Homeboy, The Last Ride, Bullet, Killer Moon, Penance and the latest, Pain. Of these, the first three were produced as films between 1988 and 1996.

In early 2009, Rourke developed a small feud with WWE Superstar Chris Jericho, as part of a storyline. The storyline climaxed at WrestleMania XXV, when Rourke knocked out Jericho with a left hook after Jericho won his match against Jimmy Snuka, Ricky Steamboat, and Roddy Piper, with Ric Flair in their corner.

In 2009, Rourke starred in John Rich's music video for Shuttin' Detroit Down alongside Kris Kristofferson.

In 2009, Rourke voiced protagonist US Navy SEAL Dick Marcinko in the video game Rogue Warrior. The game received very poor reviews from critics.

In 2010, Rourke played the role of the main villain Whiplash in the film Iron Man 2, in an interview with Rip It Up Magazine he revealed that he prepared for the role by visiting Russian jail inmates. He also had a supporting role playing 'Tool' in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables. Just before the end of the year, he confirmed on a British TV talk show that he would play Gareth Thomas in an upcoming film about the Welsh rugby star who came out as gay the previous year. As of February 2011, he had begun research on the film, but noted, "We're not going to make this movie until we've done all the proper research. We need to do our homework and I need to train for from nine to 11 months."

Political views

Rourke's political views came under fire when he claimed to have donated part of his salary from the 1989 film Francesco to the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He later retracted the statement, although he has an IRA symbol tattoo.

Personal life

Rourke has dated several celebrities, including Terry Farrell and Sasha Volkova. He has been married twice. In 1981, he married Debra Feuer, whom he met on the set of Hardcase (1981) and who co-starred with him in Homeboy (1990) as his love interest. The marriage ended in 1989, with Rourke subsequently commenting that making the film 9½ Weeks "was not particularly considerate to my wife's needs." The two have remained good friends, according to an interview Feuer gave in 2009. and Rourke at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.]]Wild Orchid co-star Carré Otis was briefly a cause célèbre following the release of the film owing to rumours that she and then-lover Rourke filmed an unsimulated sex scene. Otis married Rourke on June 26, 1992. In 1994, Rourke was arrested for spousal abuse. The charges were later dropped. The couple reconciled and also starred together in Exit in Red, but their marriage ended in December 1998. In November 2007, Rourke was arrested again, this time on DUI charges in Miami Beach.

In numerous TV and print interviews, he attributes his comeback after fourteen years to weekly meetings with a psychiatrist, "Steve," and to a Catholic priest he identified as "Father Pete."

Rourke is also a motorcycle enthusiast and uses motorcycles in some of his films.

Dogs

In addition to his faith and his psychiatric treatment, Rourke has publicly attributed his comeback to his dogs. He is well-known as a pet fancier, particularly fond of small-breed dogs. A spay/neuter advocate, Rourke participated in a protest outside of a pet shop in 2007 was a chihuahua-terrier mix.

Rourke gave his dogs credit during his Golden Globe Best Actor acceptance speech January 11, 2009: "I'd like to thank all my dogs. The ones that are here, the ones that aren't here anymore because sometimes when a man's alone, that's all you got is your dog. And they've meant the world to me." The day of the 2009 Golden Globes show, he told Barbara Walters that "I sort of self-destructed and everything came out about fourteen years ago or so ... the wife had left, the career was over, the money was not an ounce. The dogs were there when no one else was there." Asked by Walters if he had considered suicide, he responded:

Despite being identified as "Lowjack" in the transcription above, the dog in the anecdote was apparently Beau Jack, who sired two of Rourke's later pets, Loki and her littermate Chocolate. Beau Jack died in 2002, though Rourke gave him 45 minutes of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Chocolate was the subject of a children's book, Chocolate at the Four Seasons, about his temporary stay with producer Bonnie Timmerman. Chocolate returned to Rourke and died in 2006. He has had as many as seven dogs at one time, back in 2005.

Filmography

Career Awards

Critical Acclaim

Only two films of Mickey Rourke’s are in the IMDb Top 250. Sin City is #85 and The Wrestler is #78. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Mickey’s most “fresh” film is The Wrestler and most "rotten" film is Wild Orchid.

Rotten Tomatoes

You can find below only films of Mickey Rourke which ranked as "fresh" in the site Rotten Tomatoes.

Metacritic

This list includes only fresh films of M. Rourke in Metacritic.

Previous collaborations

During his career, Rourke worked with directors including Steven Spielberg, Lawrence Kasdan, Francis Ford Coppola, Barry Levinson, Stuart Rosenberg, Nicolas Roeg, Michael Cimino, Adrian Lyne, Alan Parker, Mike Hodges, Barbet Schroeder, Walter Hill, Tsui Hark, Terrence Malick, Jonas Åkerlund, Wong Kar-wai, Tony Scott, Robert Rodriguez and John Madden, as well as actors-turned-directors Sean Penn, Vincent Gallo and Steve Buscemi. Rourke also starred in the films which also stars popular actors including Kim Basinger, Jean Claude Van Damme, Helena Bonham Carter, Matt Damon, Danny DeVito, Tupac Shakur, Bruce Willis, Benicio del Toro, Alicia Silverstone, Anthony Hopkins, Jack Nicholson, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Robert De Niro and so on. Rourke worked with actor Christopher Walken 5 times. They starred together in the films Heaven's Gate, Homeboy, Man on Fire, Domino and voice acting in video game (2005).

Christopher Walken stated to the Film Comment on August, 1992 that destiny to make Homeboy with Mickey Rourke:

}}

Other works

Mickey Rourke made his stage debut in a revival of Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge". Rourke also lent his voice to the video games Driv3r (2004) as Jericho and (2005) as , which was the his fifth and last work with actor Christopher Walken. He also appeared in a Japanese TV commercial for Suntory Reserve (early 90s) and a commercial for Daihatsu and Lark (cigarette). More recently, in 2009, Rourke voiced the character of Dick Marcinko for the biographical video game Rogue Warrior, which was released on December 1, 2009. Ironically, Rourke's portrayal of Marcinko was a source of humorous praise from a few critics (although many others criticized Rourke's role to the same degree that they did every other aspect of the game).

Rourke starred in a music video, Hero. He played a gangster in this Enrique Iglesias music video. Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt also made an appearance in this clip. Rourke also provided the mid-song rap on the David Bowie song "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)" on his album Never Let Me Down (1987).

References

External links

Dialogus.net

Category:Actors Studio alumni Category:American boxers Category:American film actors Category:American screenwriters Category:American Roman Catholics Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Actor BAFTA Award winners Category:Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Golden Orange Honorary Award winners Category:Independent Spirit Award winners Category:American people of Irish descent Category:Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute alumni Category:Actors from New York Category:People from Miami, Florida Category:People from Schenectady, New York Category:1952 births Category:Living people

Region	Western Philosophy, German philosophy
Era	19th century philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
Caption	Marx in 1875
Name	Karl Heinrich Marx
Birth date	5 May 1818
Birth place	Trier, Kingdom of Prussia
Death date	March 14, 1883 (bronchitis/pleurisy)
Death place	London, United Kingdom
Religion	Protestantism; later, none (atheist)
School tradition	Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Hegelianism
Signature	Karl Marx Signature.svg
Main interests	Politics, economics, philosophy, sociology, labour, history, class struggle
Influences	Hegel, Feuerbach, Spinoza, Proudhon, Stirner, Smith, Voltaire, Ricardo, Vico, Rousseau, Goethe, Helvetius, d'Holbach, Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, Fourier, Robert Owen, Balcescu, Hess, Hupay, Guizot
Influenced	Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Tito, Hoxha, Castro, Guevara, Ceaușescu, Ho, Christofias, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Luxemburg, Lukács, Gramsci, Korsch, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Chomsky, Bookchin, Arendt, Marcuse, Lyotard, Tzara, Foucault, Deleuze, Debord, Frankfurt School, Negri, Taussig, Roy and others
Notable ideas	Co-founder of Marxism (with Engels), surplus value, contributions to the labor theory of value, alienation and exploitation of the worker, The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, materialist conception of history |}}

Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, sociologist, economic historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist who developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. His ideas have since played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867–1894), many of which were co-written with his friend, the fellow German revolutionary socialist Friedrich Engels.

Born into a wealthy middle class family in Trier, Prussia, Marx went on to study at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. In 1836, he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, marrying her in 1843. Following the completion of his studies, he became a journalist in Cologne, writing for a radical newspaper, the Rheinische Zeitung, where he began to use Hegelian concepts of dialectical materialism to influence his ideas on socialism. Moving to Paris in 1843, he began writing for other radical newspapers, the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher and Vorwärts!, as well as writing a series of books, several of which were co-written with Engels. Exiled to Brussels in Belgium in 1845, he became a leading figure of the Communist League, before moving back to Cologne, where he founded his own newspaper, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Exiled once more, in 1849 he moved to London together with his wife Jenny and their children. In London, where the family was reduced to poverty, Marx continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how he believed it could be improved, as well as campaigning for socialism and becoming a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.

Marx's theories about society, economics and politics, which are collectively known as Marxism, hold that all societies progress through the dialectic of class struggle. He was heavily critical of the current socio-economic form of society, capitalism, which he called the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", believing it to be run by the wealthy middle and upper classes purely for their own benefit, and predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. Under socialism, he argued that society would be governed by the working class in what he called the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the "workers state" or "workers' democracy". He believed that socialism would, in its turn, eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called pure communism. Along with believing in the inevitability of socialism and communism, Marx actively fought for the former's implementation, arguing that both social theorists and underprivileged people should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic change. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and in a 1999 BBC poll was voted the "thinker of the millennium" by people from around the world.

Biography

Early life: 1818–1835

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on 5 May 1818 at 664 Brückergasse in Trier, a town located in the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine. His ancestry was Jewish, with his paternal line having supplied the rabbis of Trier since 1723, a role that had been taken up by his own grandfather, Merier Halevi Marx; Merier's son and Karl's father would be the first in the line to receive a secular education. His maternal grandfather was a Dutch rabbi. Karl's father, Hirschel Marx, was middle-class and relatively prosperous, owning a number of Moselle vineyards; he converted from Judaism to the Protestant Christian denomination of Lutheranism prior to his son's birth, taking on the German forename of Heinrich over Hirschel. A man of the Enlightenment, Heinrich Marx was interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Voltaire, and took part in agitations for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, which was then governed by an absolute monarchy. Karl's mother, born Henrietta Pressburg, was a Dutch Jew who, unlike her husband, was only semi-literate. She claimed to suffer from "excessive mother love", devoting much time to her family, and insisting on cleanliness within her home. She was from a prosperous business family. Her family later founded the company Philips Electronics: she was great-aunt to Anton and Gerard Philips, and great-great-aunt to Frits Philips.

