Johnny Depp

John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor, producer, and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. He rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol.

Since then, Depp has taken on challenging and "larger-than-life" roles, starting with a supporting role in Oliver Stone's Vietnam War film Platoon in 1986, then playing the title character in the romantic dark fantasy Edward Scissorhands (1990). He later found box office success in the fantasy adventure film Sleepy Hollow (1999), the fantasy swashbuckler film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and its sequels, the musical adventure film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), the fantasy film Alice in Wonderland (2010) and voicing the title character in the animated action comedy western Rango (2011). He has collaborated on eight films with director and friend Tim Burton.

Depp is regarded as one of the world's biggest film stars. He has gained worldwide critical acclaim for his portrayals of such people as screenwriter-director Ed Wood in Ed Wood, undercover FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brasco, "gonzo" journalist Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, cocaine kingpin George Jung in Blow, author J. M. Barrie in Finding Neverland, and the Depression Era outlaw John Dillinger in Michael Mann's Public Enemies. Films featuring Depp have grossed over $3.1 billion at the United States box office and over $7.6 billion worldwide. His most commercially successful films are the Pirates of the Caribbean films, which have grossed $3 billion; Alice in Wonderland which grossed $1 billion; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which grossed $474 million; and The Tourist which grossed $278 million worldwide.

Courtney Love

Courtney Michelle Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison, July 9, 1964) is an American rock singer, songwriter, actress, and visual artist. Prolific in the punk and grunge scenes of the 1990s as the frontwoman of Hole, Love became a fixture in alternative music, drawing public attention for her uninhibited stage presence and confrontational lyrics, as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Kurt Cobain.

The daughter of psychotherapist Linda Carroll and Hank Harrison, Love had a nomadic early life; she mainly grew up in Oregon and California, where she was in a series of short-lived bands before landing roles in films by British director Alex Cox. After forming Hole in 1989, she received substantial attention from underground rock press for the group's debut album, produced by Kim Gordon, while the group's second release, Live Through This (1994), lent her a more high-profile renown, receiving critical accolades and going multi-platinum. In 1995, she returned to acting, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in Miloš Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). Shortly after, Hole's third release, Celebrity Skin (1998), earned Love recognition as a mainstream musician, and was nominated for multiple Grammy Awards.

Michael Stipe

John Michael Stipe (born January 4, 1960) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, film producer, music video director, and visual artist. He was the lead singer of the alternative rock band R.E.M. from their formation in 1980 until their dissolution in 2011.

Stipe is noted for the "mumbling" style of his early career as well as his social and political activism. He was in charge of R.E.M.'s visual image, often selecting album artwork and directing many of the band's music videos. Outside the music industry, he owns and runs two film production companies, C-00 and Single Cell Pictures.

Life and career

Early life and education

John Michael Stipe was born in Decatur, Georgia, on January 4, 1960. Stipe was a military brat; his father was a serviceman in the United States Army whose career resulted in frequent relocations for his family. His younger sister, Lynda Stipe, was born in 1962 and would become the vocalist of her own band Hetch Hetchy. Stipe and his family moved to various locales during his childhood, including Germany, Texas, Illinois, Alabama and Georgia. He was raised Methodist.

Rio Grande

The Rio Grande (/ˈriːoʊ ˈɡrænd/ or /ˈriːoʊ ˈɡrɑːndeɪ/; Spanish: Río Bravo del Norte, pronounced: [ˈri.o ˈβɾaβo ðel ˈnorte] or simply Río Bravo) is one of the principal rivers in the southwest United States and northern Mexico (the other being the Colorado River). The Rio Grande rises from south-central Colorado in the United States and flows to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, it forms part of the Mexico–United States border. According to the International Boundary and Water Commission, its total length was 1,896 miles (3,051 km) in the late 1980s, though course shifts occasionally result in length changes. Depending on how it is measured, the Rio Grande is the fourth- or fifth-longest river system in North America.

The river serves as part of the natural border between the U.S. state of Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. A very short stretch of the river serves as the boundary between the U.S. states of Texas and New Mexico. Since the mid–20th century, heavy water consumption of farms and cities along with many large diversion dams on the river has left only 20% of its natural discharge to flow to the Gulf. Near the river's mouth, the heavily irrigated Rio Grande Valley is an important agricultural region. The Rio Grande is one of 19 Great Waters recognized by America's Great Waters Coalition.

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop (/ˈɪɡi pɒp/; born James Newell Osterberg, Jr.; April 21, 1947) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actor. He is the vocalist of influential proto-punk band The Stooges, who reunited in 2003, and has been known for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics.

Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the course of his career, including garage rock, hard rock, new wave, jazz, art rock and blues. Though his popularity has fluctuated through the years, many of Pop's songs have become well-known, including "Lust for Life", "The Passenger", "Real Wild Child", "Candy" (a duet with Kate Pierson of The B-52's), "China Girl", "Nightclubbing", "Search and Destroy" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog".

In 2010, The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Early life

James Newell Osterberg, Jr. was born in Muskegon, Michigan, the son of Louella (née Christensen) and James Newell Osterberg, Sr., a former high school English teacher and baseball coach at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan. Osterberg was raised in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is of English and Irish descent on his father's side, and of Norwegian and Danish ancestry on his mother's. His father was adopted by a Swedish American family and took on their surname (Österberg). In a 2007 Rolling Stone Magazine interview, Pop explains his relationship with his parents and their contribution to his music: