title
image file	Vogue, portada de mayo de 1917.jpg
company	Condé Nast
total circulation	1,248,121
circulation year	2011
frequency	monthly
language	English
category	fashion
editor	Anna Wintour (United States)Alexandra Shulman (United Kingdom)Emmanuelle Alt (France)Daniela Falcão (Brazil)Franca Sozzani (Italy)Angelica Cheung (China) Victoria Davydova (Russia)Kirstie Clements (Australia)Christiane Arp (Germany)Myung Hee Lee (Korea)Priya Tanna (India)Elena Makris (Greece)Seda Domaniç (Turkey)Mitsuko Watanabe (Japan)Rosalie Huang (Taiwan)Eva Hughes (Mexico & Latin America)Yolanda Sacristán (Spain)Paula Mateus (Portugal)
editor title	Editors
firstdate	1892
country	United States
website	}}

''Vogue'' is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.

History

In 1892 Arthur Baldwin Turnure founded ''Vogue'' as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began growing its publication. He changed it to a bi-weekly magazine and also started Vogue overseas starting in the 1910s. He first went to Britain in 1916, and started a ''Vogue'' there, then to Spain, and then to France in 1920, where it was a huge success. The magazine's number of publications and profit increased dramatically under his management.

The magazine's number of subscriptions surged during the Depression, and again during World War II. During this time, noted critic and former ''Vanity Fair'' editor Frank Crowninshield served as its editor, having been moved over from ''Vanity Fair'' by publisher Condé Nast.

In the 1960s, with Diana Vreeland as editor-in-chief and personality, the magazine began to appeal to the youth of the sexual revolution by focusing more on contemporary fashion and editorial features openly discussing sexuality. Toward this end, Vogue extended coverage to include East Village boutiques such as Limbo on St. Mark's Place as well as featuring "downtown" personalities such as Warhol "Superstar" Jane Holzer's favorite haunts.''Vogue'' also continued making household names out of models, a practice that continued with Suzy Parker, Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, Lauren Hutton, Veruschka, Marisa Berenson, Penelope Tree, and others.

In 1973, ''Vogue'' became a monthly publication. Under editor-in-chief Grace Mirabella, the magazine underwent extensive editorial and stylistic changes to respond to changes in the lifestyles of its target audience.

Current Vogue

The current editor-in-chief of American ''Vogue'' is Anna Wintour, noted for her trademark bob and her practice of wearing sunglasses indoors. Since taking over in 1988, Wintour has worked to protect the magazine's high status and reputation among fashion publications. In order to do so, she has made the magazine focus on new and more accessible ideas of "fashion" for a wider audience. This allowed Wintour to keep a high circulation while discovering new trends that a broader audience could conceivably afford. For example, the inaugural cover of the magazine under Wintour's editorship featured a three-quarter-length photograph of Israeli super model Michaela Bercu wearing a bejeweled Christian Lacroix jacket and a pair of jeans, departing from her predecessors' tendency to portray a woman's face alone, which, according to the ''Times''', gave "greater importance to both her clothing and her body. This image also promoted a new form of chic by combining jeans with haute couture. Wintour's debut cover brokered a class-mass rapprochement that informs modern fashion to this day." Wintour's ''Vogue'' also welcomes new and young talent.

Wintour's presence at fashion shows is often taken by fashion insiders as an indicator of the designer's profile within the industry. In 2003, she joined the Council of Fashion Designers of America in creating a fund that provides money and guidance to at least two emerging designers each year. This has built loyalty among the emerging new star designers, and helped preserve the magazine's dominant position of influence through what ''Time'' called her own "considerable influence over American fashion. Runway shows don't start until she arrives. Designers succeed because she anoints them. Trends are created or crippled on her command."

The contrast of Wintour's vision with that of her predecessor has been noted as striking by observers, both critics and defenders. Amanda Fortini, fashion and style contributor to ''Slate'' argues that her policy has been beneficial for ''Vogue'':

Style and influence

''Vogue'' was described by book critic Caroline Weber in ''The New York Times'' in December 2006 as "the world's most influential fashion magazine":

''Vogue''’s wide-reaching influence stems from various sources, including the persona and achievements of its most famous editor, its various charitable and community projects, its ability to reflect political discourse through fashion and editorial articles, and its move to emerging economies.

Editor-in-Chief, Anna Wintour, is widely credited as being one of the most influential figures in the global fashion industry, with the power to make or break a designer’s career. “Wintour’s approval can signal a commercial career for designers via investors who need a nod from a big gun like her to get their cheque books out,” says stylist Sharmadean Reid. Marc Jacobs was one such designer, being recommended by Wintour for the top job at Louis Vuitton in 1997.

Wintour’s power in the industry is so pervasive, that she was able to have Milan fashion week rescheduled once so she could go home before attending the shows in Paris. It is even rumoured that she influenced Kate Middleton’s choice of designer for her wedding dress. She can arguably be credited with reviving the fortunes of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, having raised $75m for the institution through events and corporate sponsorship.

''Vogue'' also uses its industry clout for good causes, most recently with the Fashion Night Out annual event. Also the brainchild of Wintour, FNO was launched in 2009 to kick start the economy by encouraging people to start spending money again. The proceeds of sales on the night go towards various charitable causes. The event is co-hosted by ''Vogue'' publications in 27 cities around the US and 15 countries worldwide, and from 2011 will include online retailers.

''Vogue'' uses fashion, editorial and community projects to raise awareness of issues on the current political agenda. The burqa, for instance, made an appearance in a fashion spread in ''Vogue'' in 2006 and the publication has featured articles on prominent Muslim women, their approach to fashion and the effect of different cultures on fashion and women’s lives. In the “Beauty Without Borders” iniative, ''Vogue'' sponsored a project to teach beauty skills to Afghan women.

Another way in which ''Vogue'' exerts its influence is by starting new titles in emerging economies such as Russia. Started in 1998, ''Vogue Russia'' has set about introducing Russian women to a new world of fashion and opportunities in a post-Socialist society. When ''Vogue'' starts a new title in an emerging economy, it indicates that the society has undergone, “a change in the politics of style, imagery, gender representations, and consumption practices.”

Criticism

As Wintour came to personify the magazine's image, she and ''Vogue'' drew critics. Wintour's one-time assistant at the magazine, Lauren Weisberger, wrote a ''roman à clef'' entitled ''The Devil Wears Prada''. Published in 2003, the novel became a bestseller and was adapted as a highly successful, Academy Award-nominated film in 2006. The central character resembled Weisberger, and her boss was a powerful editor-in-chief of a fictionalized version of ''Vogue''. The novel portrays a magazine ruled by "the Antichrist and her coterie of fashionistas, who exist on cigarettes, Diet Dr. Pepper, and mixed green salads", according to a review in the ''New York Times''. The editor is described by Weisberger as being "an empty, shallow, bitter woman who has tons and tons of gorgeous clothes and not much else". The success of both the novel and the film brought new attention from a wide global audience to the power and glamour of the magazine, and the industry it continues to lead.

In 2007, ''Vogue'' drew criticism from the anti-smoking group, "Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids", for carrying tobacco advertisements in the magazine. The group claims that volunteers sent the magazine more than 8,000 protest e-mails or faxes regarding the ads. The group also claimed that in response, they received scribbled notes faxed back on letters that had been addressed to editor Anna Wintour stating, "Will you stop? You're killing trees!"

A spokesperson for Condé Nast released an official statement saying that, "''Vogue'' does carry tobacco advertising. Beyond that we have no further comment."

In April 2008, the American ''Vogue'' had a cover shot by the famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, featuring the supermodel Gisele Bündchen and the basketball superstar LeBron James. This was the third time that Vogue featured a male on the cover of the American issue (the other two men were the actors George Clooney and Richard Gere), and the first in which the man was black. Some observers criticized the cover as a prejudicial depiction of James because his pose with Bundchen was reminiscent of a poster for the film ''King Kong''. Further criticism arose when the website ''Watching the Watchers'' analyzed the photo alongside the World War I recruitment poster titled ''Destroy This Mad Brute''.

In February 2011, just before the 2011 Syrian protests unfolded, Vogue published a controversial piece by Joan Juliet Buck on Asma al-Assad - wife of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. A number of journalists criticized the article as glossing over the poor human rights record of Bashar al-Assad.

Other editions

In 2005, Condé Nast launched ''Men's Vogue'' and announced plans for an American version of ''Vogue Living'' launching in late fall of 2006 (there is currently an edition in Australia). Men's Vogue ceased publication as an independent publication in October 2008 and is now a twice-yearly extract in the main edition.

Condé Nast also publishes ''Teen Vogue'', a version of the magazine for teen girls, the Seventeen demographic, in the United States. South Korea and Australia has a ''Vogue Girl'' magazine (currently suspended from further publication), in addition to ''Vogue Living'' and ''Vogue Entertaining + Travel.''

''Vogue Hommes International'' is an international men's fashion magazine based in Paris, France, and ''L'uomo Vogue'' is the Italian men's version. Other Italian versions of ''Vogue'' include ''Vogue Casa'' and ''Bambini Vogue''.

Until 1961, ''Vogue'' was also the publisher of ''Vogue Patterns'', a home sewing pattern company. It was sold to Butterick Publishing which also licensed the Vogue name. In 2007 an Arabic edition of ''Vogue'' was rejected by Condé Nast International. October 2007 saw the launch of ''Vogue India''. ''Vogue Turkey'' was launched in March 2010.

''Vogue China'' was launched in September 2005 with Australian supermodel Gemma Ward on the cover, flanked by Chinese models. Angelica Cheung was appointed Editor-in-chief for the Chinese ''Vogue'', while Priya Tana was appointed Editor-in-chief of Indian ''Vogue'', which was launched in October 2007.

''Vogue'' has also created a global initiative, "Fashion's Night Out" in order to help boost the economy by bringing together fashionistas to support the cause of full price retails. Cities across the globe participate to put on fabulous in store events and promotions.

On March 5th 2010, 16 International Editors-in-chief of Vogue met in Paris to discuss the 2nd Fashion's night out. Present in the meeting were the 16 International editors-in-chief of ''Vogue'': Anna Wintour (American Vogue), Carine Roitfeld (French Vogue), Franca Sozzani (Italian Vogue), Alexandra Shulman (British Vogue), Aliona Doletskaya (Russian Vogue), Angelica Cheung (Chinese Vogue), Christiane Arp (German Vogue), Priya Tanna (Indian Vogue), Rosalie Huang (Taiwanese Vogue), Paula Mateus (Portugese Vogue) Seda Domanic (Turkish Vogue), Yolanda Sacristan (Spanish Vogue), Eva Hughes (Mexican Vogue), Mitsuko Watanabe (Japanese Vogue), and Daniela Falcao (Brazilian Vogue).

It was the very first time where all the international editors-in-chief of ''Vogue'' come together, as it is very hard to put them in one room together. All of the International editors-in-chief of ''Vogue'', except for Anna Wintour, then dined together at the famous Parisian restaurant, Prunier, hosted by Condé Nast International Chairman Jonathan Newhouse and his wife Ronnie Newhouse.

Media

In 2009, the feature-length documentary ''The September Issue'' was released; it was an inside view of the production of the record-breaking September 2007 issue of U.S. ''Vogue'', directed by R. J. Cutler. The film was shot over eight months as editor-in-chief Anna Wintour prepared the issue. It included at times testy exchanges between Wintour and her creative director Grace Coddington. The issue became the largest ever published; over 5 pounds in weight and 840 pages in length, a world record for a monthly magazine.

Since 2007, the feminist fashion blog Glossed Over has liveblogged the September issue of ''Vogue,'' commenting on its content, photos, and ads.