Little is known about Karl Marx's childhood. He was privately educated until 1830, when he entered Trier High School, which was then run by the headmaster Hugo Wyttenbach, a friend of his father. Wyttenbach had employed many liberal humanists as teachers, something which angered the government, and so the police raided the school in 1832, discovering what they labelled seditious literature espousing political liberalism being distributed amongst the students. In 1835, Karl, then aged seventeen, began attending the University of Bonn, where he wished to study philosophy and literature, but his father insisted on law as a more practical field of study. He was able to avoid military service when he turned eighteen because he suffered from a weak chest. Being fond of alcoholic beverages, at Bonn he joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society (Landsmannschaft der Treveraner) and at one point served as its co-president. Marx was more interested in drinking and socialising than studying law, and due to his poor grades, his father forced him to transfer to the far more serious and academically oriented University of Berlin, where his legal studies became less significant than excursions into philosophy and history. Their eventual marriage was controversial for breaking three social taboos of the period; it was a marriage between a daughter of a noble background and a man of Jewish origin as well as being between individuals who belonged to the middle and upper class (aristocracy), respectively, and between a man and an older woman. Such issues were lessened by Marx's friendship with Jenny's father, Baron Ludwig von Westphalen, a liberal thinking aristocrat. Marx dedicated his doctoral thesis to him. The couple married seven years later, on 19 June 1843, at the Pauluskirche in Bad Kreuznach.

Marx became interested in, but critical of, the work of the German philosopher G.W.F Hegel (1770–1831), whose ideas were widely debated amongst European philosophical circles at the time. Marx wrote about falling ill "from intense vexation at having to make an idol of a view I detested." He became involved with a group of radical thinkers known as the Young Hegelians, who gathered around Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer. During that period, Marx concentrated on his criticism of Hegel and certain other Young Hegelians. He soon gave up writing fiction for other pursuits, including learning English and Italian.

He was deeply engaged in writing his doctoral thesis, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, which he finished in 1841. The essay has been described as "a daring and original piece of work in which he set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom of philosophy", and as such was controversial, particularly among the conservative professors at the University of Berlin. Marx decided to submit it instead to the more liberal University of Jena, whose faculty awarded him his PhD based on it.

From considering an academic career, Marx turned to journalism. He criticised the governments of Europe and their policies, but also liberals and other members of the socialist movement whose ideas he thought were ineffective or outright anti-socialist. The paper eventually attracted the attention of the Prussian government censors, who checked every issue for potentially seditious material before it could be printed. Marx said, "Our newspaper has to be presented to the police to be sniffed at, and if the police nose smells anything un-Christian or un-Prussian, the newspaper is not allowed to appear." After the paper published an article strongly criticising the monarchy in Russia, the Russian Tsar Nicholas I, an ally of the Prussian monarchy, requested that the Rheinische Zeitung be banned. The Prussian government shut down the paper in 1843. Marx wrote for the Young Hegelian journal, the Deutsche Jahrbücher, in which he criticised the censorship instructions issued by Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. His article was censored and the newspaper closed down by the authorities shortly after.

In 1843, Marx published On the Jewish Question, in which he distinguished between political and human emancipation. He also examined the role of religious practice in society.

Paris: 1843–1845

Following the government-imposed shutdown of the Rheinische Zeitung, Marx got involved with a new radical newspaper, the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (German-French Annals), which was then being set up by Arnold Ruge, another German socialist revolutionary. The paper was based not in Germany, but in the city of Paris in neighbouring France, and it was here that both Marx and his wife moved in October 1843. They initially lived with Ruge and his wife communally at 23 Rue Vaneau, but finding these living conditions difficult, the Marxes moved out following the birth of their daughter Jenny in 1844. Although it was intended to attract writers from both France and the German states, the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher was dominated by the latter, with the only non-German writer being the exiled Russian anarcho-communist Michael Bakunin. Only one issue was ever published, but it was relatively successful, largely due to the inclusion of Heinrich Heine's satirical odes on King Ludwig of Bavaria, which led to those copies sent to Germany being confiscated by the state's police force.

It was in Paris that, on 28 August 1844, Marx met German socialist Friedrich Engels at the Café de la Régence after becoming interested in the ideas that the latter had expressed in articles written for the Rheinische Zeitung and the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Although they had briefly met each other at the offices of the Rheinische Zeitung in 1842, it was here in Paris that they began their friendship that would last for the rest of their lives. Engels showed Marx his recently published book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, which convinced Marx that the working class would be the agent and instrument of the final revolution in history. Engels and Marx soon set about writing a criticism of the philosophical ideas of Marx's former friend, the Young Hegelian Bruno Bauer, which would be published in 1845 as The Holy Family. Although critical of Bauer, Marx was increasingly influenced by the ideas of the other Young Hegelians Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach, but eventually also abandoned Feuerbachian materialism as well.

In 1844 Marx wrote The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, a work which covered numerous topics, and went into detail to explain Marx's concept of alienated labour.

After the collapse of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, Marx, still living on the Rue Vaneau, began writing for what was then the only uncensored German-language radical newspaper in Europe, Vorwärts!. Based in Paris, the paper had been established and was run by many activists connected to the revolutionary socialist League of the Just, which would come to be better known as the Communist League within a few years. In Vorwärts!, Marx continued to refine his views on socialism based upon the Hegelian and Feurbachian ideas of dialectical materialism, whilst at the same time criticising various liberals and other socialists operating in Europe at the time. However in 1845, after receiving a request from the Prussian king, the French government agreed to shut down Vorwärts!, and furthermore, Marx himself was expelled from France by the interior minister François Guizot. In 1845 Marx and Engels visited the leaders of the Chartists, a socialist movement in Britain, using the trip as an opportunity to study in various libraries in London and Manchester. In collaboration with Engels he also set about writing a book which is often seen as his best treatment of the concept of historical materialism, The German Ideology; the work, like many others, would not see publication in Marx's lifetime, only being published in 1932. He followed this with The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), a response to the French anarcho-socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty and a critique of French socialist thought in general.

These books laid the foundation for Marx and Engels's most famous work, a political pamphlet that has since come to be commonly known as The Communist Manifesto. First published on 21 February 1848, it laid out the beliefs of the Communist League, a group who had come increasingly under the influence of Marx and Engels, who argued that the League must make their aims and intentions clear to the general public rather than hiding them as they had formerly been doing. The opening lines of the pamphlet set forth the principal basis of Marxism, that "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

Later that year, Europe experienced a series of protests, rebellions, and often violent upheavals, the Revolutions of 1848. In France, a revolution led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the French Second Republic. or 5000 francs, allegedly used a third of it to arm Belgian workers who were planning revolutionary action. Although the veracity of these allegations is disputed, the Belgian Ministry of Justice accused him of it, subsequently arresting him, and he was forced to flee back to France, where, with a new republican government in power, he believed that he would be safe.

Cologne: 1848-1849

Temporarily settling down in Paris, Marx transferred the Communist League executive headquarters to the city and also set up a German Workers' Club with various German socialists living there. Hoping to see the revolution spread to Germany, in 1848 Marx moved back to Cologne where he began issuing a handbill entitled the Demands of the Communist Party in Germany, in which he argued for only four of the ten points of the Communist Manifesto, believing that in Germany at that time, the bourgeoisie must overthrow the feudal monarchy and aristocracy before the proletariat could overthrow the bourgeoisie. On 1 June, Marx started publication of the daily Neue Rheinische Zeitung ("New Rhenish Newspaper"), which he helped to finance through his recent inheritance from his father. Designed to put forward news from across Europe with his own Marxist interpretation of events, Marx remained one of its primary writers, accompanied by other fellow members of the Communist League who wrote for the paper, although despite their input it remained, according to Friedrich Engels, "a simple dictatorship by Marx", who dominated the choice of content.

Whilst editor of the paper, Marx and the other revolutionary socialists were regularly harassed by the police, and Marx was brought to trial on several occasions, facing various allegations including insulting the Chief Public Prosecutor, an alleged press misdemeanor and inciting armed rebellion through tax boycotting, Meanwhile, the democratic parliament in Prussia collapsed, and the king, Frederick William IV, introduced a new cabinet of his reactionary supporters, who implemented counter-revolutionary measures to expunge leftist and other revolutionary elements from the country. Marx returned to Paris, which was then under the grip of both a reactionary counter-revolution and a cholera epidemic, and was soon expelled by the city authorities who considered him a political threat. With his wife Jenny expecting their fourth child, and not able to move back to Germany or Belgium, in August 1849 he sought refuge in London.

London: 1849–1883

Marx moved to London in May 1849 and would remain in the city for the rest of his life. It was here that he founded the new headquarters of the Communist League, and got heavily involved with the socialist German Workers' Educational Society, who held their meetings in Great Windmill Street, Soho, central London's entertainment district. Marx devoted himself to two activities: revolutionary organising, and an attempt to understand political economy and capitalism. For the first few years he and his family lived in extreme poverty. His main source of income was his colleague, Engels, who derived much of his income from his family's business.

From December 1851 to March 1852 Marx wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, a work on the French Revolution of 1848, in which he expanded upon his concepts of historical materialism, class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, advancing the argument that victorious proletariat has to smash the bourgeois state.

The 1850s and 1860s also marks the line between what some scholars see as idealistic, Hegelian young Marx from the more scientifically-minded mature Marx writings of the later period. Nor do all scholars agree that it indeed exists.

In 1864 Marx became involved in the International Workingmen's Association (also known as First International). He became a leader of its General Council, to whose General Council he was elected at its inception in 1864. In that organisation Marx was involved in the struggle against the anarchist wing centred around Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876). The most important political event during the existence of the International was the Paris Commune of 1871 when the citizens of Paris rebelled against their government and held the city for two months. On the bloody suppression of this rebellion, Marx wrote one of his most famous pamphlets, The Civil War in France, a defense of the Commune.

