Female Celebrities with First Names that begins with M
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Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard was born on September 30, 1975 in Paris. Cotillard is the daughter of Jean-Claude Cotillard, an actor, playwright and director, and Niseema Theillaud, an actress and drama teacher. Her father's family is from Brittany.
Raised in Orléans, France, she made her acting debut as a child with a role in one of her father's plays. She studied drama at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique in Orléans. After small appearances and performances in theater, Cotillard had occasional and minor roles in TV series such as Highlander (1992) and Extrême limite (1994), but her career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s. While still a teenager, Cotillard made her cinema debut at the age of 18 in the film L'histoire du garçon qui voulait qu'on l'embrasse (1994), and had small but noticeable roles in films such as Arnaud Desplechin's My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument (1996) and Coline Serreau's comedy The Green Planet (1996).
In 1996, she had her first lead role in the TV film Chloé (1996), playing the title role - a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution. Cotillard co-starred opposite Anna Karina, the muse of the Nouvelle Vague.
In 1997, she won her first film award at the Festival Rencontres Cinématographiques d'Istres in France, for her performance as the young imprisoned Nathalie in the short film Affaire classée (1997). Her first prominent screen role was Lilly Bertineau in Gérard Pirès's box-office hit Taxi (1998), a role which she reprised in two sequels: Taxi 2 (2000) and Taxi 3 (2003), this role earned her first César award nomination (France's equivalent to the Oscar) for Most Promising Actress in 1999.
In 1999, Cotillard starred as Julie Bonzon in the Swiss war drama War in the Highlands (1998). For her performance in the film, she won the Best Actress award at the Autrans Film Festival in France. In 2001, Marion starred in Pretty Things (2001) as the twin sisters Marie and Lucie, and was nominated for her second César award for Most Promising Actress.
Cotillard's breakthrough in France came in 2003, when she starred in Yann Samuell's dark romantic comedy Love Me If You Dare (2003), in which she played Sophie Kowalsky, the daughter of Polish immigrants who lives a love-hate relationship with her childhood friend. The film was a box-office hit in France, became a cult film abroad and led Cotillard to bigger projects.
Her first Hollywood movie was Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003), in which she played Joséphine, the wife of William Bloom (played by Billy Crudup). A few years later, Marion starred in Ridley Scott's A Good Year (2006) playing Fanny Chenal, a French café owner who falls in love with Russell Crowe's character. In 2004, she won the Chopard Thophy of Female Revelation at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, Cotillard won the César award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance of Tina Lombardi in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (2004).
In 2007, Cotillard received international recognition for her iconic portrayal of Édith Piaf in La Vie En Rose (2007). Director Olivier Dahan cast Cotillard to play the legendary French singer because to him, her eyes were like those of "Piaf". The fact that she can sing also helped Cotillard land the role of "Piaf", although most of the singing in the film is that of Piaf's. The role won Cotillard the Academy Award for Best Actress along with a César, a Lumière Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe. That made her only the second actress to win an acting Oscar performing in a language other than English next to Sophia Loren (Two Women (1960)). Only two male performers (Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful (1997) and Robert De Niro for The Godfather Part II (1974)) have won an Oscar for solely non-English parts. Trevor Nunn called her portrayal of "Piaf" "one of the greatest performances on film ever". At the Berlin International Film Festival, where the film premiered, Cotillard was given a 15-minute standing ovation. When she won the César, Alain Delon presented the award and announced the winner as "La Môme Marion" (The Kid Marion), he also praised her at the stage saying: "Marion, I give you this César. I think this César is for a great great actress, and I know what I'm talking about".
Cotillard has worked much more frequently in English-language movies following her Academy Award recognition. In 2009, she acted opposite Johnny Depp in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009), and later that year played Luisa Contini in Rob Marshall's musical Nine (2009) and received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Time magazine ranked her as the fifth best performance by a female in 2009. The following year, she took on the main antagonist role, Mal, in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), and in 2011 she had memorable parts in Midnight in Paris (2011) and Contagion (2011) and reteamed with Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
In 2011 and 2012 respectively, Cotillard appeared on the top of Le Figaro's list of the highest paid actors in France, it was the first time in nine years that a female topped the list. Cotillard was also the highest paid foreign actress in Hollywood.
In 2012, Cotillard received wide-spread critical acclaim for her role as the legless orca trainer Stéphanie in Rust and Bone (2012). The film was a box office hit in France and received a ten-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. Cotillard won the Globe de Cristal (France's equivalent to the Golden Globe), the Étoile d'Or award and was nominated for the Golden Globes, SAG, BAFTA, Critics' Choice and César Awards for her performance in the film. Cate Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety praising Cotillard's performance in "Rust and Bone", the two actresses competed for the Academy Awards for Best Actress in 2008, Cate was nominated for her performance in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and Marion for her performance in La Vie En Rose (2007) and Cotillard won the Oscar.
She had her first leading role in an American movie in 2013, in James Gray's The Immigrant (2013), in which she played Ewa Cybulska, a Polish immigrant who wants to experience the American dream. Cotillard received wide-spread acclaim for her performance in the film at the 66th Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered, and also won several critics awards. In 2014, Cotillard played Sandra in the Belgian film Two Days, One Night (2014) by the Dardenne brothers. Her performance was unanimously praised at the 67th Cannes Film Festival, earned several critics awards, Cotillard won her first European Award for Best Actress and also received her second Oscar nomination and her sixth César award nomination.
In 2015, she played Lady Macbeth opposite Michael Fassbender in Justin Kurzel's Macbeth (2015) and voiced two animated movies: The Little Prince (2015) in which she voiced The Rose, and April and the Extraordinary World (2015), in which she voiced the lead role, Avril. Her 2016 included Nicole Garcia's From the Land of the Moon (2016), Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World (2016), Justin Kurzel's Assassin's Creed (2016), in which she worked again with her Macbeth co-star Michael Fassbender; and Robert Zemeckis's Allied (2016), with Brad Pitt.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Megan Denise Fox was born on May 16, 1986 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and raised in Rockwood, Tennessee to Gloria Darlene Tonachio (née Cisson), a real estate manager and Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. She began her drama and dance training at age 5 and at age 10, she moved to Port St. Lucie, Florida where she continued her training and finished school. Megan began acting and modeling at age 13 after winning several awards at the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina. At age 17, she tested out of school using correspondence and eventually moved to Los Angeles, California. Megan made her film debut as Brianna Wallace in the Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen film, Holiday in the Sun (2001). Her best-known roles are as Sam Witwicky's love interest, Mikaela Banes in Transformers (2007) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), as April O'Neil in the remake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), and as Jennifer Check in the horror comedy Jennifer's Body (2009).- Actress
- Producer
Margaret Denise Quigley was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a father of Polish and Irish descent (originally based in New York) and a Vietnamese mother. Her parents met during the Vietnam War. Maggie has two older half-siblings from her mother's previous marriage, and two older sisters. The family moved to Hawaii and settled in Mililani.
Maggie dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, but modeled and found herself bursting onto the Hong Kong movie scene - eventually becoming a full-fledged superstar in Asia. She changed her name to the easily pronounceable "Maggie Q" (for the Chinese audience). She had a cameo in the Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker smash hit Rush Hour 2 (2001) and is part of the supporting cast in Mission: Impossible III (2006), starring Tom Cruise.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
The remarkable, hyper-ambitious Material Girl who never stops re-inventing herself, Madonna has sold over three hundred million records and CDs to adoring fans worldwide. Her film career, however, is another story. Her performances have consistently drawn scathing or laughable reviews from film critics, and the films have usually had tepid, if any, success at the box office. Born Madonna Louise Ciccone in August 1958 in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York in 1978 and studied with renowned choreographer Alvin Ailey, joined up with the Patrick Hernandez Revue, formed a pop/dance band called Breakfast Club and began working with then-boyfriend Stephen Bray on recording several disco-oriented songs. New York producer/D.J. Mark Kamins passed her demo tapes to Sire Records in early 1982 and the rest is history. The 1980s was Madonna's boom decade, and she dominated the music charts with a succession of multimillion-selling albums, and her musical and fashion influence on young women was felt around the globe. Madonna first appeared on screen in two low-budget films marketed to an adolescent audience: A Certain Sacrifice (1979) and Vision Quest (1985). However, she scored a minor cult hit with Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) starring alongside spunky Rosanna Arquette. Madonna's next effort with then husband Sean Penn, Shanghai Surprise (1986), was savaged by critics, although the resilient star managed to somewhat improve her standing with her next two films, the offbeat Who's That Girl (1987) (although she did receive decidedly mixed reviews, they weren't as negative as those of her previous effort) and the quirky Damon Runyon-inspired Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989). The big-budget and star-filled Dick Tracy (1990) had her playing bad girl "Breathless Mahoney" flirting with Warren Beatty, but the epic failed to catch fire at the box office. Taking an earthier role, Madonna was much more entertaining alongside Tom Hanks and Geena Davis in A League of Their Own (1992), a story about female baseball players during W.W.II. However, she again drew the wrath of critics with the sexy whodunit Body of Evidence (1992). Several other minor screen roles followed, then Madonna starred as Eva Perón in Evita (1996), a fairly well received screen adaptation of the hugely successful Broadway musical, for which she received a Golden Globe for Best Actress. The Material Girl stayed away from the movie cameras for several years, returning to co-star in the lukewarm romantic comedy The Next Best Thing (2000), followed by the painful Swept Away (2002). If those films weren't bad enough, she was woefully miscast as a vampish fencing instructor in the James Bond adventure Die Another Day (2002). After finally admitting that her acting days were over, Madonna began a directing career in 2008 with the barely remembered Filth and Wisdom (2008) and a year later she reunited with Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) director Alek Keshishian to develop a script about the relationship between the Duke of Windsor and the Duchess of Windsor that led to his abdication in 1936: the result, a movie named W.E. (2011), starring James D'Arcy and Andrea Riseborough as the infernal but still royal couple, was released in 2011 to lukewarm critics but it gathered one Oscar nomination for costumes and won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song for "Masterpiece".- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Maureen Mendoza was born in 1975 as Maureen Cecilia Mendoza, better known as Maui.
She's a Filipino American Actress born to a Former Filipino International Singer Ofrecila Cecilia Mendoza with her twin sister Ofelia Nuestro in Asia, and Maui's Father is a Chemical Engineer, Mr. Domingo Mendoza. Her family migrated to Chicago, Illinois back in November 1995. Maureen has 4 other siblings. Maureen loves dancing,singing,modeling and acting.During her high-school years she participated in school programs like Dance Club and Drama Club, that's the time she realized she wanted to be part of the creative world of entertainment, after high-school she pursued her dreams of acting in 1993.
Maui took acting classes, workshops and theatrical Arts in College. Since Maui loves cooking, baking and event planning she then pursued a double Associate Degree in Culinary Arts Management and Associate Degree in Hotel & Restaurant Management.
Now, besides the world of performing arts, Maureen is also a Professional Personal Chef, Chef Instructor and Event Planner that specializes in Social Events, Weddings, Fashion Shows, and Bridal Expos. Maureen loves to play volleyball, tennis and live her life to the fullest, she's been a Cancer Survivor since 2008.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. Her father was of German and Swiss-German descent, and her mother had English, Irish, and German ancestry.
Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera. She became interested in acting while a student at Vassar and upon graduation she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. She gave an outstanding performance in her first film role, Julia (1977), and the next year she was nominated for her first Oscar for her role in The Deer Hunter (1978). She went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie's Choice (1982), in which she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi death camp.
A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Meryl turned out a string of highly acclaimed performances over the next decade in great films like Silkwood (1983); Out of Africa (1985); Ironweed (1987); and A Cry in the Dark (1988). Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her performance as Clint Eastwood's married lover in The Bridges of Madison County (1995) and as the prodigal daughter in Marvin's Room (1996). In 1998 she made her first venture into the area of producing, and was the executive producer for the moving ...First Do No Harm (1997). A realist when she talks about her future years in film, she remarked that "...no matter what happens, my work will stand..."- Actress
- Producer
- Make-Up Department
Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis is a Ukrainian-American actress born to a Jewish family in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher, her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer, and she has an older brother named Michael. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991. After attending one semester of college between gigs, she realized that she wanted to act for the rest of her life. She started acting when she was nine years old, when her father heard about an acting class on the radio and decided to enroll Mila in it. There, she met her future agent. Her first gig was when she played a character named Melinda in Make a Wish, Molly (1995). From there, her career skyrocketed into big-budget films.
Although she is mostly known for playing Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show (1998), she has shown the world that she can do so much more. Since 1999, she provided the voice of self-conscious daughter Meg Griffin on the animated sitcom Family Guy (1999). Her breakthrough film was Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), in which she played a free-spirited character named Rachel Jansen. She has since starred or co-starred in the films Max Payne (2008), The Book of Eli (2010), Black Swan (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), Ted (2012) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).
Mila Kunis is married to actor Ashton Kutcher, with whom she has two children.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Milla Jovovich is a Ukrainian-American actress, supermodel, fashion designer, singer and public figure, who was on the cover of more than a hundred magazines, and starred in such films as The Fifth Element (1997), Ultraviolet (2006), and the Resident Evil (2002) franchise.
Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich was born on December 17, 1975 in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now in Ukraine). Her Serbian father, Bogdan Jovovich, was a medical doctor in Kyiv. There, he met her mother, Galina Jovovich (née Loginova), a Russian actress. At the age of 5, in 1981, Milla emigrated with her parents from the Soviet Union, moving first to London, UK, then to Sacramento, California, and eventually settled in Los Angeles. There her parents worked as house cleaners for the household of director Brian De Palma. Her parents separated, and eventually divorced, because her father was arrested and spent several years in prison.
Young Milla Jovovich was brought up by her single mother in Los Angeles. In addition to her native Ukrainian, she also speaks Russian and English. However, in spite of her cosmopolitan background, Milla was ostracized by some of her classmates, as a kid who emigrated from the Soviet Union amidst the paranoia of the Cold War. Many emotional scars had affected her behavior, but she eventually emerged as a resilient, multi-talented, albeit rebellious and risk-taking girl. She was coached by her actress mother since her childhood, first at home, then studied music, ballet, and acting in Los Angeles.