Editors-in-Chief

The following individuals have served as editor-in-chief of ''Vogue'':

!Country	! Editor-in-Chief	!Start year	!End year
	Josephine Redding	1892	1901
Marie Harrison	1901	1914
Edna Woolman Chase	1914	1951
Jessica Daves	1952	1963
Diana Vreeland	1963	1971
Grace Mirabella	1971	1988
Anna Wintour	1988	present
	Elspeth Champcommunal	1916	1922
Dorothy Todd	1923	1926
Alison Settle	1926	1934
	1934	1940
Audrey Withers	1940	1961
Ailsa Garland	1961	1965
Beatrix Miller	1965	1984
Anna Wintour	1985	1987
Liz Tilberis	1988	1992
Alexandra Shulman	1992	present
	Cosette Vogel	1922	1927
Main Bocher	1927	1929
Michel de Brunhoff	1929	1954
Edmonde Charles-Roux	1954	1966
Fransçoise de Langlade	1966	1968
Francine Crescent	1968	1987
Colombe Pringle	1987	1994
Joan Juliet Buck	1994	2001
Carine Roitfeld	2001	2010
Emmanuelle Alt	2011	Present
	Aliona Doletskaya	1998	2010
Victoria Davydova	2010	present
	Priya Tanna	2007	Present
	Christiane Arp	2003	Present

See also

Vogue Italia

Vogue India

Vogue (British magazine)

Vogue Paris

List of Vogue cover models

References

External links

U.S. site

India site

History of Vogue at Bookrags.com

[http://www.ciaovogue.com/ Online Reference of all US and UK Vogue Magazines 1965-1975}

Category:English-language magazines Category:Spanish-language magazines Category:French-language magazines Category:Fashion magazines Category:Women's magazines Category:Publications established in 1892 Category:American monthly magazines

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name	Barbara Walters
birthname	Barbara Jill Walters
birth date	September 25, 1929
birth place	Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
occupation	JournalistTelevision talk show host
years active	1961–present
religion	Judaism
spouse	Robert Henry Katz(1955-1958; annulled)Lee Guber(1963-1976; divorced)Merv Adelson (1981-1984; divorced)Merv Adelson(1986-1992; divorced)
children	Jacqueline Dena Guber Danforth
credits	''Today'' show anchor (1961–1976)''Not For Women Only'' host (1971–1976)''ABC Evening News'' anchor (1976–1978)''20/20'' host (1984–2004)''The View'' creator/co-host (1997–present)
salary	$12 million (2007) }}

Barbara Jill Walters (born September 25, 1929) is an American broadcast journalist and author, who has hosted morning television shows (''Today'' and ''The View''), the television newsmagazine (''20/20''), former co-anchor of the ''ABC Evening News'', and current contributor to ABC News.

Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news anchor for over 10 years on NBC's ''Today'', where she worked with Hugh Downs and later hosts Frank McGee and Jim Hartz. Walters later spent 25 years as co-host of ABC's newsmagazine ''20/20''. She was the first female co-anchor of network evening news, working with Harry Reasoner on the ''ABC Evening News'', and continuing as a contributor to the network news division and its flagship program, ''ABC World News''.

Early life

Walters was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Louis "Lou" Walters and his wife, Dena Seletsky, both of whom were Jewish and descendants of refugees from the former Russian Empire, now Eastern Europe. Walters' paternal grandfather, Isaac Abrahams, was from what is now Łódź, Poland, and first immigrated to England, changing his name to Abraham Walters. Walters' father was born there c. 1896, and moved to the United States with his family in 1900. In 1937, her father opened the New York version of the Latin Quarter; he also was a Broadway producer (he produced the ''Ziegfeld Follies of 1943''). He also was the Entertainment Director for the Tropicana Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he imported the "Folies Bergere" stage show from Paris to the resort's main showroom. Walters' brother, Burton, died in 1932 of pneumonia. Walters' elder sister, Jacqueline, was born mentally disabled and died of ovarian cancer in 1985. Barbara has another half sister, Walda Walters Anderson born to a different mother and Barbara's father, Lou Walters. Walda is now a communications executive.

According to Walters, being surrounded by celebrities when she was young kept her from being "in awe" of them. When she was a young woman, Walters' father lost his nightclubs and the family's penthouse on Central Park West. As Walters recalled, "He had a breakdown. He went down to live in our house in Florida, and then the Government took the house, and they took the car, and they took the furniture." Of her mother, she said, "My mother should have married the way her friends did, to a man who was a doctor or who was in the dress business."

After attending Ethical Culture Fieldston School and Birch Wathen Lenox School private schools in New York City, Walters graduated from Miami Beach High School in 1947. In 1951 she received a B.A. in English from Sarah Lawrence College.

Career and accolades

After a brief period as a publicist with Tex McCrary Inc. and a job as a writer at CBS News, Walters joined NBC's ''The Today Show'' as a writer and researcher in 1961. She moved up to become that show's regular "Today Girl," handling lighter assignments and the weather. In her autobiography, she describes this era before the Women's Movement as a time when it was believed that nobody would take a woman seriously reporting "hard news". Previous "Today Girls" (whom Walters called "tea pourers") included Florence Henderson, Helen O'Connell, Estelle Parsons and Lee Meriwether. Within a year she had become a reporter-at-large developing, writing, and editing her own reports and interviews. When Frank McGee was named host, he refused to do joint interviews with Walters unless he was given the first four questions. She was not named co-host of the show until McGee's death in 1974, when NBC officially designated Walters as the program's first female co-host.

Walters has seldom minced words when describing the visible, on-the-air disdain her co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, displayed for her when she was teamed up with him on the ''ABC Evening News'' in 1976-78. Reasoner had a difficult relationship with Walters because he disliked having a co-anchor, even though he worked with former CBS colleague Howard K. Smith nightly on ABC for several years. In 1981, five years after the start of their short-lived ABC partnership and well after Reasoner returned to CBS News, Walters and her former co-anchor had a memorable (and cordial) ''20/20'' interview on the occasion of Reasoner's new book release.

Walters is also known for her years on the ABC newsmagazine ''20/20'' where she joined host Hugh Downs in 1979. Throughout her career at ABC, Walters has appeared on ABC news specials as a commentator, including presidential inaugurations and the coverage of 9/11. She was also chosen to be the moderator for the third and final debate between candidates Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, held at Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall in Williamsburg, Virginia, during the 1976 Presidential Election. In 1984, she moderated a Presidential debate held at the Dana Center for the Humanities at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Many of her regular and special programs are syndicated around the world. As of 2004, she is in semi-retirement as a broadcast journalist, but remains a correspondent for ABC News as well as a host of ABC's special programs.

On June 14, 2007, Walters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has won Daytime and Prime Time Emmy Awards, a Women in Film Lucy Award, and a GLAAD Excellence in Media award. Her impact on the popular culture is illustrated by Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa" impersonation of her on ''Saturday Night Live'', featuring her idiosyncratic speech with its rounded "R."

In the fall of 2008, she was honored with the Disney Legends award, an award given to those who made an outstanding contribution to The Walt Disney Company, which owns the network ABC. That same year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Women's Agenda.

On September 21, 2009, Walters was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards at New York City's Lincoln Center.

Interviews

On March 7, 2010, Barbara Walters announced she would no longer hold Oscar interviews, but will still be working with ABC and on her show, ''The View.''

In a November 2010 episode of ''The View'', while interviewing Larry King on his retirement from CNN, Walters alluded to her impending retirement, stating, "I know when my time's coming."

Walters is known for "personality journalism" and her "scoop" interviews. In November 1977, she achieved a joint interview with Egypt's President, Anwar Al Sadat, and Israel's Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. Her interviews with world leaders from all walks of life are a chronicle of the latter part of the 20th century. They include the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his wife the Empress Farah Pahlavi; Russia's Boris Yeltsin; China's Jiang Zemin; the UK's Margaret Thatcher; Cuba's Fidel Castro, as well as India's Indira Gandhi, Václav Havel, Muammar al-Gaddafi, King Hussein of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez among many others. Other interviews with influential people include pop icon Michael Jackson, Katharine Hepburn, Anna Wintour, and in 1980 Lord Olivier. Walters considered Dr. Robert Smithdas, a deaf-blind man who spent his life improving the life of other individuals who are deaf-blind, as her most inspirational interview.

Walters was widely lampooned in 1981 (and often since) for having posed the question, during an interview with actress Katharine Hepburn: "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?" But as she has often pointed out (and the video clips confirm) Hepburn initiated the discussion by saying that she would like to be a tree, and Walters merely followed up with the question, "What kind of a tree?"

During a story about Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Walters claimed that "for Castro, freedom begins with education." Some critics point to her characterization of Castro as freedom-loving and argue that it painted an inaccurate picture of his government.

On March 3, 1999, her interview of Monica Lewinsky was seen by a record 74 million viewers, the highest rating ever for a journalist's interview. Walters asked Lewinsky, "What will you tell your children about this matter?" and Lewinsky replied, "I guess Mommy made some mistakes," at which point Walters brought the program to a dramatic conclusion, turning to the viewers, saying, "And that is the understatement of the century."

''The View''

Walters is a part-time host of the daytime talk show ''The View,'' of which she is also co-creator and co-executive producer with her business partner Bill Geddie. Walters described the show in its original opening credits as a forum for women of "different generations, backgrounds, and views." She added, "Be careful what you wish for..." The show's current co-hosts are Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd. Previous co-hosts include Meredith Vieira, Lisa Ling, Rosie O'Donnell, Star Jones, and Debbie Matenopoulos.

In 2007 Barbara defended co-host O'Donnell about remarks the latter made against Donald Trump and the winner of the Miss USA pageant. Trump firmly responded by saying, "Barbara is off the list..."

Personal life

Walters has been married four times to three different men. "I'm convinced that you stay married when the sex is bad, only because you really want to be," she told ''The New York Times'' in 1996. "But I always had an out. I had this job, and this life and enough money. I didn't have to fight the bad days." Her husbands were: Robert Henry Katz, a business executive and former Navy lieutenant. They married on June 20, 1955, at The Plaza Hotel in New York City. The marriage was reportedly annulled in 1958.

Lee Guber, theatrical producer and theater owner. They married on December 8, 1963, and divorced in 1976. They have one daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber (born 1968, adopted the same year).

Merv Adelson, the CEO of Lorimar Television. They married in 1981 and divorced in 1984 and were married again on May 10, 1986, and divorced in 1992.

She reportedly dated gay lawyer Roy Cohn in college, and the lawyer said that he proposed marriage to Walters the night before her wedding to Lee Guber, but Walters denied this. She explained her lifelong devotion to Cohn as gratitude for his help in her adoption of her daughter, Jacqueline. In her autobiography, Walters says that Cohn got her father's warrant for "failure to appear" dismissed.

Walters, dated former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in the 1970s, and was linked romantically to United States Senator John Warner in the 1990s.

In Walters's autobiography, ''Audition'', she claimed that she had an affair in the 1970s with Edward Brooke, then a married United States Senator from Massachusetts. It is not clear whether Walters also was married at the time. Walters said that the affair ended to protect their careers from scandal.

She announced on the May 10, 2010 episode of ''The View'', that she would be undergoing open heart surgery to replace a faulty heart valve; the aortic valve, which pumps blood from the heart to the rest of the body. Walters added that she knew for quite a while that she was suffering from aortic valve stenosis, even though she was symptom-free.

The procedure to fix the faulty heart valve "went well, and the doctors are very pleased with the outcome" Walters' spokeswoman, Cindi Berger, said in a statement on May 14, 2010.

On July 9, 2010, it was announced that Barbara Walters would return to ''The View'' and her Sirius XM satellite show ''Here's Barbara'' in September 2010.

Walters has been close friends with Fox News head Roger Ailes since the late 1960s.

Books

In the late 1960s, Walters wrote a magazine article, ''How to Talk to Practically Anyone About Practically Anything'', which drew upon the kinds of things people said to her, which were often mistakes. Shortly after the article appeared, she received a letter from Doubleday expressing interest in expanding it into a book. Walters felt that it would help "tongue-tied, socially awkward people — the many people who worry that they can't think of the right thing to say to start a conversation." She published the book in 1970, with the assistance of ghostwriter June Callwood. To Walters' great surprise, the book was a phenomenon. As of 2008, it had gone through eight printings, sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, and had been translated into at least 6 different languages.

In 2008, she published her autobiography, ''Audition: A Memoir''.

Awards and nominations

Daytime Emmy Awards

1975 Award for Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host (''Today'')

1998 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

1998 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

1999 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

1999 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2000 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2000 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2001 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2001 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2002 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2002 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2003 Award for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2003 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2004 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2004 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2005 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2005 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2006 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2006 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2007 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2007 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2008 Nomination for Best Talk Show (''The View'')

2008 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

2009 Award for Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host (''The View'') (with Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd)

2010 Nomination for Best Talk Show Host (''The View'')

NAACP Image Award

2009 Award for Best Talk Series (''The View'')

2010 Nomination for Best Talk Series

Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Award 1998 Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television.

