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  United States
  The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
  At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
  
  wn.com/United_States

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  Ben Affleck
  Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt (born August 15, 1972), better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor, film director, writer, and producer. He became known with his performances in Kevin Smith's films such as Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), and Dogma (1999). Affleck won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997), which he co-wrote with Matt Damon, and has appeared in lead roles in such popular hits as Armageddon (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), Changing Lanes (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Daredevil (2003), Hollywoodland (2007) and State of Play (2009).
  Affleck is a critically acclaimed filmmaker. He directed Gone Baby Gone (2007) and The Town (2010), playing the lead in the latter. He has worked with his younger brother, actor Casey Affleck, on several projects, including Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone.
  Affleck has been married to Jennifer Garner since June 2005. They have two daughters, Violet and Seraphina, and a son, Samuel. He dated the actress Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998. His relationship with actress/singer Jennifer Lopez attracted worldwide media attention, in which Affleck and Lopez were dubbed "Bennifer". The two broke up in 2004.
  
  wn.com/Ben_Affleck
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  Billy Bob Thornton
  Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, screenwriter, director and musician. Thornton gained early recognition as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone. In the mid-1990s, after writing, directing, and starring in the independent film Sling Blade, he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He appeared in several major film roles following Sling Blade 's success, including 1998's Armageddon and A Simple Plan. During the late 1990s, Thornton began a career as a singer-songwriter. He has released three albums and was the singer in a blues rock band.
  Thornton was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the son of Virginia Roberta (née Faulkner), a psychic, and William Raymond "Billy Ray" Thornton (November 1929–August 1974), a high school history teacher and basketball coach who died when Thornton was 18. He has two younger brothers, Jimmy Don (April 1958–October 1988), who died of a heart attack at 30, and John David (born 1969), who resides in California. Jimmy Don Thornton wrote a number of songs, two of which—"Island Avenue" and "Emily"—Thornton has recorded on his solo albums. During his childhood, Thornton lived in both Alpine, Arkansas, and Malvern, Arkansas. He was raised a Methodist, in an extended family in a shack that had neither electricity nor plumbing. Thornton graduated from high school in 1973. A good high school baseball player, he tried out for the Kansas City Royals, but was let go after an injury. After a short period laying asphalt for the Arkansas State Transportation Department, he attended Henderson State University to pursue studies in psychology, but he dropped out after two semesters.
  
  wn.com/Billy_Bob_Thornton
• Bradley Fuller
  Bradley Fuller, better known as Brad Fuller, is an American film producer. He co-owns Platinum Dunes, a production company specialized in producing horror movies, most notably The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Fuller is a graduate of Wesleyan University.
  
  wn.com/Bradley_Fuller
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  Bruce Willis
  Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a German-born American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles. He is well known for the role of John McClane in the Die Hard series, which were mostly critical and uniformly financial successes. He has also appeared in over sixty films, including box office successes like Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Sin City (2005), Over the Hedge (2006) and Red (2010).
  Motion pictures featuring Willis have grossed US$2.64 billion to 3.05 billion at North American box offices, making him the ninth highest-grossing actor in a leading role and twelfth highest including supporting roles. He is a two-time Emmy Award–winning, Golden Globe Award–winning and four-time Saturn Award–nominated actor. Willis was married to actress Demi Moore and they had three daughters before their divorce in 2000, following thirteen years of marriage. He is currently married to model Emma Heming, with whom he has one daughter.
  
  wn.com/Bruce_Willis
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  Bryan Singer
  Bryan Singer (born September 17, 1965) is an American film director, writer and producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.
  Singer was born in New York City, and was adopted by Grace Singer (née Sinden), an environmental activist, and Norbert Dave Singer, a corporate executive. He grew up in a Jewish household in West Windsor Township, New Jersey. He attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South (formerly just West Windsor-Plainsboro High School), graduating in 1984. For college, Singer studied filmmaking for two years at New York's School of Visual Arts and later transferred to the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles. Actors Lori and Marc Singer are his cousins. He is openly gay and has said that his life experiences of growing up as a minority influenced his movies. He was diagnosed with dyslexia.
  After graduating, Singer directed a short film called Lion's Den involving a number of friends, including actor Ethan Hawke whom he knew from his childhood in New Jersey and editor John Ottman who he had met while working on a friend's short film.
  
  wn.com/Bryan_Singer
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  Christopher Nolan
  Christopher Jonathan James Nolan (/ˈnoʊlən/; born 30 July 1970), also known as Chris Nolan is a British/Americanfilm director, screenwriter and producer.
  He received serious notice after his second feature Memento (2000), which he wrote and directed based on a story idea by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. Jonathan went to co-write later scripts with him, including the Batman series and The Prestige. He also first collaborated with Wally Pfister, who would photograph all his subsequent films. After directing Insomnia (2002), Nolan pitched an idea for a reboot of the Batman film franchise to Warner Bros., eventually making a successful trilogy consisting of Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
  Inception (2010) was an original screenplay by Nolan, a heist film set in the world of "shared dreaming." Nolan co-founded Syncopy Films with his wife, Emma Thomas, and they have produced all his films since The Prestige (2006).
  Nolan has also worked with screenwriter David S. Goyer, film editor Lee Smith, composers David Julyan and Hans Zimmer, special effects coordinator Chris Corbould, and actors Christian Bale, Cillian Murphy, Jeremy Theobald, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, and Michael Caine.
  