She shot to international fame after she was spotted by the photographer Richard Avedon at the age of 11, and was featured in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements, and on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine 'Lei' which was her first cover shoot. She made her first professional model contract at the age of 12, and soon made it to the cover of 'The Face', 'Vogue', 'Cosmopolitan' and many other magazines. In 1994, she appeared on the cover of 'High Times' in the UK, at the age of 18. The total number of her magazine covers worldwide was over one hundred by 2004, and keeps counting. In 2004, she made $10.4 million, becoming the highest paid supermodel in the world.
Milla appeared in ad campaigns for Chanel, Versace, Emporio Armani, Donna Karen, DKNY, Celine, P&K, H&H, and continues her role as the worldwide spokesperson and model for L'Oreal. Thanks to their continued success with Milla, Giorgio Armani chose her to be the face of his fragrance, Night. In addition to Armani's fragrance, Milla was the face for Calvin Klein's Obsession and Christian Dior's Poison for over 10 years and has most recently become the new face for Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist fragrance, which debuts in August 2009. Milla continues to shoot with the fashion industry's most sought after photographers, including Peter Lindbergh, Mario Sorrenti, Craig McDean and Inez & Vinoodh.
Milla made her acting debut in the Disney Channel movie The Night Train to Kathmandu (1988) and she made guest appearances on television series including Married... with Children (1987) (in 1989 as a French exchange student), Paradise (1988) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990). In 1988, at age 12, she made her film debut credited as Milla in a supporting role in Two Moon Junction (1988) by writer/director Zalman King. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she played several supporting roles as a teenage actress in film and on television, then starred in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991). In 1997, she co-starred opposite Bruce Willis in the sci-fi blockbuster The Fifth Element (1997), then she starred as the title character of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).
In the early 2000s, Milla had a few years of uncertainty in her acting career due to the uneven quality of her films, as well as some hectic events in her private life. She appeared with Mel Gibson in Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. She went on to co-star with Wes Bentley and Sarah Polley in The Claim (2000) and in Ben Stiller's spoof of the world of models and high-fashion, Zoolander (2001).
Milla achieved box office success in the U.S. and around the world with the action-packed thriller, Resident Evil (2002), based on the wildly popular video game, Resident Evil. It was written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Milla reprised her role as the zombie slaying heroine, Alice, in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), and again in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) A seventh resident Evil movie is in pre-production.
She received glowing reviews opposite Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Illeana Douglas in Dummy (2002) which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. In the spring of 2006, Milla returned to the big screen as action heroine, Violet, in the futuristic film Ultraviolet (2006) directed by Kurt Wimmer.
Focusing on her personal sense of style, her love of fashion led Milla and her friend and business partner, Carmen Hawk, to launch their Jovovich-Hawk clothing line, which achieved instant acclaim in the domestic and international fashion world. The fresh, unique line garnered the attention of red carpet watchers and fashion magazines, including American Vogue, who featured Jovovich-Hawk on their coveted list of "10 Things to Watch Out for in 2005." A student of voice and guitar since she was very young, Milla began writing songs for her first record at the age of 15.
Her first album, "The Divine Comedy", was released by EMI Records in 1994. Informed by her experiences as a child growing up as a Russian emigrant in the Red-bashing Reagan era, the introspective European-folkish debut drew favorable reviews for Milla's songwriting and performing. She continues to write music, and has had songs featured on several film soundtracks. She has been writing music and lyrics to her song-demos, playing her guitar and sampling other sounds from her computer, and allowing free download and remix of her songs from her website.
Charitable work also plays a major part in Milla's life. She has served as Master of Ceremonies and co-chaired with Elizabeth Taylor for the amfAR and Cinema Against AIDS event at the Venice Film Festival, and has been heavily involved with The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, as well as The Wildlands Project.
For many years Milla Jovovich has been maintaining a healthier lifestyle, practicing yoga and meditation, trying to avoid junk food, and cooking for herself. Since she was a little girl, Milla has been writing a private diary, a habit she learned from her mother. She has been keeping a record of many good and bad facts of her life, her travels, her relationships, and all important ideas and events in her career, planning eventually to publish an autobiography. After dissolution of her two previous marriages, Milla Jovovich became engaged to film director Paul W.S. Anderson; their daughter, Ever Anderson, was born on November 3, 2007. They got married on August 22, 2009. Their second daughter, Dashiel Edan, was born on April 1, 2015.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Mélanie Laurent was born in Paris, France. She is the daughter of Annick, a ballet teacher, and Pierre, a voice actor, who is most recognized for the French version of The Simpsons (1989). She has a younger brother, Mathieu, and has both Sephardi Jewish (from Tunisia) and Ashkenazi Jewish (from Poland) ancestry. In 1998, Laurent was visiting the set of Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar (1999) with a friend when she caught the attention of Gérard Depardieu. He offered her a role in his next film The Bridge (1999). She only played a small role, but it was enough to further Mélanie's interest in acting.- Actress
- Producer
Melanie Griffith was born on August 9, 1957 in New York City, to then model/future actress Tippi Hedren and former child actor turned advertising executive Peter Griffith. Her parents' marriage ended when she was four years old and Tippi brought Melanie to Los Angeles to get a new start. Tippi caught the eye of the great director Alfred Hitchcock, who gave her starring roles in The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). She married her then-agent, Noel Marshall, in 1964 (they divorced in 1982), and Melanie grew up with three stepbrothers. Meanwhile, her father married Nanita Greene and had two more children: Tracy Griffith and Clay A. Griffith.
Melanie also grew up with tigers and lions, as Tippi and Noel were raising them for the movie Roar (1981), in which the family later starred. Melanie's acting career, however, began as a model at just nine months old in a commercial and she later appeared as an extra in Smith! (1969) and The Harrad Experiment (1973), where she fell in love with her mother's co-star, Don Johnson. She was only 14 years old, while he was a 22-year-old with two annulled marriages. Tippi took a very liberal approach and allowed Melanie to move in with Don at a tender age. Even though Melanie didn't like modeling, she continued to do it to pay the bills. One day she went to meet with director Arthur Penn for what she thought was a modeling assignment. It was actually an audition for his film Night Moves (1975), and Penn gave her the role of a runaway nymphet. She was hesitant, but Johnson encouraged her to take the role. She agreed but was terrified of performing in front of the camera. Penn took a paternal interest in her, and she felt confident and gave a riveting performance, doing racy nude scenes. It immediately typecast her and led to more nymphet roles, with her beautiful nude body a permanent fixture in movies like Ha-Gan (1977) and Joyride (1977). She also married Johnson, eloping in 1976, but the union ended within six months.
Unfortunately, as her career progressed, she became increasingly dependent on drugs and alcohol, a fact well-known to studio executives, who stopped considering her for feature film roles. Melanie started doing television work, where she met her second husband, Steven Bauer, on the set of the TV movie She's in the Army Now (1981). He helped her to overcome her drug and alcohol problems and got her to take acting classes with Stella Adler in New York. The classes paid off, as director Brian De Palma cast her as a porno actress in his murder mystery Body Double (1984) and her sexy, funny performance won her rave reviews and the Best Supporting Actress Award by the National Society of Film Critics and a Golden Globe nomination. Jonathan Demme was so impressed with her performance that he gave her the female lead in Something Wild (1986) without even auditioning her. The film was a commercial failure but quickly became a cult favorite on video and cable, with Melanie again getting critical plaudits and a Golden Globe nomination.
The birth of her first child, Alexander, in 1985, didn't help to save her struggling marriage, and she and Bauer separated shortly thereafter. Melanie was given starring roles in Cherry 2000 (1987) and Stormy Monday (1988), but the films were barely released. Soon writers were asking when the public at large was going to take notice of this unique and talented actress. Melanie's career skyrocketed when Mike Nichols cast her as spunky secretary Tess McGill in Working Girl (1988), a box-office hit for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress and won the Golden Globe Award as Best Actress in a Comedy. However, her ongoing substance abuse had almost destroyed her career yet again, and Nichols pushed her into a rehabilitation clinic. En route to the clinic she called ex-husband Johnson for support, and they reconciled after her release from the clinic. She got pregnant, divorced Bauer and remarried Johnson in 1989, and later that year their daughter Dakota Johnson was born. A sober Melanie now concentrated on her film career: her follow-up to "Working Girl" was John Schlesinger's Hitchcockian urban thriller Pacific Heights (1990). It was a moderate success, but most of the films she chose flopped badly, especially The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), which reunited her with director Brian De Palma. Even though she gave heartfelt performances in all her films, she was often miscast, with her breathy little-girl voice not helping matters in her role as a spy in Shining Through (1992) and as a homicide detective going undercover in the Hassidic Jewish community in New York City in A Stranger Among Us (1992).
Melanie was charming as a street hooker who befriends a group of elementary students in Milk Money (1994), but the film received negative reviews and performed dismally at the box office. She made a minor comeback with the critics for her supporting role as a desperate housewife in Nobody's Fool (1994), which reunited her with Bruce Willis, her co-star in "Bonfire", and Paul Newman, her co-star from The Drowning Pool (1975). She also earned a Golden Globe nomination for her work in the well-received TV miniseries Buffalo Girls (1995), followed by another hit film, the ensemble Now and Then (1995). Her personal life was making headlines again, though, as she left Johnson because of his own substance-abuse problems, reconciled with him briefly when he became sober, only to leave him again, this time for Antonio Banderas, her married co-star from Two Much (1995). Both she and Banderas created a scandal in 1995 with their torrid romance, and the tabloids followed their every move, including her divorce from Johnson and his divorce from wife Ana Leza. Melanie became pregnant with her third child, and she and Banderas married in 1996. Their daughter Stella Banderas was born, and the notorious couple were forgiven by the public and the media.
Melanie won strong reviews in independent films like Another Day in Paradise (1998), where she played a heroin-using criminal accomplice on the run, and the made-for-cable movie RKO 281 (1999), in which she portrayed actress Marion Davies, a part that garnered her Golden Globe and Emmy nominations as Best Supporting Actress. Melanie became dependent to pain killers, however, returning to rehab in 2000. She wrote about her struggle and recovery in her journal on her official website. Greenmoon Productions, the production company that she formed with Banderas, produced several flops, such as her starring vehicle Crazy in Alabama (1999), directed by Banderas. Her career took another blow when her TV series, Me & George (1998), never even aired. After making Cecil B. Demented (2000) and Forever Lulu (2000), Melanie did a voice-over role in Stuart Little 2 (2002) and played supporting roles in minor films Tempo (2003), as Sylvester Stallone's girlfriend in Shade (2003), and as Barbara Sinatra in All the Way (2003) with Dennis Hopper playing Frank Sinatra, but none of these films made a ripple at the box office. As a result, film and television offers dried up.
In 2003, a resourceful Melanie turned to the Broadway stage, and packed houses with her turn as the murderess "Roxie Hart" in the musical "Chicago," for which she received a rave review from the New York Times theater critic. It renewed her confidence, as she had never sang, danced or been on the Broadway stage before. In 2005 she surprised viewers by playing a mom to two grown women in the TV series Twins (2005), which was canceled after one season. She tried to resurrect her career with another attempt at a TV series, Viva Laughlin (2007), but it was canceled after just two episodes. Melanie didn't act again for the remainder of the decade, because, by self-admission, she couldn't obtain any worthwhile roles. In 2009, she was back in rehab after yet another relapse, emerging after a three-month stay. Professionally, she was faced with more disappointment in 2012 when This American Housewife (2012), a Lifetime series that Banderas produced for her to star in, never aired. She went back to the stage in 2012 and played Scott Caan's mother in a play that he wrote titled "No Way Around but Through." She impressed Caan enough to recommend her to producers of his television show Hawaii Five-0 (2010). Since 2014, she started playing a recurring role as his mother on the show.
Also in 2014, Melanie filed for divorce from Banderas citing "irreconcilable differences" after nearly twenty years together. She never publicly discussed her reasons for the divorce, and she didn't promote her feature film Automata (2014), the final time that she acted with Banderas. It took a year for the divorce to be finalized, during which time, she and Banderas made one important appearance together at their daughter Stella's high school graduation. She also made another public appearance with another ex-husband, Don Johnson, on Saturday Night Live (1975) to support their daughter Dakota, who was the host for that week. Dakota was promoting her star-making turn in Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), thus carrying on the family tradition of being a film actress. Melanie maintains close ties with her three children and her mother Tippi Hedren. She is involved in various charities, including raising funds for Tippi's Shambala preserve, a refuge for wild animals. Melanie also runs a non-profit organization for benefiting burned children. Melanie is single and her children are living on their own, so she has devoted most of her time to seeking out acting roles.- Actress
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Mena Alexandra Suvari was born in Newport, Rhode Island, the youngest of four children. She is the daughter of Ando Suvari, a psychiatrist, and the former Candice Chambers, a nurse. Mena's first name comes from her British aunt named after the "House of Mena" Hotel (at the base of the pyramids in Egypt); her last name is Estonian. Suvari grew up in an old stone mansion that she insists was haunted. The family later relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, where her brothers lined up to attend the Citadel (a military college). Mena, meanwhile, was entertaining dreams of becoming an archaeologist, astronaut, or doctor. Her interests took a turn for the... less cerebral, however, when a modeling agency stopped by her all-girls school to offer classes. At age 12, after receiving a few pointers on her runway strut, Suvari attended a modeling convention and was snapped up by the Manhattan-based Wilhelmina agency. She later moved to L.A. under their children's theatrical division WeeWillys, which began her acting career.
Suvari started in on TV work almost immediately--commercials at first, followed by guest appearances on Boy Meets World (1993), ER (1994), and Chicago Hope (1994). Mena was a natural for movies: she is petite (5'4"), has blue eyes, and her natural hair color is blonde. She launched her film career in 1997, picking up small roles in Gregg Araki's Nowhere (1997) and the Morgan Freeman-Ashley Judd thriller Kiss the Girls (1997). She popped up again in the background of Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), then landed a slightly meatier role as the best friend of the telekinetic heroine in The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999).
Suvari's ticket to fame was the teen sex quest American Pie (1999), which cast her as a wholesome choir girl who falls for a jock (Chris Klein). A few months later, she turned even more heads as the vampish cheerleader who captures Kevin Spacey's unwholesome imagination in American Beauty (1999). The sultry-but-fragile character earned Suvari a British Academy Award nomination, as well as a flurry of job offers and gushing fansites. In the midst of the hubbub surrounding the film, she slipped off with her boyfriend, cinematographer Robert Brinkmann, to tie the knot in a secret ceremony. The media was quick to point out the pair's 18-year age difference, but Suvari shrugged it off (her own parents, who divorced in 2001 after 32 years of marriage, wed when her mother was 21 and her father 48).