Given the repeated failures and frustrations of workers' revolutions and movements, Marx also sought to understand capitalism, and spent a great deal of time in the reading room of the British Museum studying and reflecting on the works of political economists and on economic data. By 1857 he had accumulated over 800 pages of notes and short essays on capital, landed property, wage labour, the state, foreign trade and the world market; this work did not appear in print until 1941, under the title Grundrisse. In 1859, Marx published Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, his first serious economic work. In the early 1860s he worked on composing three large volumes, the Theories of Surplus Value, which discussed the theoreticians of political economy, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo. In 1867 the first volume of Capital was published, a work which analyzed the capitalist process of production. Here, Marx elaborated his labour theory of value and his conception of surplus value and exploitation which he argued would ultimately lead to a falling rate of profit and the collapse of industrial capitalism. Volumes II and III remained mere manuscripts upon which Marx continued to work for the rest of his life and were published posthumously by Engels.

In a letter to Vera Zasulich dated 8 March 1881, Marx even contemplated the possibility of Russia's bypassing the capitalist stage of development and building communism on the basis of the common ownership of land characteristic of the village mir. While admitting that Russia's rural "commune is the fulcrum of social regeneration in Russia", Marx also warned that in order for the mir to operate as a means for moving straight to the socialist stage without a preceding capitalist stage, it "would first be necessary to eliminate the deleterious influences which are assailing it (the rural commune) from all sides." Given the elimination of these pernicious influences, Marx allowed, that "normal conditions of spontaneous development" of the rural commune could exist. family and friends in London buried his body in Highgate Cemetery, London, on 17 March 1883. There were between nine to eleven mourners at his funeral.}} Marx's daughter Eleanor and Charles Longuet and Paul Lafargue, Marx's two French socialist sons-in-law, were also in attendance. Liebknecht, a founder and leader of the German Social-Democratic Party, gave a speech in German, and Longuet, a prominent figure in the French working-class movement, made a short statement in French. In 1970 there was an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the monument using a homemade bomb.

The later Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm remarked that "One cannot say Marx died a failure" because, although he had not achieved a large following of disciples in Britain, his writings had already begun to make an impact on the leftist movements in Germany and Russia. Within 25 years of his death, the continental European socialist parties that acknowledged Marx's influence on their politics were each gaining between 15 and 47% in those countries with representative democratic elections.

Marx's thought

Inspirations

Marx's thought demonstrates influences from many thinkers, including but not limited to: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy; The classical political economy (economics) of Adam Smith and David Ricardo; French socialist thought, Earlier German philosophical materialism, particularly that of Ludwig Feuerbach; By adopting this approach, Marx attempted to separate key findings from ideological biases. Humans recognise that they possess both actual and potential selves. For both Marx and Hegel, self-development begins with an experience of internal alienation stemming from this recognition, followed by a realisation that the actual self, as a subjective agent, renders its potential counterpart an object to be apprehended. in desired ways, the subject takes the object as its own, and thus permits the individual to be actualised as fully human. For Marx, then, human nature—Gattungswesen, or species-being—exists as a function of human labour. but characterises Hegelian self-development as unduly "spiritual" and abstract. Marx thus departs from Hegel by insisting that "the fact that man is a corporeal, actual, sentient, objective being with natural capacities means that he has actual, sensuous objects for his nature as objects of his life-expression, or that he can only express his life in actual sensuous objects." Consequently, Marx revises Hegelian "work" into material "labour", and in the context of human capacity to transform nature the term "labour power".)}} Marx had a special concern with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labour power. He wrote extensively about this in terms of the problem of alienation. As with the dialectic, Marx began with a Hegelian notion of alienation but developed a more materialist conception.

Commodity fetishism provides an example of what Engels called "false consciousness", which relates closely to the understanding of ideology. By "ideology", Marx and Engels meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which contemporaries see as universal and eternal. Marx and Engels's point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths; they serve an important political function. Put another way, the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests). An example of this sort of analysis is Marx's understanding of religion, summed up in a passage from the preface to his 1843 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right:

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Whereas his Gymnasium senior thesis argued that religion had as its primary social aim the promotion of solidarity, here Marx sees the social function of religion in terms of highlighting/preserving political and economic status quo and inequality.

Economy, history and society

Marx thoughts on labour were related to the primacy he gave to the economic relation in determining the society's past, present and future (see also economic determinism). Together these compose the mode of production, and Marx distinguished historical eras in terms of distinct modes of production. Marx differentiated between base and superstructure, with the base (or substructure) referring to the economic system, and superstructure, to the cultural and political system. On one hand, Marx, in the 19th century's deepest critique of the dehumanising aspects of this system, noted that defining features of capitalism include alienation, exploitation and reoccurring, cyclical depressions leading to mass unemployment; on the other hand capitalism is also characterised by "revolutionizing, industrializing and universalizing qualities of development, growth and progressivity" (by which Marx meant industrialisation, urbanisation, technological progress, increased productivity and growth, rationality and scientific revolution), that are responsible for progress. Capitalism can stimulate considerable growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies and capital equipment.}}

In this new society the self-alienation would end, and humans would be free to act without being bound by the labour market. While he allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (such as Britain, the US and the Netherlands), he suggested that in other countries with strong centralised state-oriented traditions, like France and Germany, the "lever of our revolution must be force."

Personal life

Marx married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Together had seven children, but partly due to the poor living conditions they were forced to live in whilst in London, only three survived to adulthood. The children were: Jenny Caroline (m. Longuet; 1844–83); Jenny Laura (m. Lafargue; 1845–1911); Edgar (1847–1855); Henry Edward Guy ("Guido"; 1849–1850); Jenny Eveline Frances ("Franziska"; 1851–52); Jenny Julia Eleanor (1855–98) and one more who died before being named (July 1857). There are allegations that Marx also fathered a son out of wedlock by his housekeeper, Helene Demuth.

Marx frequently used pseudonyms, often when renting a house or flat, apparently to make it harder for the authorities to track him down. Whilst in Paris, he used that of 'Monsieur Ramboz', whilst in London he signed off his letters as 'A. Williams'. His friends referred to him as 'Moor', due to his dark complexion and black curly hair, something which they believed made him resemble the historical Moors of North Africa, whilst he encouraged his children to call him 'Old Nick' and 'Charley'. He also bestowed nicknames and pseudonyms on his friends and family as well, referring to Friedrich Engels as 'General', his housekeeper Helene Demuth as 'Lenchen' or 'Nym', whilst one of his daughters, Jennychen, was referred to as 'Qui Qui, Emperor of China' and another, Laura, was known as 'Kakadou' or 'the Hottentot'.}}

Marx has widely been thought of as one of the most influential thinkers in history, who has had a significant influence on both world politics and intellectual thought. Marx's biographer Francis Wheen considered the "history of the twentieth century" to be "Marx's legacy", whilst Australian philosopher Peter Singer believed that Marx's impact could be compared with that of the founders of the two major world religions, Jesus Christ and Muhammad. Singer noted that "Marx's ideas brought about modern sociology, transformed the study of history, and profoundly affected philosophy, literature and the arts." and have influenced a wide variety of disciplines, including archaeology, anthropology, media studies, political science, theater, history, sociological theory, cultural studies, education, economics, geography, literary criticism, aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy.

In July 2005, 27.9% of listeners in a BBC Radio 4 series In Our Time poll selected Marx as their favorite thinker.

The reasons for Marx's widespread influence revolve around his ethical message; a "morally empowering language of critique" against the dominant capitalist society. Nevertheless, Marxists have frequently debated amongst themselves over how to interpret Marx's writings and how to apply his concepts to their contemporary events and conditions.

Founder of social science

Marx is typically cited, along with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science. In modern sociological theory, Marxist sociology is recognised as one of the main classical perspectives. For Isaiah Berlin, Marx may be regarded as the "true father" of modern sociology, "in so far as anyone can claim the title."

Criticism

Predictions and theories

While many Marxist concepts are still of importance for modern social science, some specific predictions Marx made have been shown to be unlikely. to overturn capitalism. However others, pointing to Marx's encounter with late 19th-century Russian populism and Marx and Engels' preface to the second Russian edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1882), have argued that Marx evinced a growing conviction in his late writings that revolution could in fact emerge first in Russia. Marx predicted the eventual fall of capitalism, to be replaced by socialism, yet since the late 20th century state socialism is in retreat, as the Soviet Union collapsed, and the People's Republic of China shifted towards a market economy. Additionally, his argument that profits are generated only through surplus labour has been challenged by the counterclaim that profits also come from investments in human capital and technology.) but also that this would mean growing impoverishment of the growing worker class, increasingly exploited by the capitalists. (It should be noted that scholars have debated whether Marx's comments about the proletariat can be analyzed in the context of the working class). In addition to specific predictions, certain of Marx's theories, such as his labour theory of value, have also been criticised.

Marxism as the ideology of totalitarian states

note used in the German Democratic Republic. 100-Mark banknotes with Marx's portrait circulated from 1964 until monetary union with West Germany in July 1990.]]

While Marxist thought may be used to empower marginalised and dispossessed people, it has also been used to prop up governments who have utilised violence to remove those seen as impeding the revolution. This abuse of Marx's thought is perhaps most clearly exemplified in Stalinist Marxism, described by critics as the "most widespread and successful form of mass indoctrination... a masterly achievement in transforming Marxism into the official ideology of a consistently totalitarian state." The controversy is further fueled as some left-wing theorists have tried to shield Marxism from any connection to the Soviet regime. Lastly, the undue focus on the Marxist thought in the former Eastern Bloc, often forbidding social science arguments from outside the Marxist perspective, led to a backlash against Marxism after the revolutions of 1989. In one example, references to Marx drastically decreased in Polish sociology after the fall of the revolutionary socialist governments, and two major research institutions which advocated the Marxist approach to sociology were closed.