See also

Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People

References

External links

ABC News' "Time Tunnel" page containing clips of numerous newscasts on which Walters appeared

Excerpts from 2008 autobiography, ''Audition: A Memoir''

Barbara Walters Archive of American Television Interview

Category:1929 births Category:Living people Category:People from Brookline, Massachusetts Category:ABC News personalities Category:Alumni of women's universities and colleges Category:American Jews Category:American memoirists Category:American television news anchors Category:American television personalities Category:American television reporters and correspondents Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Ethical Culture Fieldston School alumni Category:Miami Beach Senior High School alumni Category:NBC News Category:People from Miami, Florida Category:People from New York Category:Sarah Lawrence College alumni Category:American women journalists

de:Barbara Walters et:Barbara Walters es:Barbara Walters fa:باربارا والترز fr:Barbara Walters id:Barbara Walters it:Barbara Walters he:ברברה וולטרס nl:Barbara Walters no:Barbara Walters pl:Barbara Walters pt:Barbara Walters ru:Уолтерс, Барбара simple:Barbara Walters fi:Barbara Walters zh:芭芭拉·沃尔特斯 sv:Barbara Walters

name	Anna Wintour
birth date	November 03, 1949
birth place	London, United Kingdom
occupation	Magazine editor, fashion journalist
gender	female
status	Divorced
title	Editor-in-chief, U.S. ''Vogue''
family	Patrick, James, and Norah (siblings); Charles (father)
spouse	David Shaffer (divorced)
children	Charles and Katherine ("Bee")
ethnicity	English
salary	$2 million (reportedly)
credits	Editorial assistant, ''Harpers & Queen'', ''Harper's Bazaar''; fashion editor, ''Viva'', ''Savvy'', ''New York''; creative director, U.S. ''Vogue''; editor-in-chief, British ''Vogue'' and ''House & Garden'' }}

Anna Wintour, OBE (born November 3, 1949) is the British-born editor-in-chief of American ''Vogue'', a position she has held since 1988. With her trademark pageboy bob haircut and sunglasses, Wintour has become an institution throughout the fashion world, widely praised for her eye for fashion trends and her support for younger designers. Her reportedly aloof and demanding personality has earned her the nickname "Nuclear Wintour".

She is the eldest daughter of Charles Wintour, editor of the London ''Evening Standard''. Anna became interested in fashion as a teenager. Her father consulted her on how to make the newspaper relevant to the youth of the era. Her career in fashion journalism began at two British magazines. Later she moved to the United States, with stints at ''New York'' and ''House & Garden.'' She returned home for a year to turn around British ''Vogue'', and later assumed control of the franchise's magazine in New York, reviving what many saw as a stagnating publication. Her use of the magazine to shape the fashion industry has been the subject of debate within it. Animal rights activists have attacked her for promoting fur, while other critics have charged her with using the magazine to promote elitist views of femininity and beauty.

A former personal assistant, Lauren Weisberger, wrote the 2003 best selling ''roman à clef'' ''The Devil Wears Prada'', later made into a successful film starring Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, a fashion editor widely believed to be based on Wintour. In 2009 she was the focus of another film, R.J. Cutler's documentary ''The September Issue''.

Family

Wintour was born in London in 1949 to Charles Wintour (1917–1999), editor of the ''Evening Standard'', and Eleanor ("Nonie") Trego Baker, daughter of a Harvard law professor. The couple married in 1940 and divorced in 1979. Wintour was named after her maternal grandmother, Anna (Gilkyson) Baker, a merchant's daughter from Pennsylvania. Audrey Slaughter, a magazine editor who founded publications such as ''Honey'' and ''Petticoat'', is her stepmother. The late-18th-century novelist Lady Elizabeth Foster, Duchess of Devonshire, was Wintour's great-great-great-grandmother, and Sir Augustus Vere Foster, the last Baronet of that name, was a granduncle.

Three of her four siblings are alive. Her older brother, Gerald, died in a traffic accident as a child. One of her younger brothers, Patrick, is also a journalist, currently political editor of ''The Guardian''. James and Nora Wintour have worked in London local government and for international non-governmental organizations respectively.

Early life

The young Wintour was educated at the independent North London Collegiate School, where she frequently rebelled against the dress code by taking up the hemlines of her skirts. At the age of 14 she began wearing her hair in a bob. She developed an interest in fashion as a regular viewer of Cathy McGowan on ''Ready Steady Go!,'' and from the issues of ''Seventeen'' her grandmother sent from America. "Growing up in London in the '60s, you'd have to have had Irving Penn's sack over your head not to know something extraordinary was happening in fashion", she recalled. Her father regularly consulted her when he was considering ideas for increasing readership in the youth market.

At the age of 15 she began dating well-connected older men. She was involved briefly with Piers Paul Read, then 24. In her later teens, she and gossip columnist Nigel Dempster became a fixture on the London club circuit.

Career

From fashion to journalism

"I think my father really decided for me that I should work in fashion", she recalled in ''The September Issue''. The next year, she left North London Collegiate and began a training program at Harrods. At her parents' behest, she also took fashion classes at a nearby school. Soon she gave them up, saying, "You either know fashion or you don't." Another older boyfriend, Richard Neville, gave her her first experience of magazine production at his popular and controversial ''Oz. In 1970, when ''Harper's Bazaar UK'' merged with ''Queen'' to become ''Harper's & Queen'', Wintour was hired as one of its first editorial assistants, beginning her career in fashion journalism. She told her co-workers that she wanted to edit ''Vogue.'' While there, she discovered model Annabel Hodin, a former North London classmate. Her connections helped her secure locations for innovative shoots by Helmut Newton and other trend-setting photographers. One recreated the works of Renoir and Manet using models in go-go boots. After chronic disagreements with new editor Min Hogg, a rival, she quit and moved to New York with her boyfriend, freelance journalist Jon Bradshaw.

New York

In her new home she became a junior fashion editor at ''Harper's Bazaar'' in New York City in 1975. Wintour's innovative shoots led editor Tony Mazzola to fire her after nine months. She was introduced to Bob Marley by one of Bradshaw's friends, and disappeared with him for a week. A few months later, Bradshaw helped her get her first position as a fashion editor, at ''Viva'', a women's adult magazine started by Kathy Keeton, then wife of ''Penthouse'' publisher Bob Guccione. She has rarely discussed working there due to that connection. This was the first job at which she was able to hire a personal assistant, which began her reputation as a demanding and difficult boss.

In late 1978, Guccione shut down the unprofitable magazine. Wintour decided to take some time off from work. She broke up with Bradshaw and began a relationship with French record producer Michel Esteban, dividing her time with him between Paris and New York for two years. She returned to work in 1980, succeeding Elsa Klensch as fashion editor for a new women's magazine named ''Savvy.'' It sought to appeal to career-conscious professional women who spent their own money, the reader Wintour would later target at ''Vogue.''

The next year, she became fashion editor of ''New York.'' There, the fashion spreads and photo shoots she had been putting together for years finally began attracting attention. Editor Edward Kosner sometimes bent very strict rules for her and let her work on other sections of the magazine. She learned through her work on a cover involving Rachel Ward how effectively celebrity covers sold copies. "Anna saw the celebrity thing coming before everyone else did", Grace Coddington said three decades later. A former colleague arranged for an interview with ''Vogue'' editor Grace Mirabella that ended when Wintour told Mirabella she wanted her job.

Condé Nast

She went to work at ''Vogue'' later when Alex Liberman, editorial director for Condé Nast, publisher of ''Vogue'', talked to Wintour about a position there in 1983. She eventually accepted after a bidding war that doubled her salary, becoming the magazine's first creative director, a position with vaguely defined responsibilities. Her changes to the magazine were often made without Mirabella's knowledge, causing friction among the staff. She began dating child psychiatrist David Shaffer, an older acquaintance from London. They married in 1984.

A year later she attained her first editorship, taking over British ''Vogue'' after Beatrix Miller retired. Once in charge, she replaced many staffers and exerted far more control over the magazine than any previous editor had, earning the nickname "Nuclear Wintour" in the process. Those editors who were retained began to refer to the period as "The Wintour of Our Discontent." Her changes moved the magazine from its traditional eccentricity to a direction more in line with the American magazine. Wintour's ideal reader was the same woman ''Savvy'' had tried to reach. "There's a new kind of woman out there", she told the ''Evening Standard.'' "She's interested in business and money. She doesn't have time to shop anymore. She wants to know what and why and where and how."

In 1987 Wintour returned to New York to take over ''House & Garden.'' Its circulation had long lagged rival ''Architectural Digest,'' and Condé Nast hoped she could improve it. Again she made radical changes to staff and look, canceling $2 million worth of photo spreads and articles in her first week. She put so much fashion in photo spreads that it became known as ''House & Garment'', and enough celebrities that it was referred to as ''Vanity Chair'', within the industry. Those changes worsened the magazine's problems. When the title was shortened to just ''HG'', many longtime subscribers thought they were getting a new magazine and put it aside for the real thing to arrive. Most of those subscriptions were eventually canceled, and while some fashion advertisers came over, most of the magazine's traditional advertisers pulled out.

Ten months later she finally became editor of ''Vogue.'' Under Mirabella, it had become more focused on lifestyles as a whole and less on fashion. Industry insiders worried that it was losing ground to the recently-introduced American edition of ''Elle''.

After making sweeping changes in staff, Wintour also changed the style of the cover pictures. Mirabella had preferred tight head shots of well-known models in studios; Wintour's covers showed more of the body and were taken outside, like those Diana Vreeland had done years earlier. She used less well-known models, and mixed inexpensive clothes with the high fashion: the first issue she was in charge of, November 1988, featured 19-year-old Michaela Bercu in a $50 pair of faded jeans and a bejeweled T-shirt by Christian Lacroix worth $10,000. It was the first time a Vogue cover model had worn jeans. "Wintour's approach hit a nerve—this was the way real women put clothes together (with the likely exception of wearing multi-thousand-dollar T-shirts)", one reviewer says. On the June 1989 cover, another model was shown in wet hair, with just a bathrobe and no apparent makeup. Photographers, makeup artists and hairstylists got credited along with the models.

1990s

Under her editorship, the magazine renewed its focus on fashion and returned to the prominence it had held under Vreeland. ''Vogue'' held its position as market leader against three contenders: ''Elle''; ''Harper's Bazaar'', which had lured away Liz Tilberis, Wintour's most prominent deputy, and ''Mirabella'', a magazine Rupert Murdoch created for Wintour's fired predecessor. Her most serious competitor was within the company: Tina Brown, editor of ''Vanity Fair'' and later ''The New Yorker''.

At the end of the decade, another of Wintour's inner circle left to run ''Harper's Bazaar''. Kate Betts, seen as Wintour's likely successor, had broadened the magazine's reach by commissioning stories with a more hard-news edge, about women in politics, street culture and the financial difficulties of some major designers. She had also added the "Index" section, a few pages of tips meant to be torn out of the magazine. At staff meetings she earned Wintour's respect as the only person who publicly challenged her.

The two began to disagree about the magazine's direction. Betts felt ''Vogue'''s fashion coverage was getting too limited. Wintour in turn thought that the stories with popular culture angles Betts was assigning were beneath readers, and began pairing Betts with Plum Sykes, whom Betts reportedly detested as a "pretentious airhead". Eventually she left, complaining to the ''New York Times'' that Wintour had not even sent her a baby gift. Wintour wrote an editor's letter that complimented Betts and wished her well.

2000s

Betts was one of several longtime editors to leave ''Vogue'' around the millennium. A year later, Sykes, another putative successor, left to concentrate on her bestselling novels set in the city's upper classes and a screenplay. A number of other editors also left to assume the top jobs at other publications. While some of their replacements didn't last, a new group of core editors formed.

The September 2004 issue was 832 pages, the largest issue of a monthly magazine ever published at that time, since exceeded by the September 2007 issue Cutler's documentary covered. She also oversaw the introduction of three spinoffs: ''Teen Vogue'', ''Vogue Living'' and ''Men's Vogue.'' ''Teen Vogue'' has published more ad pages and earned more advertiser revenue than either ''Elle Girl'' and ''Cosmo Girl'', and the 164 ad pages in the début issue of ''Men's Vogue'' were the most for a first issue in Condé Nast history. ''AdAge'' named her "Editor of the Year" for this brand expansion. Queen Elizabeth II appointed her Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

That year was generally difficult, as the economy worsened. After ruffling feathers at Milan's shows in February, the April issue's cover image of LeBron James and Gisele Bündchen brought criticism for its evocation of racial stereotypes. The next month a lavish Karl Lagerfeld gown she wore to the Met's Costume Institute Gala was called "the worst fashion ''faux pas'' of 2008." In the fall ''Vogue Living'' was suspended indefinitely, and ''Men's Vogue'' cut back to two issues a year as an outsert or supplement to the women's magazine. At the end of the year, December's cover highlighted a disparaging comment Jennifer Aniston made about Angelina Jolie, to the former's displeasure. It seemed she had lost her touch. Rumors arose that she would retire, and be replaced by French ''Vogue'' editor Carine Roitfeld. An editor at Russian ''GQ'' reportedly introduced Russian ''Vogue'' editor Aliona Doletskaya as the next editor of American ''Vogue''. Condé Nast responded by taking out a full-page ad in ''The New York Times'' defending her record. In that same publication, Cathy Horyn later wrote that while Wintour hadn't lost her touch, the magazine had become "stale and predictable", as a reader had recently complained. "To read ''Vogue'' in recent years is to wonder about the peculiar fascination for the 'villa in Tuscany' story", Horyn added. The magazine also dealt awkwardly with the recession, she commented. In September, ''The September Issue'', a documentary film by ''The War Room'' producer R.J. Cutler about the production of the September 2007 issue, was released. It focused on the sometimes-difficult relationship between Wintour and creative director Grace Coddington. She appeared on the ''Late Show with David Letterman'' to promote it, defending the relevance of fashion in a tough economy. The American Society of Magazine Editors elected her to its Hall of Fame in 2010.