The in-demand actress completed her patriotic hat trick by starring in American Virgin (1999) (originally titled "Live Virgin") as the daughter of a porn king. The title change wasn't enough of a boost to keep the mediocre movie afloat in theaters--after a brief New York run, it headed straight to video. Her next effort was another underperformer, but the aptly named Loser (2000) (a collegiate love story that reunited her with American Pie's Jason Biggs) at least made it into suburban circulation--perhaps on the name recognition of its two young stars. Suvari kept her chin up, heading back to high school for the cheerleading/bank heist flick Sugar & Spice (2001) and joining the cast of the period film The Musketeer (2001).
She continued to showcase her range in ability by costarring with John Leguizamo in Jonas Åkerlund's cult classic Spun (2002) and then alongside Jennifer Aniston in Rob Reiner's Rumor Has It... (2005) and Keira Knightley in Tony Scott's Domino (2005). She also played opposite James Franco in Sonny (2002), the directorial debut of Nicolas Cage, and had a recurring role on HBO's Six Feet Under (2001).
Mena rounded out her creative pursuits by playing the iconic Black Dahlia in Ryan Murphy's anthology series American Horror Story (2011) and continued working in TV by following up with an arc in the hit series Chicago Fire (2012), as well as leading the Amazon pilot Hysteria (2014) and WeTv's miniseries South of Hell (2015). Mena then starred opposite Alicia Silverstone for TV Land's American Woman (2018).
Amicably divorced from Brinkmann after five years, Mena had a brief second marriage to Simone Sestito, an Italian concert promoter who, she claims, drained her financially. Since 2018, she has been married to Canadian prop master Michael Hope. The couple had a son, Christopher Alexander Hope, in 2021. That same year, Mena published her first book, 'The Great Peace'. Mena's hobbies include: jewelry making, photography, mountain biking, and hiking. Her fans look forward to her new projects.- Actress
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Mira Katherine Sorvino was born on September 28, 1967 in Manhattan. She is the daughter of Lorraine Davis, an actress turned drama therapist, and veteran character actor Paul Sorvino. Her father's family were Italian immigrants. The young Sorvino was intelligent, an avid reader and an exceptional scholar. Her father discouraged her from becoming an actor, as he knew how the industry often chews up young stars. She attended Harvard, majoring in Chinese, graduating magna cum laude in 1989, largely on the strength of her thesis, a Hoopes Prize-winning thesis on racial conflict in China, written and researched during the year spent in Beijing, which helped her fluency in Mandarin Chinese.
However, she showed interest in a career in acting from an early age, and moved to New York City to try her hand in the City's film industry, waitressing, auditioning and working at the Tribeca production company of Robert De Niro. She succeeded in getting a little television work in the early 1990s, but got her first film job in the independent gangster movie Amongst Friends (1993), on which she worked her way up the ladder behind the camera to eventually associate-produce the film, and, more importantly, was eventually cast as the female lead. The indie production was well-received, and Sorvino's performance attracted enough buzz to get her cast in two more movies, one a more prominent indie, Barcelona (1994), the other her first Hollywood feature, Quiz Show (1994), and her skillful performances brought her yet more attention.
An exceptionally poised and articulate young woman, she may have seemed inappropriate to play a crazy hooker, but Woody Allen took the chance, and her magnificent performance as the female lead in his Mighty Aphrodite (1995) proved her range as a performer and earned her an Oscar (at the tender age of 29) for Best Supporting Actress. Since winning the Oscar, Sorvino has continued to take a wide range of roles, including another stretch as Marilyn Monroe in Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996), co-starring with another very intelligent and skilled young actress, Ashley Judd. Forays into action and horror, such as Mimic (1997) and The Replacement Killers (1998) show that Sorvino is not above being playful in the film roles she chooses.
However, what forever cemented her role in popular culture was her performance as charmingly silly California beach girl Romy White in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), in which she and co-star Lisa Kudrow utter one hilarious absurdity after another.
Mira Sorvino married Christopher Backus on June 11, 2004, and the couple have four children.- Actress
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On the viewing horizon since the late 1980s, actress Maura Tierney has been a steady product of independent features, some hits and some misses, for close to a decade and a half. An odd and compelling beauty, she came from an upscale Bostonian family and was raised in the Hyde Park district.
Born February 3, 1965, the eldest child of three of Pat, a real estate agent, and Joseph M. Tierney, a prosperous politician and city councilman, Maura Lynn Tierney initially studied at New York University. She left school prior to graduation when she hooked up with the Circle-in-the-Square theater school. Following some stage plays including "Baby with the Bathwater" and "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea," she moved to the West Coast in the late 1980s finding minor roles here and there in TV-movies and making the rounds on episodic shows such as Growing Pains (1985), Family Ties (1982) and Law & Order (1990). She met actor/husband Billy Morrissette after both were fired from the set of an eventually-scrapped Ralph Macchio series.
After a few other failed pilots and a short-lived TV series, Maura made a minor film debut with The Linguini Incident (1991) and progressed to leading lady status in the B-movie spoof Dead Women in Lingerie (1991), which didn't go over well. She finally hit paydirt on TV when she won a female co-lead as smart but insecure newswriter Lisa Miller on the comedy series NewsRadio (1995). The show sailed along for a number of seasons due to the fine comedy instincts of David Foley, Andy Dick and the late Saturday Night Live (1975) player Phil Hartman. The show lost its oomph, however, as well as its audience after Hartman's tragic 1998 gunshot slaying, despite an assured replacement in fellow Saturday Night Live (1975) alumni Jon Lovitz. The show couldn't escape its bad aura, and it was gone the following year.
Maura's work on the TV sitcom thrust her into the film comedy limelight with prominent roles in such films as the Jim Carrey vehicle Liar Liar (1997). She also showed up as sly, darker-edged femmes in the thriller Primal Fear (1996), Primary Colors (1998) and Instinct (1999).
Into the millennium, Maura received one of her best art-house roles as a heavy in her husband's feature Scotland, Pa. (2001) which he wrote and directed. Following that came a mixture of offbeat parts in such films as the mystery thriller Insomnia (2002) starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams; the romantic comedy Welcome to Mooseport (2004) with Gene Hackman and Ray Romano; the Paul Rudd dramedy Diggers (2006); the sports comedy Semi-Pro (2008) with Will Ferrell and Steve Guttenberg; the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler slapstick comedy Baby Mama (2008); and, more recently, Nature Calls (2012), Anything (2017) and Beautiful Boy (2018) opposite Steve Carell.
She also found steady TV work with the role of Abby, who was first a nurse and then a doctor, in the long-established and critically-acclaimed medical drama series ER (1994), where she remained on the staff until the show left the air in 2009. She also found recurring roles on Rescue Me (2004), The Good Wife (2009) and The Affair (2014), and co-starred in the short-lived legal drama The Whole Truth (2010) with Rob Morrow.- Actress
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Maureen Denise McCormick was born on August 5, 1956 to Richard and Irene McCormick. The youngest of four children, she has three brothers Michael, Dennis and Kevin. Her acting career began at age six when she won the Baby Miss San Fernando Valley contest, which opened up the glamorous world of acting to the future teenie-bopper. At age seven, her first role was in a play, and within a year, was a popular choice for TV commercials and sitcoms. In addition to ads for Barbie and Kool Aid, Maureen was seen on Bewitched (1964), My Three Sons (1960) and Camp Runamuck (1965). She also did voice-over recordings for a dozen Mattel talking dolls. For five years, Maureen was one of America's top teen role-models, admired by millions. When the Brady Kids became a singing group on the side, producers noticed her special talent for singing and encouraged the recording of a number of solo tracks, some of which turned up later on the LP "Chris Knight and Maureen McCormick". Years later, she would attempt to revive her singing career, with the 1995 Country CD "When You Get A Little Lonely". Maureen has appeared in many feature films, many TV guest spots and completed three films in the last three years, Baby Huey's Great Easter Adventure (1999) and The Million Dollar Kid (2000) and Dogtown (1997). She currently pursues her career and keeps her friends and family first priority. Maureen is married to Michael Cummings and together they have a daughter, Natalie.- Actress
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In America, the early performing arts accomplishments of young Maureen FitzSimons (who we know as Maureen O'Hara) would definitely have put her in the child prodigy category. However, for a child of Irish heritage surrounded by gifted parents and family, these were very natural traits. Maureen made her entrance into this caring haven on August 17, 1920, in Ranelagh (a suburb of Dublin), Ireland. Her mother, Marguerita Lilburn FitzSimons, was an accomplished contralto. Her father, Charles FitzSimons, managed a business in Dublin and also owned part of the renowned Irish soccer team "The Shamrock Rovers." Maureen was the second of six FitzSimons children - Peggy, Florrie, Charles B. Fitzsimons, Margot Fitzsimons and James O'Hara completed this beautiful family.
Maureen loved playing rough athletic games as a child and excelled in sports. She combined this interest with an equally natural gift for performing. This was demonstrated by her winning pretty much every Feis award for drama and theatrical performing her country offered. By age 14 she was accepted to the prestigious Abbey Theater and pursued her dream of classical theater and operatic singing. This course was to be altered, however, when Charles Laughton, after seeing a screen test of Maureen, became mesmerized by her hauntingly beautiful eyes. Before casting her to star in Jamaica Inn (1939), Laughton and his partner, Erich Pommer, changed her name from Maureen FitzSimons to "Maureen O'Hara" - a bit shorter last name for the marquee.
Under contract to Laughton, Maureen's next picture was to be filmed in America (The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)) at RKO Pictures. The epic film was an extraordinary success and Maureen's contract was eventually bought from Laughton by RKO. At 19, Maureen had already starred in two major motion pictures with Laughton. Unlike most stars of her era, she started at the top, and remained there - with her skills and talents only getting better and better with the passing years.
Maureen has an enviable string of all-time classics to her credit that include the aforementioned "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," How Green Was My Valley (1941), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Sitting Pretty (1948), The Quiet Man (1952), and The Parent Trap (1961). Add to this the distinction of being voted one of the five most beautiful women in the world and you have a film star who was as gorgeous as she was talented.
Although at times early in her career Hollywood didn't seem to notice, there was much more to Maureen O'Hara than her dynamic beauty. She not only had a wonderful lyric soprano voice, but she could use her inherent athletic ability to perform physical feats that most actresses couldn't begin to attempt, from fencing to fisticuffs. She was a natural athlete.
In her career Maureen starred with some of Hollywood's most dashing leading men, including Tyrone Power, John Payne, Rex Harrison, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Brian Keith, Sir Alec Guinness and, of course, her famed pairings with "The Duke" himself, John Wayne. She starred in five films with Wayne, the most beloved being The Quiet Man (1952).
In addition to famed director John Ford, Maureen was also fortunate to have worked for some other great directors in the business: Alfred Hitchcock, William Dieterle, Henry Hathaway, Henry King, Jean Renoir, John M. Stahl, William A. Wellman, Frank Borzage, Walter Lang, George Seaton, George Sherman, Carol Reed, Delmer Daves, David Swift, Andrew V. McLaglen and Chris Columbus.
In 1968 Maureen found much deserved personal happiness when she married Charles Blair. Gen. Blair was a famous aviator whom she had known as a friend of her family for many years. A new career began for Maureen, that of a full-time wife. Her marriage to Blair, however, was again far from typical. Blair was the real-life version of what John Wayne had been on the screen. He had been a Brigadier General in the Air Force, a Senior Pilot with Pan American, and held many incredible record-breaking aeronautic achievements. Maureen happily retired from films in 1973 after making the TV movie The Red Pony (1973) (which on the prestigious Peabody Award for Excellence) with Henry Fonda. With Blair, Maureen managed Antilles Airboats, a commuter sea plane service in the Caribbean. She not only made trips around the world with her pilot husband, but owned and published a magazine, "The Virgin Islander," writing a monthly column called "Maureen O'Hara Says."
Tragically, Charles Blair died in a plane crash in 1978. Though completely devastated, Maureen pulled herself together and, with memories of ten of the happiest years of her life, continued on. She was elected President and CEO of Antilles Airboats, which brought her the distinction of being the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the United States.
Fortunately, she was coaxed out of retirement several times - once in 1991 to star with John Candy in Only the Lonely (1991) and again, in 1995, in a made-for-TV movie, The Christmas Box (1995) on CBS. In the spring of 1998, Maureen accepted the second of what would be three projects for Polson Productions and CBS: Cab to Canada (1998) - and, in October, 2000, The Last Dance (2000).
On St. Patrick's Day in 2004, she published her New York Times bestselling memoir, 'Tis Herself, co-authored with her longtime biographer and manager Johnny Nicoletti.
On November 4, 2014 Maureen was honored by a long overdue Oscar for "Lifetime Achievement" at the annual Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Governors Awards.
Maureen O'Hara was absolutely stunning, with that trademark red hair, dazzling smile and those huge, expressive eyes. She has fans from all over the world of all ages who are utterly devoted to her legacy of films and her persona as a strong, courageous and intelligent woman.- Actress
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Of Irish, English, and Scottish descent, Maureen Paula O'Sullivan was born on May 17, 1911 in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland. Her father was Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in the Connaught Rangers, and his wife, the former Mary Fraser (or Frazer). She was educated at Catholic schools in Dublin, Paris, and London (Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton, where a fellow student was fellow future actress Vivien Leigh). Even as a schoolgirl, Maureen desired an acting career, despite her father's initial opposition. She studied hard and read widely. When the opportunity to be an actress came along, it almost dropped in her lap. American film director Frank Borzage was in Dublin in 1929, filming Song o' My Heart (1930), when the 18 year old met him. He suggested a screen test, which she took. The results were more than favorable and she won the substantial role of Eileen O'Brien, then went to Hollywood to complete filming.
Once in sunny California, Maureen wasted no time landing roles in other films such as Just Imagine (1930), The Princess and the Plumber (1930), and So This Is London (1930). She was perhaps MGM's most popular ingenue throughout the 1930s in a number of non-Tarzan vehicles. In 1932, she teamed up with Olympic medal winner Johnny Weissmuller for the first time in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), as Jane Parker. Five other Tarzan films followed, the last being Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942). The Tarzan epics rank as one of the most memorable series ever made. Most people agree that those movies would not have been as successful as they were, had it not been for the talent, grace, and radiant beauty of O'Sullivan. But she was more than Jane Parker. She went on to roles in such films as The Flame Within (1935), David Copperfield (1935), and Anna Karenina (1935). She turned in another fine performance in Pride and Prejudice (1940). After the 1940s, however, she made fewer films, primarily for personal reasons, i.e. caring for her large family.