Selected bibliography

The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law (1842)

Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, 1843

On the Jewish Question, 1843

Notes on James Mill, 1844

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, 1844

The Holy Family, 1845

Theses on Feuerbach, 1845

The German Ideology, 1845

The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847

Wage-Labour and Capital, 1847

Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, 1852

Grundrisse, 1857

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859

Writings on the U.S. Civil War, 1861

Theories of Surplus Value, 3 volumes, 1862

Value, Price and Profit, 1865

Capital, Volume I (Das Kapital), 1867

The Civil War in France, 1871

Critique of the Gotha Program, 1875

Notes on Wagner, 1883

Capital, Volume II (posthumously published by Engels), 1885

Capital, Volume III (posthumously published by Engels), 1894

See also

Karl Marx House

Marx Memorial Library

Marx’s method

Marx's notebooks on the history of technology

Marxian Class Theory

Marxian economics

Pre-Marx socialists

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

;Academic and Popular Books |year= 2002 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |location= Oxford |isbn=978–0631213475 |nopp=|ref=Cal02}} |year= 2010 [1983] |publisher=Bookmarks |location= Bloomsbury, London |isbn=978–1905192687 |nopp=|ref=Cal10}} |year= 2011 |publisher=Little, Brown |location= London |isbn=978–1408702871 |nopp=|ref=Hob11}} |year= 1967 [1913]|publisher=Foreign Languages Press |location= Peking |isbn=|nopp=|ref=Len67|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/granat/index.htm}} |year= 1980 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location= Oxford |isbn=978–0192875105 |nopp=|ref=Sin80}} |year= 2004 |publisher=Index Books |location= Kettering |isbn=978–0572029357 |nopp=|ref=Sto04}} |year= 1973 |publisher=Verlag Die Wirtschaft |location= |isbn= |nopp=|ref=Vyg73|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygodsky/1965/discovery.htm}} |year= 2001 |publisher=Fourth Estate |location= London |isbn=978–1857026375 |nopp=|ref=Whe00}}

Further reading

Althusser, Louis and Balibar, Étienne. Reading Capital. London: Verso, 2009.

Avineri, Shlomo, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge University Press, 1968) ISBN 0–521–09619–7

Axelos, Kostas, Alienation, Praxis, and Techne in the Thought of Karl Marx (translated by Ronald Bruzina, University of Texas Press, 1976).

Barnett, Vincent, Marx (Routledge, 2009)

Blackledge, Paul. Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History (Manchester University Press, 2006)

Bottomore, Tom, ed. A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

Alex Callinicos, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx (Bookmarks, 1983)

Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment (Oxford University Press, 1963) ISBN 0–19–520052–7

G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (Princeton University Press, 1978) ISBN 0–691–07068–7

Andrew Collier, Marx (Oneworld, 2004)

Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (4 volumes) Monthly Review Press

Ronald Duncan and Colin Wilson, (editors) Marx Refuted, (Bath, UK, 1987) ISBN 0–906798–71–X

Fine, Ben. Marx's Capital. 5th ed. London: Pluto, 2010.

Foster, John Bellamy. Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.

Stephen Jay Gould, A Darwinian Gentleman at Marx's Funeral – E. Ray Lankester, Page 1, Find Articles.com (1999)

Harvey, David. A Companion to Marx's Capital. London: Verso, 2010.

Harvey, David. The Limits of Capital. London: Verso, 2006.

Georg G. Iggers, "Historiography: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge."(Wesleyan University Press, 1997, 2005)

Leszek Kołakowski, Main Currents of Marxism Oxford: Clarendon Press, OUP, 1978

Daniel Little, The Scientific Marx, (University of Minnesota Press, 1986) ISBN 0–8166–1505–5

Mandel, Ernest. Marxist Economic Theory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970.

Mandel, Ernest. The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977.

McLellan, David Marx before Marxism (1980), Macmillan, ISBN 978–0–333–27882–6

McLellan, David. Karl Marx: his Life and Thought Harper & Row, 1973 ISBN 978–0–06–012829–6

Franz Mehring, Karl Marx: The Story of His Life (Routledge, 2003)

Miller, Richard W. Analyzing Marx: Morality, Power, and History. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Boris Nicolaevsky and Otto Maenchen-Helfen (translator), Karl Marx: Man and Fighter (Penguin Books, 1976) ISBN 0–14–021594–8

Postone, Moishe. Time, Labour, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Murray Rothbard, An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought Volume II: Classical Economics (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 1995) ISBN 0–945466–48–X

Maximilien Rubel, Marx Without Myth: A Chronological Study of his Life and Work (Blackwell, 1975) ISBN 0–631–15780–8

Saad-Filho, Alfredo. The Value of Marx: Political Economy for Contemporary Capitalism. London: Routledge, 2002.

Schmidt, Alfred. The Concept of Nature in Marx. London: NLB, 1971.

Jerrold Seigel, Marx's fate: the shape of a life (Princeton University Press, 1978) ISBN 0–271–00935–7

Thomas T. Sekine, The Dialectic of Capital. A Study of the Inner Logic of Capitalism, 2 volumes (preliminary edition), Tokyo 1986; ISBN 4924750449 (vol. 1), ISBN 4–924750–34–4 (vol. 2)

Paul Strathern, "Marx in 90 Minutes", (Ivan R. Dee, 2001)

Thomas, Paul. Karl Marx and the Anarchists. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

Walker, Frank Thomas. 'Karl Marx: a Bibliographic and Political Biography''. (bj.publications), 2009.

Amy Wendling, Karl Marx on Technology and Alienation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Francis Wheen, Karl Marx: A Life, (Fourth Estate, 1999), ISBN 1–85702–637–3

Francis Wheen, Marx's Das Kapital, (Atlantic Books, 2006) ISBN 1–84354–400–8

External links

Bibliography and online texts

Works by Karl Marx at Zeno.org

Karl Marx at Libcom.org

Marxists.org, homepage of the Marxists Internet Archive

Works by Karl Marx in audio format from LibriVox

Articles and entries

Dead Labour: Marx and Lenin Reconsidered by Paul Craig Roberts

Hegel, Marx, Engels, and the Origins of Marxism, by David North

In Praise of Marx Terry Eagleton synopsising his Why Marx was right chronicle.com 10 April 2011.

Karl Marx: Did he get it all Right? by Philip Collins, The Times, 21 October 2008

Karl Marx ,Ernest Mandel

Karl Marx and the Iroquois by Franklin Rosemont

Liberalism, Marxism and The State, by Ralph Raico

Marx, Mao and mathematics: the politics of infinitesimals, by Joseph Dauben

Marx Was Right

Marxism and Ethics from International Socialism Paul Blackledge (2008)

Marxmyths.org Various essays on misinterpretations of Marx

Portraits of Karl Marx (International Institute of Social History)

Paul Dorn, The Paris Commune and Marx' Theory of Revolution

The Top Seven Reasons why Marx was Right by Green Left Weekly

Why Marx is the Man of the Moment

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Name	Jennifer Lopez
Caption	Jennifer Lopez, August 2004
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Jennifer Lynn Lopez
Alias	J.Lo
Birth date	}}

| origin = | genre = Pop, R&B; | occupation = Actress, singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, television personality, fashion designer, television producer | years_active = 1986, 1991–present | label = Epic, Island, Work | website = }} Jennifer Lynn Lopez (born July 24, 1969) is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, fashion designer, and television producer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller Money Train. Her first leading role was in the biographical film Selena (1997), in which she earned an ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress. She earned her second ALMA Award for her performance in Out of Sight (1998). She has since starred in various films, including The Wedding Planner (2001), Maid in Manhattan (2002), Shall We Dance? (2004), Monster-in-Law (2005), and The Back-up Plan (2010).

Lopez came to prominence within the music industry following the release of her debut studio album On the 6 (1999), which spawned the number one hit single "If You Had My Love". Her second studio album, J.Lo (2001), was a commercial success, selling eight million copies worldwide. (2002) became her second consecutive album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, while her third and fourth studio albums – This Is Me... Then (2002) and Rebirth (2005) – peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. In 2007 she released two albums, including her first full Spanish-language album, Como ama una Mujer, and her fifth English studio album, Brave. Lopez returned to music and released her seventh studio album, titled Love?, on April 19, 2011. Its single, "On the Floor", has impacted charts worldwide. Her contributions to the music industry have garnered her numerous achievements, including two Grammy Award nominations; two Latin Grammy Award nominations; three American Music Awards, amongst six nominations; and the estimated sale of over 55 million records worldwide. Billboard ranked her as the 27th Artist of the 2000s decade. Lopez is currently a member of the judging panel of American reality television competition American Idol.

She led People en Españols list of "100 Most Influential Hispanics" in February 2007. She has her media fame into a fashion line and various perfumes with her celebrity endorsement. A fashion icon, several of her dresses have received considerable media attention, most notably the Jungle green Versace dress which she wore at the 43rd Grammy Awards in 2000—voted the fifth most iconic dress of all time. Outside of her work in the entertainment industry, Lopez advocates for human rights and vaccinations, and is a supporter of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. In 2011 she was named the most "Beautiful Person" by People magazine in its annual issue.

Early life

Jennifer Lopez was born on July 24, 1969, in the Bronx, New York, and was raised on Blackrock Avenue in the borough's Castle Hill neighborhood. She is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents Guadalupe (née Rodríguez), a kindergarten teacher, and David Lopez, a computer specialist, both born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Lopez was raised as a Roman Catholic. She has two siblings, Lynda and Leslie. Lopez spent her entire academic career in Catholic schools, finishing at the all-girls Preston High School in the Bronx. She financed singing and dancing lessons for herself from the age of 19. After attending Baruch College for one semester, Lopez divided her time between working as a notary public in a legal office, dance classes, and dance performances in Manhattan night clubs. She had a small part in the 1987 film My Little Girl at the age of sixteen. After months of auditioning for dance roles, Lopez was selected as a dancer for various rap music videos, a 1990 episode of Yo! MTV Raps, and as a backup dancer for the New Kids on the Block and their performance of their song "Games" for the American Music Awards in 1991. She gained her first regular high-profile job as a "Fly Girl" dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color from 1991–1993. Soon after, Lopez became a backup dancer for Janet Jackson and made an appearance in her 1993 video "That's the Way Love Goes".

Music career

1999–01: On the 6 and J.Lo

Lopez's debut album On the 6, a reference to the 6 subway line she used to take growing up in Castle Hill was released on June 1, 1999, and reached the top ten of the Billboard 200. The album featured the Billboard Hot 100 number-one lead single, "If You Had My Love", as well as the top ten hit "Waiting for Tonight". The album also featured a Spanish language, Latin-flavored duet "No Me Ames" with Marc Anthony (who later would become her husband.) Though "No Me Ames" never had a commercial release, it reached number one on the U.S. Hot Latin Tracks. On the 6 featured guest artists such as Big Pun and Fat Joe on the track "Feelin' So Good", which had moderate success on the Billboard Hot 100. "Let's Get Loud", the final single, earned Lopez a Grammy Award nomination in the "Best Dance Recording" category in 2001 Grammy Awards. "Waiting for Tonight" was nominated for the same category the previous year. "No Me Ames" received two nominations at the 2000 Latin Grammy Awards – "Best Pop Duo/Group with Vocal Performance" and "Best Music Video".

Lopez's second album, J.Lo, was released on January 23, 2001 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. This album was more urban oriented than On the 6. When Lopez film The Wedding Planner, a film in which Lopez falls in love with the groom of the wedding she is planning, achieved number one shortly after, Lopez become the first actress-singer to have a film and an album at number one in the same week. The lead single, "Love Don't Cost a Thing", was her first number-one single in the United Kingdom and took her into the top five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. She followed it up with "Play" which gave her another top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number three in the UK. Her next two singles were "I'm Real" and "Ain't It Funny" which were quickly rising up the charts. To capitalize on this, Lopez asked The Inc. Records (then known as Murder Inc.) to remix both songs, which featured rap artists Ja Rule (on both) and Cadillac Tah (on the "Ain't It Funny" remix). Both remixes reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for several weeks. She re-released J. Lo on her 32nd birthday with the remix of "I'm Real" as a bonus track. Also, "Si Ya Se Acabó" was released in Spain, due to the success "Que Ironia." In 2001, Lopez performed on tour on the Let's Get Loud "Live in Puerto Rico" Concert.

2002–04: J to tha L–O!: The Remixes and This Is Me... Then

Following the success of the re-release of J. Lo, Lopez decided to devote an entire album to the remixing effort, releasing , on February 5, 2002. This album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming the first remix album in history to debut at the top on the chart. Featured artists on J to tha L-O!: The Remixes included P. Diddy, Fat Joe, and Nas, and the album included rare dance and hip hop remixes of past singles. It is the fourth all-time biggest-selling remix album in history, after Michael Jackson's , The Beatles' Love and Madonna's You Can Dance.

Lopez released her third studio album, This Is Me... Then, on November 26, 2002 which reached number two on the Billboard 200 and spawned four singles: "Jenny from the Block" (featuring Jadakiss and Styles P), which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100; "All I Have" (featuring LL Cool J), which spent multiple weeks at number one; "I'm Glad"; and "Baby I Love U!". The album included a cover of Carly Simon's 1978 "You Belong to Me". The video for "I'm Glad" recreated scenes from the 1983 film Flashdance, leading to a lawsuit over copyright infringement, which was later dismissed.

2005–08: Rebirth, Como ama una Mujer and Brave

After a year away from the music scene, Lopez released her fourth studio album, Rebirth, on March 1, 2005. Although debuting and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, the album quickly fell off the charts. It spawned the hit "Get Right", which reached the top 15 in the U.S. and became her second Platinum hit (after "If You Had My Love"). "Get Right" was also successful in the UK, becoming her second number-one single there. The second single, "Hold You Down", which featured Fat Joe, reached number 64 on the U.S. Hot 100; it peaked at number six in the UK and ascended to the top 20 in Australia. Another song, "Cherry Pie", was slated for a release in late 2005, but the plans to make a video were canceled. It was released to radio stations in Spain. Rebirth was certified Platinum in the U.S. by the RIAA. Lopez was then featured on LL Cool J's single "Control Myself", which was released on February 1, 2006. It reached number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the UK Singles Chart. It was Lopez's first U.S. top ten hit in three years. Rebirth has had most success in the UK, where overall most of her singles have reached the top five.

(right) and Greek singer Kostas Martakis (left), who opened her September 2008 concert in Athens.]]

Lopez officially released her first full Spanish-language album, Como ama una Mujer, in March 2007. Her husband, singer Marc Anthony, produced the album with Estefano, except for "Qué Hiciste", which Anthony co-produced with Julio Reyes. The album peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200, number one on the U.S. Top Latin Albums for four straight weeks and on the U.S. Latin Pop Albums for seven straight weeks. The album did well in Europe peaking at number three on the albums chart, mainly due to the big success in countries like Switzerland, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Greece, Germany, Austria, and Portugal. On July 24, 2007 Billboard magazine reported that Lopez and husband Marc Anthony would "co-headline" a worldwide tour called "Juntos en Concierto" starting in New Jersey on September 29. Tickets went on sale August 10. The tour was a mix of her current music, older tunes and Spanish music. In a later press release, Lopez announced a detailed itinerary. The tour launched September 28, 2007 at the Mark G. Etess Arena and ended on November 7, 2007 at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida. The lead single, "Qué Hiciste" (Spanish for "What Did You Do"), was officially released to radio stations in January 2007. Since then, it has peaked at 86 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot Latin Songs and the Hot Dance Club Play. It also went top ten on the European chart. The video for the song was the first Spanish-language video to peak at number one on MTV's Total Request Live daily countdown. The second single released is called "Me Haces Falta" and the third is "Por Arriesgarnos". Lopez won an American Music Award as the Favorite Latin Artist in 2007. With Como ama una Mujer, Jennifer Lopez is one of the few performers to debut in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 with a Spanish album.

Lopez released her fifth English studio album (sixth studio album overall) Brave on October 9, 2007, six months after Como Ama una Mujer was released. She collaborated with producers Midi Mafia, J. R. Rotem, Lynn and Wade and Ryan Tedder, with Rotem working on some tracks with writing partner Evan "Kidd" Bogart. Earlier, on August 26, 2007, ABC premiered a promo for the fourth season of Desperate Housewives, featuring a snippet of the song "Mile in These Shoes". "Do It Well" was released as the lead single and reached the top 20 in many countries. "Hold It, Don't Drop It" was released as the second single in certain European territories only. The third single was set to be the title track "Brave", and it was even posted on director Michael Haussman's official website that filming of the music video for the song had completed, however, the release of "Brave" as a single was eventually scrapped, most likely due to low album sales.

2009–present: Departure from Sony and Love?

From her 2007 pregnancy Lopez had been writing her seventh studio album, Love?; release had been planned for Summer 2010. It features productions from Danja, Jim Jonsin, Darkchild, Chris n Teeb (from Dropzone), Tricky Stewart, The-Dream, D'Mile Mike Caren, Jean Baptiste and The Neptunes. A song titled "Fresh Out the Oven" featuring Miami rapper Pitbull surfaced online in October 2009 but her record label said that it was simply a buzz single. It has since topped the Hot Dance Club Songs chart. The project's official lead single, "Louboutins", had its radio debut on November 23, 2009, following the song's premiere and performance at the 2009 American Music Awards. The song only managed to enter the Hot Dance Club Play chart six weeks after release and reaching number 1, however, it failed to enter any other chart, including the Billboard Hot 100. In late February 2010, it was confirmed that Lopez and Epic Records have parted ways.

Lopez's manager, Benny Medina confirmed the news saying "Jennifer had a wonderful relationship with the Sony Music Group, and they have shared many successes together, but the time was right to make a change that best serves the direction of her career as an actress and recording artist, she is grateful and appreciative to everyone at Sony for all that they accomplished together." Lopez later released a statement to the media where she said that she had already completed her contractual obligations with Sony Music Entertainment and Epic Records and decided it was for the best to end the partnership on amicable terms. She added that she found a new "home" [record label] for the album 'Love?' and it will be coming out Summer 2010. Shortly after being spotted talking to Island Def Jam Music Group's chairman and CEO L.A. Reid, it was confirmed on March 19, 2010 that Lopez signed with Island Def Jam, and is working on new material for Love? with RedZone Entertainment (Kuk Harrell, The-Dream and Tricky Stewart). In January 2011, Lopez released a new lead single titled "On the Floor" featuring Pitbull, it achieved worldwide success on the charts, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Lopez her first top ten on the chart since "All I Have" in 2003. The album Love? was released on May 3, 2011.

Other work

American Idol

In June 2010, following the departure of Ellen DeGeneres from American Idol, it was reported that Lopez was in talks to join season ten's judging panel. However, it was then reported that Lopez was out of the running due to "outrageous demands", something which returning Idol producer, Nigel Lythgoe responded to by saying "[Jennifer] is in no way a diva, I've worked with her on quite a few occasions and I have never yet seen her be a diva." He did not confirm or deny reports of the contract negotiations between Lopez and the other Idol producers. It was then revealed then reported that both Lopez and husband, Marc Anthony, were being considering for a role on The X Factor for their appeal to 'Latin' and 'International' markets. Lopez's involvement in The X Factor was ruled out when the media reported that she had accepted an offer to become a judge on season ten of Idol, despite being offered roles on both shows. The announcement was made official on September 22, 2010. MTV said "the deal was mutually beneficial to all those involved" whilst CNN reported that Lopez was viewing it as a decision to revive her career while Idol producers believe Lopez and Steven Tyler's appointments will strengthen viewing figures. Alongside this, Brad Falchuk, executive producer of the music-based series Glee, confirmed that Lopez had entered discussions to appear in the next season of Glee as a cafeteria worker.

Acting career

Lopez's first television job as an actress was on the Fox series South Central. She also made guest appearances in Second Chances and Hotel Malibu. She then appeared in the made-for-television film Nurses on the Line: The Crash of Flight 7. Lopez's first serious screen role was in Gregory Nava's 1995 drama My Family, playing the character of Young Maria in the 1920s. After starring alongside Jimmy Smits and Edward James Olmos in My Family, Lopez starred in the action film Money Train opposite Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. In 1996, she reportedly beat out Ashley Judd and Lauren Holly for the supporting role in Francis Ford Coppola's 1996 comedy Jack starring Robin Williams. She then starred opposite Jack Nicholson in Bob Rafelson's well-received noir thriller Blood and Wine.