  wn.com/Christopher_Nolan
• Don Simpson
  Donald Clarence "Don" Simpson (October 29, 1943 – January 19, 1996) was an American film producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is known for producing such hits as Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun and The Rock. In 1985 and again in 1988, he and his producing partner, Jerry Bruckheimer, were named Producers of the Year by the National Association of Theatre Owners.
  Simpson was born in Seattle, Washington, grew up in Anchorage, Alaska and attended West Anchorage High School. He then went on to attend the University of Oregon, where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
  Simpson's unusual personal life has been documented in a number of sources. A chapter in the book You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again (which describes four prostitutes' stories about their sexual encounters with Hollywood celebrities) discusses his preferences for S & M and videotaping of their sessions. He is also known to have had several plastic surgery operations.
  On Friday, January 19, 1996, Simpson was found dead in his home in Los Angeles. The cause of death was a cardiac arrest from combined drug intoxication (CDI).
  
  wn.com/Don_Simpson
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  Donny Osmond
  Donald Clark "Donny" Osmond (born December 9, 1957) is an American singer, musician, actor, dancer, radio personality, and former teen idol. Osmond has also been a talk and game show host, record producer and author. In the mid 1960s, he and four of his elder brothers gained fame as the Osmond Brothers on the long running variety program, The Andy Williams Show. Donny went solo in the early 1970s covering such hits as "Go Away Little Girl" and "Puppy Love".
  For over thirty-five years, he and younger sister Marie have gained fame as Donny & Marie, partly due to the success of their 1976–79 self-titled variety series, which aired on ABC. The duo also did a 1998–2000 talk show and have been headlining in Las Vegas since 2008. Between a highly successful teen career in the 1970s, and his rebirth in the 1990s, Osmond's career was stymied during the 1980s by what some have perceived as his "boy scout" image. Osmond stated on the May 1, 2009 Larry King Live show that longtime friend Michael Jackson suggested he change his name to boost his image. Osmond's agent even suggested that spreading false rumors about drug arrest charges might recharge his career. Osmond felt such allegations would have familial ramifications, and couldn't reconcile how lying to create a nefarious drug image could be explained to his children, nieces and nephews. In 1989, Osmond had two big-selling recordings, the first of which, "Soldier of Love", was initially credited to a "mystery artist" by some radio stations.
  
  wn.com/Donny_Osmond
• Douglas Preston
  Douglas Preston (born May 20, 1956 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) is an American author who has written seventeen popular techno-thriller and horror novels, four alone and the rest with Lincoln Child. He also has authored several non-fiction books, both alone and one with Italian author Mario Spezi.
  A graduate of the Cambridge School of Weston in Weston, Massachusetts, and Pomona College in Claremont, California, Preston began his writing career at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In addition to his collaborations with Child, he has written several novels and non-fiction books of his own, mainly dealing with the history of the American Southwest. He is a contributing writer for Smithsonian, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker magazines. He has two brothers: David Preston (a medical doctor) and Richard Preston, also a best-selling fiction/non-fiction author.
  Most of Preston's five nonfiction books and fifteen novels were bestsellers and have been translated into many languages. With his frequent collaborator, Lincoln Child, he has co-authored such bestselling thrillers as The Cabinet of Curiosities, The Ice Limit, Thunderhead, Riptide, Brimstone and Relic. Their novel, Cold Vengeance, which came out in August 2011, reached number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Preston writes about archeology for the New Yorker magazine and he has also been published in Smithsonian magazine, Harper's, and National Geographic. He is the recipient of numerous writing awards. He has created the character Wyman Ford, an ex-CIA agent who appears in many of his solo novels.
  
  wn.com/Douglas_Preston
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  Ed Harris
  Edward Allen "Ed" Harris (born November 28, 1950) is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, The Truman Show, and The Hours. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies. He is a three-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, along with an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination for the title role in Pollock.
  Harris was born in Englewood Hospital, and raised in Tenafly, the son of Margaret, a travel agent, and Robert L. Harris, who sang with the Fred Waring chorus and worked at the bookstore of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has an older brother, Robert, and a younger brother, Spencer. His parents were originally from Oklahoma. Harris was raised in a middle-class Presbyterian family. He graduated from Tenafly High School in 1969, where he played on the football team, serving as the team's captain in his senior year. He was a star athlete in high school, and competed in athletics at Columbia University in 1969. Two years later his family moved to New Mexico, and he followed, after having discovered his interest in acting in various theater plays. He enrolled at the University of Oklahoma to study drama. After several successful roles in the local theater, he moved to Los Angeles, and enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts.
  
  wn.com/Ed_Harris
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  Ewan McGregor
  Ewan Gordon McGregor (born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor who has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. He is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting (1996), Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), poet Christian in the musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001), and storyteller Edward Bloom in Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003). He has also received critical acclaim for his starring roles in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls (2005–07) and Othello (2007–08). McGregor was ranked No. 36 on Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in 1997.
  Born in the Royal Infirmary in Perth, Scotland, McGregor was brought up in the nearby small town of Crieff, where he attended the independent Morrison's Academy. His mother, Carole Diane (née Lawson), is a teacher and school administrator, and his father, James Charles Stewart "Jim" McGregor, is a physical education teacher. He has an older brother, Colin, who is a former Tornado GR4 pilot in the Royal Air Force. He is the nephew of actor Denis Lawson and the late actress Sheila Gish, and the step-cousin of the late actress Lou Gish. McGregor studied drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
  
  wn.com/Ewan_McGregor
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  Faith Hill
  Faith Hill (born Audrey Faith Perry; September 21, 1967) is an American country singer. She is known both for her commercial success and her marriage to fellow country star Tim McGraw. Hill has sold more than 40 million records worldwide and accumulated eight number-one singles and three number-one albums on the U.S. Country charts.
  Hill has been honored by the Grammy Awards, the Academy of Country Music, the Country Music Association, the American Music Awards and the People's Choice Awards. Her Soul2Soul II Tour 2006 with McGraw became the highest-grossing country tour of all time. In 2001, she was named one of the "30 Most Powerful Women in America" by Ladies Home Journal. In 2008, Hill released her first Christmas album, titled Joy to the World. In 2009 Billboard named her as the #1 Adult Contemporary artist of the decade 2000-2009. Hill was ranked the 39th best artist of the 2000-10 decade by Billboard.
  Hill was born in Ridgeland, Mississippi, north of Jackson, Mississippi. She was adopted as an infant, and named Audrey Faith Perry. She was raised in the nearby town of Star, 25 miles outside of Jackson, Mississippi. Her adoptive parents raised their two biological sons along with Hill in a devout Christian environment.
  