It isn't always easy to walk away from a lucrative career, but O'Sullivan did because she wanted to devote more time to her husband, John Farrow, an Australian-American writer, and their seven children: Michael, Patrick, Maria (a.k.a. Mia Farrow), John, Prudence, Theresa (a.k.a. Tisa Farrow), and Stephanie Farrow. The couple were married from 1936 until his death in 1963. After her last Tarzan venture she asked for release from her contract to care for her husband who had just left the U.S. Navy with typhoid. She did not retire completely and still found time to make occasional movies and television programs, as well as operate a bridal consulting service (Wediquette International).
O'Sullivan made her Broadway debut opposite Paul Ford in "Never Too Late" (November 27, 1962-April 24, 1965), a great success. She would appear on Broadway again in various vehicles through 1981, and later also co-produced two Broadway productions. Later movie patrons remember her as Elizabeth Alvorg in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) (playing opposite fellow silver screen film veteran Leon Ames). Her final celluloid role was in The River Pirates (1988). Some made-for-television movies followed and she retired completely in 1996, two years before her death in Scottsdale, Arizona on June 23, 1998 during heart surgery. She was 87 years old.- Actress
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Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. Monroe is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and professional struggles within the film industry. Her life and death are still the subjects of much controversy and speculation.
She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson at the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1, 1926. Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state. Because Gladys was mentally and financially unable to care for young Marilyn, Gladys placed her in the care of a foster family, The Bolenders. Although the Bolender family wanted to adopt Marilyn, Gladys was eventually able to stabilize her lifestyle and took Marilyn back in her care when Marilyn was 7 years old. However, shortly after regaining custody of Marilyn, Gladys had a complete mental breakdown and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was committed to a state mental hospital. Gladys spent the rest of her life going in and out of hospitals and rarely had contact with young Marilyn. Once Marilyn became an adult and celebrated as a film star, she paid a woman by the name of Inez Melson to look in on the institutionalized Gladys and give detailed reports of her progress. Gladys outlived her daughter, dying in 1984.
Marilyn was then taken in by Gladys' best friend Grace Goddard, who, after a series of foster homes, placed Marilyn into the Los Angeles Orphan's Home in 1935. Marilyn was traumatized by her experience there despite the Orphan's Home being an adequate living facility. Grace Goddard eventually took Marilyn back to live with her in 1937 although this stay did not last long as Grace's husband began molesting Marilyn. Marilyn went to live with Grace's Aunt Ana after this incident, although due to Aunt Ana's advanced age she could not care properly for Marilyn. Marilyn once again for the third time had to return to live with the Goddards. The Goddards planned to relocated and according to law, could not take Marilyn with them. She only had two choices: return to the orphanage or get married. Marilyn was only 16 years old.
She decided to marry a neighborhood friend named James Dougherty; he went into the military, she modeled, they divorced in 1946. She owned 400 books (including Tolstoy, Whitman, Milton), listened to Beethoven records, studied acting at the Actors' lab in Hollywood, and took literature courses at UCLA downtown. 20th Century Fox gave her a contract but let it lapse a year later. In 1948, Columbia gave her a six-month contract, turned her over to coach Natasha Lytess and featured her in the B movie Ladies of the Chorus (1948) in which she sang three numbers : "Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy", "Anyone Can Tell I Love You" and "The Ladies of the Chorus" with Adele Jergens (dubbed by Virginia Rees) and others. Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her in a small part in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and put her in All About Eve (1950) , resulting in 20th Century re-signing her to a seven-year contract. Niagara (1953) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar.
When she went to a supper honoring her in the The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she arrived in a red chiffon gown borrowed from the studio (she had never owned a gown). That same year, she married and divorced baseball great Joe DiMaggio (their wedding night was spent in Paso Robles, California). After The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she wanted serious acting to replace the sexpot image and went to New York's Actors Studio. She worked with director Lee Strasberg and also underwent psychoanalysis to learn more about herself. Critics praised her transformation in Bus Stop (1956) and the press was stunned by her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller . True to form, she had no veil to match her beige wedding dress so she dyed one in coffee; he wore one of the two suits he owned. They went to England that fall where she made The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) with Laurence Olivier , fighting with him and falling further prey to alcohol and pills. Two miscarriages and gynecological surgery followed. So had an affair with Yves Montand . Work on her last picture The Misfits (1961) , written for her by departing husband Miller, was interrupted by exhaustion. She was dropped from the unfinished Something's Got to Give (1962) due to chronic lateness and drug dependency.
On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe's day began with threatening phone calls. Dr. Ralph Greenson, Marilyn's physician, came over the following day and quoted later in a document "Felt it was possible that Marilyn had felt rejected by some of the people she had been close to." Apart from being upset that her publicist slept too long, she seemed fine. Pat Newcombe, who had stayed the previous night at Marilyn's house, left in the early evening as did Greenson who had a dinner date. Marilyn was upset he couldn't stay, and around 7:30pm she telephoned him to say that her second husband's son had called her. Peter Lawford also called Marilyn, inviting her to dinner, but she declined. Lawford later said her speech was slurred. As the evening went on there were other phone calls, including one from Jose Belanos, who said he thought she sounded fine. According to the funeral directors, Marilyn died sometime between 9:30pm and 11:30pm. Her maid unable to raise her but seeing a light under her locked door, called the police shortly after midnight. She also phoned Ralph Greenson who, on arrival, could not break down the bedroom door. He eventually broke in through French windows and found Marilyn dead in bed. The coroner stated she had died from acute barbiturate poisoning, and it was a 'probable suicide' though many conspiracies would follow in the years after her death.- Actress
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Maribeth Monroe was born on 25 March 1978 in Michigan, USA. She is an actress, known for Workaholics (2011), The Good Place (2016) and The Brink (2015). She has been married to Andy Cobb since 2014. They have one child.- Actress
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A small-town girl born and raised in rural Kalispell, Montana, Michelle Ingrid Williams is the daughter of Carla Ingrid (Swenson), a homemaker, and Larry Richard Williams, a commodity trader and author. Her ancestry is Norwegian, as well as German, British Isles, and other Scandinavian. She was first known as bad girl Jen Lindley in the television series Dawson's Creek (1998). She appeared in the comedy film Dick (1999), which was a parody of the Watergate Scandal along with Kirsten Dunst, as well as Prozac Nation (2001) with Christina Ricci. Since then, Michelle has worked her way into the world of independent films such as The Station Agent (2003), Imaginary Heroes (2004), and The Baxter (2005). But her real success happened in 2005 when she starred in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005) as Alma Beers Del Mar. A woman who realizes her husband is in love with another man. Her talent shown in Brokeback Mountain (2005) landed her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 2011, she received her first lead role Academy Award nomination for Blue Valentine (2010). She followed this in 2012 with a lead role Academy Award nomination for My Week with Marilyn (2011).
Michelle has a daughter, Matilda, with late Australian actor Heath Ledger.- Actress
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Melissa grew up in Sayville, New York. Her acting career started at the age of four, when she did a commercial for a bathtub toy called Splashy. Her mother, Paula Hart, has been her agent from the beginning. Melissa is the oldest of eight children, some from her mother's second marriage. Six sisters, Trisha Hart, Elizabeth Hart, Emily Hart, Alexandra Hart-Gilliams, Samantha Hart, and Mackenzie Lee Hart, who is the only sibling who never appeared on Melissa's TV series, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996). Her brother is Brian Hart.
Melissa performed in two plays as the youngest member of New York's Circle Repertory Lab Company: "Beside Herself" in 1989 (starring Lois Smith and William Hurt) and "Imagining Brad" in 1990. She was also in the National Actors Theater production of "The Crucible" on Broadway with Martin Sheen (as understudy of three of the children in the play). Melissa cites Shirley Temple and Audrey Hepburn as early acting inspirations and still collects memorabilia of the former. For the past few years, she has been juggling acting and attending New York University. She's now living in Connecticut.- Actress
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Melissa Suzanne McBride (born May 23, 1965) is an American actress and former casting director, best known for her role as Carol Peletier on the AMC series The Walking Dead. McBride has garnered critical acclaim and received multiple awards and nominations for her role on the show.
McBride was born in Lexington, Kentucky to parents John Leslie McBride and Suzanne Lillian (née Sagley) (1937-2018). Her father owned his own business, and her mother studied at the historic Pasadena Playhouse. She had three siblings: John Michael (1957-1990), Neil Allen (1960-2008), and Melanie Suzanne (1962-2012).
McBride began her acting career in 1991, appearing in several television commercials for clients such as Rooms To Go; she was also a spokeswoman for Ford. She made her series television debut in a 1993 episode of ABC legal drama series Matlock, and later guest-starred in several other television drama series, including In the Heat of the Night; American Gothic; Profiler; Walker, Texas Ranger; and Dawson's Creek. In the last, she played Nina - a film buff who charms Dawson after his breakup with Jen - in the Season 1 episode "Road Trip" (1998) - and in 2003 returned to the series finale playing a different character.
In the 1990s, McBride had supporting roles in several made-for-television movies, such as Her Deadly Rival (1995) opposite Annie Potts and Harry Hamlin, Close to Danger (1997) with Rob Estes, Any Place But Home (1997), and Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999). In 1996, she appeared on the CBS miniseries A Season in Purgatory, based on Dominick Dunne's eponymous 1993 novel. From 2000 to 2010, she worked as a film and commercial casting director in Atlanta, Georgia and starred in several short films. In 2007, director Frank Darabont cast McBride as the "woman with the kids at home" in the ensemble-cast science-fiction horror film The Mist, alongside Thomas Jane, Laurie Holden, and Marcia Gay Harden. McBride was in contention for a bigger role in the film but did not want to take a significant amount of time away from her job as a casting director. The following year, she appeared in the Lifetime television movie Living Proof.
McBride's earlier relationship with Darabont led him to cast her as Carol Peletier in the AMC television drama series The Walking Dead - her biggest role to date. Peletier is a mid-forties widow and caring mother to preteen Sophia, fighting to survive in a violent post-apocalyptic world populated with flesh-eating zombies and the few surviving humans, some of whom are diabolical and even more dangerous than the zombies themselves. McBride did not audition for the role, which she thought was temporary. She was a recurring cast member in Season 1 and was promoted to series regular for Season 2. McBride's name appeared in the opening credits sequence beginning with the first episode of Season 4. Carol was supposed to have been killed off in the episode "Killer Within", but the producers eventually had a change of plans.
As the series progresses, McBride's character develops from being weak and dependent, into a strong, cunning, and loyal warrior. The direction of her character is contrasted between the two media. In the comic series, Carol is much younger and exhibits a neurotic, self-centered, and naive demeanor. Throughout her time in the comics, she grows increasingly unstable to the point of being self-destructive. The television show differs in these regards, as she is shown to be a stern, pragmatic, and compassionate individual who has been gradually building inner strength. Producers of the series, Scott M. Gimple and Robert Kirkman, said in 2014 that "Carol is her own unique character; it would be a disservice to Melissa McBride to say she's evolved into the Carol from the comics. The Carol in the TV show is a wholly original creation that we'll continue to explore on the show to great effect. Everyone in the writers' room loves that character, and we're thrilled with what Melissa has brought to the table. She has definitely become a character that is one to watch, and there's some really exciting stuff ahead for her."
McBride has received critical acclaim for her performance as Carol and won positive reviews from critics during Seasons 3, 4, and 5. Many critics praised McBride's performance in the Season 4 episode centered on her character, "The Grove". Others singled out Carol's actions in the Season 5 premiere, "No Sanctuary", which earned critical praise and positive fan reception. Despite the praise of some critics and a fan campaign, McBride did not receive a nomination for the 2014 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. However, she won the 40th Annual Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on Television, and was nominated for the 2014 Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her performance in Season 4. In March 2015, McBride was nominated for a Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Leading Actress in a Television series, for her role as Carol. She once again won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on Television at the 41st Saturn Awards, for the second year in a row.- Actress
- Producer
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Melissa McCarthy was born in Plainfield, Illinois, to Sandra and Michael McCarthy, and was raised on her family's corn and soybean farm. She began her performing career as a stand-up comedian in New York where she appeared at the famous clubs, Stand Up New York and The Improv. She worked on her acting skills at The Actors Studio and appeared in many stage productions in the city before moving to Los Angeles in the late-1990s. She made a number of TV and movie appearances before making her big breakthrough as Sookie in Gilmore Girls (2000). A steady stream of comedy performances followed, leading to her starring role in the sitcom Mike & Molly (2010).
In the 2010s, McCarthy became known for her starring roles in the films Bridesmaids (2011), The Heat (2013), St. Vincent (2014), Spy (2015), Ghostbusters (2016), and Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018).- Actress
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Maria Bello was born on 18 April, 1967 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, to Kathy, a nurse and teacher, and Joe Bello, a contractor. She is of Italian and Polish descent. Maria went to Villanova University, majoring in political science. She had every intention of becoming a lawyer, but she took an acting class during her senior year, just for fun. She discovered she was very good at it, and she was soon cast in small off-Broadway plays, such as "The Killer Inside Me", "Small Town Gals With Big Problems" and "Urban Planning". She later guest-starred on episodes of The Commish (1991), Nowhere Man (1995), Misery Loves Company (1995), and Due South (1994). She got her big break when producers Kenny Lenhart and John J. Sakmar cast her in the spy show Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1996) as "Mrs. Smith" (they remembered her from her performance in a failed pilot that was a remake of the classic TV series 77 Sunset Strip (1958)). The show was canceled after eight weeks on the air. Then came a spot on ER (1994) as "Dr. Anna Del Amico", in which she guest-starred on the final three episodes of the third season. The show's producers were so impressed with her that they asked her back as a regular on the series.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ming-Na ("enlightenment") was born on the island of Macau, forty miles from Hong Kong. Her mother, Lin Chan Wen, divorced her father when Ming-Na was only a toddler. She has an older brother named Jonathan. After the divorce, they moved to Hong Kong where her mother became a nurse. There her mother met Soo Lim Yee, a U.S. businessman. They soon married, and at four years, Ming-Na moved with her family to Queens, New York. Five years later, they transferred to Yee's hometown of Pittsburgh where his family runs the Chinatown Inn restaurant. Jonathan and half-brother, Leong, now manage this restaurant. Struggling to fit in at school, she changed her name to Maggie & Doris. She found a love for acting while appearing in a third grade Easter play, where she played a klutzy bunny. Her mother was not excited about her desire to pursue acting, She preferred that she go into medicine. Nonetheless, Ming-Na graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in theatre. She got her first acting job in 1988 on the soap As the World Turns (1956). Her big break came when she was cast in The Joy Luck Club (1993). When she needed a ride to the premiere of the film, her acting instructor sent one of his students, Eric Michael Zee. The two started dating in 1994 after Ming-Na moved permanently to Los Angeles and married in 1995, dropping her last name, Wen, at that time. She says she is now like Ann-Margret. Zee is a screenwriter and, with Ming-Na, manages At Last, a boy band.- Actress
- Music Department
Moon Bloodgood was born on 20 September 1975 in Alliance, Nebraska, USA. She is an actress, known for Terminator Salvation (2009), Faster (2010) and The Sessions (2012). She was previously married to Grady Hall.- Actress
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Amanda Leigh Moore was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, on April 10, 1984, to Stacy (Friedman), a former news reporter, and Don Moore, an airline pilot. During her childhood, her family moved to Orlando, Florida, where she was raised. She has Russian Jewish (from her maternal grandfather), English, Scottish, and Irish, ancestry.
