The Best may refer to:

Sophia Loren, OMRI (born Sofia Villani Scicolone; 20 September 1934) is an Italian actress.

In 1962, Loren, among 21 other awards, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance. Loren has won several international awards, including one Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Laurel Award. Her other films include: Houseboat (1958), El Cid (1961), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), Marriage Italian-Style (1964), and A Special Day (1977). She has received critical and commercial success in TV movies such as Courage (1986) and in American blockbusters such as Grumpier Old Men (1995), and Nine (2009). In 1994 she starred in Robert Altman's Ready to Wear, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination the same year. In 1995 she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievements. In 2011 she dubbed one of the characters of Pixar blockbuster Cars 2 for non-English speaking markets.

Roberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [roˈbɛrto beˈniɲi]; born 27 October 1952) is an Academy Award winning Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director of film, theatre and television.

Benigni was born in Manciano La Misericordia (a frazione of Castiglion Fiorentino), Italy, the son of Isolina Papini, a fabric inspector, and Remigio Benigni, a bricklayer, carpenter, and farmer. He was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy. His first experiences as a theatre actor took place in 1971, in Prato. During that autumn he moved to Rome where he took part in some experimental theatre shows, some of which he also directed. In 1975, Benigni had his first theatrical success with Cioni Mario di Gaspare fu Giulia, written by Giuseppe Bertolucci.

Benigni became famous in Italy in the 1970s for a shocking TV series called Onda Libera, on RAI2, by Renzo Arbore, in which he interpreted the satirical piece "anthem of the nimble body" (L'inno del corpo sciolto, a hymn to defecation).^{[citation needed]} A great scandal for the time, the series was suspended due to censorship. His first film was 1977's Berlinguer ti voglio bene, also by Bertolucci.

Loren A. Avedon (born July 30, 1962 in Los Angeles) is an American martial arts film actor. He has also acted in several popular American TV shows, including Baywatch.

He has over 28 years of martial arts experience and is a 5th Dan black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a 8th dan black belt in Hap Ki Do.

His first acting roles were as a child in TV commercials, mainly for Carnation Milk, The May Company, and other retailers. He also worked as a model, and appeared in a couple of martial arts films, such as Ninja Turf (1985), which were produced by his martial arts instructor Jun Chong.

Avedon got his main break as a martial arts film star, when producer Roy Horan phoned the dojang where Avedon was training, and asked if they had any suitable martial arts practitioners for the lead role in the film, No Retreat No Surrender 2 (1987). Avedon answered the phone, was given an audition, and won the lead role. He then signed a three film deal with Seasonal Films (the company which produced the No Retreat No Surrender films). In this three film deal Avedon also played the lead role in the films, No Retreat No Surrender 3 and King of the Kickboxers. Since then Avedon has starred in many more martial arts and action films, all of which have been B movies. In an interview Avedon said that he believed he would have had greater success in his film career (similar to the success of Jean-Claude Van Damme) if it had not been for poor representation and disagreements that he had with one or two other actors.(Lorenzo Lamas, Sherie Rose) He was offered a three film deal with film production company PM entertainment, but turned it down (the deal was given to Don 'The Dragon' Wilson) because he was holding out for a better deal. Avedon said that he now regrets turning down this deal.(True: Cannes 1991)

Billy Wayne Blanks (born September 1, 1955) is an American fitness guru, martial artist, actor, and the inventor of the Tae Bo exercise program.

Blanks began his study of the martial arts at the age of eleven and practices Karate and Taekwondo. He was born with an anomaly in his hip joints that impaired his movement, and a clumsiness that earned him the taunts of his siblings and caused his coaches to believe he’d never accomplish much. Billy found the answer to these challenges in karate When he saw Bruce Lee on TV, he decided he wanted to be a world martial-arts champion. The discipline of the program began to transform his body.

Blanks began his acting career in the 1980s where he starred in several unsuccessful action-adventure feature films. He was hired to act as a bodyguard for lead actress Catherine Bach during the filming of Driving Force, due to the political unrest present in Manila at the time; he impressed the producers so much, they wrote him into the script.

In the late 1980s, Blanks invented the Tae Bo workout, while running a karate studio in Quincy, Massachusetts. He used components of his martial arts and boxing training. The name is a portmanteau of tae kwon do and boxing. Blanks opened a fitness center in Los Angeles to teach his new workout. He later attracted some celebrity clients such as Paula Abdul and the popularity of the workout quickly grew, becoming a pop culture phenomenon after Blanks began releasing mass-marketed videos. The popularity of the workout later waned, but Blanks still attracts many celebrity clients and Tae Bo videos and DVDs have continued to sell well.