  wn.com/Faith_Hill
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  Francis Ford Coppola
  Francis Ford Coppola ( /ˈkoʊpələ/ KOH-pə-lə; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors. He epitomized the group of filmmakers known as the New Hollywood, that includes Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, William Friedkin, Philip Kaufman, and George Lucas who emerged in the early 1970s with unconventional ideas that challenged contemporary film-making.
  He co-wrote the script for Patton (1970), which won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay). His directorial fame escalated with the release of The Godfather (1972), a film which revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, earning praise from critics and public alike. It won three Academy Awards, including his second, for Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), and was instrumental in cementing his position as a prominent American film director.
  Coppola followed it with a critically successful sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974), which became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film was highly praised and won him three Academy Awards—for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture. The Conversation, which Coppola directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. He next directed Apocalypse Now (1979); notorious for its overlong and strenuous production, but critically acclaimed for its vivid and stark depiction of the Vietnam War, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. To this day, Coppola is one of only seven filmmakers to win two Palme d'Or awards, and is the only filmmaker to win both in the same decade.
  
  wn.com/Francis_Ford_Coppola
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  George Lucas
  George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American film producer, screenwriter, director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones. Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful directors/producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion as of 2011.
  George Lucas was born in Modesto, California, the son of Dorothy Ellinore (née Bomberger) and George Walton Lucas, Sr. (1913–1991), who owned a stationery store.
  Lucas grew up in the Central Valley town of Modesto and his early passion for cars and motor racing would eventually serve as inspiration for his USC student film 1:42.08, as well as his Oscar-nominated low-budget phenomenon, American Graffiti. Long before Lucas became obsessed with film making, he wanted to be a race-car driver, and he spent most of his high school years racing on the underground circuit at fairgrounds and hanging out at garages. However, a near-fatal accident in his souped-up Autobianchi Bianchina on June 12, 1962, just days before his high school graduation, quickly changed his mind. Instead of racing, he attended Modesto Junior College and later got accepted into a junior college to study anthropology. While taking liberal arts courses, he developed a passion for cinematography and camera tricks. George Lucas graduated from USC in California.
  
  wn.com/George_Lucas
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  Jackie Earle Haley
  Jackie Earle Haley (born Jack Earle Haley; July 14, 1961) is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in Watchmen, and horror icon Freddy Krueger in the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, released on April 30, 2010. He also starred as Guerrero in Fox's drama Human Target.
  Haley was born and raised in Northridge, California, the son of Haven Earle "Bud" Haley, a radio show host/disc jockey and actor.
  Haley has appeared in numerous films, including Damnation Alley, John Schlesinger's The Day of the Locust, and Losin' It, as well as guest roles on TV. A well known child actor, he starred as Kelly Leak in the comedy The Bad News Bears. He also starred in The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training and The Bad News Bears Go to Japan.
  He played Moocher in Peter Yates' acclaimed 1979 film Breaking Away and later in the short-lived TV series of the same name. Throughout the 1970s, he often played a tough, angry, pimply, long-haired misfit; although in the offbeat 1972 film, The Outside Man, he plays Eric, a boy apparently so desperately lonely that he tries to impress the mob assassin holding him and his mother (Georgia Engel) hostage. It has been rumored that in 1984, Haley's friend Johnny Depp accompanied him to auditions for Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street; instead of Haley being chosen for a role, it was Depp who was spotted by director Craven, who asked him if he would like to read for a part.
  
  wn.com/Jackie_Earle_Haley
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  James Cameron
  James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian film director, film producer, deep-sea explorer, screenwriter, visual artist and editor. His writing and directing work includes Piranha II: The Spawning (1981), The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997), Dark Angel (2000–02), and Avatar (2009). In the time between making Titanic and Avatar, Cameron spent several years creating many documentary films (specifically underwater documentaries) and co-developed the digital 3D Fusion Camera System. Described by a biographer as part-scientist and part-artist, Cameron has also contributed to underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies. On March 26, 2012, Cameron reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, in the Deepsea Challenger submersible.
  He has been nominated for six Academy Awards overall and won three for Titanic. In total, Cameron's directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$2 billion in North America and US$6 billion worldwide. Without adjusting for inflation, Cameron's Titanic and Avatar are the two highest-grossing films of all time at $2.16 billion and $2.78 billion respectively. In March 2011 he was named Hollywood's top earner by Vanity Fair, with estimated 2010 earnings of $257 million.
  
  wn.com/James_Cameron
• James Frey
  James Christopher Frey (born September 12, 1969) is an American writer. His books A Million Little Pieces (2003) and My Friend Leonard (2005), as well as Bright Shiny Morning (2008), were bestsellers. He was the subject of a scandal when investigators discovered that major elements of A Million Little Pieces, a purportedly autobiographical account of the author's struggle with addiction, were untrue.
  Frey graduated from Denison University in Granville, Ohio in 1992. Before Frey began his writing career, he held several jobs in the Chicago area while studying at the Art Institute of Chicago. Frey then moved to Los Angeles and found work as a screenwriter, director, and producer. In the spring of 1996, Frey started writing A Million Little Pieces, originally presented as a memoir of his experiences during his treatment for alcohol and drug addiction at a rehabilitation center in Minnesota.
  Frey also wrote the screenplays to the films Kissing a Fool and Sugar: The Fall of the West. Both were produced in 1998, the latter of which he directed as well.
  