After seeing the musical "Oklahoma!", she decided that she wanted to pursue a career in singing. As a child, she performed the National Anthem at several athletic events around her hometown of Orlando, Florida, and became known as the "National Anthem girl". At the ripe age of fourteen, while she was recording in a studio in Orlando, a Fed-Ex worker who happened to be passing through heard her and was interested in her talent. He happened to know someone at Sony as well. Moore worked on cutting a demo and shortly thereafter signed a record deal with Sony 550 Music. At 15, her first record "So Real" was released. Her first tour was with the Backstreet Boys.
As her touring and recording schedule demanded more of her time, Moore withdrew from Bishop Moore Catholic High School in Orlando and opted for a tutor/correspondence. She has stated that her education is important to her and says that the fact that she wants to go to college motivates her to continue with her schooling.
Though Moore's record sales were not up in the ranks of Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, she has proved to be a formidable talent both in singing and in acting, and snagged an MTV Movie Award in June 2002 for her first feature film role in A Walk to Remember (2002). Her biggest dream, though, is to perform on Broadway someday.
Throughout the 2000s, Mandy headlined several films, ranging from the little-seen drama Try Seventeen (2002) to mid-level releases like How to Deal (2003), Chasing Liberty (2004), Racing Stripes (2005), and the more broadly comedic Because I Said So (2007) and License to Wed (2007). She also appeared in the odd-ball sci-fi film Southland Tales (2006), and voiced Rapunzel in the Disney blockbuster CGI animation Tangled (2010).
In the mid 2010s, she re-emerged as a star actress, headlining the show This Is Us (2016) and the hit thriller film 47 Meters Down (2017), with more film roles to come.- Actress
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- Writer
Mandy Amano became "the face that launched 1,000 websites" after her Pepsi commercial premiered during the Super Bowl. This led to appearances in Maxim, countless online magazines, blogs, and comic books - most notably Shi and Ronin Hood of the 47 Samurai.
Once described as "Audrey Hepburn ... who could kick your ass" and being a genre girl at heart, some of her favorite roles have been starring as "O", the ultimate modern femme fatale, in the neo-noir thriller Proxy Kill; the fierce and fiery fighter pilot "Oujo" in The Last Squadron; and "Thalia", the little but lethal Black Ops vampire, in Blood Soldiers. She landed a dream role when Steven Ayromlooi cast her as "Princess Kyoko" opposite the mighty Evan Parke in the film festival/comic con phenom The Sun Devil and The Princess, which racked up a show-stopping 20 awards - including 2 Best Actress wins for her portrayal of the strong, yet ethereal princess.- Actress
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- Director
Maggie Gyllenhaal was born on November 16, 1977 in New York City, New York as Margalit Ruth Gyllenhaal, the daughter of producer/screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She is of Ashkenazi Jewish (mother) and Swedish, English, and German (father) descent.
She made her film debut in Waterland (1992). She had sporadic roles throughout her teenage years though she took a break to attend Columbia University where she graduated w/ a degree in literature in 1999. In addition, she briefly studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, which helped w/ her post-graduation transition back into acting.
Soon after graduating, she had supporting roles in Cecil B. Demented (2000) & Donnie Darko (2001). Her breakout role came later when she starred in Secretary (2002), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination. She followed that up w/ supporting roles in 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), Adaptation. (2002), & Mona Lisa Smile (2003) among other movies. She received her 2nd Golden Globe nomination for playing a recent prison parolee in Sherrybaby (2006). She followed that up w/ roles in World Trade Center (2006), Stranger Than Fiction (2006) & The Dark Knight (2008).
In 2009, she received great acclaim for her role in Crazy Heart (2009), which earned her 1st Oscar nomination. Since then, she has been seen in Nanny McPhee Returns (2010), Hysteria (2011) & Won't Back Down (2012).- Actress
- Soundtrack
The second of four children, Australian actress Melissa George was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1976. The daughter of Pamela, a nurse, and Glenn George, a construction worker, Melissa initially expressed interest in various forms of dance rather than acting. During her childhood, George studied tap, ballet, and jazz, later transitioning into professional rollerskating - similar to figure skating on ice.
By age 16, George had won several awards at various National Rollerskating Championships in Australia, and subsequently began modeling after dropping out of high school. George met a casting agent while doing modeling work, and was given a role on the popular Australian soap opera Home and Away (1988); George moved to Sydney and worked on the show for three years until deciding to pursue other projects.
In 1996, George left Australia and moved to Los Angeles in search of bigger roles. She garnered various supporting parts in films such as Dark City (1998) and Steven Soderbergh's crime thriller The Limey (1999), before landing a key part in David Lynch's acclaimed neo noir mystery film, Mulholland Drive (2001). While in Bali in 1998, George met future husband, Chilean filmmaker Claudio Dabed; the two were married in late 2000.
The early 2000s would have George playing bit parts in several American television shows, including Friends (1994) and Monk (2002), ultimately landing a recurring role on the hit Alias (2001) alongside Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan. Through the later part of the decade, George had roles in various horror and thriller films, beginning with the 2005 version of The Amityville Horror (2005), as well as the commercially-successful thriller Derailed (2005) alongside Clive Owen, Jennifer Aniston and Vincent Cassel.
George finished the decade with several more horror films, including Turistas (2006) and 30 Days of Night (2007), as well as independent horror titles such as The Killing Gene (2007), The Betrayed (2008) and Triangle (2009). George was also active in television work, landing a role on the popular medical drama Grey's Anatomy (2005). Her greatest critical success would come with a role on In Treatment (2008), playing the love interest of Gabriel Byrne, which would garner her a Golden Globe nomination in 2009.
Though a veteran of television in both Australia and the United States, George has achieved considerable success in her film career, which has hardly spanned over a decade.- Actress
- Producer
- Executive
Melissa Leo is an American actress. She is known for her Academy Award-winning performance in the 2010 film The Fighter (2010). She was born on September 14, 1960, in New York City. Leo starred as the mother of boxer Micky Ward in the 2010 film The Fighter, also starring Mark Wahlberg. The role garnered her both Golden Globe (Best Supporting Actress) and Oscar awards. Other accolades include award nominations for the film Frozen River (2008) and the HBO series Mildred Pierce.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Miranda Lambert was born on 10 November 1983 in Longview, Texas, USA. She is a music artist and actress, known for The Ice Road (2021), Burlesque (2010) and Hot Pursuit (2015). She has been married to Brendan McLoughlin since 26 January 2019. She was previously married to Blake Shelton.- Actress
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- Music Department
Miranda Taylor Cosgrove was born May 14, 1993 in Los Angeles, California, to Christina (Casey) and Tom Cosgrove, who owns a dry-cleaning business. She was discovered at a young age singing and dancing around a table in a restaurant, where an agent saw her talent and quickly signed her. Miranda's career started with commercials for Burger King, McDonalds and more as she auditioned for many roles and finally won her first role as the band's manager in the movie, School of Rock (2003).
While filming School of Rock (2003) in New York, she was informed that her pilot Drake & Josh (2004) had been picked up. She co-starred as Drake and Josh's little sister, while making brief appearances on other Nickelodeon shows, before landing in her own show for the network, iCarly (2007). Her iCarly (2007) popularity helped her launch a singing career, and she was named an MTV Pop Rookie for 2009. Her debut album, "Sparks Fly", was released in 2010 and reached #8 on the Billboard 200 chart, along with two EPs: "About You Now" in 2009, and "High Maintenance" in 2011.
While continuing her singing career, Miranda has expanded upon her voice-over work for the children's movies, including Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie (2005), and the Despicable Me (2010) films and related shorts, as well as expanding her film work with Yours, Mine & Ours (2005), Keeping Up with the Steins (2006) and The Wild Stallion (2009). Her TV reach has extended beyond Nickelodeon, with an appearance on the CBS legal drama The Good Wife (2009) during the show's second season. She has served as a spokesperson for Neutrogena skin care products since 2010.
She lives in Los Angeles with her family.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Music Department
Miley Ray Cyrus was born Destiny Hope Cyrus on November 23, 1992 in Franklin, Tennessee and raised in Thompson's Station, Tennessee to Tish Cyrus & Billy Ray Cyrus. She has five siblings - two half-brothers, a half-sister, and a younger brother and sister. Her parents named her because they hoped she would achieve greatness. Her childhood nickname, Smiley, due to her cheerful disposition, was eventually shortened to Miley. Her paternal grandfather was Democratic politician Ron Cyrus.
Cyrus was initially educated at Heritage Elementary School in Tennessee. When she turned eight, her family moved to Toronto, Canada, where Cyrus' father Billy Ray took a role in the TV series Doc (2001). It was around this time that Cyrus decided she wanted to act too. Her first role came alongside her father in Doc (2001). She also scored a small role in Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003).
In 2005, Cyrus was cast as the lead in the Disney series Hannah Montana (2006), about a teen leading a double life as a pop star. Again her father acted alongside her. The show was a smash and hit records, sell-out tours and merchandising deals soon followed. Cyrus became a teen superstar.
Following the success of Hannah Montana (2006), Cyrus made the move into other roles - including playing Ronnie Miller in The Last Song (2010) and Lola in LOL (2012) alongside Demi Moore.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Monica Anna Maria Bellucci was born on September 30, 1964 in the Italian village of Città di Castello, Umbria, the only child of Brunella Briganti and Pasquale Bellucci. She originally pursued a career in the legal profession. While attending the University of Perugia, she modeled on the side to earn money for school, and this led to her modeling career. In 1988, she moved to one of Europe's fashion centers, Milan, and joined Elite Model Management. Although enjoying great success as a model, she made her acting debut on television in 1990, and her American film debut in Bram Stoker's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Her role in the French thriller The Apartment (1996), shot her to stardom as she won the French equivalent of an Oscar nomination. Other credits include Malena (2000), Under Suspicion (2000) and Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001).- Actress
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Miranda Hart was born on 14 December 1972 in Torquay, Devon, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Spy (2015), Miranda (2009) and Emma. (2020).- Miranda May Kerr was born in Sydney and raised in the small town of Gunnedah to John and Therese Kerr. Kerr's paternal grandmother lived on a farm, where she "raced motorbikes and rode horses." Her parents later moved the family to Brisbane when she and her younger brother Matthew were teenagers. She originally aspired to become a nutritionist and later studied nutrition and health psychology after her high school graduation, but entered a magazine contest shortly before her fourteenth birthday. Kerr attended All Hallows' School, where she graduated in 2000.
Kerr began modeling for various clothing brands, runways, and print advertisements. Mostly notably, the companies she has worked for include Dolly, Tigerlily, Roxy, Billabong Girls, One Teaspoon, Victoria's Secret, Qantas, Maybelline, Vogue, and Marie Claire. Kerr relocated to New York City in 2004.
Kerr met Orlando Bloom in 2007. They were later married in a private July 2010 ceremony when she was four months pregnant, and Kerr gave birth to their first child, a son named Flynn Christopher Blanchard Copeland Bloom, in January 2011. - Actress
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Miranda Richardson was born in Southport, Lancashire, England on March 3, 1958, to Marian Georgina (Townsend) and William Alan Richardson, a marketing executive. She has one sister, eight years her senior. Her parents and sister are not involved in the performing arts. At an early age she performed in school plays, having shown a talent and desire to "turn herself into" other people. She has referred to it as "an emotional fusion; you think yourself into them". This mimicry could be of school friends or film stars.
She left school (Southport High School for Girls) at the age of 17, and originally intended becoming a vet. She also considered studying English literature in college, but decided to concentrate on drama and enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (as did many well-known British actors). After three years she graduated and moved into repertory theatre. She became affiliated with the Library Theatre in Manchester in 1979, where she became an assistant stage manager. She obtained her Equity card, and after several regional productions, first appeared on the London stage (Moving at Queens Theatre) in 1981. British television roles soon followed, and then film.
Since then, Miranda has moved into the international arena, and has made films in America, France and Spain. Television work (on both sides of the Atlantic) continues, as does some stage work. Her roles are diverse, but powerful and engaging. She has been quoted as stating "what I basically like is doing things I haven't done before" and this continually comes through in the variety of roles she has played in her career. She is also selective in the roles she takes, being uninterested in performing in the standard Hollywood fare, and preferring more offbeat roles. She was approached to play the Glenn Close role in Fatal Attraction (1987), but found it "regressive in its attitudes". Her attitude is summed up by a quote from an interview that appeared in the New York Times (Dec 27 1992): "I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting. And if that's the choice I have to make, I think I've already made it".
According to "1994 Current Biography Yearbook", she resides in South London with her two Siamese cats, Otis and Waldo. She has now moved to West London. Her hobbies include drawing, walking, gardening, fashion, falconry, and music. She, by her own admission, is a loner and lives rather modestly. An actor who studied with Ms Richardson at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre in the late 1970s described her as "a strong minded, specially gifted, rather pretty young woman who enjoys wearing jewelry. She wore toe rings, which in the late 1970s and especially in England, were a rarity and considered rather racy." He also remarked on her drive, even then, to be an actress of the highest caliber.- Actress
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Malin was born in Stockholm, Sweden and raised in Toronto, Canada. Her mother, Pia (Sundström), is a model and aerobics instructor, and her father, Magnus Åkerman, is an insurance broker. They moved to Toronto when she was age 2. At age 5, she began appearing in TV commercials. Her parents divorced when she was 6 and her father returned to Sweden.