Lopez's first big break came in 1997, when she was chosen to play the title role in Selena, a biopic of the Tejano pop singer Selena. Despite having previously worked with Nava on Mi Familia, Lopez was subjected to an intense auditioning process before landing the role. She earned widespread praise for her performance, including a Golden Globe Award nomination for "Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy". Later that year, Lopez appeared in two major films. She starred in the horror film Anaconda alongside Ice Cube and Jon Voight, playing the role of Terri Flores, a director who is shooting a documentary while traveling through the Amazon River. Despite being a modest box office hit, the film was critically panned. Lopez then starred as the leading actress in the neo-noir film U Turn, which is based on the book Stray Dogs, starring alongside Sean Penn and Billy Bob Thornton.

In 1998, she had one of her most acclaimed roles, starring opposite George Clooney in Out of Sight, Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel. Cast as a deputy federal marshal who falls for a charming criminal, Lopez won rave reviews for her tough performance and in the process she became the first Latina actress to earn over $1 million for a role. That same year, she provided the voice for Azteca on the computer-animated film Antz. Lopez then starred opposite Vincent D'Onofrio, in the psychological thriller film The Cell. She portrayed Catherine Deane, a child psychologist who uses virtual reality to enter into the minds of her patients to coax them out of their comas. The film was released in August 2000 and became a box office success opening at number one. Her next roles were in the supernatural romance Angel Eyes (2001), and in the psychological revenge thriller Enough (2002). Both failed to find an audience, and were met with a negative response from critics. She appeared alongside Ralph Fiennes in the romantic comedy film Maid in Manhattan (2002). Her character, Marisa Ventura, is a struggling single mother who lives in the Bronx and makes her living cleaning rooms in a super-luxurious Manhattan hotel, and gets mistaken for a socialite by a princely politician. Maid in Manhattan was a box office hit, opening at number one. The New York Times compared the film's storyline to her 2002 song, "Jenny from the Block", commenting, "In her new single, Jenny From the Block, Jennifer Lopez declares that despite her enormous wealth and global fame, she has not lost touch with her roots."

Some of her other critically acclaimed films include An Unfinished Life and Shall We Dance?. Two independent films produced by Lopez were well-received at film festivals: El Cantante at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Bordertown at the Brussels film festival. Her modestly successful film career includes Monster-in-Law (2005). Gigli, however, would become a notorious box office bomb.

In 2006, Jennifer was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award along with Lauren Shuler Donner and Diane Warren.

In August 2007, Lopez collaborated on the feature film, El Cantante, with her husband – singer-actor Marc Anthony. Ms. Lopez, who's also a producer of the film, "does enough acting for the two of them in her role as Puchi, Héctor’s wife" while creating a very interesting and edgy performance. The film is in English, with creative use of subtitles for songs with Spanish lyrics. In 2010, she appeared in the romantic comedy The Back-up Plan.

Lopez is one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood and the highest-paid Latin actress in Hollywood history, though she's never had a film grossing over $100 million in the USA. She was on The Hollywood Reporter's list of the top ten actress salaries in 2002, 2003, and 2004. Lopez received $15 million for her role in Monster-in-Law. Her top-grossing film domestically is Maid in Manhattan which grossed $94,011,225, and her most successful international film, Shall We Dance?, grossed $112,238,000, at the international box office. Domestically, Shall We Dance? grossed $57,890,460 and a total of $170,128,460 worldwide. In 2007, Lopez made the Forbes magazine's list of "The 20 Richest Women In Entertainment," ranking ninth. Her wealth was estimated to be $110 million in 2007.

Entrepreneurship

Lopez launched a clothing line in 2003. Named JLO by Jennifer Lopez, the line included different types of clothing for young women, including jeans, T-shirts, coats, belts, purses, and lingerie, a jewelry line, and an accessory line that includes hats, gloves, and scarves. Lopez participated in the Louis Vuitton Winter 2003 campaign. In 2005, she launched a new clothing line called Sweetface. In late 2007, Lopez retired JLO by Jennifer Lopez and launched a new juniors' line called JustSweet. Her fashion lines have featured at many New York Fashion Week events.

Lopez's frequent use of animal fur in her clothing lines and personal wardrobe has brought the scorn of people concerned with animal rights. At the Los Angeles premiere of Monster-in-Law, more than 100 protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) held a demonstration to highlight their concerns.

On April 12, 2002, Lopez opened a Cuban restaurant in the South Lake district of Pasadena, California named Madre's.

Lopez ventured in the perfume industry with her debut "Glow by J.Lo". In October 2003, Lopez introduced a perfume called "Still", having revisited "Glow" the previous year by creating a limited edition spin-off, "Miami Glow by J.Lo", in homage to her adopted hometown of Miami, Florida. Lopez also marketed a "Glow" line of body lotions and bronzing products. For the Christmas season of 2005, she launched another fragrance, "Live by Jennifer Lopez". For 2006 Valentine's Day, "Miami Glow" was replaced by yet another "Glow" spin-off, "Love at First Glow by J.Lo". Her following fragrance, "Live Luxe", was released in August 2006, with "Glow After Dark" following in January 2007. The next fragrances by Jennifer Lopez were "Deseo", "Deseo Forever" for Asian market and first fragrance for men called "Deseo for men". In February 2009 Lopez released "Sunkissed Glow". The last perfume is "My Glow", available from October 2009. Lopez is a spokesperson for Lux shampoo in Japan, appearing in the product's television commercials.

Lopez owns the film and television production company Nuyorican Productions. It was co-founded with her manager Benny Medina, who was supposed to receive half the producing revenue from the company. Lopez split with Medina shortly after the company was founded, but they later restored their business relationship.

Lopez has been recognized by People en Español magazine as both the cover subject for the "50 Most Beautiful" issue in 2006 and the "100 Most Influential Hispanics" issue in February 2007.

On April 10, 2007, Lopez made an appearance as a mentor on American Idol. Lopez also became the executive producer of the eight-episode reality show, DanceLife, which ran on MTV and began on January 15, 2007. Lopez helped select the show's participants and made cameo appearances. She then served as executive producer of a mini-series broadcast on Univisión. Named after her CD Como Ama Una Mujer, it ran in five episodes from October 30 to November 27, 2007, and starred Adriana Cruz.

Lopez signed a contract as star and executive producer of an unscripted reality series for TLC, a division of Discovery Communications Inc. The series was to show the launching of her new fragrance, and not focus on her family. The series never materialized.

Philanthropy

Lopez is an avid supporter of Children's Hospital Los Angeles and was presented with the Children's Humanitarian Award at the hospital's inaugural Noche de Niños gala in September 2004. Lopez continues to attend the annual red carpet event and is a regular visitor to the hospital. The singer participated in the Nautica Malibu Triathlon benefiting the hospital in 2008. In May 2009, Lopez formed The Maribel Foundation, with the goal of supporting Children's Hospital Los Angeles and improving health care internationally.

On February 14, 2007, Lopez received the Artists for Amnesty International award "in recognition of her work as producer and star of Bordertown, a film exposing the ongoing murders of hundreds of women in the border city of Juárez, Mexico". Nobel Peace Prize winner José Ramos-Horta presented the award to Lopez at the Berlin International Film Festival. She also received special recognition and thanks from Norma Andrade, co-founder of Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C. ("May Our Daughters Return Home, Civil Association"), an organization consisting of mothers and families of the murdered women of Juárez.

Lopez has also been involved in promoting vaccination for whooping cough. Lopez is working with Sounds of Pertussis and March of Dimes to promote awareness about the disease and encourage vaccination of adults to prevent spread of disease to infants.

Personal life

Relationships and family

Media attention has focused on her personal life. She has had high-profile relationships with Ojani Noa, Sean Combs, Cris Judd, Ben Affleck, and Marc Anthony. Starting in 1984, when Lopez was 15 and in high school, she began dating David Cruz. They split up in 1994, but remained close; Lopez said in 2004, "He's a friend and he probably knows me better than anyone else".

Lopez's first marriage was to Cuban-born Ojani Noa on February 22, 1997. Lopez met Noa while he worked as a waiter at a Miami restaurant. They divorced in January 1998. Lopez later employed Noa as the manager of her Pasadena restaurant Madre's in April 2002, but he was fired in October 2002. After Noa sued Lopez over the termination, they drew up a confidentiality agreement. In April 2006, Lopez sued to prevent Noa from publishing a book containing personal details about their marriage, contending it violated their confidentiality agreement. In August 2007, a court-appointed arbitrator issued a permanent injunction forbidding Ojani Noa from "criticizing, denigrating, casting in a negative light or otherwise disparaging" Lopez. She was awarded $545,000 in compensatory damages, which included nearly $300,000 in legal fees and almost $48,000 in arbitration costs. Noa was also ordered to hand over all copies of materials related to the book to Lopez or her attorney. In November 2009, Lopez sued Noa for breach of contract and invasion of privacy, citing a previous confidentiality agreement between the two, to prevent Noa from releasing his planned film, "How I Married Jennifer Lopez: The JLo and Ojani Noa Story", and alleged "previously unseen home video footage". On December 1, 2009, judge James Chalfant granted a temporary injunction against Noa and his agent, Ed Meyer, barring them from distributing the footage in any forum. Because the injunction is only temporary, Lopez's lawyer, Jay Lavely, said that he will return to court to make it permanent. Lavely stressed that "there wasn't anything even close" to a sex tape in Noa's possession: "It's private and personal, but it wasn't a sex tape. They are innocent and they have been misrepresented... to increase value and media attention".

Lopez next had a two-and-a-half-year relationship with hip-hop mogul Sean Combs. On December 27, 1999, Lopez and Combs were at Club New York, a midtown Manhattan nightclub, when gunfire erupted between Combs' entourage and another group. Lopez and Combs were being driven away from the scene when they were chased and stopped by the police. A gun was found in the front seat of their vehicle. Combs was charged with felony gun possession. Stress over Combs' trial and pursuit by the press multiplied their problems, and Lopez terminated her involvement with Combs one year later. During a related civil suit in 2008, the plaintiff's lawyer said Lopez had “nothing to contribute to the case”.

Her second marriage was to her former backup dancer, Cris Judd. She met Judd while filming the music video for her single "Love Don't Cost a Thing." The two were married on September 29, 2001, at a home in the L.A. suburbs. Their marriage effectively ended in June 2002, when Lopez began publicly dating Ben Affleck. They were divorced in January 2003.