Fashion industry power broker

Through the years she has come to be regarded as one of the most powerful people in fashion, setting trends and anointing new designers. Industry publicists often hear "Do you want me to go to Anna with this?" when they have differences with her subordinates. ''The Guardian'' has called her the "unofficial mayoress" of New York City. She has encouraged fashion houses such as Christian Dior to hire younger, fresher designers such as John Galliano.

Her influence extends outside fashion. She persuaded Donald Trump to let Marc Jacobs use a ballroom at the Plaza Hotel for a show when Jacobs and his partner were short of cash. More recently, she persuaded Brooks Brothers to hire the relatively unknown Thom Browne. A protégée at ''Vogue'', Plum Sykes, became a successful novelist, drawing her settings from New York's fashionable élite.

Her salary was reported to be $2 million a year in 2005. In addition, she receives several perks, such as a chauffeured Mercedes S-Class (both in New York and abroad), a $200,000 shopping allowance, and the Coco Chanel Suite at the Hotel Ritz Paris while attending European fashion shows. Condé Nast president S. I. Newhouse also had the company make her an interest-free $1.6 million loan to purchase her townhouse in Greenwich Village.

Personal life

She has two children by Shaffer: Charles (Charlie) and Katherine (known as Bee); the latter wrote occasional columns for ''The Daily Telegraph'' in 2006, but says she won't follow her mother into fashion. The couple divorced in 1999. Newspapers and gossip columnists claimed her affair with investor Shelby Bryan ended the marriage. She declined to comment. Her friends say Bryan has mellowed her. "She smiles now and has been seen to laugh", the ''Observer'' quoted one as saying.

Wintour is also a philanthropist. She serves as a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she has organized benefits that have raised $50 million for the museum's Costume Institute. She began the CFDA/Vogue Fund in order to encourage, support and mentor unknown fashion designers. She has also raised over $10 million for AIDS charities since 1990, by organizing various high profile benefits.

She claims to arise before 6 am, plays tennis and has her hair and makeup done, then gets to ''Vogue''s offices two hours later. She always arrives at fashion shows well before their scheduled start. "I use the waiting time to make phone calls and notes; I get some of my best ideas at the shows", she says. According to the BBC documentary series ''Boss Woman'', she rarely stays at parties for more than 20 minutes at a time and gets to bed by 10:15 every night. She exerts a great deal of control over the magazine's visual content. Since her first days as editor, she has required that photographers not begin until she has approved Polaroids of the setup and clothing. Afterwards, they must submit all their work to the magazine, not just their personal choices. Her control over the text is less certain. Her staffers claim she reads everything written for publication, but former editor Richard Story has claimed she rarely, if ever, read any of ''Vogue'''s arts coverage or book reviews. Earlier in her career, she often left the task of writing the text accompanying her layouts to others; former coworkers claim she has minimal skills in that area. Today she writes little for the magazine save the monthly editor's letter. She reportedly has three full-time assistants but sometimes surprises callers by answering the phone herself. She often turns her cell phone off in order to eat her lunch, usually a steak (or bunless hamburger), undisturbed. High-protein meals have been a habit of hers for a long time. "It was smoked salmon and scrambled eggs ''every single day''" for lunch, says a coworker at ''Harpers & Queen''. "She would eat nothing else."

Personal fashion preferences

Because of her position, Wintour's wardrobe is often closely scrutinized and imitated. Earlier in her career, she mixed fashionable T-shirts and vests with designer jeans. When she started at ''Vogue'' as creative director she switched to Chanel suits with miniskirts. She continued to wear them during both pregnancies, opening the skirts slightly in back and keeping her jacket on to cover up.

According to biographer Jerry Oppenheimer, her ubiquitous sunglasses are actually corrective lenses, since she suffers from deteriorating vision as her father did. A former colleague he interviewed recalls trying on her Wayfarers in her absence and getting dizzy. "I think at this point they've become, you know, really armor", Wintour herself told ''60 Minutes'' correspondent Morley Safer, explaining that they allow her to keep her reactions to a show private. As she rebounded from the end of her marriage and the turnover in the magazine's editorial staff, a fellow editor and friend noted that "she's not hiding behind her glasses anymore. Now she's having fun again."

''The Devil Wears Prada''

Lauren Weisberger, a former Wintour assistant who left ''Vogue'' for ''Departures'' along with Richard Story, wrote ''The Devil Wears Prada'' after a writing workshop he suggested she take. It was eagerly anticipated for its supposed insider portrait of Wintour prior to its publication. Wintour told ''The New York Times,'' "I always enjoy a great piece of fiction. I haven't decided whether I am going to read it or not." While it has been suggested that the setting and Miranda Priestly were based on ''Vogue'' and Wintour, Weisberger claims she drew not only from her own experiences but those of her friends as well. Wintour herself makes a cameo appearance near the end of the book, where it is said she and Miranda dislike each other.

In the novel, Miranda has many similarities to Wintour—among them, she is British, has two children, and is described as a major contributor to the Met. Priestly is a tyrant who makes impossible demands of her subordinates, gives them almost none of the information or time necessary to comply and then berates them for their failures to do so.

Betts, who had been fired by Harper's after two years during which staffers said she tried too hard to emulate Wintour, reviewed it harshly in the ''New York Times Book Review'':

Priestly has some positive qualities. Andrea notes that she makes all the magazine's key editorial decisions by herself and that she has genuine class and style. " I never for one second didn't know it was an amazing opportunity to assist Anna", Weisberger said in 2008.

Film adaptation

The film version of the novel has not been the only movie to have a character borrowing some aspects of Wintour. Edna Mode's similar hairstyle in ''The Incredibles'' has been noted, Johnny Depp said he partially based the demeanour of Willy Wonka in ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' on Wintour. Fey Sommers in the ''Ugly Betty'' television series was also likened to Wintour.

During the film's production in 2005, Wintour was reportedly promising prominent fashion personalities, particularly designers, that ''Vogue'' would not cover them if they made cameo appearances in the movie as themselves. She denied it through a spokesperson who said she was interested in anything that "supports fashion". Many designers are mentioned in the film. Only one, Valentino Garavani, appeared as himself. {{external media | align = left | width = 200px | image1 = Photos comparing Wintour's office and Miranda Priestly's in ''The Devil Wears Prada'' }} The film was released, in mid-2006, to great commercial success. Wintour attended the première wearing Prada. In the film, actress Meryl Streep plays a Priestly different enough from the book's to receive critical praise as an entirely original (and more sympathetic) character. (Streep's office in the film was similar enough to Wintour's that Wintour reportedly had hers redecorated )

Wintour reportedly said the film would probably go straight to DVD. It made over US$300 million in worldwide box office receipts. Later in 2006, in an interview with Barbara Walters that aired the day of the DVD's release, Wintour said she found the film "really entertaining" and praised it for making fashion "entertaining and glamorous and interesting ... I was 100 percent behind it."

That opinion of the movie has not yet led her to forgive Weisberger. When it was reported that the novelist's editor told her to start her third novel over, Wintour's spokesman suggested she "should get a job as someone else's assistant."

Oppenheimer suggests ''The Devil Wears Prada'' may have done Wintour a favor by increasing her name recognition. "Besides giving Weisberger her fifteen minutes", he says, "[it] ... place[d] Anna squarely in the mainstream celebrity pantheon. [She] was now known and talked about over Big Macs and french fries under the Golden Arches by young fashionistas in Wal-Mart denim in Davenport and Dubuque."

When ''The September Issue'' was released three years later, critics compared it with the earlier, fictional film. "For the past year or so, she's been on the media warpath to win back her image," said Paul Schrodt in ''Slant Magazine''. Many considered the question of how similar she was to Streep's Priestly, and praised the film for showing the real person. Manohla Dargis at ''The New York Times'' said that Priestly had helped humanize Wintour, and "the documentary continues this." "The movie offers insights that lift it beyond a realist version of ''The Devil Wears Prada,''" agreed Mary Pols in ''Time''.

Other criticism

In 2005, two years after ''The Devil Wears Prada'', Oppenheimer's ''Front Row: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief'' was published. It painted a similar portrait of the real woman. According to Oppenheimer, Wintour not only declined his requests for an interview but discouraged others from talking to him.

Personality

Wintour is often described as emotionally distant by those who have come to know her well, even her close friends. "At some stage in her career, Anna Wintour stopped being Anna Wintour and became 'Anna Wintour', at which point, like wings of a stately home, she closed off large sections of her personality to the public", wrote ''The Guardian.'' "I think she enjoys not being completely approachable. Just her office is very intimidating. You have to walk about a mile into the office before you get to her desk and I'm sure it's intentional," Coddington says. "I don't find her to be accessible to people she doesn't need to be accessible to," agrees ''Vogue'' publisher Tom Florio. She has said she admired her father Charles, known as "Chilly Charlie" for being "inscrutable". Former coworkers told Oppenheimer of a similar aloofness on her part. But she is also known for volatile outbursts of displeasure, and the widely-used "Nuclear Wintour" sobriquet is a result of both. She dislikes it enough to have asked ''The New York Times'' not to use it. "There are times I get quite angry", she admitted in ''The September Issue''.

"I think she has been very rude to a lot of people in the past, on her way up — very terse", a friend told the ''Observer''. "She doesn't do small talk. She is never going to be friends with her assistant." A former assistant said, "You definitely did not ride the elevator with her." Unwritten rules imposed by Wintour at the ''Vogue'' offices forbid junior staffers from initiating conversation with her; an editor who greeted her on the elevator was reprimanded by one of Wintour's assistants (She calls that an exaggeration.). A visiting reporter saw a junior staffer appear visibly panicked when she realized she would have to ride the elevator with Wintour. Once a junior editor saw her trip in the hallway, walked past without offering assistance, and was later told she "did ''absolutely'' the right thing."

Even friends admit to some trepidation in her presence. "Anna happens to be a friend of mine", says Barbara Amiel, "a fact which is of absolutely no help in coping with the cold panic that grips me whenever we meet." "I know when to stop pushing her", says Coddington. "She doesn't know when to stop pushing me".

She has often been described as a perfectionist who routinely makes impossible, arbitrary demands of subordinates: "kitchen scissors at work", in the words of one commentator. She once made a junior staffer look through a photographer's trash to find a picture he had refused to give her. In a deleted scene from ''The September Issue'' she complains about the "horrible white plastic buckets" of ice behind the bars at the CFDA's 7th on Sale AIDS benefit and moves them out of sight. "The notion that Anna would want something done 'now' and not 'shortly' is accurate", Amiel says of ''The Devil Wears Prada.'' "Anna wants what she wants right away." A longtime assistant says, "She throws you in the water and you'll either sink or swim."

Peter Braunstein, the former ''Women's Wear Daily'' media reporter later convicted of sexually assaulting a coworker, allegedly planned to kill Wintour because of perceived slights. After receiving only one ticket to the 2002 ''Vogue'' Fashion Awards, which he perceived as a snub, he became so angry that ''WWD'' fired him. At his 2007 trial, prosecutors introduced as evidence a journal he kept on his computer in which he stated his intention to kill her. In it he wrote, "She just never talked to peons like us" to justify his intended actions.

On one occasion she has had to pay for her treatment of employees. In 2004, a court ruled that she and Shaffer were to pay $104,403, and Wintour herself an additional $32,639, to settle a lawsuit brought against them by the New York State Workers' Compensation Board. They had failed to pay the $140,000 it incurred on behalf of a former employee injured on the job who did not have the necessary insurance coverage.

In the 2000s, her relationship with Bryan was credited with softening her personality at work. "Even when she's in a bad mood, she has a different posture", someone described as a "Wintour watcher" told the ''New York Observer''. "The consensus is that she's so much more mellow and easier to work for because she's probably getting laid."

Pro-fur stance

She has often been the target of animal rights organizations like PETA, who are angered by her use of fur in ''Vogue'', her pro-fur editorials and her refusal to run paid advertisements from animal rights organizations. Undeterred, she continues to use fur in photo spreads, saying there's always a way to wear it. "Nobody was wearing fur until she put it on the cover in the early 1990s", says Neiman Marcus Group CEO Burton Tansky. "She ignited the entire industry."

She has "lost count" of the times she has been physically attacked by activists. In Paris in October 2005, she was hit with a tofu pie while waiting to get into the Chloé show. On another occasion an activist dumped a dead raccoon on her plate at a restaurant; she told the waiter to remove it. She and ''Vogue'' publisher Ron Galotti once retaliated for a protest outside the Condé Nast offices during the company's annual Christmas party by sending down a plate of roast beef.

Others outside of the animal-rights community have raised the fur issue. Braunstein wrote in his manifesto that she would go to a hell guarded by large rats, where it would be so warm she wouldn't need to wear fur. Pamela Anderson, in an early 2008 interview, said Wintour was the living person she most despised "because she bullies young designers and models to use and wear fur."

Elitism

Another common criticism of Wintour's editorship focuses on ''Vogue'''s increasing use of celebrities on the cover, and her insistence on making them meet her standards. She reportedly told Oprah Winfrey to lose weight before her cover photograph. Likewise, Hillary Clinton was told not to wear a blue suit. At the 2005 Anglomania celebration, a ''Vogue''-sponsored salute to British fashion at the Met, Wintour is said to have personally chosen the clothes for prominent attendees such as Jennifer Lopez, Kate Moss, Donald Trump and Diane von Fürstenberg. "I don't think Vreeland had that kind of concentration", says ''WWD'' publisher Patrick McCarthy. "She wouldn't have dressed Babe Paley. Nor would Babe Paley have let her." By persuading designers to loan clothes to prominent socialites and celebrities, who are then photographed wearing the clothes not only in ''Vogue'' but more general-interest magazines like ''People'' and ''Us'', which in turn influence what buyers want, some in the industry believe Wintour is exerting too much control over it, especially since she is not involved in making or producing clothes herself. "The end result is that Anna can control it all the way to the selling floor", says Candy Pratts Price, executive fashion director at style.com. She has been credited with killing grunge fashion in the early 1990s, when it wasn't selling well, by telling designers if they continued to avoid glamour their looks would not be photographed for ''Vogue''. All complied. Another ''Vogue'' writer has complained Wintour excluded ordinary working women, many of whom are regular subscribers, from the pages. "She's obsessed only about reflecting the aspirations of a certain class of reader", she says. "We once had a piece about breast cancer which started with an airline stewardess, but she wouldn't have a stewardess in the magazine so we had to go and look for a high-flying businesswoman who'd had cancer."

Wintour has been accused of setting herself apart even from peers. "I do not think fiction could surpass the reality", a British fashion magazine editor says of ''The Devil Wears Prada.'' "[A]rt in this instance is only a poor imitation of life." Wintour, the editor says, routinely requests to be seated out of sight of competing editors at shows. "We spend our working lives telling people which it-bag to carry but Anna is so above the rest of us she does not even have a handbag."

Her successful request that key shows at the 2008 Milan Fashion Week be rescheduled for earlier in the week so she and other U.S.-based editors could have time to return home before the Paris shows led to complaints. Other editors said they had to rush through the earlier shows, and lesser-known designers who had to show later were denied an important audience. Dolce & Gabbana said Italian fashion was getting short shrift and Milan was becoming a "circus without sense."

Giorgio Armani, who at the time was co-chairing a Met exhibition on superheroes' costumes with Wintour, drew some attention for his cutting personal remarks. "Maybe what she thinks is a beautiful dress, I wouldn't think was a beautiful dress", he said. While he claimed he couldn't understand why people disliked her, saying he himself was indifferent, he expressed hope she hadn't made a comment once attributed to her "the Armani era is over." He accused her of preferring French and American fashion over Italian. Geoffrey Beene, who stopped inviting Wintour to shows after she stopped writing about him, called her "a boss lady in four-wheel drive who ignores or abandons those who do not fuel her tank. As an editor, she has turned class into mass, taste into waste".

Her remarks about obesity have caused controversy on more than one occasion. In 2005, Wintour was heavily criticized by the New York chapter of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance after ''Vogue'' editor-at-large André Leon Talley said on ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', at one point, Wintour demanded he lose weight. "Most of the ''Vogue'' girls are so thin, tremendously thin" he said, "because Miss Anna don't like fat people." In 2009, residents of Minneapolis took umbrage after she told ''60 Minutes'' she could "only kindly describe most of the people I saw as little houses." They noted their city had been named the third fittest in the nation that year by ''Men's Fitness'' while New York had been named the fifth fattest.

Responses

Defenses of Wintour have often come from others. Amanda Fortini at ''Slate'' said she was comfortable with Wintour's elitism since that was intrinsic to fashion: Emma Brockes sees this in Wintour herself: "[Her] unwavering ability to look as if she lives within the pages of her magazine has a sort of honesty to it, proof that, whatever one thinks about it, the lifestyle peddled by Vogue is at least physically possible."

Some friends see her purported coldness as just traditional British reserve, Wintour describes herself as shy, and Harry Connick Jr., who escorted her and Bee to shows in 2007, agrees. When Morley Safer asked her about complaints about her personality, she said She has made similar statements in defense of her reported refusal to hire fat people. "It's important to me that the people that are working here, particularly in the fashion department", she says, "will present themselves in a way that makes sense to the outside world that they work at ''Vogue''"

Her defenders have called criticism sexist. "Powerful women in the media always get inspected more thoroughly than their male counterparts", said ''The New York Times'' in a piece about Wintour shortly after ''The Devil Wears Prada'''s release. When she took over at ''Vogue'', gossip columnist Liz Smith reported rumors she had gotten the job through an affair with Si Newhouse. A reportedly furious Wintour made her anger the subject of one of her first staff meetings. She still complained about it when accepting a media award in 2002.

She has been called a feminist whose changes to ''Vogue'' have reflected, acknowledged and reinforced advances in the status of women. Reviewing Oppenheimer's book in ''The Washington Monthly'', managing editor Christina Larson notes ''Vogue'', unlike many other women's magazines, Wintour, unlike Vreeland, "...shifted ''Vogue'''s focus from the cult of beauty to the cult of the creation of beauty". To her, the focus on celebrities is a welcome development as it means women are making the cover of ''Vogue'' at least in part for what they have accomplished, not just how they look.

Complaints about her role as fashion ''eminence grise'' are dismissed by those familiar with how she actually exercises it. "She's honest. She tells you what she thinks. Yes is yes and no is no", according to Karl Lagerfeld. "She's not too pushy" agrees François-Henri Pinault, chief executive officer of PPR, Gucci's parent company. "She lets you know it's not a problem if you can't do something she wants." Defenders also point out she continued supporting Gucci despite her strong belief PPR should not have let Tom Ford go. Designers such as Alice Roi and Isabel Toledo have flourished without indulging Wintour or ''Vogue.'' Her willingness to throw her weight around has helped keep ''Vogue'' independent despite its heavy reliance on advertising dollars. Wintour was the only fashion editor who refused to follow an Armani ultimatum to feature more of its clothes in the magazine's editorial pages, although she has also admitted if she has to choose between two dresses, one by an advertiser and the other not, she will choose the former every time. "Commercial is not a dirty word to me".

In response to criticisms like Beene's, she has defended the democratization of what were once exclusive luxury brands. "It means more people are going to get better fashion", she told Dana Thomas. "And the more people who can have fashion, the better".

References

Works cited

Horyn, Cathy; February 1, 2007; "Citizen Anna"; ''The New York Times''. Retrieved February 2, 2007.

Oppenheimer, Jerry; ''Front Row: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor In Chief'', St. Martin's Press, New York, 2005, ISBN 0-312-32310-7

Weisberger, Lauren; ''The Devil Wears Prada'', Broadway Books, New York 2003, ISBN 0-7679-1476-7

External links

Magazine Editing in Postmodern Times: Anna Wintour an Iconic Postmodern Editor at proof-reading.org

Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:Fashion journalists Category:American magazine editors Category:English magazine editors Category:Vogue (magazine) people Category:Vogue (British magazine) Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:English people of American descent Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:English emigrants to the United States Category:Old North Londoners Category:People from London Category:People from Manhattan

bg:Ана Уинтур de:Anna Wintour es:Anna Wintour eu:Anna Wintour fr:Anna Wintour ko:안나 윈투어 it:Anna Wintour he:אנה וינטור lt:Anna Wintour mk:Ана Винтур nl:Anna Wintour ja:アナ・ウィンター pl:Anna Wintour pt:Anna Wintour ru:Винтур, Анна simple:Anna Wintour fi:Anna Wintour sv:Anna Wintour th:แอนนา วินทัวร์ uk:Анна Вінтур zh:安娜·溫特

birth name	Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson
birth date	April 15, 1990
birth place	Paris, France
occupation	Actress, model
years active	2001–present
website	}}

Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson (born 15 April 1990) is an English actress and model who rose to prominence playing Hermione Granger, one of three starring roles in the ''Harry Potter'' film series. Watson was cast as Hermione at the age of nine, having previously acted only in school plays. From 2001 to 2011, she starred in all eight ''Harry Potter'' films alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint. Watson's work on the ''Harry Potter'' series has earned her several awards and more than £. She made her modelling debut for Burberry's Autumn/Winter campaign in 2009.

In 2007, Watson announced her involvement in two productions: the television adaptation of the novel ''Ballet Shoes'' and an animated film, ''The Tale of Despereaux''. ''Ballet Shoes'' was broadcast on 26 December 2007 to an audience of 5.2 million, and ''The Tale of Despereaux'', based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo, was released in 2008 and grossed over US $86 million in worldwide sales.

Early life

Emma Watson was born in Paris to Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both British lawyers. Watson has one French grandmother, and lived in Paris until the age of five. Following her parents' divorce, she moved with her mother and younger brother to Oxfordshire.

From the age of six, Watson had wanted to become an actress, and for a number of years she trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing and acting. By the age of ten, she had performed in various Stagecoach productions and school plays, including ''Arthur: The Young Years'' and ''The Happy Prince'', but she had never acted professionally before the ''Harry Potter'' series. "I had no idea of the scale of the film series," she stated in a 2007 interview with ''Parade''; "If I had I would have been completely overwhelmed."

Career

Harry Potter

In 1999, casting began for ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' (released as ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'' in the United States), the film adaptation of British author J. K. Rowling's best-selling novel. Casting agents found Watson through her Oxford theatre teacher, and producers were impressed by her confidence. After eight auditions, producer David Heyman told Watson and fellow applicants Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint that they had been cast for the roles of the schoolfriends Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley respectively. Rowling supported Watson from her first screen test.

The release of ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' in 2001 was Watson's debut screen performance. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. Critics praised the performances of the three leads, often singling out Watson for particular acclaim; ''The Daily Telegraph'' called her performance "admirable", and IGN said she "stole the show". Watson was nominated for five awards for her performance in ''Philosopher's Stone'', winning the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress.

A year later, Watson again starred as Hermione in ''Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'', the second instalment of the series. Although the film received mixed reviews, reviewers were positive about the lead actors' performances. The ''Los Angeles Times'' said Watson and her peers had matured between films, while ''The Times'' criticised director Chris Columbus for "under-employing" Watson's hugely popular character. Watson received an Otto Award from the German magazine ''Bravo'' for her performance.

In 2004, ''Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'' was released. Watson was appreciative of the more assertive role Hermione played, calling her character "charismatic" and "a fantastic role to play". Although critics panned Radcliffe's performance, labelling him "wooden", they praised Watson; ''The New York Times'' lauded her performance, saying "Luckily Mr. Radcliffe's blandness is offset by Ms. Watson's spiky impatience. Harry may show off his expanding wizardly skills ... but Hermione ... earns the loudest applause with a decidedly unmagical punch to Draco Malfoy's deserving nose." Although ''Prisoner of Azkaban'' remains the lowest-grossing ''Harry Potter'' film as of April 2009, Watson's personal performance won her two Otto Awards and the Child Performance of the Year award from ''Total Film''.

With ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' (2005), both Watson and the ''Harry Potter'' film series reached new milestones. The film set records for a ''Harry Potter'' opening weekend, a non-May opening weekend in the US, and an opening weekend in the UK. Critics praised the increasing maturity of Watson and her teenage co-stars; the ''New York Times'' called her performance "touchingly earnest". For Watson, much of the humour of the film sprang from the tension among the three lead characters as they matured. She said, "I loved all the arguing. ... I think it's much more realistic that they would argue and that there would be problems." Nominated for three awards for ''Goblet of Fire'', Watson won a bronze Otto Award. Later that year, Watson became the youngest person to appear on the cover of ''Teen Vogue'', an appearance she reprised in August 2009. In 2006, Watson played Hermione in ''The Queen's Handbag'', a special mini-episode of ''Harry Potter'' in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday.

The fifth film in the ''Harry Potter'' franchise, ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'', was released in 2007. A huge financial success, the film set a record worldwide opening-weekend gross of $332.7 million. Watson won the inaugural National Movie Award for Best Female Performance. As the fame of the actress and the series continued, Watson and fellow ''Harry Potter'' co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint left imprints of their hands, feet and wands in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood on 9 July 2007.

Despite the success of ''Order of the Phoenix'', the future of the ''Harry Potter'' franchise became surrounded in doubt, as all three lead actors were hesitant to sign on to continue their roles for the final two episodes. Radcliffe eventually signed for the final films on 2 March 2007, but Watson was considerably more hesitant. She explained that the decision was significant, as the films represented a further four-year commitment to the role, but eventually conceded that she "could never let [the role of] Hermione go", signing for the role on 23 March 2007. In return for committing to the final films, Watson's pay was doubled to £2 million per film; she concluded that "in the end, the pluses outweighed the minuses". Principal photography for the sixth film began in late 2007, with Watson's part being filmed from 18 December to 17 May 2008.

''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'' premiered on 15 July 2009, having been delayed from November 2008. With the lead actors now in their late teens, critics were increasingly willing to review them on the same level as the rest of the film's all-star cast, which the ''Los Angeles Times'' described as "a comprehensive guide to contemporary UK acting". ''The Washington Post'' felt Watson to have given "[her] most charming performance to date", while ''The Daily Telegraph'' described the lead actors as "newly-liberated and energised, eager to give all they have to what's left of the series".

Watson's filming for the final instalment of the ''Harry Potter'' series, ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'', began on 18 February 2009 and ended on 12 June 2010. For financial and scripting reasons, the original book has been divided into two films which were shot back to back. ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'' part 1 was released in November 2010 while the second film was released in July 2011.

Other acting work

Watson's first non-''Potter'' role was the 2007 BBC film ''Ballet Shoes'', an adaptation of the novel of the same title by Noel Streatfeild. The film's director Sandra Goldbacher commented that Watson was "perfect" for the starring role of aspiring actress Pauline Fossil: "She has a piercing, delicate aura that makes you want to gaze and gaze at her." ''Ballet Shoes'' was broadcast in the UK on Boxing Day 2007 to an audience of 5.7 million viewers, despite generally poor reviews. Watson also lent her voice to the role of Princess Pea in the animated film ''The Tale of Despereaux'', a children's comedy starring Matthew Broderick. ''The Tale of Despereaux'' was released in December 2008 and grossed $87 million worldwide. In December 2008, Watson stated she wanted to go to university after she completed the Potter series.

In May 2010, Watson was reported to be in talks to star in a film adaptation of ''The Perks of Being a Wallflower''. Filming began in summer 2011. Also that month, she announced that she would appear in a music video for One Night Only after meeting lead singer George Craig at the 2010 Winter/Summer Burberry advertising campaign. The video, "Say You Don't Want It", was screened on Channel 4 on 26 June 2010 and released on 16 August. In her first post-''Harry Potter'' film, Watson has been cast in the upcoming ''My Week with Marilyn'' as Lucy, a wardrobe assistant who has a few dates with the main character, Colin Clark. Watson has also expressed interest in being in a musical film.

Non-acting work

As she has grown older, Watson has become something of a fashion devotee, saying that she sees fashion as very similar to art, which she studied in school. In September 2008, she told a blogger, "I've been focusing on art a lot, and fashion's a great extension of that."

In 2008, the British press reported that Watson was to replace Keira Knightley as the face of the fashion house Chanel, but this was flatly denied by both parties. In June 2009, following several months of rumours, Watson confirmed that she would be partnering Burberry as the face of their new campaign; she received an estimated six-figure fee for modelling Burberry's Autumn/Winter 2009 collection. She later appeared in Burberry's 2010 Spring/Summer campaign alongside her brother Alex, musicians George Craig and Matt Gilmour, and Max Hurd. Watson continued her involvement in fashion advertising when she modelled for Lancôme in March 2011.

In September 2009, Watson announced her involvement with People Tree, a Fair Trade fashion brand. Watson worked as a 'creative advisor' for People Tree to create a spring line of clothing, which was released in February 2010; the range featured styles inspired by southern France and the City of London. The collection, described by ''The Times'' as "very clever" despite their "quiet hope that [she] would become tangled at the first hemp-woven hurdle", was widely publicised in tabloids such as You magazine, Heat Magazine, Teen Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and People. Watson, who was not paid for the collaboration, admitted that competition for the range was minimal, but argued that "Fashion is a great way to empower people and give them skills; rather than give cash to charity you can help people by buying the clothes they make and supporting things they take pride in"; adding, "I think young people like me are becoming increasingly aware of the humanitarian issues surrounding fast fashion and want to make good choices but there aren't many options out there." Watson continued her involvement with People Tree, resulting in a release of a 2010 Autumn/Winter collection.

Personal life

Watson's extended family has grown, as her divorced parents each have new partners. Her father has a son, and identical twin girls. Her mother's partner has two sons who "regularly stay with her". Watson's full brother, Alexander, has appeared as an extra in two ''Harry Potter'' films, and her half-sisters were cast as the young Pauline Fossil in the BBC's ''Ballet Shoes'' adaptation.

After moving to Oxford with her mother and brother, Watson attended The Dragon School, an independent preparatory school, until June 2003 and then moved to Headington School, an independent school for girls, also in Oxford. While on film sets, Watson and her peers were tutored for up to five hours a day; despite the focus on filming she maintained high academic standards. In June 2006, Watson took GCSE examinations in 10 subjects, achieving eight A* and two A grades; she was a target of friendly ribbing on the ''Harry Potter'' set because of her straight-A exam results. She received A grades in her 2008 A level examinations in English Literature, Geography and Art, and in her 2007 AS (advanced subsidiary) level in History of Art.

After leaving school, Watson took a gap year to film ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'' beginning in February 2009, but said she "definitely want[ed] to go to university". Despite numerous contradictory news stories, some from highly reputable sources, claiming that she would "definitely" attend Trinity College, Cambridge; Columbia University; Brown University or Yale University, Watson was reluctant to commit publicly to any one institution, saying that she would announce her decision first on her official website. In interviews with Jonathan Ross and David Letterman in July 2009, she confirmed that she was planning to study liberal arts in the United States, saying that – having missed so much school as a child for filming – the "broad curriculum" of American higher education appealed to her more than British universities, "where you have to just choose one thing to study for three years". In July 2009, after a second storm of rumour, ''The Providence Journal'' reported that Watson had "grudgingly admitted" that she had chosen Brown University, located in Providence, Rhode Island. Watson defended her attempts to avoid announcing her choice of university – accidentally slipped by Daniel Radcliffe and producer David Heyman, during interviews publicising the release of ''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'', and finally confirmed in September 2009 after the university's academic year had started – saying that she "want[ed] to be normal. ... I want to do it properly, like everyone else. As long as I don't walk in and see ... ''Harry Potter'' posters everywhere, I'll be fine." In March 2011, after 18 months at the university, Watson announced that she was deferring her course for "a semester or two", to give her more time to participate in the advertising buildup for the release of the second ''Deathly Hallows'' film, and other projects. It has since been announced that Watson will be continuing her studies in autumn, reportedly on an exchange programme to Worcester College, Oxford, and that she will complete her final year at Brown University.

As of July 2007, Watson's work in the ''Harry Potter'' series had earned her more than £10 million, and she acknowledged she would never have to work for money again. In March 2009, she was ranked 6th on the ''Forbes'' list of "Most Valuable Young Stars", and in February 2010, she was named as Hollywood's highest paid female star, having earned an estimated £19 million in 2009. However, she has declined to leave school to become a full-time actress, saying "People can't understand why I don't want to ... but school life keeps me in touch with my friends. It keeps me in touch with reality." She has been positive about working as a child actress, saying her parents and colleagues helped make her experience a positive one. Watson enjoys a close friendship with her fellow ''Harry Potter'' stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, describing them as a "unique support system" for the stresses of film work, and saying that, after working with them for the ten years of the film series, "they really are like my siblings".

Watson lists her interests as dancing, singing, field hockey, tennis, art, and she supports the Wild Trout Trust. She describes herself as "a bit of a feminist", and admires fellow actors Johnny Depp and Julia Roberts. She is also a fan of the author Jilly Cooper, once stating she would choose to have one of her novels or the Bible with her if she were stranded on a deserted island with only one book.

Filmography

! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
2001		Hermione Granger	Released as ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'' in the US and India
2002		Hermione Granger
2004		Hermione Granger
2005		Hermione Granger
2007		Hermione Granger
2007		Pauline Fossil	Television film shown on BBC One
2008	''''	Princess Pea	Voice part
2009		Hermione Granger
2010		Hermione Granger
2011		Hermione Granger
2011	''My Week with Marilyn''	Lucy
2012		Sam	In production

Awards

! Year !! Organisation !! Award !! Film !! Result
2002	Young Artist Awards	Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actress
2002	American Moviegoer Awards	Outstanding Supporting Actress	''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''
2003	Otto Awards	Best Female Film Star (Silver)
2004	Broadcast Film Critics Association	Best Young Actress	''Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban''
2005	Otto Awards	Best Female Film Star (Gold)	''Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban''
2005	Broadcast Film Critics Association	Best Young Actress
2006	MTV Movie Awards	Best On-Screen Team	''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire''
2007		Best Female Performance
2007	UK Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards	Best Movie Actress	''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix''
2008	Otto Awards	Best Female Film Star (Gold)	''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix''
2009	Scream Awards	Best Fantasy Actress
2010	Teen Choice Awards	Actress Fantasy	''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince''
2011	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Movie Star Under 25	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1''
2011	Kids' Choice Awards	Favorite Movie Actress	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1''
2011	National Movie Awards	Performance of the Year	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1''
2011	MTV Movie Awards	Best Female Performance	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1''
2011	MTV Movie Awards	Best Kiss (Shared with Daniel Radcliffe)	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1''
2011	MTV Movie Awards	Best Fight (Shared with Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe)	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1''
2011	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie: Actress Sci-Fi/Fantasy	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1''
2011	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie: Liplock (Shared with Daniel Radcliffe)	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1''
2011	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Summer Movie: Female	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2''

References

External links

Guides: Harry Potter Actors at the BBC

Category:1990 births Category:Living people Category:People from Oxford Category:People from Paris Category:British film actors Category:English child actors Category:English film actors Category:English people of French descent Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Old Dragons Category:Old Headingtonians

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Name	Taylor Swift
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Taylor Alison Swift
Birth date	December 13, 1989
Birth place	Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, ganjo, piano, ukulele
Genre	Country pop, pop, country, dance-pop
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, actress
Years active	2006–present
Label	Big Machine
Associated acts	Nathan Chapman, Liz Rose
Website	150pxTaylor Swift's signature }}

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American country pop singer-songwriter, musician and actress.

In 2006, she released her debut single "Tim McGraw", then her self-titled debut album, which was subsequently certified multi-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. In November 2008, Swift released her second album, ''Fearless'', and the recording earned Swift four Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year, at the 52nd Grammy Awards. ''Fearless'' and ''Taylor Swift'' finished 2008 at number-three and number-six respectively, with sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million. ''Fearless'' topped the ''Billboard'' 200 for 11 non-consecutive weeks. Swift was named ''Artist of the Year'' by ''Billboard'' Magazine in 2009. Swift released her third album ''Speak Now'' on October 25, 2010, which sold 1,047,000 copies in its first week.