At age 17, she won the Canadian title of Ford Supermodel. This enabled her to spend 3 years as a catwalk model in Europe. She decided to become a child psychologist and enrolled in York University but she was offered a guest role in Earth: Final Conflict (1997) so she turned her attention back to acting. She moved to Los Angeles in 2001 and won roles in both TV and film. Her breakthrough role came when she was cast as Silk Spectre II in Watchmen (2009).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Minka Kelly was born in Los Angeles, California and she is the only child of former Aerosmith guitarist, Rick Dufay, and Maureen Kelly, an exotic dancer and single mother, who often moved with her daughter to different communities before settling in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by the time Minka was in junior high school.
Her paternal grandfather was actor Richard Ney. Minka's ancestry includes Austrian, German, French, Irish, English, Scottish, and Dutch.- Actress
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Margot Elise Robbie was born on July 2, 1990 in Dalby, Queensland, Australia to Scottish parents. Her mother, Sarie Kessler, is a physiotherapist, and her father, is Doug Robbie. She comes from a family of four children, having two brothers and one sister. She graduated from Somerset College in Mudgeeraba, Queensland, Australia, a suburb in the Gold Coast hinterland of South East Queensland, where she and her siblings were raised by their mother and spent much of her time at the farm belonging to her grandparents. In her late teens, she moved to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to pursue an acting career.
From 2008-2010, Robbie played the character of Donna Freedman in the long-running Australian soap opera, Neighbours (1985), for which she was nominated for two Logie Awards. She set off to pursue Hollywood opportunities, quickly landing the role of Laura Cameron on the short-lived ABC series, Pan Am (2011). She made her big screen debut in the film, About Time (2013).
Robbie rose to fame co-starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, portraying the role of Naomi Lapaglia in Martin Scorsese's Oscar nominated film, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). She was nominated for a Breakthrough Performance MTV Movie Award, and numerous other awards.
In 2014, Robbie founded her own production company, LuckyChap Entertainment. She also appeared in the World War II romantic-drama film, Suite Française (2014). She starred in Focus (2015) and Z for Zachariah (2015), and made a cameo in The Big Short (2015).
In 2016, she married Tom Ackerley in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia.
She starred as Jane Porter in The Legend of Tarzan (2016), Tanya Vanderpoel in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016) and as DC comics villain Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad (2016), for which she was nominated for a Teen Choice Award, and many other awards.
She portrayed figure skater Tonya Harding in the biographical film I, Tonya (2017), receiving critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.- Music Artist
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Mariah Carey was born in Long Island, New York on March 27, 1969. Her parents are Patricia Hickey (Irish-American) and Alfred Roy Carey (African-American/Venezuelan). Mariah attended Greenlawn's Harborfields High School. In June 1990, Mariah made her debut with her self-titled album, Mariah Carey which entered at #73, but on August 4, 1990 it reached #1. Her 1990 self-titled debut album went multi-platinum and spawned an extraordinary four consecutive #1 singles: "Vision of Love," "Love Takes Time," "Someday" and "I Don't Wanna Cry," and led to Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Vocalist. Her 1993 album titled Music Box went ten-times platinum. On September 30, 1995, she made music history. Her single "Fantasy" from her 1995 Daydream album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first female artist to accomplish a number one debut in the U.S. Her other Daydream's single "One Sweet Day" remained for 16 weeks at the top of the charts. She is the only artist since The Beatles to have so many #1 singles and albums. With "Heartbreaker", the first single from her 1999 album Rainbow and also her 14 #1 single, she became the only artist to top the charts in each year of the 1990s, and with "Heartbreaker" at its 60th week atop the Billboard's charts, she pushed ahead of The Beatles's 59-week record as the only artist with the most cumulative weeks spent atop Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart.
Following "Heartbreaker," her second single "Thank God I Found You" also from her Rainbow album became her 15th #1. "We Belong Together" from her 2005 album The Emancipation of Mimi became her 16th #1 single and was also her first #1 without any guest artists since her song "My All" (also a #1 single) captured the top spot in May 1998. The single "Don't Forget About Us" also from her 2005 album Emancipation of Mimi became her 17th #1 single, tying her with Elvis Presley's 17 #1 singles. Three more Grammy Awards were gained from The Emancipation of Mimi album. She is the most successful selling female artist in music history and is the only female artist to have the most #1 singles and albums and also holds the record for straight #1 singles and albums each year. Along with numerous awards and incredible vocal range, she also composes all of her own material, with the exception of song covers.
In April 2008, the single "Touch My Body" became her 18th #1 single, pushing her ahead of Elvis Presley's 17 #1 singles. Now she is the only artist since The Beatles to have as many number one singles and the only singer alive likely to succeed them.- Actress
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Molly Ringwald was born in Roseville, California, to Adele Edith (Frembd), a chef, and Robert Ringwald, a blind jazz pianist. Her ancestry includes German, English, and Swedish. She released an album at the age of 6 entitled, "I Wanna Be Loved By You, Molly Sings". She is the youngest daughter of Bob Ringwald. At age five she starred in a stage production of "Alice in Wonderland", playing the dormouse.- Actress
- Writer
Mischa Barton is a versatile actress with a passion for storytelling and an impressive career spanning over two decades. Working with such acclaimed directors and writers as M. Night Shyamalan, James Lapine and Naomi Wallace, she is known for her magnetic on-screen presence and natural acting abilities that have captivated audiences worldwide. She has earned her reputation as one of the most talented performers of her generation.
Born in London, England, Barton quickly made her mark in the entertainment industry with her debut film role in "Lawn Dogs" (1997). From there, she continued to showcase her versatility in a variety of film and television projects, including the hit supernatural thriller "The Sixth Sense" (1999) and the critically acclaimed drama series "Once and Again" (2002-2003).
However, it was her iconic role as Marissa Cooper in the hit television series "The O.C." (2003-2006) that truly launched Barton to superstardom. Her portrayal of the troubled, yet lovable character resonated with audiences worldwide, cementing her place as a pop culture icon and earning her widespread critical acclaim with critics praising her nuanced portrayal of a complex character.
She has appeared in several stage productions throughout her career, including the acclaimed Off-Broadway productions of "Where the Truth Lies," "Twelve Dreams," and "One Flea Spare." Her performances were praised for their depth, nuance, and emotional range, demonstrating her versatility as an actress.- Actress
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Mia is an Australian actress, born and raised in the country's capital, Canberra. She is the daughter of photographers Marzena Wasikowska and John Reid. Her mother is Polish and her father is an Australian of British ancestry. She has an older sister, Jess, and a younger brother, Kai. At age eight, her family moved to Poland for a year.
At age nine, Mia took ballet classes with dreams of becoming a professional ballerina. However, an injury prevented this from happening and she quit at age fourteen. Mia turned to acting, having been excited by European and Australian cinema. She was attending Canberra High School, but left to pursue her career as an actor.
She had just turned 15 when she landed the role of Lilya in Suburban Mayhem (2006). Her breakthrough role came when she was cast as Alice in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010).- Actress
- Producer
Michelle Lynn Monaghan was born on March 23, 1976, in Winthrop, Iowa. She is the youngest of three children and the only daughter of Sharon (Hamel), who ran a day care center, and Robert L. Monaghan, a factory worker and farmer. She is of mostly Irish and German descent. After graduating from high school in Iowa, she studied journalism for three years at Chicago's Columbia College. In order to pay for college, she took a job as a model. In 1999, she quit college and moved to New York to work full-time as a fashion model. She traveled the world doing stints on the runways in Milan, Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and also appeared in a number of magazines and catalogs.
In 2000, she made her TV debut in two episodes of Young Americans (2000), then appeared in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999). She made her big screen debut with a small role of Henrietta in Perfume (2001). Monaghan shot to fame in 2002 when she co-starred as Kimberly Woods for one season on the TV series Boston Public (2000). After appearances in several supporting roles, she starred opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer in the black comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). Later in 2005, Monaghan was filming in China, Italy, and the United States on Mission: Impossible III (2006), as the female lead opposite Tom Cruise.
In August of 2005, in Sydney, Australia, she married her long-time sweetheart, Peter White, a New York based graphic designer, whom she met at a Manhattan party five years earlier.- Actress
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Mayte Michelle Rodríguez was born on July 12, 1978 in San Antonio, Texas to Carmen Milady Pared Espinal, a housewife, and Rafael Rodríguez Santiago, a U.S. Army solider. Known for tough-chick roles, Michelle is proof that there is a cross between beauty and brawn. Michelle always knew she was destined to become a star, she just didn't know how to get there. Michelle lived in San Antonio until the age of 8 when her parents divorced & moved to the Dominican Republic where she lived for two years before moving to Puerto Rico. At 11, Michelle's family relocated for the last time to Jersey City, New Jersey. Although she has been working since 1999 as an extra in such films as Summer of Sam (1999) and Cradle Will Rock (1999), it only took a magazine ad announcing an open casting call in New York for Michelle to decide to finally step into the spotlight. The role was the female lead, the movie was Girlfight (2000). Despite the lack of experience in film and boxing, Michelle auditioned, along with another 350 girls. After various trials inside an actual boxing ring and five arduous months of training in Brooklyn's Gleason's Gym, she was finally chosen to portray the role of Diana Guzman. As soon as the independent film began making the rounds at various film festivals, Michelle began gaining critical acclaim for her performance earning her awards like the Deauville Festival of American Cinema award for Best Actress and the Las Vegas Film Critics Society for Female Breakthrough performance. As Girlfight (2000) continued to gain notoriety with its September 2000 release, Michelle was already hard at work with films like 3 A.M. (2001), the blockbuster hit The Fast and the Furious (2001), and Resident Evil (2002). With Hollywood calling her name, the future for this feisty Jersey girl is as strong as the punches she throws.- Actress
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Vera Mindy Chokalingam is an Indian-American actress, comedienne, producer, writer and director from Cambridge, Massachusetts known for playing Kelly Kapoor in The Office, Disgust in Inside Out, and creating The Mindy Project. She also appeared in Wreck-It Ralph, Despicable Me, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Ocean's 8, and Monsters at Work. She has two children.- Actress
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Mindy Robinson is a Las Vegas based actress, TV personality, and political commentator from Fall River, MA. She is an improv/character actor with over 200 appearances on TV, film, radio, and reality TV. She speaks nationally at events as a pro-constitutionalist, and is also a 2022 congressional candidate in southern Nevada as an Independent. She's known for her past recurring TV roles on TBS's King of the Nerds (2013), and FOX's Take Me Out (2012), with George Lopez and for her lead roles in the films Range 15, Check Point, Christmas Cars, and Stand On It.- Actress
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Mónica Cruz was born on 16 March 1977 in Madrid, Spain. She is an actress, known for The Final Inquiry (2006), Un paso adelante (2002) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011).- Actress
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Mae was born in Los Angeles, California to Pat Musick, a voice artist, and Jeffrey Whitman, a personal manager and set construction coordinator. She began her career with a voice-over for a Tyson Chicken commercial. Whitman attended Ribét Academy, a private preparatory school in Los Angeles.
Whitman made her first silver screen debut playing Meg Ryan's youngest daughter, "Casey Green", in When a Man Loves a Woman (1994). Among her notable childhood roles were that of "Patricia Whitmore", daughter of the President in Independence Day (1996); George Clooney's daughter, "Maggie Taylor", in One Fine Day (1996); and the charming daughter, "Bernice Pruitt", of Sandra Bullock, in Hope Floats (1998).
As she has grown older, Mae has made several guest appearances in television shows such as JAG (1995), State of Grace (2001), Desperate Housewives (2004), Grey's Anatomy (2005) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), just to name a few, as well as some voice-over work.
In 2015, she starred in the movie The Duff (2015) portraying a high school student who realized she is the approachable one, the designated ugly fat friend, the DUFF.
We should expect to see great things from Mae Whitman as her career progresses, for she has shown what a strong, dynamic, and talented actress she has become.- Actress
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Margaret Constance "Maisie" Williams (born April 15, 1997) is an English actress. She made her professional acting debut as Arya Stark in the HBO fantasy television series Game of Thrones, for which she won the EWwy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama, the Portal Award for Best Supporting Actress - Television and Best Young Actor, and the Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor.
Williams has also had a recurring role in Doctor Who as Ashildr in 2015. In addition to television, she made her feature film debut in the mystery The Falling, for which she won the London Film Critics' Circle Award for Young Performer of the Year.
Williams was born in Bristol, UK. She has always been known as "Maisie" after the character from the comic strip The Perishers. Williams is the youngest of four children; her three older siblings are James, Beth and Ted. Born to Hilary Pitt (now Frances), a former university course administrator, she grew up in Clutton, Somerset. She attended Clutton Primary School and Norton Hill School in Midsomer Norton, before moving to Bath Dance College to study Performing Arts.
Since 2011, Williams has played Arya Stark, a tomboyish young girl from a noble family, in the HBO fantasy drama television series Game of Thrones. Arya was Williams' first role in any professional capacity. She has received critical acclaim for her performance in the series. Williams continued to garner praise for her performance in the show's second season, and HBO submitted her for consideration in the Outstanding Supporting Actress category for the 2012 Primetime Emmy Awards, although she did not receive a nomination. She won the 2012 Portal Award for Best Supporting Actress - Television, and the Portal Award for Best Young Actor. At 15 years of age, Williams was the youngest actress ever to win in the Best Supporting Actress category. In March 2013, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Series - Supporting Young Actress and, in November 2013, won the BBC Radio 1 Teen Award for Best British Actor. To date, she has appeared in all seven broadcast seasons.
In 2012, Williams played Loren Caleigh in the BBC series The Secret of Crickley Hall and appeared in a Funny or Die skit titled The Olympic Ticket Scalper. She also appeared in the independent films Heatstroke (2012) and Gold (2013), and the short films Corvidae (2013) and Up On The Roof (2013).
Williams also signed on to play Lorna Thompson in the Sci-Fi film We Are Monsters, which was set for a 2014 release.
In 2014, Williams portrayed Lydia in the British film The Falling, which premiered on October 11, 2014, and was released on April 24, 2015 in the UK. In December, Williams was in talks with Naughty Dog to star as Ellie in the film adaptation of the video game The Last of Us.