  wn.com/James_Frey
• Jeanine Basinger
  Jeanine Basinger (born 3 February 1936), a film historian, is Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and Founder and Curator of The Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut.
  She is also a trustee emeritus of the American Film Institute, a member of the Steering Committee of the National Center for Film and Video Preservation, and one of the Board of Advisors for the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers. On February 11, 2005, she has been named to the board of directors of the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
  Basinger has been described as "one of the most important film scholars alive today." Among other accomplishments, she is credited with having built Wesleyan's Film Studies program into one of the ten best film schools in the world. "A shockingly disproportionate number of Hollywood movers and shakers" are graduates of the program. Former graduates include, but are not limited to: Akiva Goldsman, Joss Whedon, Michael Bay, Paul Weitz, Laurence Mark, Paul Schiff, Alex Kurtzman, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Toby Emmerich, Nick Meyer, Marc Shmuger, Rick Nicita, Bradley Fuller, Dana Delany, Stephen Schiff, Rodger Grossman, Toni Ross, Bradley Whitford, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, Liz Garcia, Marc Longenecker, Jon Turteltaub, Owen Renfroe, Jeffrey Lane, Zak Penn, Jeremy Arnold and Miguel Arteta.
  
  wn.com/Jeanine_Basinger
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  Jerry Bruckheimer
  Jerome Leon "Jerry" Bruckheimer (born September 21, 1945) is an American film and television producer. He has achieved great success in the genres of action, drama, and science fiction. His best known television series are CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Without a Trace, Cold Case, and The Amazing Race. Some of his best known films include Beverly Hills Cop, Flashdance, Top Gun, The Rock, Con Air, Armageddon, Bad Boys, Enemy of the State, Black Hawk Down, Pearl Harbor, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the National Treasure franchise. He is also one of the Board of Directors at ZeniMax Media.
  Many of his films were produced by Paramount and Disney, while many of his television series were co-produced by Warner Bros. and CBS Television Studios.
  The son of German Jewish immigrants, Bruckheimer was born in Detroit, Michigan. He attended Mumford High School in Detroit until moving to Arizona for college at age 17. Bruckheimer was also an active member of the Stamp Collecting Club.^{[citation needed]} He graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Arizona with an algebra minor. He was a member of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. A film buff at an early age with an interest in photography, Bruckheimer would take snapshots when he had the opportunity. After college Bruckheimer worked in advertising in Detroit and New York City, producing award-winning commercials.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Jerry_Bruckheimer
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  John Woo
  John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (born 1 May 1946) is a Hong Kong film director, writer, and producer. Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion. Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard Boiled and Red Cliff. His Hollywood films include Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2. He also created the comic series Seven Brothers, published by Virgin Comics. Woo was described by Dave Kehr in The Observer in 2002 as "arguably the most influential director making movies today". Woo cites his three favorite films as David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï.
  Woo was born amidst the chaos of the Chinese Civil War in 1946. The Christian Woo family, faced with persecution during Mao Zedong's early anti-bourgeois purges after the communist revolution in China, fled to Hong Kong when he was five. Impoverished, the Woo family lived in the slums at Shek Kip Mei. His father was a teacher, though rendered unable to work by tuberculosis, and his mother was a manual laborer on construction sites. The family was rendered homeless by the big Shek Kip Mei fire of 1953. Charitable donations from disaster relief efforts enabled the family to relocate; however, violent crime had by then become commonplace in Hong Kong housing projects.
  
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  Jon Favreau
  Jonathan Kolia "Jon" Favreau (/ˈfævroʊ/; born October 19, 1966) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, voice artist, and comedian. As an actor, he is best known for his roles in Rudy, Swingers (which he also wrote), Very Bad Things, and The Break-Up. His notable directorial efforts include Elf, Iron Man, its sequel, and Cowboys & Aliens. His most prominent television role was that of Pete Becker, Monica Geller's boyfriend during season three of the television sitcom Friends.
  Favreau was born Jonathan Kolia Favreau in Flushing, Queens, New York, the son of Madeleine, an elementary school teacher who died of leukemia in 1979, and Charles Favreau, a special education teacher. Favreau's mother was Jewish and his father is a Catholic of Italian and distant French-Canadian ancestry. Favreau attended Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah.
  Favreau graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1984 and attended Queens College from 1984 to 1987, before dropping out. His friend from college, Mitchell Pollack, said that Favreau went by the nickname "Hack" because of his talent in the game, Hacky Sack. He briefly worked for Bear Stearns on Wall Street before returning to Queens College for a semester in early 1988. He dropped out of college for good (a few credits shy of completing his degree), and in the summer of 1988, moved to Chicago to pursue a career in comedy. He performed at several Chicago improvisational theaters, including the ImprovOlympic and the Improv Institute.
  
  wn.com/Jon_Favreau
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  Josh Hartnett
  Joshua Daniel "Josh" Hartnett (born July 21, 1978) is an American actor and producer. He first came to audiences' attention in 1997 as "Michael Fitzgerald" in the television series Cracker. He made his feature film debut in 1998, co-starring with Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later for Miramax. That same year, he received an MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Male Performance. Hartnett gained fame for his role as Captain Danny Walker in Pearl Harbor, and has starred since then for a variety of well-known directors such as Ridley Scott, Brian De Palma, Robert Rodriguez, Tran Anh Hung, Roland Joffé and Michael Bay.
  Hartnett was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and was raised by his father, Daniel Hartnett, a building manager, and his stepmother, Molly, an artist. He has three younger half-siblings. He is of mainly Irish ancestry and was raised Roman Catholic, attending Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Grade School, where he played Adam Apple in an eighth grade production of "Krazy Kamp". He later attended Cretin-Derham Hall High School before switching to South High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from which he graduated in June 1996.
  