In 2008, her albums sold a combined four million copies, making her the best-selling musician of the year in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. ''Forbes'' ranked Swift 2009's 69th-most powerful celebrity with earnings of $18 million, 2010's 12th-most powerful celebrity with earnings of $45 million and 2011's 7th-most powerful celebrity with earnings of $45 million, too. Swift was ranked the 38th Best Artist of the 2000s by ''Billboard''. In January 2010 Nielsen SoundScan listed Swift as the most successful digital artist in music history with over 34.3 million digital tracks sold. On June 2011, renowned site The Boot named Swift and Carrie Underwood ''The Country Royalty'', as they were the only female country artists to be ranked on ''Rolling Stone'' Queens of Pop list. , she has sold over 20 million albums and 34.3 million singles worldwide. She has been listed in the 2012 ''Guinness Book Of World Records'' as the Fastest Selling Digital Album by a Female Artist for her album ''Speak Now'', and Most Simultaneous U.S. Hot 100 Hits by a Female Artist. In 2011, ''Billboard'' named her woman of the year.

Early life

Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania, and raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of Andrea Gardner (née Finlay), a homemaker who previously worked in finance, and Scott Kingsley Swift, a stockbroker. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay (née Moehlenkamp), was an opera singer. Swift has a younger brother, Austin. She grew up on a Christmas-tree farm.

When Swift was in fourth grade, she won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem, "Monster in My Closet". At the age of ten, a computer repairman showed her how to play three chords on a guitar, sparking her interest in learning the instrument. Afterwards, Swift wrote her first song, "Lucky You". When Swift was 12, she devoted an entire summer to writing a 350-page novel, which remains unpublished. She began writing songs regularly and used it as an outlet to help her with her pain from not fitting in at school. Swift was a victim of bullying, and spent her time writing songs to express her emotions. She also started performing at local karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs.

Swift began to regularly visit Nashville, Tennessee, and work with local songwriters. When she was 14, her family relocated to Nashville. Her first major show was a well-received performance at the Bloomsburg Fair. In Tennessee, Swift attended Hendersonville High School, but was subsequently homeschooled for her junior and senior years. In 2008, she earned her high school diploma.

Swift's greatest musical influence is Shania Twain. Her other influences include LeAnn Rimes, Tina Turner, Dolly Parton, and Swift's grandmother. Although her grandmother was a professional opera singer, Swift's tastes always leaned more toward country music. In her younger years, she developed a love for Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton. She also credits the Dixie Chicks for demonstrating the impact that one can have by "stretching boundaries".

Music career

2000–2005: musical beginnings

At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville, hoping to obtain a record deal by distributing a demo tape of her singing with karaoke songs. She gave a copy to every label in town, but was rejected. After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, she was asked to sing at the US Open tennis tournament, where her rendition of the national anthem received much attention.

When Swift was 15, she rejected RCA Records because the company wanted to keep her on an artist development deal. After performing at Nashville's songwriters' venue, The Bluebird Café, she caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, who signed her to his newly formed record label, Big Machine Records. At age 14, she became the youngest staff songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house.

2006–2008: ''Taylor Swift''

Swift released her debut single, "Tim McGraw", in mid-2006, reaching No.6 on ''Billboard'' magazine's Hot Country Songs chart. Her self-titled debut album was later released on October 24, 2006. Debuting high on the ''Billboard'' 200, the album sold 39,000 copies during its first week. It peaked at No.1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums and No.5 on the ''Billboard'' 200. Her debut album spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts and remained at the top for 24 out of 91 weeks. The only other country artists this decade to achieve the number-one sales position for 20 weeks or more are The Dixie Chicks and Carrie Underwood. The music video for "Tim McGraw" won Swift an award for Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards. Her pursuit of country music stardom was the subject of "GAC Short Cuts", a part-documentary, part-music-video series airing since the summer of 2006. On May 15, 2007, Swift performed "Tim McGraw" at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Swift has been an opening act for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on their Soul2Soul 2007 tour. She has opened in the past for George Strait, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts as well. The second single from the ''Taylor Swift'' album, "Teardrops on My Guitar", was released February 24, 2007. In mid-2007, the song peaked at No.2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart and No.33 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The song was re-released with a pop remix that brought "Teardrops on My Guitar" to No.13 on the Hot 100 and No.11 on the Pop 100. In October 2007, Swift was awarded Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Assn. Intl., making her the youngest artist ever to win the award. Her third song off her debut album, "Our Song" spent six weeks at No.1 on the Country charts, peaked at No.16 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, and rose to No.24 on the ''Billboard'' Pop 100. Swift recorded a holiday album, ''Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection,'' which was released exclusively at Target in late 2007. Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse. Swift's successful single, "Picture to Burn", was the fourth single from her debut album. The song debuted and soon peaked at No.3 on the Billboard Country chart in spring 2008. left|upright|thumb|Swift performing at Yahoo HQ in 2007 "Should've Said No" became Swift's second No.1 single. In Summer 2008, Swift released ''Beautiful Eyes'', an EP sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. In its first week of release, the album sold 45,000 copies, debuting at No.1 on ''Billboard'''s Top Country Albums chart and No.9 on the ''Billboard'' 200. With her self-titled debut album sitting at No.2 during the same week, Swift became the first artist since 1997 to hold the Top 2 positions of the Top Country Albums chart. In October 2008, Swift performed a duet with best selling rock band Def Leppard in a taped show in Nashville, Tennessee, and their collaboration was up for both Performance of the Year and Wide Open Country Video of the Year at the CMT Music Awards in 2009.

2008–2010: ''Fearless'' and MTV VMA incident

Swift's second studio album, ''Fearless'', was released in the United States on November 11, 2008. The album debuted at No.1 on the ''Billboard'' 200 Album Chart. Its sales of 592,304 were the highest debut of any country artist in 2008. This is also the largest opening U.S. sales week in 2008 by a female artist in all genres of music, and the fourth biggest overall behind Lil Wayne, AC/DC and Coldplay. Its lead single "Love Story" became a hit on both the country and pop charts. During the first week of release, more than 129,000 of Swift's sales were sold digitally. This gives Swift the best online start for any country album in history. It also makes Swift the fourth biggest week for a digital album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking them in 2004. Through its eighth week of release, ''Fearless'' has sold more than 338,467 downloads, making it the bestselling country album in digital history. In second place is Swift's debut ''Taylor Swift'' with sales of 236,046 downloads as of April 18, 2009. In its debut week, seven songs in total on ''Fearless'' were charted on ''Billboard'' Hot 100, tying Swift with Miley Cyrus for the most by a female artist in a single week. With "White Horse" charted at #13, this gave Swift her sixth top 20 debut of 2008, a calendar year record for any artist in the history of the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Of the 13 tracks on ''Fearless'', 11 have already spent time on the Hot 100. "Change", a song from the album, was selected as part of a soundtrack supporting Team USA's efforts in the 2008 Summer Olympics. The song was also featured as part of the soundtrack of NBC's broadcast package of the Olympics. The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released on September 12, 2008. The Fearless album includes the "Love Story" music video which is based on ''Romeo and Juliet''. The song has reached No.2 on iTunes Store Top Downloaded Songs and No.4 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Fifteen weeks after being added to pop radio, "Love Story" also became the first country crossover recording to hit number one on the Nielsen BDS CHR/Top 40 chart in the 16-year-history of the list, as well as number one on the Mediabase Top 40 Chart. The second single from ''Fearless'', "White Horse", was released on December 8, 2008. The music video for the song premiered on CMT on February 7, 2009. Though it missed the No.1 spot on Billboard's Hot Country Songs as of the week April 11, 2009, "White Horse" claimed the No.1 spot atop the USA Today/Country Aircheck chart (powered by Mediabase) in that week. "Forever & Always", another song from the album, was based on Swift's relationship with singer Joe Jonas. She was the first artist in the history of Nielsen SoundScan to have two different albums in the Top 10 on the year end album chart. It also was the first album by a female artist in country music history to log eight weeks at No.1 on The ''Billboard'' 200. In mid-January 2009, Swift became the first country artist to top the 2 million mark in paid downloads with three different songs. Swift is ''Billboard'''s Top Country Artist and Hot Country Songwriter of 2008; she is also country music's best-selling artist of 2008. Swift ranked seventh on Nielsen SoundScan Canada's top-10 selling artists across all genres in 2008. ''Fearless'' and ''Taylor Swift'' took the No.1 and No.2 slots on 2008 Year-End Canadian Country Albums Chart. Swift sang the Star-Spangled Banner at game three of the World Series in Philadelphia on October 25, 2008. In January 2009, Swift announced her North American Fearless Tour planned for 52 cities in 38 states and provinces in the US and Canada over the span of 6 months. The tour kicked off April 23 in Evansville, Indiana. In the same month, Swift made her first musical guest appearance on ''Saturday Night Live''. On February 8, 2009, Swift performed her song "Fifteen" with Miley Cyrus at the 51st Grammy Awards. As of the week ending February 8, 2009, Swift's single "Love Story" became the country song with the most paid downloads in history. Since the release of Swift's second album, ''Fearless'', she has released one new song "Crazier" for the soundtrack of the feature film ''Hannah Montana: The Movie''. At the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, Swift picked up Album of the Year honors as a performer and producer for ''Fearless''. Swift is the youngest artist in history to win the ACM ''Album of the Year'' award. The Academy lauded her for career achievements including selling more albums in 2008 than any other artist in any genre of music, the breakthrough success of her debut album, and the worldwide crossover success of her No.1 single "Love Story". The Academy also cited Swift's contribution to helping country music attract a younger audience. As of late April 2009, Swift has sold more than 14 million downloads, as well as three Gold Mobile Ringtones. On April 28, 2009, Swift gave a free, private concert to students at Bishop Ireton High School, a small Catholic school in Alexandria, Virginia after the school won a national "TXT 2 WIN" contest from Verizon Wireless. The students sent over 19,000 text messages to Verizon during a roughly one month long contest. Swift played for about an hour during the school's field day, an annual day-long recess with games and activities. On October 8, 2009 Swift's official website announced that her sold-out Fearless Tour would return to North America for 37 additional dates in 2010.

Scheduled to perform on September 13, 2009, Swift attended the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. This was her first VMA performance, where she became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award. During the show, as Swift was on stage accepting the award for Best Female Video for "You Belong with Me," singer/rapper Kanye West came on stage and took the microphone from Swift, saying that Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated for the same award, was "one of the best videos of all time," an action that caused the many audience members to boo West. He handed the microphone back to a stunned and reportedly upset Swift, who did not finish her acceptance speech. When Beyoncé later won the award for Best Video of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", she called Swift up on stage so that she could finish her acceptance speech. Following the awards show, West apologized for his verbal outburst in a blog entry (which was subsequently removed). He was criticized by various celebrities for the outburst, and even by President Barack Obama who called West a "jackass" in an "off the record" comment. He later posted a second apology on his blog and made his first public apology one day after the incident on the debut episode of ''The Jay Leno Show''. On September 15, 2009, Swift talked about the matter on ''The View'', where she said she was at first excited to see West on stage and then disappointed once he acted out. She said West had not spoken to her following the incident. Following her appearance on ''The View'', West contacted her to apologize personally; Swift said she accepted his apology. However, on November 8, 2010, in an interview with a Minnesota radio station, West seemed to recant a bit of his past apologies by attempting to describe the act at the 2009 awards show as "selfless" and downgrade the perception of disrespect it created. Swift would later perform a song at the 2010 VMA called "Innocent" which is about the incident and in the song she absolves West of his actions. On November 11, 2009, Swift became the youngest artist ever to win the Country Music Association Award for Entertainer of the year, and is one of only six women to win the Country Music Association's highest honor. On the chart week of November 14, 2009, Swift set a record for the most songs on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 by a female artist at the same time with eight singles from the re-release of her 2008 album ''Fearless'' namely five debut new songs in the top 30: "Jump Then Fall" at #10, "Untouchable" at #19, "The Other Side of the Door" at #22, "Superstar" at No.27 and "Come in With the Rain" at No.30 and three already-charted songs that were released as singles—"You Belong with Me" (#14), "Forever & Always" which re-entered the chart at #34, and "Fifteen" (#46). In addition, the song "Two Is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls which features Swift, debuted at No.80 in the same issue. This gives Swift six debuts in one week, the biggest number of debuts by any female artist of all time. It also lifts the number of her simultaneously-charting songs to nine, setting another record for the biggest number of charting songs by the same female artist in the same week. When "Fifteen" reached No.38 on the chart week of November 21, 2009, Swift became the female artist with the most Top 40 singles this decade, surpassing Beyoncé. "Fifteen" became Swift's twentieth Top 40 single overall. "Two Is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls and John Mayer's "Half of My Heart" both featured Swift, peaking at No.40 and No.25 respectively. The two songs are her 21st and 22nd Top 40 singles. ''Fearless'' was the best-selling album of 2009 in the US with more than 3.2 millions copies sold in that year. Swift claimed both the No.1 and No.2 positions atop Nielsen's BDS Top 10 Most Played Songs chart (all genres), with "You Belong With Me" and "Love Story," respectively. She also topped the all format 2009 Top 10 Artist Airplay chart with over 1.29 million song detections, and the Top 10 Artist Internet Streams chart with more than 46 million song plays.