Her relationship with Affleck was highly publicized, with the media dubbing the couple "Bennifer". Lopez announced her engagement to Affleck in November 2002, after Affleck gave her a six-carat pink diamond ring worth a reported $1.2 million. Lopez promised interviewers that Affleck was indeed "the one", and that they would soon have a family. The marriage, planned for September 14, 2003 in Santa Barbara, California, was called off just hours before the event. They announced the end of their engagement in January 2004. Their relationship was parodied on the South Park episode "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", which aired on April 16, 2003. In 2003, Lopez and Affleck acted together in the film Gigli and in the 2004 film Jersey Girl. He also appeared in her "Jenny from the Block" video.

at the 2006 Time 100 gala event]] Less than two months after her break-up with Affleck, Lopez was seen with singer Marc Anthony, a long-time friend with whom she had worked in music videos. They had briefly dated in the late 1990s, before his first marriage and her second. Lopez and Anthony were recording a duet together in early 2004, for Lopez's then-upcoming film Shall We Dance?. In October 2003, Anthony became separated, for the second time, from his first wife, former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres, with whom he has two children. Torres filed for divorce three months later. Lopez and Anthony married in a quiet home wedding on June 5, 2004, four days after his divorce from Torres was final.

Lopez's guests had been invited to an "afternoon party" at Lopez's house and had not been made aware that they were actually going to her wedding. The couple had planned not to publicize their marriage early on, allowing more privacy and time together in an otherwise intrusive environment. Days after the wedding, Anthony refused to comment on their marriage during interviews which were scheduled earlier to promote a new album "Amar Sin Mentiras" (To Love Without Lies). In February 2005, Lopez confirmed the marriage, and added that "everyone knows. It's not a secret". A few months later, Anthony's daughter, Ariana, appeared at the end of Lopez's music video "Get Right" as her little sister. Regarding his marriage and family life, Anthony maintains a private and sometimes defensive stance with the media, which has influenced Lopez to set some boundaries with interviewers.

On November 7, 2007, the last night of her "En Concierto" tour, Lopez confirmed she was expecting her first child with husband Marc. The announcement ended months of speculation over the pregnancy. Her father later confirmed on February 5, 2008, that she was expecting twins. Lopez gave birth on February 22, 2008 to fraternal twins, a girl and a boy, Emme Maribel Muñiz, and Maximilian "Max" David Muñiz. The twins were introduced in the March 11, 2008 issue of People magazine, for which the magazine paid $6 million. Lopez is also a practitioner of Krav Maga.

As of at least January 2008, Lopez lives with her family in Brookville, New York, on Long Island. Her mother, Guadalupe Lopez, moved into the gated home in June that year. On July 15, 2011, following seven years of marriage to Anthony, the couple's representative told US Weekly that their marriage was over and as painful as it would be for all those involved, the couple were separating.

Religion

It was reported that Lopez and Marc Anthony were taking professional business meetings at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre in Hollywood, California, in late 2006. It was also rumored that Lopez and Anthony became Scientologists during that period with the help of Angelo Pagan, the husband of The King of Queens actress and Scientologist Leah Remini. Just prior to those reports, Lopez said to NBC, "I'm not a Scientologist, I was raised Catholic. But it's funny the way people come at it. To me it's so strange. These are some of the best people I've ever met in my life." She added, "My dad has been a Scientologist for 20 years. He's the best man that I know in my life and so, it's weird to me that people want to paint it in a negative way." It has been reported that a factor in Lopez's break with Anthony was over the religious education of their twins; Lopez desired to send the children to a "specialist Scientology school" a position Anthony disagreed with.

Discography

1999: On the 6

2001: J.Lo

2002: This Is Me... Then

2005: Rebirth

2007: Como ama una Mujer

2007: Brave

2011: Love?

Filmography

See also

List of awards and nominations received by Jennifer Lopez

Green Versace "jungle" dress of Jennifer Lopez

References

External links

Official website for Jennifer Lopez fragrances

Category:1969 births Category:Actors from New York City Category:American dance musicians Category:American dancers Category:American fashion businesspeople Category:American fashion designers Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American people of Puerto Rican descent Category:American pop singers Category:American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American musicians of Puerto Rican descent Category:American television actors Category:American television producers Category:City University of New York people Category:English-language singers Category:Hip hop singers Category:Hispanic and Latino American actors Category:Idol series judges Category:Krav Maga practitioners Category:Latin pop singers Category:Living people Category:Musicians from New York City Category:Notaries Category:People from the Bronx Category:Puerto Rican actors Category:Puerto Rican female singers Category:Spanish-language singers Category:Hispanic and Latino American women

Name	Colin FirthCBE
Caption	Firth at the 83rd Academy Awards
Birth name	Colin Andrew Firth
Birth date	September 10, 1960
Birth place	Grayshott, Hampshire, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1983–present
Spouse	Livia Giuggioli (1997–present); 2 Children
Partner	Meg Tilly (1989-1994); 1 Child
Children	William (1990), Luca (2001), Mateo (2003)
Relatives	Jonathan Firth (brother), Kate Firth (sister)

Colin Andrew Firth, CBE (born 10 September 1960) is an English film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In 2011, Firth received an Academy Award for his portrayal of King George VI in The King's Speech, a performance that also earned him the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. The previous year, he received his first Academy Award nomination, for his leading role in A Single Man, a performance that won him a BAFTA Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011.

Early life

Firth was born in Grayshott, Hampshire, England. His mother, Shirley Jean (née Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at King Alfred's College Winchester (now the University of Winchester), and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, was a history lecturer (also at King Alfred's) and education officer for the Nigerian Government. Firth has a sister, Kate, and a younger brother, Jonathan, who is also an actor. Firth's parents were raised in India, because his maternal grandparents, Congregationalist ministers, and his paternal grandfather, an Anglican priest, performed missionary work abroad. Firth spent part of his childhood in Nigeria, where his father was teaching.

He lived in St. Louis, Missouri when he was 11. He later attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School (now Kings' School), a state comprehensive school in Winchester, Hampshire, and then Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh, Hampshire. While in Kings' School, he wanted to play the guitar, but the school banned the guitar and saxophone, as they were "not serious instruments", and he was told to play the euphonium instead. His acting training took place at the Drama Centre London.

Career

Film career

In 1983, Firth starred as Guy Bennett the award-winning London stage production of Another Country. That same year, Firth played the role of the apple in several 'Fruit of the Loom' TV advertisements. In 1984, he made his film debut in the screen adaptation of the play, taking the role of Tommy Judd (opposite Rupert Everett as Bennett). In 1986, he starred with Sir Laurence Olivier in Lost Empires, a TV adaptation of J. B. Priestley's novel, then in 1987 he appeared alongside Kenneth Branagh in the film version of J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country. In 1989, he played the title role in the film Valmont, and was co-lead in the film Apartment Zero. Firth and other young British actors who were becoming established film actors such as Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, Bruce Payne and Paul McGann were dubbed the 'Brit Pack'.

London premiere in October 2005]] It was through the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that Firth gained wider renown. The serial was a major international success, and Firth gained heartthrob status because of his role as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, in which he emerged in a wet shirt after a swim. This performance also made him the object of affection for fictional journalist Bridget Jones (created by Helen Fielding), an interest which carried on into the two novels featuring the Jones character. In the second novel, , the character even meets Firth in Rome. As something of an in-joke, when the novels were adapted for the cinema, Firth was cast as Jones's love interest, Mark Darcy. Continuing this in-joke, there was a dog called Mr Darcy in the film St. Trinian's, which Firth's character accidentally kills.

Firth had a supporting role in The English Patient (1996) and since then, has starred in films such as Fever Pitch (1997), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Relative Values (2000), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), The Importance of Being Earnest (2002), Love Actually (2003), What a Girl Wants (2003), Hope Springs (2003), Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), (2004), Nanny McPhee (2005), Where The Truth Lies (2005), Then She Found Me (2007) with Helen Hunt, The Last Legion (2007) with Aishwarya Rai, When Did You Last See Your Father? (2008), the film adaptation of Mamma Mia! (2008), and Easy Virtue, which screened at the Rome Film Festival to excellent reviews. In 2009, he starred in A Christmas Carol, an adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel A Christmas Carol using the performance capture procedure, playing Scrooge's optimistic nephew Fred, alongside Jim Carrey, who played Scrooge.

He has also appeared in several television productions, including Donovan Quick (an updated version of Don Quixote) (1999) and Conspiracy (2001), for which he received an Emmy nomination. Colin Firth's most recent role is in the Toronto International Film Festival debuted film, Genova.

At the 66th Venice International Film Festival in 2009, Colin Firth was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his role in Tom Ford's A Single Man as a college professor grappling with solitude after his longtime partner dies. Fashion designer Tom Ford made his director's debut with this movie. This role has earned Firth career best reviews and Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, and BFCA nominations; he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in February 2010.

Firth starred in the 2010 film The King's Speech as Prince Albert, Duke of York/King George VI. The film details him working to overcome his speech impediment while becoming monarch of the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War II. At the Toronto Film Festival, the film was met with a standing ovation. The TIFF release of The King's Speech fell on Colin's 50th birthday and was called the "best 50th birthday gift". On 16 January 2011, he won a Golden Globe for his performance in The King's Speech in the category of Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama. The Screen Actors Guild recognized Firth with the award for Best Male Actor for The King's Speech on 30 January 2011. In February 2011, he won the best actor award at the 2011 BAFTA awards. He received an Academy Award for Best Actor in a motion picture for The King's Speech on 27 February 2011.

Firth will appear in the 2012 adaptation of the John Le Carré novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, directed by Tomas Alfredson, also starring Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman, and Tom Hardy. In May 2011, Firth began filming Gambit, written by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen and directed by Michael Hoffman, co-starring Cameron Diaz.

Other work

Firth played William Shakespeare in a comedy special entitled . Edmund Blackadder runs into Firth's character while he is working on Macbeth, asks him to sign the script for him, and then punches him, saying "That is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next 400 years!".

He was a guest host of Saturday Night Live in 2004, alongside musical guest Norah Jones.

Firth performed in theatre frequently between 1983 and 2000. He starred in Three Days of Rain as lead character Ned/Walker, as well as The Caretaker, Desire Under the Elms, and Chatsky.

He served as executive producer for the 2007 documentary produced by his wife, Livia Giuggioli, In Prison My Whole Life. The film questions the trial proceedings and evidence used against political activist and former Black Panther member, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on death row for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner.