  wn.com/Josh_Hartnett
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  Kate Beckinsale
  Kathrin Romary "Kate" Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress. After some minor television roles, she made her film debut in Much Ado About Nothing (1993) while still a student at Oxford University. She then appeared in British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland (1994), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Emma (1996) and The Golden Bowl (2000), in addition to various stage and radio productions. She began to seek film work in the United States in the late 1990s and, after appearing in small-scale dramas The Last Days of Disco (1998) and Brokedown Palace (1999), she had a breakout year in 2001 with starring roles in the war epic Pearl Harbor and the romantic comedy Serendipity. She built on this success with appearances in the bio-pic The Aviator (2004) and the comedy Click (2006).
  Beckinsale became known as an action star following an appearance in 2003's Underworld and has since starred in many action films, including Van Helsing (2004), Underworld: Evolution (2006), Whiteout (2009), Contraband (2012), and Underworld: Awakening (2012). She also makes occasional appearances in smaller dramatic projects such as Snow Angels (2007), Winged Creatures (2008), Nothing but the Truth (for which she earned a Critic's Choice Award nomination in 2008) and Everybody's Fine (2009). Her next onscreen appearance will be in the sci-fi action remake Total Recall, due for release in August 2012.
  
  wn.com/Kate_Beckinsale
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  Kathryn Bigelow
  Kathryn Ann Bigelow (born November 27, 1951) is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and television director. Her best-known films are the cult horror film Near Dark (1987), the surfer/bank robbery action picture Point Break (1991), the science fiction/film noir Strange Days (1995), the historical/mystery film The Weight of Water (2000) and the war drama The Hurt Locker (2008). The Hurt Locker won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Picture, won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, and was nominated for the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Drama.
  With The Hurt Locker, Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director, the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing, the BAFTA Award for Best Direction, and the Critics' Choice Award for Best Director. She also became the first woman to win the Saturn Award for Best Director in 1995 for Strange Days.
  In April 2010, Bigelow was named to the Time 100 list of most influential people of the year.
  Bigelow was born in San Carlos, California, United States, the only child of a paint factory manager and a librarian. Her early creative endeavors were as a student of painting. She enrolled at San Francisco Art Institute in the fall of 1970 and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in December 1972. While enrolled at SFAI, she was accepted into the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study scholarship program in New York City. Bigelow’s early work benefited from her apprenticeships with Vito Acconi, Richard Serra, and Lawrence Weiner.
  
  wn.com/Kathryn_Bigelow
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  Leonard Nimoy
  Leonard Simon Nimoy ( /ˈniːmɔɪ/ NEE-moy; born March 26, 1931) is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series (1966–1969), and in multiple film, television, and video-game sequels.
  Nimoy began his career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s, as well as playing the title role in Kid Monk Baroni. In 1953, he served in the United States Army. In 1965, he made his first appearance in the rejected Star Trek pilot, "The Cage", and would go on to play the character of Mr. Spock until 1969, followed by seven feature films and guest slots in various sequels. His character of Spock had a significant cultural impact and garnered Nimoy three Emmy Award nominations; TV Guide named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters. After the original Star Trek series, Nimoy starred in Mission: Impossible for two seasons, hosted the documentary series In Search of..., and narrated Civilization IV, as well as making several well-received stage appearances.
  
  wn.com/Leonard_Nimoy
• Lincoln Child
  Lincoln Child (born 1957) is an author of seventeen techno-thriller and horror novels. He often writes with Douglas Preston. Many of their novels have become bestsellers, and one, Relic, was adapted into a feature film. Child and Preston's books are notable for their thorough research.
  Born in Westport, Connecticut, but now a New Jersey resident, Child graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, with a major in English.
  Soon afterward, in 1979, he secured a job as an editorial assistant at St. Martin's Press. By 1984, Child had become full editor. While in this position, he edited hundreds of books, most titles being American and English fiction.
  In 1987 after founding the company's mass-market horror division, Child left the St. Martin's Press to become a Systems Analyst at MetLife. Child's first novel, Relic, was published in 1995. He left the company a few years later to write full time.
  Child is now a resident of Morristown, New Jersey.
  
  wn.com/Lincoln_Child
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  Liv Tyler
  Liv Rundgren Tyler (born July 1, 1977) is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994 film Silent Fall. She then appeared in supporting roles in Empire Records (1995), Heavy (1996) and That Thing You Do! (1996). Tyler later achieved critical recognition in the leading role in Stealing Beauty (1996). She followed this by starring in supporting roles including Inventing the Abbotts (1997) and Cookie's Fortune (1999).
  Tyler achieved international recognition as a result of her portrayal of Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. She has appeared in an eclectic range of films, including the 2004 comedy Jersey Girl, the indie film Lonesome Jim (2005), the drama Reign Over Me (2007) and big-budget studio films such as Armageddon (1998), The Strangers (2008) and The Incredible Hulk (2008).
  
  wn.com/Liv_Tyler
• Marcus Nispel
  Marcus Nispel (born 26 May 1963) is a German–American feature film director and producer, and formerly a director of television commercials and music videos. Many of his films have been remakes, some of which have met with a negative critical reception.
  Nispel was born in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany. He started his career in advertising as an art director for Young & Rubicam in Frankfurt. He came to America on a Fulbright scholarship in 1984 at the age of 20 and made his directing debut in 1989 with a series of music videos for C&C Music Factory.
  While living in New York, Nispel founded and operated his own production company, Portfolio Artists Network, before merging with RSA-USA, and then joining MJZ in 2000.
  To date, Nispel has directed over 1000 commercials and music videos. His commercial clients include: AT&T, Audi, Canon, Chase, Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper, Fidelity, Kodak, Levi's, L'Oréal, Marlboro, Mercedes-Benz, Motorola, Nike, Panasonic, Pepsi, RCA, Showtime, Sprint, Sprite, Unisys, UPS, US Postal Service, VISA Gold as well as MTV, ABC, CBS and NBC.
  