2010–present: ''Speak Now''

Swift released the track "Today Was a Fairytale" as a digital download on iTunes on January 19, 2010. The song was featured on the soundtrack for the film ''Valentine's Day'', in which she made her feature-film acting debut. The song debuted on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 at No. 2, becoming her sixth Top 10 and 23rd Top 40 single on that chart. According to Nielsen SoundScan, with sales of "Today Was a Fairytale" more than 325,000 in its first week, Swift has broken the record for first-week download sales by a female artist. The song also debuted at number one on the Canadian Hot 100, making it Swift's first number one hit in Canada. In February 2010, Swift brought her Fearless Tour to 5 cities in Australia. Opening acts included Gloriana. In mid-July 2010, ''Billboard'' revealed that Swift's new album is called ''Speak Now''. It was released on October 25, 2010. She has written the album completely by herself in Arkansas, New York, Boston and Nashville with Nathan Chapman serving as co-producer. On Wednesday, August 4, 2010, the lead single from the album, "Mine," was leaked onto the internet. Big Machine Records decided to rush the release of the song to counteract the leak. Swift appeared at the 44th Annual Country Music Awards on November 10, 2010. In 2011, Swift visited Singapore as the first stop of the Asian leg of her first world tour. Hong Kong is the last stop of the Speak Now World Tour and Swift will begin the European and American leg afterwards. Swift's first live album, ''Speak Now World Tour: Live'', featuring all seventeen performances from the North American leg of her concert tour, is scheduled for a November 21, 2011 release. Many dates on the Speak Now World Tour were cancelled due to Swift suffering from bronchitis and was told she is unable to perform. Swift sold approximately 4,470,000 albums in the US in 2010 (more than any other artist) and sold 9.9 million digital tracks. She was ranked second on ''Rolling Stone'''s lists of Top 16 "Queen Of Pops" of the decade. Swift appeared on the ''Hamish & Andy'' show where she performed a new song called "Chaperone Dads", which is dedicated to a select group of her fans. The week following the release of her "Sparks Fly" video Swift jumped from nineteen to ten on the ''Billboard'''s Social 50. Swift has revealed that she has already written 25 songs for an untitled follow-up album to ''Speak Now'', set to release in the later part of 2012. She commented on them, "They’re sad. If I'm being honest."

On December 23, 2011, Taylor announced via Twitter, "Something I've been VERY excited about for a VERY long time is going to be happening VERY soon." Several hours later, Taylor announced that she is featured on ''The Hunger Games'' Official Movie Soundtrack. Her song, entitled "Safe & Sound", was the first track released from the album. The song was co-written by The Civil Wars, who also co-recorded the song with Taylor. On January 8, 2012, Taylor was elected the fifth top artist (fourth female top artist) of all-time with the best-selling digital music tracks. Taylor has sold 41,821,000 million digital tracks as of the end of 2011 according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Songwriting style

Swift's lyrics are highly autobiographical; she has said that "If you listen to my albums, it’s like reading my diary." For example, the song "Forever & Always" was inspired by her relationship with Joe Jonas, while the song "Hey Stephen" was written about a boy whom she toured with in the past. "Fifteen" was written about her freshman year of high school. It has been said that her lyrics "can be tinged with acid: the quiet loner girl getting one over on the cheerleaders, or a caustic payback for the boy who dumped her." She has also indicated that she tries to write so her fans can relate to the lyrics, saying "My goal is to never write songs that my fans can't relate to." She parodied her confrontational style of songwriting during her appearance on ''Saturday Night Live''; during her opening monologue, she performed an original song that featured lines such as "You might think I'd bring up Joe, that guy who broke up with me on the phone/ Hey, Joe, I'm doing real well, tonight I'm hosting 'SNL'" referring to her highly publicized relationship with Joe Jonas.

The intensely personal nature of the songs has drawn her attention in the music industry. Swift once said, "I thought people might find them hard to relate to, but it turned out that the more personal my songs were, the more closely people could relate to them." Due to the autobiographical nature of her songs, some fans have researched the songs' origins. Swift once said, "Every single one of the guys that I’ve written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans." ''The New York Times'' described Swift as "one of pop's finest songwriters, country’s foremost pragmatist and more in touch with her inner life than most adults".

Other work

Acting

In 2008, Swift made her acting debut in Brad Paisley's music video "Online". In that same year Swift filmed a documentary for MTV entitled ''MTV's Once Upon a Prom'' and a documentary with Def Leppard for CMT entitled ''CMT Crossroads'', which premiered on November 7, 2008. Swift collaborated with the Jonas Brothers in their 3D Concert Film, ''Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience''. The film was released on February 27, 2009 in North America and brought in $12.7 million on its opening weekend. Swift made her primetime television acting debut on CBS's ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' "Turn, Turn, Turn" as Haley Jones on March 5, 2009 in the U.S. and Canada. The episode was watched by 20.8 million viewers. Swift made a cameo appearance in Kellie Pickler's music video "Best Days of Your Life". Swift also appeared in ''Hannah Montana: The Movie'' credited as herself. The film was released on April 10, 2009 in North America. The television show Dateline NBC showcased an hour on Swift on May 31, 2009. The episode titled ''Dateline NBC: On Tour With Taylor Swift'' included scenes from her tour bus, concert footage, and rehearsals. Swift both hosted and performed as the musical guest for the November 7, 2009 episode of ''Saturday Night Live''. In 2010, Swift made her feature film acting debut as Felicia in the film ''Valentine's Day''. For this role she won the Teen Choice Award for Movie Female Breakout. She has been cast to voice the role of Audrey in the animated film ''The Lorax'', set to be released in 2012. In January 2012, Swift was offered the role of Eponine in the film adaptation of the musical, ''Les Misérables''.

Cover model and recognition

Swift has been featured on the cover of a number of magazines. She has been a cover girl for ''Blender'', for which she was one of two country artists during the magazine’s fifteen year run to be a cover subject. She was included in ''People'''s annual "100 Most Beautiful People" 2008, 2009, and 2010 lists. Additionally, she was named number fifty-seven on ''Maxim's'' sexiest women of 2008, number fifty on the 2009 list and number thirty-one on the 2010 list. ''CosmoGirl'' voted Swift as the "2008 Girl of the Year". Swift was named by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine as one of "The RS 100: Agents of Change". She was nominated as a candidate for ''TIME''s "2009 The Time 100 Finalists" list, which is determined by online voting. ''People'' magazine named Swift one of 25 Most Intriguing People of 2009.

Merchandise

Jakks Pacific released a celebrity doll of Swift in late 2008. Swift has been the face of L.E.I. Jeans (Life Energy Intelligence) since 2008. Swift and the L.e.i. Clothing Line made a deal to create a line based on Swift's style of dressing, which will appear in Wal-Mart in the coming months. However, Swift said she does not want to be called a designer. Instead, she says she will inspire the clothing company's dress line based on her own style. "I don't look at it like I'm branching out as a designer... It's not the Taylor Swift designer line." In 2009, Swift became the National Hockey League's newest celebrity spokesperson. She appears in commercials for the Nashville Predators.

In May 2009, Swift filed a lawsuit (kept sealed until August 2010) against numerous sellers of unauthorized counterfeit merchandise bearing her name, likeness, and trademarks, where she demanded a trial by jury, sought a judgement for compensatory damages, punitive damages, three times the actual damages sustained, and statutory damages, and sought for recovery of her attorney's fees and prejudgement interest. Nashville's U.S. District Court granted an injunction and judgment against the sellers, who had been identified at Swift's concerts in several states. The court ordered merchandise seized from the defendants to be destroyed. On July 15, 2011, Swift's official website announced that she had partnered with Elizabeth Arden to launch a fragrance, which is to be released in October 2011. The fragrance's name, "Wonderstruck", is a reference to the song "Enchanted" featured on her ''Speak Now'' album. Swift is also working with American Greetings, Inc.

Philanthropy

On September 21, 2007, Swift helped launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has teamed up with Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to combat internet sex crimes. The year-long campaign, in partnership with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, will distribute Internet safety information and materials to parents and students across the state. In early 2008, Swift donated the pink Chevy pick-up truck given to her by her record label to the children’s charity, the ''Victory Junction Gang''; in June 2008, Swift donated all the proceeds from her merchandise sales at the 2008 Country Music Festival to Red Cross, the ''Nashville Area Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund'' and the ''National American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund''.

Swift donated $100,000 to the Red Cross in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to help the victims of the Iowa flood of 2008. Swift has teamed up with Sound Matters to make listeners aware of listening "responsibly". Swift supports @15, a teen-led social change platform underwritten by Best Buy to give teens opportunities to direct the company's philanthropy through the newly-created @15 Fund. Swift's song, "Fifteen", is featured in this campaign. Swift lent her support to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal by joining the lineup at Sydney's Sound Relief concert, reportedly making the biggest contribution of any artist playing at Sound Relief to the Australian Red Cross. Swift donated her prom dress, which raised $1,200 for charity, to DonateMyDress.org. On November 20, 2009 after a live performance on BBC's Children in Need night Swift announced to Sir Terry Wogan she would donate £13,000 of her own money to the cause.

On December 13, Swift's own birthday, she donated $250,000 to various schools around the country which she had either attended or been involved with. Swift has donated a pair of her shoes – a gently-worn pair of black Betsey Johnson heels with her autograph on the sole – to the Wish Upon a Hero Foundation's Hero in Heels fundraiser for auction to raise money to benefit women with cancer.

In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a flood relief telethon hosted by WSMV, a Nashville television station.

On May 23, 2011, Taylor Swift transformed what was to have been the final dress rehearsal for the North American leg of her Speak Now tour into a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the United States southeast region. The concert in Nashville drew more than 13,000 people and raised more than $750,000 from proceeds from ticket sales, merchandise and other facets of the show. The benefit concert for tornado relief was subsequently honored at the 2011 Do Something Awards. In July 2011, Swift further aided to the cause by donating $250,000 to Alabama football coach Nick Saban's charity Nick's Kids to aid in the tornado relief efforts of West Alabama.

Personal life

In addition to her relationship with Joe Jonas, which ended in October 2008, Swift's dating history has included other celebrities: Taylor Lautner, for three months in 2009; and Jake Gyllenhaal, from late 2010 to early 2011. Swift has also been romantically linked to John Mayer. There has been speculation that the songs "Dear John" and "The Story of Us" from her album ''Speak Now'' are about Mayer. In October 2011, she revealed to Ellen Degeneres on her show ''Ellen'' that, "I don't even have, like, kind of a boyfriend. I don't have someone that I'm texting that is a guy that someday might be my boyfriend. There's like nothing going on right now."

In November 2011, Taylor adopted a Scottish fold kitten. She named her Meredith after the character Meredith Grey from the popular ABC drama ''Grey's Anatomy''. The kitten appeared in the official music video for Taylor's song ''Ours'' alongside Taylor and ''Friday Night Lights'' star Zach Gilford.

Filmography

>

! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
2007		Herself	Guest; Episode: Season 2 Finale
2008	''CMT Crossroads''	Herself	Episode: "Taylor Swift and Def Leppard"
2009	''Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience''	Herself
2009	''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation''	Haley Jones
2009	''Hannah Montana: The Movie''	Herself	Cameo
2009	''Saturday Night Live''	Herself	Host/Musical Guest
2009		Herself	Guest; Episode: Week 6 results
2010		Felicia	Movie acting debut
2010	''Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless''	Herself	Main Role
2010		Herself	Guest; Episode: 200th episode
2012	''''	Audrey
2012	''Bruno the Robot''	Various

Discography

Albums

''Taylor Swift'' (2006)

''Fearless'' (2008)

''Speak Now'' (2010)

Awards and nominations

Tours

Fearless Tour (2009–10)

Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)

References

External links

Category:1989 births Category:American child singers Category:American country banjoists Category:American country singer-songwriters Category:American female guitarists Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American pianists Category:American pop singers Category:American television actors Category:Big Machine Records artists Category:Child pop musicians Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Pennsylvania Category:People from Reading, Pennsylvania Category:People from Wyomissing, Pennsylvania Category:Ukulele players

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