Firth is also a Jury Member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals.

On 13 January 2011, he was presented with the 2,429th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 2011, Firth collaborated with colleagues at the University College London to conduct a study probing differences in the volume of various brain regions in conservatives and liberals, with the results suggesting that conservatives have greater amygdala volume and liberals have greater volume in their anterior cingulate cortex.

Writer

Firth's first published work, "The Department of Nothing", appeared in Speaking with the Angel (2000). This collection of short stories was edited by Nick Hornby and was published to benefit the TreeHouse Trust, in aid of autistic children. Firth had previously met Hornby during the filming of the original Fever Pitch. Colin Firth contributed with his writing for the book, We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, released in 2009. The book explores the culture of peoples around the world, portraying both its diversity and facing threats. It counts with the contributions of many western writers, such as Laurens van der Post, Noam Chomsky, Claude Lévi-Strauss; and also indigenous peoples, such as Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and Roy Sesana. The royalties from the sale of this book go to the indigenous rights organisation, Survival International.

Personal life

in January 2011]] Firth resides in Chiswick, London. In 1989, he entered into a romantic relationship with actress Meg Tilly, his co-star in Valmont. In 1990, she gave birth to a son, William "Will" Joseph Firth, and they made their home near the Lower Mainland of B.C., Canada. Firth remains in contact with Will and with Tilly's two other children, for whom he was a stepfather. In 1994, after he and Tilly had separated, Firth became involved with actress Jennifer Ehle, his co-star in Pride and Prejudice; the two eventually broke up. Firth is married to Italian film producer/director Livia Giuggioli and lives in both London and Italy. They have two sons, Luca (born March 2001) and Mateo (born August 2003). Firth started to learn Italian when he and Giuggioli began to date and he now is fluent in the language.

In April 2011, Time magazine included Firth in its list of the world's 100 Most Influential People.

Activism

Firth has been a long-standing supporter of Survival International, a non-governmental organisation that defends the rights of tribal peoples. Speaking in 2001, he said, "My interest in tribal peoples goes back many years... and I have supported [Survival] ever since." In 2003, during the promotion of the movie Love Actually, he spoke in defense of the tribal people of Botswana, condemning the Botswana government's eviction of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. He says of the Bushmen, "These people are not the remnants of a past era who need to be brought up to date. Those who are able to continue to live on the land that is rightfully theirs are facing the 21st century with a confidence that many of us in the so-called developed world can only envy." Firth argued that "To me it's just basic civilisation to help people. I find this incredibly painful to see how we dismiss the most desperate people in our society. It's easily done. It plays to the tabloids, to the Middle-England xenophobes. It just makes me furious. And all from a government we once had such high hopes for". As a result of the campaign, a Congolese nurse was given a last-minute reprieve from deportation.

Firth has also been involved in the Oxfam global campaign Make Trade Fair, in which several other celebrities participated as well in order to bring more attention to the issues involved. The campaign has focused on several trade practices seen as unfair to third world producers especially, including dumping, high import tariffs, and labour rights such as fair wages. Firth remains deeply committed to this cause, making efforts such as supporting fair trade coffee in his daily life, as he believes "[i]f you're going to sustain commitment to any of this, ... [y]ou've got to get involved on an ordinary every day basis." He has further contributed to this cause by opening (with a few collaborators) an eco-friendly shop in West London, Eco. The shop offers fair trade and eco-friendly goods, as well as expert advice on making spaces more energy efficient.

In a 2006 interview with French magazine Madame Figaro, Firth was asked "Quelles sont les femmes de votre vie?" (Who are the women of your life?). Firth replied: "Ma mère, ma femme et Jane Austen" (My mother, my wife and Jane Austen). He was awarded an honorary degree on 19 October 2007 from the University of Winchester. In October 2009 at the London Film Festival, Firth launched a film and political activism website, Brightwide, along with his wife Livia.

During to the 2010 General Election Firth announced his support for the Liberal Democrats, having previously been a Labour supporter, citing asylum and refugees' rights as a key reason for his change in affiliation. In December 2010, Firth publicly dropped his support of the Liberal Democrats, citing their U-turn on tuition fees as one of the key reasons for his disillusionment. He also said that while he no longer supports the Liberal Democrats, he is currently without an affiliation. Firth appeared in literature to support changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the unsuccessful Alternative Vote referendum in 2011.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to drama.

Filmography

{| class="wikitable sortable" |+ List of film and television credits |- ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1984 | Another Country | Tommy Judd | |- | 1984 | Camille | Armand Duval | Television film |- | 1985 | 1919 | (young) Alexander Scherbatov | |- | 1985 | ''Dutch Girls | Neil Truelove | Television film |- | 1986 | Lost Empires | Richard Herncastle | Television mini-series |- | 1987 | | Tom Birkin | |- | 1987 | Pat Hobby: Teamed with Genius | Rene Wilcox | PBS Shorts Special |- | 1987 | | adult Colin Craven | Hallmark Hall of Fame |- | 1988 | Tumbledown | Robert Lawrence | Television filmRoyal Television Society Award for Best ActorNominated — British Academy Television Award for Best Actor |- | 1989 | Apartment Zero | Adrian LeDuc | |- | 1989 | Valmont | Valmont | |- | 1990 | Femme Fatale | Joseph Prince | |- | 1990 | ''Wings of Fame | Brian Smith | |- | 1991 | Out of the Blue | Alan | Play for television |- | 1993 | Hostages | John McCarthy | Television – HBO |- | 1993 | | Richard Courtois | Also known as The Advocate |- | 1994 | Master of the Moor | Stephen Whalby | Television film - UK |- | 1994 | Playmaker | Michael Condron/Ross Talbert | |- | 1994 | | Freddie Page | Play for television – UK |- | 1995 | Circle of Friends | Simon Westward | |- | 1995 | Pride and Prejudice | Fitzwilliam Darcy | Television mini-seriesBroadcasting Press Guild Award for Best ActorNominated — British Academy Television Award for Best ActorNominated — National Television Award for Most Popular Male |- | 1995 | | Charles Holroyd | Play for television – UK |- | 1996 | | Geoffrey Clifton | Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture |- | 1997 | | Jess Clark | |- | 1997 | Fever Pitch | Paul Ashworth | |- | 1997 | Nostromo | Charles Gould | Television mini-series |- | 1998 | Shakespeare in Love | Lord Wessex | Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture |- | 1999 | | William Shakespeare | Short film |- | 1999 | Donovan Quick | Donovan Quick/Daniel Quinn | Television film – UK |- | 1999 | My Life So Far | Edward Pettigrew | |- | 1999 | | Matthew Field | |- | 1999 | | The Master | Masterpiece Theater |- | 2000 | Relative Values | Peter Ingleton | |- | 2001 | Bridget Jones's Diary | Mark Darcy | European Film Awards Audience Award for Best ActorNominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting RoleNominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy |- | 2001 | Conspiracy | Wilhelm Stuckart | Television film – HBONominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a MovieNominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film |- | 2001 | We Know Where You Live | Himself | Benefit for Amnesty International |- | 2001 | Fourplay | Allen Portland | Television film – HBO, also known as Londinium |- | 2002 | | Jack Worthing | |- | 2003 | Girl with a Pearl Earring | Johannes Vermeer | Nominated—European Film Awards Audience Award for Best Actor |- | 2003 | Hope Springs | Colin Ware | |- | 2003 | Love Actually | Jamie Bennett | Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast |- | 2003 | What a Girl Wants | Henry Dashwood | |- | 2004 | | Mark Darcy | |- | 2004 | Trauma | Ben Slater | |- | 2005 | Nanny McPhee | Cedric Brown | |- | 2005 | Where the Truth Lies | Vince Collins | |- | 2006 | Born Equal | Mark Armitage | Television film – UK |- | 2007 | | Ambrosius Aurelianus | |- | 2007 | And When Did You Last See Your Father? | Blake Morrison | Nominated — British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor |- | 2007 | Then She Found Me | Frank | |- | 2007 | St. Trinian's | Geoffrey Thwaites | |- | 2007 | In Prison My Whole Life | Himself | |- | 2008 | | Richard Bratton | |- | 2008 | Mamma Mia! | Harry Bright | Nominated — National Movie Award for Best Performance Male |- | 2008 | Easy Virtue | Jim Whittaker | |- | 2008 | Genova | Joe | |- | 2009 | | Fred | |- | 2009 | Dorian Gray | Lord Henry Wotton | |- | 2009 | | George Falconer | Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorBAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleChlotrudis Award for Best ActorDetroit Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorLondon Film Critics Circle Award for British Actor of the YearSan Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorSan Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorSanta Barbara International Film Festival – Outstanding Performance of the YearVancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorVolpi CupNominated — Academy Award for Best ActorNominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated — Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaNominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead MaleNominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaNominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading RoleNominated — Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated — Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association for Best Actor |- | 2009 | | Geoffrey Thwaites | |- | 2010 | | King George VI | Academy Award for Best ActorAlliance of Women Film Journalists Eda Award for Best ActorAustin Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorBAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleBritish Independent Film Award for Best ActorBroadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorChicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorDenver Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorDetroit Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorFlorida Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorGolden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaIowa Film Critics Award for Best ActorItalian Online Movie Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorLondon Film Critics Circle Award for British Actor of the YearLondon Film Critics Circle Award for Actor of the YearLos Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNational Movie Award for Performance of the YearNew York Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorNorth Texas Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorOnline Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorPhoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorSan Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorSatellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion PictureScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading RoleSoutheastern Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorSt. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorVancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorWashington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated — Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best ActorNominated — Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated — Evening Standard British Film Award for Best ActorNominated — Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorNominated — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorNominated — San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorNominated — Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated — Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor |- | 2010 | Main Street | Tom Phillips | |- | 2010 |Steve | Steve | with Keira Knightley |- | 2011 | ''Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy | Bill Haydon | |- | 2012 | Gambit | Harry Deane | filming |}

References

Further reading

External links

Colin Firth Interview Part One and Part Two June 2010. Latest Colin Firth Interview Feb 2011 New Statesman

Colin Firth Life in Pictures Interview recorded at BAFTA London - December 2010

theartsdesk Q&A; with Colin Firth Transcript of series of in-depth interviews, February 2011

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