  wn.com/Marcus_Nispel
• Martin Lawrence
  Martin Fitzgerald Lawrence (born April 16, 1965) is an actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and stand up comedian. He came to fame during the 1990s, establishing a Hollywood career as a leading actor, most notably the films Bad Boys, Blue Streak, and Big Momma's House. Lawrence has acted in numerous film roles and starred in his own television series, Martin, which ran from 1992 to 1997.
  Lawrence was born in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse in Germany on April 16, 1965, to American parents. He was given his first name after civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and his middle name after US President John F. Kennedy. His father, John Lawrence, served in the US Military. After his parents divorced when he was eight, Lawrence rarely saw his father, who worked as a police officer at the time. His mother, Chlora (née Bailey), began working several jobs to support her family. During his teen years, Lawrence excelled at boxing. He lived in Maryland, and attended Thomas G. Pullen School of Creative and Performing Arts (Landover, Maryland), Fairmont Heights High School (Fairmount Heights, Maryland), Eleanor Roosevelt High School, and also Friendly High School in Fort Washington, Maryland, becoming a Mid-Atlantic Golden Gloves boxing contender.
  
  wn.com/Martin_Lawrence
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  Meat Loaf
  Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday; September 27, 1947), better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor. He is noted for the Bat Out of Hell album trilogy consisting of Bat Out of Hell, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose. Bat Out of Hell has sold more than 43 million copies. After more than 30 years, it still sells an estimated 200,000 copies annually and stayed on the charts for over nine years, making it one of the best selling albums of all time.
  Although he enjoyed success with Bat Out of Hell and Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and earned a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo for the song "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" on the latter album, Meat Loaf experienced some initial difficulty establishing a steady career within his native US. However, he has retained iconic status and popularity in Europe, especially the UK, where he ranks 23rd for the number of weeks overall spent on the charts. He ranked 96th on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock".
  
  wn.com/Meat_Loaf
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  Michael Bay
  Michael Benjamin Bay (born February 17, 1965) is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing high-budget action films characterized by their fast edits, stylistic visuals and substantial practical special effects. His films, which include The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and the Bad Boys and Transformers series, have grossed over three billion dollars world-wide. He is co-founder of commercial production house The Institute, a.k.a. The Institute for the Development of Enhanced Perceptual Awareness. He is co-chair and part-owner of the digital effects house Digital Domain. He co-owns Platinum Dunes, a production house which has remade horror movies including Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
  Michael Bay was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He was raised by his adoptive parents Harriet, a bookstore owner/child psychiatrist, and Jim, a CPA. Bay's grandfather was Russian. His cousin, Susan Bay, is the wife of Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy. He attended the exclusive Crossroads School, in Santa Monica, California. Bay often traces his interest in action films back to an incident during his childhood. As a boy, he attached some firecrackers to a toy train and filmed the ensuing fiery disaster with his mother's 8mm camera. The fire department was called and he was grounded.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Bay
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  Nicolas Cage
  Nicolas Cage (born Nicolas Kim Coppola; January 7, 1964) is an Academy Award–winning American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona (1987), The Rock (1996), Face/Off (1997), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Adaptation (2002), National Treasure (2004), Lord of War (2005), Ghost Rider (2007), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), Kick-Ass (2010), and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012).
  Cage was born Nicolas Kim Coppola on January 7, 1964 in Long Beach, California. His father, August Coppola, a professor of literature, and his mother, Joy Vogelsang, a dancer and choreographer, divorced in 1976. He was raised in a Catholic family. Cage's mother is of German descent and his father was of Italian descent. His paternal grandparents were composer Carmine Coppola and actress Italia Pennino, and his paternal great-grandparents were immigrants from Bernalda, Basilicata. Through his father, Cage is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, and the cousin of directors Roman Coppola and Sofia Coppola, film producer Gian-Carlo Coppola, and actors Robert Carmine and Jason Schwartzman. Cage's two brothers are New York radio personality Marc "The Cope" Coppola and director Christopher Coppola. He attended Beverly Hills High School, which is known for its many alumni who became entertainers. He aspired to act from an early age and also attended UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television. His first non-cinematic acting experience was in a school production of Golden Boy.
  
  wn.com/Nicolas_Cage
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  Peter Jackson
  Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, who is well known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001 to 2003), adapted from the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien.
  He won international attention early in his career with his "splatstick" horror comedies beginning with Bad Taste (1987) before coming to mainstream prominence with Heavenly Creatures (1994), for which he shared an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay nomination with his wife, Fran Walsh. Jackson has been awarded three Academy Awards in his career, including the award for Best Director in 2003; he also won the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Saturn Award for Best Direction the same year.
  His films also include Meet the Feebles (1989), Braindead (1992), Forgotten Silver (1995), The Frighteners (1996), King Kong (2005),The Lovely Bones (2009), and the upcoming The Lord of the Rings prequels The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Hobbit: There and Back Again (2013). He is also the producer of District 9 (2009) and The Adventures of Tintin (2011).
  
  wn.com/Peter_Jackson
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  Richard Marx
  Richard Noel Marx (born September 16, 1963 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American adult contemporary and pop/rock singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He had a string of hit singles in the late 1980s and 1990s, including "Endless Summer Nights", "Right Here Waiting", "Now and Forever", and "Hazard". Although most of his major hit songs were slow ballads, many of his songs had a classic rock style, such as "Don't Mean Nothing", "Should've Known Better," "Satisfied," and "Too Late To Say Goodbye". Marx placed himself in the record books by being the first solo artist to have his first seven singles hit the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart (3, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 4). His record sales worldwide exceed 30 million. Aside from songs that he's written and recorded for himself, he has written, co-written, and produced successful tracks for other artists such as "This I Promise You" by NSYNC and "Dance With My Father" by Luther Vandross. The latter song won several Grammy Awards. His 14th and latest chart topper, "Long Hot Summer," performed by Keith Urban, gave Marx the distinction of having a song he wrote or co-write top the charts in four different decades.
  
  wn.com/Richard_Marx
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  Roger Ebert
  Roger Joseph Ebert ( /ˈiːbərt/; born June 18, 1942) is an American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
  Ebert is known for his film review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online) and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, all of which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert teamed with Richard Roeper for the television series Ebert & Roeper & the Movies, which began airing in 2000. Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006 after he suffered post-surgical complications related to thyroid cancer, leaving him unable to speak. Ebert ended his association with the show in July 2008, but in February 2009 he stated that he and Roeper would continue their work on a new show. Ebert's current show, Ebert Presents: At the Movies, premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert contributing a review voiced by someone else in a brief segment called "Roger's Office".
  
  wn.com/Roger_Ebert
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  Roland Emmerich
  Roland Emmerich (German: [ˈʁoːlant ˈɛməʁɪç]) (born November 10, 1955) is a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films, most of which are Hollywood productions filmed in English, have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide, more than those of any other European directors. His films have grossed just over $1 billion in the United States, making him the country's 14th-highest grossing director of all time. He began his work in the film industry by directing the film The Noah's Ark Principle as part of his university thesis and also co-founded Centropolis Entertainment in 1985 with his sister. He is a collector of art and an active campaigner for the lesbian and gay community, himself being openly gay. He is also a campaigner for an awareness of global warming and equal rights.
  Emmerich has directed many successful films such as Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996), The Patriot (2000), The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and 2012 (2009). Although many of his films have been successful in the box office, his films usually have the tendency of being panned by critics such as Universal Soldier (1992), Godzilla (1998) and 10,000 BC (2008) .
  
  wn.com/Roland_Emmerich
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  Sam Raimi
  Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi (October 23, 1959) is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror/comedy films the Evil Dead series, the action/superhero film Darkman, crime thriller A Simple Plan and supernatural horror Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, Legend of the Seeker (also the creator) and Spartacus: Blood and Sand. He is also the founder of Renaissance Pictures.
  Raimi, the fourth of five children, was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, and grew up in Birmingham, Michigan. He was raised in Conservative Judaism; his ancestors immigrated from Russia and Hungary. Raimi attended Groves High School, and Michigan State University and majored in English, leaving after three semesters to film The Evil Dead. He is Ted Raimi's older brother.
  
  wn.com/Sam_Raimi
• Sam Zell
  Samuel "Sam" Zell (born September 28, 1941) is an American businessman. He is Chairman of Equity Group Investments, L.L.C. (EGI), a private, entrepreneurial investment firm he founded more than 40 years ago. EGI's investments span industries and continents, and include interests in real estate, energy, logistics, transportation, media, and health care.
  Zell is also co-founder and Chairman of Equity International, a private investment firm that focuses on real estate-related companies outside of the U.S. In addition, Zell maintains substantial interests in, and is the Chairman of, a number of public companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, including: Equity Residential (EQR), the largest apartment REIT; Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS), a real estate investment trust that owns and operates manufactured home communities; Covanta Holding Corp. (CVA), an international leader in converting waste to energy; and Anixter (AXE), a value-add provider of integrated networking and cabling solutions that support business information and network infrastructure requirements. Zell is also the chairman of Tribune Company, a private media conglomerate.
  
  wn.com/Sam_Zell
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  Scarlett Johansson
  Scarlett Johansson (born November 22, 1984) is an American actress, model and singer.
  Johansson made her film debut in North (1994) and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo (1996). She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer (1998) and Ghost World (2001). She shifted to adult roles with her performances in Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003), for which she won a BAFTA award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Both films earned her Golden Globe Award nominations.
  A role in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) earned Johansson a third Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination. Johansson garnered another Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress with her role in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005). She went on to star in two further Allen movies: Scoop (2006) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Johansson has appeared in other successful films, such as Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (2006). Johansson played popular Marvel comic book character Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff in the films Iron Man 2 (2010) and The Avengers (2012).
  
  wn.com/Scarlett_Johansson
• Scott Gardenhour
  Scott Gardenhour (born March 10, 1961) is an American award-winning film producer for commercials and feature films.
  After years as an independent Producer, Propaganda Films targeted Gardenhour to collaborate with top directors, including a music video director named Michael Bay, looking to break into the commercial business. Together they made large-scale music videos including several for Meat Loaf's successful comeback album. In 1992 they received the Palme d'Or award at the International Advertising Film Festival in Cannes. In 1994 they received several other awards for their work: Two Gold Lion Awards for Miller Lite's "Big Lawyer Round-Up" & "Full Contact Golf;" a Silver Lion and Two Gold Clio Awards for the original ‘Got Milk?' Campaign spot, "Aaron Burr," as well as a Silver Clio for "Baby Cat." The same year, Bay was awarded the DGA's Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials for his work with Gardenhour.
  In 1995, Gardenhour became Executive Producer of Propaganda Films' Commercial Division. Then in 1996, Gardenhour was promoted to Vice President of Propaganda.
  
  wn.com/Scott_Gardenhour
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  Sean Connery
  Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (one of them being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award) and three Golden Globes (including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award).
  Connery is best known for portraying the character James Bond, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983 (six Eon Productions films and the non-canonical Thunderball remake, Never Say Never Again). In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His film career also includes such films as Marnie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Murder on the Orient Express, Dragonheart, and The Rock. He was knighted in July 2000. Connery has been polled as "The Greatest Living Scot" and "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". In 1989, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine and in 1999, at age 69, he was voted "Sexiest Man of the Century".
  
