- published: 18 Feb 2012
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Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, film director, producer, musician, and singer. He has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Emmy Award, and has been nominated for three BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards. In 2013, he was awarded the Honorary César.
Costner's notable roles include Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, Crash Davis in Bull Durham, Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, Lt. John J. Dunbar in Dances with Wolves, Jim Garrison in JFK, Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Frank Farmer in The Bodyguard. Less well-liked were the science fiction-post-apocalyptic epics Waterworld (1995) and The Postman (1997), the latter with Costner starring, directing and producing.
He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for his role as Devil Anse Hatfield in Hatfields & McCoys (2012) and starred in and produced Black or White (2014).
Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female act of all time. Houston is one of pop music's best-selling music artists of all-time, with an estimated 170–200 million records sold worldwide. She released seven studio albums and three movie soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification. Houston's crossover appeal on the popular music charts, as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for "How Will I Know", influenced several African American women artists who follow in her footsteps.
Houston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits. She is the second artist behind Elton John and the only woman to have two number-one Billboard 200 Album awards (formerly "Top Pop Albums") on the Billboard magazine year-end charts. Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a woman in history.Rolling Stone named it the best album of 1986, and ranked it at number 254 on the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Her second studio album Whitney (1987) became the first album by a woman to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
Robert Selden Duvall (born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and director. He has been nominated for seven Academy Awards (winning for his performance in Tender Mercies), seven Golden Globes (winning four), and has multiple nominations and one win each of the BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Emmy Award. He received the National Medal of Arts in 2005. He has starred in some of the most acclaimed and popular films and television series of all time, including To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), The Twilight Zone (1963), The Outer Limits (1964), Bullitt (1968), True Grit (1969), MASH (1970), THX 1138 (1971), Joe Kidd (1972), The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), The Conversation (1974), Network (1976), Apocalypse Now (1979), The Handmaid's Tale (1990), and Falling Down (1993).
He began appearing in theater during the late 1950s, moving into television and film roles during the early 1960s, playing Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and appearing in Captain Newman, M.D. (1963). He landed many of his most famous roles during the early 1970s, such as Major Frank Burns in the blockbuster comedy MASH (1970) and the lead role in THX 1138 (1971), as well as Horton Foote's adaptation of William Faulkner's Tomorrow (1972), which was developed at The Actors Studio and is Duvall's personal favorite. This was followed by a series of critically lauded performances in commercially successful films.