  wn.com/Sean_Connery
• Stan Winston
  Stanley Winston (April 7, 1946 – June 15, 2008) was an American visual effects supervisor, makeup artist, and film director. He was best known for his work in the Terminator series, the Jurassic Park series, Aliens, the Predator series, Iron Man, Edward Scissorhands, Avatar and Enthiran. He won four Academy Awards for his work.
  Winston, a frequent collaborator with director James Cameron, owned several effects studios, including Stan Winston Digital. The established areas of expertise for Winston were in makeup, puppets and practical effects, but he had recently expanded his studio to encompass digital effects as well.
  Stan Winston was born on April 7, 1946, in Arlington, Virginia, where he graduated from Washington-Lee High School in 1964. He studied painting and sculpture at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville from which he graduated in 1968. In 1969, after attending California State University, Long Beach, Winston moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actor. Struggling to find an acting job, he began a makeup apprenticeship at Walt Disney Studios.
  
  wn.com/Stan_Winston
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  Steven Spielberg
  Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks movie studio.
  Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993)—achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.
  
  wn.com/Steven_Spielberg
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  The Wachowskis
  Lana Wachowski (born Laurence Wachowski on June 21, 1965; formerly nicknamed "Larry") and Andrew Paul "Andy" Wachowski (born December 29, 1967), siblings collectively known as The Wachowskis (formerly The Wachowski Brothers), are American film directors, writers and producers, most famous for creating The Matrix series. They are currently co-directing Cloud Atlas, based on the book by David Mitchell.
  Lana Wachowski (formerly known as "Larry") was born Laurence Wachowski in Chicago in 1965. Andy Wachowski followed in 1967. Their mother, Lynne (née Luckinbill), was a nurse and painter whose brother is actor Laurence Luckinbill. Their father, Ron Wachowski, was a businessman of Polish descent. They went to Kellogg Elementary School, in Chicago's Beverly area, and graduated from Whitney Young High School, known for its performing arts and science curriculum, in 1983 and '86. Former students recall them playing Dungeons & Dragons and working in the school's theater and TV program. Andy then attended Emerson College in Boston, while Lana went to Bard College in New York. Both dropped out before graduating, and they ran a carpentry business in Chicago while creating comic books.
  
  wn.com/The_Wachowskis
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  Tina Turner
  Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards. Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Success followed with a string of hits including "River Deep, Mountain High" and the 1971 hit "Proud Mary". With the publication of her autobiography I, Tina (1986), Turner revealed severe instances of spousal abuse against her by Ike Turner prior to their 1976 split and subsequent 1978 divorce. After virtually disappearing from the music scene for several years following her divorce from Ike Turner, she rebuilt her career, launching a string of hits beginning in 1983 with the single "Let's Stay Together" and the 1984 release of her fifth solo album Private Dancer.
  Her musical career led to film roles, beginning with a prominent role as The Acid Queen in the 1975 film Tommy, and an appearance in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. She starred opposite Mel Gibson as Aunty Entity in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome for which she received the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture, and her version of the film's theme, "We Don't Need Another Hero", was a hit single. She appeared in the 1993 film Last Action Hero.
  
  wn.com/Tina_Turner
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  Vanilla Ice
  Robert Matthew Van Winkle (born October 31, 1967), best known by his stage name Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper. Born in South Dallas, and raised in Texas and South Florida, Van Winkle released his debut album, Hooked, in 1989 through Ichiban Records, before signing a contract with SBK Records, a record label of the EMI Group which released a reformatted version of the album under the title To the Extreme. Van Winkle's single "Ice Ice Baby" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard charts.
  Although Van Winkle was successful, he later regretted his business arrangements with SBK, which had paid him to adopt a more commercial appearance to appeal to a mass audience and published fabricated biographical information without his knowledge. After surviving a suicide attempt, Van Winkle was inspired to change his musical style and lifestyle. While later albums by Van Winkle haven't charted or featured much radio airplay because of their less mainstream, rock-oriented sound, Vanilla Ice has had a loyal underground following. In 2009, Van Winkle began hosting The Vanilla Ice Project on DIY Network. His latest album WTF – Wisdom, Tenacity & Focus was released in August 2011. Van Winkle is currently signed to Psychopathic Records.
  
  wn.com/Vanilla_Ice
• Wikipedia Persondata
  wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata
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  Will Smith
  Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. (born September 25, 1968), also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood. Smith has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, and has won multiple Grammy Awards.
  In the late 1980s, Smith achieved modest fame as a rapper under the name The Fresh Prince. In 1990, his popularity increased dramatically when he starred in the popular television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show ran for nearly six years (1990–1996) on NBC and has been syndicated consistently on various networks since then. In the mid-1990s, Smith moved from television to film, and ultimately starred in numerous blockbuster films. He is the only actor to have eight consecutive films gross over $100 million in the domestic box office and the only one to have eight consecutive films in which he starred open at #1 spot in the domestic box office tally.
  
  wn.com/Will_Smith
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  Zack Snyder
  Zachary Edward "Zack" Snyder (born March 1, 1966) is an American actor, film director, screenwriter, and producer, best known for action/science fiction films. After making his feature film debut with the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead, he gained wide recognition with the 2007 box office hit 300, adapted from writer-artist Frank Miller's Dark Horse Comics miniseries of the same name, and later went on to direct the 2009 superhero film Watchmen, an adaptation of the comic book of the same name. He is the co-founder of Cruel and Unusual Films, a production company he established in 2004, alongside his wife Deborah Snyder and producing partner Wesley Coller. His first family film was the 2010 animated family adventure film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, based on the first three books of the series by Kathryn Lasky. His most recent film is Sucker Punch, which he directed and co-wrote. He has also been hired by Warner Bros. to direct a reboot of the Superman film series currently titled Man of Steel.
  
  wn.com/Zack_Snyder

3,2,1...frankie Go Boom (2012)

Actors

• Chris O'dowd
• Lizzy Caplan
• Whitney Cummings
• Ron Perlman
• Charlie Hunnam

Director

• Jordan Roberts