In January 2015, Williams appeared in one-off Channel 4 doc-drama Cyberbully, and in February she received European recognition with a Shooting Stars Award at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.
In February 2015, Williams played the leading role in the video-clip of Oceans by the British band Seafret. The theme of this clip is also bullying.
On March 30, 2015, the BBC announced that Williams would guest star in two episodes of Doctor Who ("The Girl Who Died" and "The Woman Who Lived"). Williams later returned to the series in the first and third episodes of the three-part series finale, entitled "Face the Raven" and "Hell Bent" respectively.- Actress
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Maia Mitchell is an Australian singer/song writer and actress from Lismore, New South Wales. She learned to play the guitar at a very young age and her talent has been included on The Fosters (2013) - an ABC Family show that aired in June 2013, where Maia plays one of the main roles of "Callie Jacob".
Also, Maia has made her mark on the Disney Channel, appearing in a special episode of Jessie (2011) in 2013, as well as in the hit original film, Teen Beach Movie (2013), with fellow Disney Channel star, Ross Lynch.
Mitchell participated in dance lessons as a young girl and performed in school and local theatre productions to kick start her career. When she was just 12-years-old, she auditioned for the Australian television series, Mortified (2006) and landed the lead role of "Brittany Flune". The series broke many Australian Children's Television records and even went on to win national and international awards, including an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for Best Children's Television Series and a Chicago International Children's Film Festival Award.
Furthermore, she was next cast as "Natasha Hamilton" in the Australian television series, Trapped (2008), and later reprized her role in the sequel series, Castaway (2010), that finds a group of children suffering from the mysterious disappearance of their parents in a dangerous paradise.- Actress
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Southern-bred Mary-Louise Parker was born on August 2, 1964 in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the youngest of four children of Judge John Morgan Parker, and the former Caroline Louise Morell. She is of mostly Swedish, English, and Scottish descent. Her father's occupation took the family both around the country and abroad while growing up.
Parker showed potential in her teens and majored in acting in her college years, graduating from the North Carolina School of the Arts. Beginning her acting career with a part on the daytime soap Ryan's Hope (1975), Mary decided to test the waters in New York, and after work on the off-Broadway stage in the late 1980s, made her Broadway debut with "Prelude to a Kiss" in 1990, where she won the Theatre World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award and a Tony nomination.
Films and TV quickly followed and she quickly gained attention. She provided both poignant and amusing as the token femme friend to a group of gay men in the AIDS drama Longtime Companion (1989), but really caught fire with her feisty, standout performance in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), holding her own against such female powerhouses as Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates and Mary Stuart Masterson. Dubbed by some as the "long-suffering girl next door," she played such noble offbeat miserables and cast-asides in Grand Canyon (1991), Naked in New York (1993), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), The Client (1994) Boys on the Side (1995), in which she was the AIDS victim this time, The Portrait of a Lady (1996), The Maker (1997), Let the Devil Wear Black (1999), Red Dragon (2002) and Pipe Dream (2001).
Preferring quality over quantity, she perfected her craft with offbeat roles in independent features and did not abandon her theater roots. She copped a slew of acting prizes for her stage work in "How I Learned to Drive" (1996) and, most notably, "Proof" in 2000, wherein she won nearly every award there is to attain, including the prestigious Tony. Her marquee name still does not command what it should, but a picture or production with Mary-Louise Parker in it usually guarantees a strong critical reception. Unmarried, she did enter into a longtime companionship with actor Billy Crudup after the twosome appeared opposite each other in the 1996 play, "Bus Stop". They went their separate ways in 2003, amid major controversy (she was pregnant at the time).
Mary Louise continues to divide her time equally and skillfully on TV, film and the stage. The powerful TV miniseries adaptation of Tony Kushner heralded award-winning Broadway play Angels in America (2003), directed by Mike Nichols, earned the actress supporting performance Golden Globe and Emmy awards. She also earned a Tony nomination for the Broadway show, "Reckless", a year later but truly turned heads and wowed audiences the year after that in the highly acclaimed 7-season Showtime series Weeds (2005), earning another Golden Globe and several Emmy nominations for her amazing performance as Nancy Botwin, a relatively naïve suburban housewife and mother who courts serious trouble with the law and drug cartels when she turns into a neighborhood drug dealer for sustenance after her husband dies suddenly.
Into the millennium, Mary has continued with compelling work in such films as RED 2 (2013), R.I.P.D. (2013), Jamesy Boy (2014), Behaving Badly (2014), Chronically Metropolitan (2016), Golden Exits (2017) and Red Sparrow (2018). TV roles have included recurring roles on The Blacklist (2013) and the sci-fi thriller Mr. Mercedes (2017).
Her first child is eighteen-year-old William Atticus Parker -- a director, writer and actor. Adopting a second child from Ethiopia, Mary Louise was acknowledged in 2013 for her significant contributions to Hope North, an organization that works in the educating and healing of young victims caught in Uganda's civil war. Her memoir-in-letters, Dear Mr. You, came out in 2015.- Actress
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Marisa Tomei was born on December 4, 1964, in Brooklyn, New York, to Patricia "Addie" (Bianchi), a teacher of English, and Gary Tomei, a lawyer, both of Italian descent. Marisa has a brother, actor Adam Tomei. As a child, Marisa's mother frequently corrected her speech as to eliminate her heavy Brooklyn accent. As a teen, Marisa attended Edward R. Murrow High School and graduated in the class of 1982. She was one year into her college education at Boston University when she dropped out for a co-starring role on the CBS daytime drama As the World Turns (1956). Her role on that show paved the way for her entrance into film: in 1984, she made her film debut with a bit part in The Flamingo Kid (1984). Three years later, Marisa became known for her role as Maggie Lawton, Lisa Bonet's college roommate, on the sitcom A Different World (1987).
Her real breakthrough came in 1992, when she co-starred as Joe Pesci's hilariously foul-mouthed, scene-stealing girlfriend in My Cousin Vinny (1992), a performance that won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Later that year, she turned up briefly as a snippy Mabel Normand in director Richard Attenborough's biopic Chaplin (1992), and was soon given her first starring role in Untamed Heart (1993). A subsequent starring role -- and attempted makeover into Audrey Hepburn -- in the romantic comedy Only You (1994) proved only moderately successful.
Marisa's other 1994 role as Michael Keaton's hugely pregnant wife in The Paper (1994) was well-received, although the film as a whole was not. Fortunately for Tomei, she was able to rebound the following year with a solid performance as a troubled single mother in Nick Cassavetes' Unhook the Stars (1996) which earned her a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She turned in a similarly strong work in Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), and in 1998 did some of her best work in years as the sexually liberated, unhinged cousin of Natasha Lyonne's Vivian Abramowitz in Tamara Jenkins' Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). Marisa co-starred with Mel Gibson in the hugely successful romantic comedy What Women Want (2000) and during the 2002 movie award season, she proved her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar win was no fluke when she received her second nomination in the same category for the critically acclaimed dark drama, In the Bedroom (2001). She also made a guest appearance on the animated TV phenomenon The Simpsons (1989) as Sara Sloane, a movie star who falls in love with Ned Flanders. In 2006, she went on to do 4 episodes for Rescue Me (2004). She played Angie, the ex-wife of Tommy Calvin (Denis Leary)'s brother Johnny (Dean Winters). At age 42, Marisa took on a provocative role in legendary filmmaker Sidney Lumet's melodramatic picture Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), in which she appeared nude in love scenes with costars Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Marisa then took on another provocative role as a stripper in the highly acclaimed film The Wrestler (2008) opposite Mickey Rourke. Her great performance earned her many awards from numerous film societies for Best Supporting Actress, a third Academy Award nomination, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. Many critics heralded this performance as a standout in her career.- Actress
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Michaela Conlin is an American actress best known for her role as Angela Montenegro on the Fox crime procedural comedy-drama Bones. Conlin was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania on June 9, 1978 to a Chinese mother, an accountant, and an Irish father, a contractor. She performed in her first play at the age of seven, and continued to appear on stage in numerous Pennsylvania community and regional productions.- Actress
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Marie Avgeropoulos currently stars as "Octavia Blake" in the CW's post-apocalyptic drama series, The 100 (2014). The Emmy- nominated series chronicles the surviving population living on a space station, called the ARK, who send a group of 100 delinquents down to earth. THE 100 set out to see if earth might still be inhabitable as supplies are running low on the ARK.
Marie recently wrapped production on three independent films: Isolation (2015), Numb (2015) and A Remarkable Life (2016), slated for release in early 2016. Earlier this year, Marie was seen, opposite Taylor Lautner in the Lionsgate thriller, Tracers (2015). Other film credits for Marie include the 2011 Golden Globe-nominated 50/50 (2011), alongside movie veterans Seth Rogen & Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as well as her memorable premiere film role in the 2009 comedy, I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009), starring opposite Hayden Panettiere.
Marie has also become a go-to TV actress with several guest appearances on hit shows, such as Supernatural (2005), Fringe (2008), Eureka (2006) and Human Target (2010). In 2013, Marie landed her break-out role in television in The CW's Cult (2013), opposite Matthew Davis and Robert Knepper.
Born and raised on the shores of Lake Superior in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada Marie grew up fishing, hunting and camping spending most of her free time outdoors. She learned to play the drums at a young age, which has helped land her roles in various national commercials.
Marie currently resides in Los Angeles.- Actress
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Mo'Nique received a standing ovation when she stepped on stage for the first time in her hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, giving her confidence to pursue a career as a stand-up comedian. After numerous stand-up performances, she took a leap forward with one of the starring roles in The Parkers (1999).
Mo'Nique's huge international breakthrough came with her performance in the independent feature film Precious (2009), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and over 30 other major awards for best acting including the most important ones like the Golden Globe, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, the New York Film Critics Circle Award, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award, the Independent Spirit Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, the National Society of Film Critics Award, the BAFTA Film Award and Sundance Film Festival's Special Jury Prize.- Actress
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Academy Award-winner Maureen Stapleton was born June 21, 1925 in Troy, New York, to Irene (née Walsh) and John P. Stapleton. Her family was of Irish descent. Maureen moved to New York City at the age of eighteen and did modeling to pay the bills. Already a Tony Award-winner, she made her Academy Award-nominated film debut in Lonelyhearts (1958) supporting four-time Academy Award-nominee Montgomery Clift, and Myrna Loy in Lonelyhearts (1958). Maureen was was nominated for an Oscar again for her performance in Airport (1970). She played the wife of D. O. Guerrero (played by Academy Award-winner Van Heflin). Eight years later she went on to earn a third Oscar nomination for her performance as Diane Keaton, Kristen Griffith, and Mary Beth Hurt's stepmother Pearl, in the Woody Allen drama Interiors (1978). Apparently, four times worked as a charm when Maureen took the Oscar home for her performance in which she portrayed the Lithuanian-born anarchist Emma Goldman in Warren Beatty's Reds (1981).- Actress
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Maude Hirst (February 6, 1988) is a British actress mostly known for her role as Helga on The History Channel TV show Vikings between 2013 and 2017. Hirst studied drama arts at the renowned London school Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.
Maude Hirst is the elder daughter of the producer and writer Michael Hirst, known for the films Elizabeth (1998) and its sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and most recently for the TV shows The Tudors (2007-2010) and Vikings (2013-).
Prior to Vikings, Maude Hirst also appeared on the British television series The Tudors in the role of Kat Ashley between 2008 and 2010, and in the films Nuryan (2009) and Cash and Curry (2008).- Actress
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Mackenzie Mauzy was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Into the Woods (2014), Forever (2014) and Manson's Lost Girls (2016). She was previously married to John Arthur Greene.- Actress
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Mariana Paola Vicente was born on 8 January 1989. She is an actress and producer, known for Ozark (2017), Lucifer (2016) and American Horror Story (2011). She has been married to Enrique Hernandez since 10 December 2018. They have one child.- Actress
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Thayer was born in Portland, Oregon, and spent her early life in the small town of Boring, east of Portland, where her parents owned a bee farm. During her childhood, the family relocated to Minnesota, where she attended Apple Valley High School in Apple Valley, Minnesota, and was a member of the award-winning forensics program and the National Forensic League, as well as Homecoming Queen. She studied acting at The Juilliard School in New York.
Maria Christina Thayer is an American actress and comedian. She first earned public recognition for her portrayal of Tammi Littlenut on the cult series Strangers with Candy (1999) in 1999. Thayer has also had supporting roles in the comedy films Hitch (2005) (2005), Accepted (2006) (2006), and Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) where she plays a woman on holiday with a new husband, played by Jack McBrayer (2008). In 2009, she appeared in the film State of Play (2009) as Sonia Baker, the researcher and mistress of a congressman.
She has appeared in numerous television series, including a lead role on the Adult Swim series Eagleheart (2011) (2011-2014), and a lead role as Abbey Logan on the comedy series . She played the title role in the movie, Night of the Living Deb (2015). Starting in 2015, she starred in the TruTV sitcom Those Who Can't (2016) as an incompetent teacher at a Denver high school.- Mariana Klaveno (b. 25th October) is an American actress best known for her role as Lorena in HBO's True Blood. She also starred in the feature film While the Children Sleep (released as The Sitter on DVD) in the role of Abby Read in 2007.
She's guest starred in TV show episodes of Standoff, ER, and others.
She appeared in the HBO Series True Blood, alongside Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, in the fifth episode of season one as the vampire Lorena, who turned Bill Compton into a vampire. Her character became a regular with starring credits in the second half of season two and into season three.
She was nominated along with the starring cast of True Blood for the "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series" at the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild awards in January 2010.
Mariana Klaveno grew up in Endicott, Washington on the family owned and operated farm, with her three older siblings. After graduating valedictorian of her high school class, she pursued her B.A. in theatre at the University of Washington in Seattle. She trained there with Jon Jory, erstwhile Artistic Director of Actor's Theatre of Louisville.
After graduating with honors, Mariana moved to Los Angeles and continued her training with noted acting coach, Cameron Thor.
After a chance meeting with acclaimed Producer\Director J.J.Abrams, he cast Mariana in Alias, her network television debut.
However, it wasn't until her standout guest performance as a modern day Bonnie Parker on Standoff opposite Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt, that people really began to stop and take notice. Guest star roles followed on ER, K-Ville and Laws of Chance.
She also starred in the television movie Final Approach (2007).
For the 2010 LA Shorts Film Festival - held at Laemmle Sunset 5 Theaters on Sunset Blvd - Mariana was one of the judges, along with fellow True Blood co-star Carrie Preston.
Mariana currently resides in Los Angeles. - Actress
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Multi award-winning multi hyphen Palka was born and brought up in Glasgow and moved to New York City at age 17 to study at the Atlantic Theater Company. She studied Suzuki movement for actors, knows how to do any accent, has theater voice projection and is known for being the kindest most enthusiastic director. She wrote, directed and starred in amazingly reviewed Good Dick which played in Dramatic Competition at Sundance Film Festival 2008. The film stars Palka and Jason Ritter (with whom she met in 1999), Martin Starr, Mark Webber, Charles Durning and Tom Arnold. Palka received the Directing Award from Sean Connery for the film. The film explores what intimacy truly can be for someone who has been sexually abused in their childhood. Critics have related it to Hitchcock's Marnie for its vulnerable and strong, masculine and feminine male and female characters. It's been described as the only film with only one female character; that still passes the Bechdel Test. Good Dick played internationally in cinemas across the globe. And has never not been top 5 streaming on Hulu. It was self-released in the US in 2009, in the states, and the New York Times wrote about its success, creating the phrase "The Good Dick business model" At the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Palka was a Juror with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Later that year she performed in "Love Loss and What I Wore" at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Palka appeared in Peter Mullan's 2011 film TriBeCa Neds. which Robert DeNiro bought and released in America. In this film Palka played a red-headed Scottish character BETH. Neds was shot on film and is the most critically acclaimed film Palka had done since Good Dick at that time. Palka played the lead role of Texas southern feminist bad-ass JEVA in director Jeremiah Jones independent film Restive. She appeared again at Sundance in 2012 in the short Spoonful (by director Jenee LaMarque about breastfeeding) and in Bryce Dallas Howard's second film When You Find Me. She played a Scottish bookstore owner in director Nathan Sutton's film Autumn Wanderer. She starred in director Sylvia Sether's shot on film short film, King Of Norway.
In 2012, she was in The Ensemble Theater in Santa Barbara, California, reading of The Good Soldier. She appeared in as Irish Girleen Martin McDonagh's The Lonesome West at the Actor's Gang Theatre, Los Angeles, and in as another Irish woman in Conor McPherson's Dublin Carol at the Ensemble Theatre Company. Gaining positive reviews and awards for all. In 2014 Marianna produced and was the subject of HBO Lucy Walker documentary Lions Mouth Opens which was nominated for an Emmy and short-listed for an Oscar. In 2015 Palka played 'Minerva', Jemima Kirke's character Jessa's sister in GIRLS HBO in true magical fashion the show's Jenni Konner met Palka at Jeremy Konner's wedding by the pool. Palka was wearing a blue macrame bathing suit. Jenni Konner told Lena Dunham that if they ever need a sister for Jessa on the show, Palka was it. This the exact same bathing suit Palka wore on the show. Along with her Scottish kilt which her Polish grandmother Babcia bought for her from Marks and Spencer's when Palka was 14.
Palka wrote her Sundance 2017 critically acclaimed feature film BITCH over a weekend in Lake Tahoe because she was inspired by Maya Angelou's habit of writing in hotels. The film was produced by Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah and Josh Waller's who's company Spector Vision developed the film and sold for America right after Sundance and it sold for the world at Cannes 2017. It stars Palka, Jason Ritter, Jaime King, Rio Mangini, Brighton Sharbino, Jason Maybalm and Kingston Foster. The film is based on a true story from Scottish doctor R.D. Laing of a mother becoming a dog after a psychotic break.
While making BITCH summer 2016 Palka got the role of American Olympian 'Reggie Walsh' in Netflix series G.L.O.W. Glow aka Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. With 14 actresses in the show Palka trained as a wrestler with them for 6 weeks. Becoming a body positive girl gang, and learning the ethos of wrestling, changed all of their lives. The show is ground breaking for its feminist humanist stand and for its celebration of women for multiple ethnic and racial back grounds. It's has 94% on rotten tomatoes and the women on the show have been accepted by the wrestling community as ultra heroines.
Marianna was hired summer 2017 to direct feature film EGG the astonishing cast are Christina Hendricks, Alysia Reiner and Anna Camp. Produced by former Comedy Central president Michele Ganeless who is responsible for the ethics of The Daily Show, South Park, The Colbert Report, K and P show, Inside Amy Schumner, Broad City. The film is also produced by Alysia Reiner who made Equity which was at Sundance with BITCH. BITCH also played Sundance London, which Palka attended with her niece and watched all the films there. And BITCH played to a screaming and roaring huge crowd having its Los Angeles premiere at Sundance Next Fest with band Sleigh Bells playing during the same evening.
Training for Season 2 of Glow starts and the shooting begins and continues through the fall 2017. Palka is heavily involved in charities of all kinds. Her work has been Oscar Shortlisted twice and Emmy nominated.
Marianna directed two episodes of epic Universal Studios TV show HAPPY 2021 with Chris Meloni and action love story COLLECTION 2022 with Alex Pettyfer.
The Oscar and Emmy nominations were directly related to Marianna's bravery as an artist. Marianna also hosted the 2019 Sundance Awards Ceremony As well as acted in Restive, Neds opposite Peter Mullan. Marianna's two episodes of HAPPY for SYFY 2nd Season aired in the 2019 season. She is the first female director to direct any episodes for the show*- Actress
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Mary Elizabeth Winstead is an actress known for her versatile work in a variety of film and television projects. Possibly most known for her role as Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), she has also starred in critically acclaimed independent films such as Smashed (2012), for which she received an Independent Spirit Award nomination, as well as genre fare like Final Destination 3 (2006) and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007).
Winstead was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina but largely raised in Sandy, Utah, which is where she discovered a love for the performing arts. She grew up training to be a ballerina and attended the Joffrey Ballet School training program at the age of 12. It was also around this time that she began to pursue a career in acting and soon started working steadily in television and film.
Winstead is also a recording artist and performs under the name "Got a Girl" alongside producer Dan the Automotor.- Actress
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Mhairi Calvey was born in Scotland and grew up on the Isle of Arran.
At the age of 5 she made her acting debut playing the role of 'Young Murron' in Mel Gibson's film 'Braveheart', which went on to win five Oscars. Shortly after filming Mhairi returned to school and focused on her education. She later studied her BA (Hons) in Acting at the Guildford School of Acting.
Mhairi has since played roles in feature films 'Fear the Invisible Man', 'The Eastern Front' and 'Robert the Bruce' for which she won Best Newcomer at The National Film Awards. Mhairi's TV credits include BBC drama 'Boat Story' directed by Jack and Harry Williams.
Mhairi started production company Dream Reel Entertainment and she went on to direct, write and produce her debut short film 'Gaslight' about the effects of domestic abuse.- Actress
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Mariska (Ma-rish-ka) Magdolna Hargitay was born on January 23, 1964, in Santa Monica, California. Her parents are Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield. She is the youngest of their three children. In June 1967, Mariska and her brothers Zoltan and Mickey Jr. were in the back seat of a car when it was involved in the fatal accident which killed her mother. The children escaped with minor injuries. Her father remarried a stewardess named Ellen, and they raised the three children and gave them a normal childhood. They also financially supported the children, since Jayne Mansfield's debt-ridden estate left no money for them.
Mariska majored in theater at UCLA. Her first motion picture feature was the cult favorite, Ghoulies (1984), where she gave a memorable performance as Donna. Unlike her mother Jayne, who had changed her name, her hair color, and did nude pictorials to become a star, Mariska took a very different approach on her journey to become a star. She rejected advice to change her name and appearance. And she refused to copy her mother's sexy image by turning down nude scenes in her next film Jocks (1986). She told casting directors that she was her own person when she held onto her dark locks and athletic figure, when they were expecting another blond, buxom Jayne Mansfield. Mariska continued with her acting classes and waited on tables, while she landed forgettable roles in short-lived television shows. She appeared a few times on the nighttime soap Falcon Crest (1981). She also appeared in the hit film Leaving Las Vegas (1995), credited as 'Hooker at the bar', and in the flop film Lake Placid (1999) as Myra Okubo. Her recurring role on the top-rated show ER (1994) in 1998 gave her career enough of a jolt to land her the starring role of Det. Olivia Benson in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), the first spin off from the excellent franchise of Law & Order (1990). The hour-long show deals with sex crimes and the detectives who solve these cases. Mariska played Olivia as a tough, compassionate detective, who did action scenes and her own stunt work. She reaped the rewards from the hit TV show, after struggling and studying her craft for fifteen years. She became the highest paid actress on television, and she won Emmy and Golden Globe awards for her performance. The show also changed her personal life, since she met her husband actor Peter Hermann on the set and married him on August 28, 2004. That same year, she appeared in the television movie Plain Truth (2004), in which she played attorney Ellie Harrison. Mariska became an activist, when fans of her show who were abused, would write to her, and she founded a non-profit organization called "Joyful Heart Foundation" to help "survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse."
Mariska gave birth to her son August in 2006. But that tremendous joy was soon followed by tremendous sadness when her beloved father Mickey died just two months later at the age of 80. Mariska and her husband Peter adopted two children, a girl named Amaya, and a boy named Andrew, within a span of few months in 2011.
Mariska speaks English, Hungarian, French, Spanish, and Italian, and her husband also speaks several languages, including his native language German. They divide their time between New York and Los Angeles.- Actress
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Melissa Marie Benoist is an American actress, singer and dancer. She was raised in Littleton, Colorado , the daughter of Julie and Jim Benoist, a physician. She is of French, German, English, and Scottish descent. She started dance classes at the age of three and when she was four years old her aunt put her in a church play she was directing. As a teen, Benoist performed anonymously at Disneyland for three summers with the Academy of Theatre Arts, a musical theatre school located in Littleton, Colorado run by Paul Dwyer and Alann Worley. She performed locally in productions including Cinderella and Bye Bye Birdie at Town Hall Arts Center, and Evita at the Country Dinner Playhouse.
In 2006, The Denver Post named Benoist one of Colorado's five "Can't Miss Kids". She graduated from Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, in 2007,and from Marymount Manhattan College in New York City in 2011 with a Bachelor of arts in theatre arts. Benoist has become known for her portrayal of the title character in the CBS/CW superhero drama series Supergirl (2015). She had risen to prominence for her portrayal of Marley Rose on the fourth and fifth seasons of the Fox musical comedy-drama television series Glee (2009), and has appeared in films such as Whiplash (2014) ,Danny Collins (2015), The Longest Ride (2015), Lowriders (2016) , Patriots Day (2016) and Sun Dogs (2017).- Megan Boone was born in Petoskey, Michigan, USA. She is an actress, known for Accused (2023), The Underground Railroad (2021) and The Blacklist (2013). She has been married to Dan Estabrook since 2016. They have one child.
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Meagan Monique Good was born on 8 August 1981 in Panorama City, California, USA, to Tyra Wardlow-Doyle, who worked as her manager, and Leondis "Leon" Good, an LAPD officer. She began appearing on commercials at the age of four. Then she started guest-starring on series like The Parent 'Hood (1995), Touched by an Angel (1994), Moesha (1996), The Steve Harvey Show (1996) and The Division (2001). She also starred in Raising Dad (2001) with Bob Saget.- Actress
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Rachel Meghan Markle is an US-born member of the British royal family and a former film and television actress.
Meghan Markle was born on August 4, 1981 and raised in Los Angeles, California, and is of mixed-race heritage. During her studies at Northwestern University, she began to play small roles in television series and films. From 2011 to 2017, she played her best-known role, Rachel Zane, on the legal drama series Suits. As an outspoken feminist, Markle has addressed issues of gender inequality, and her lifestyle website, The Tig, featured a column profiling influential women. Her humanitarian work in the 2010s saw her represent international charity organizations. She has also received recognition for her fashion and style, releasing a clothing line in 2016.
From 2011 until their 2014 divorce, Markle was married to actor and producer Trevor Engelson. In 2017, she announced her engagement to Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, and moved to London. She consequently retired from acting, closed her social-media accounts, and started undertaking public engagements on behalf of the British royal family. Following their wedding on May 19, 2018, Markle received the title of Duchess of Sussex. After her and Harry's departure as working members of the Royal family, they no longer use their HRH titles in a professional capacity.
Rachel Meghan Markle was born on August 4, 1981, in Los Angeles, California, at West Park Hospital in Canoga Park. Her mother, Doria Loyce (Ragland), a social worker and yoga instructor, is originally from Cleveland, Ohio and lives in View Park Windsor Hills, California. Markle has often described a very close friendship with her mother. Her father, Thomas Wayne Markle, who lives in Rosarito, Mexico, is a retired Emmy Award winning television director of photography and lighting director, whose profession resulted in his young daughter often visiting the set of "Married...with Children." Markle's parents divorced when she was six years old. She has two older paternal half-siblings, Thomas Markle Jr. and Samantha Markle, from whom she is reportedly estranged.
Describing her heritage in a 2015 essay for Elle, Markle states that her "dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I'm half black and half white ... While my mixed heritage may have created a gray area surrounding my self identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I'm from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed race woman." Her father's roots include German, English, Irish, and Scottish. Her mother has family lines in Tennessee and Georgia.
Markle grew up in Hollywood. She was educated at private schools, beginning at age two at Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse. Markle attended Immaculate Heart High School, a girls' Catholic private school in Los Angeles, but was raised as a Protestant. She then attended Northwestern University, where she joined Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, and participated in community service and charity projects. While at Northwestern, her uncle obtained an internship for her at the American embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Markle studied for a semester in Madrid, Spain. Markle graduated from Northwestern's School of Communication in 2003 with a bachelor's degree and a double major in theater and international studies.
Markle worked as a freelance calligrapher to support herself between early acting jobs. Her first onscreen appearance was a small role as a nurse in an episode of the daytime soap opera General Hospital (1963), where her father was lighting director. Early in her career, Markle had small guest roles on the television shows Century City (2004), The War at Home (2005), and CSI: NY (2004). She also took on several contract acting and modeling jobs, including a stint as a "briefcase girl" on the US game show Deal or No Deal (2005). She appeared in Fox's series Fringe (2008) as Junior Agent Amy Jessup in the first two episodes of its second season. Markle had some difficulty getting roles early in her career. In 2015, she wrote: "Being 'ethnically ambiguous', as I was pegged in the industry, meant I could audition for virtually any role. Sadly, it didn't matter: I wasn't black enough for the black roles and I wasn't white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn't book a job."
In July 2011, Markle joined the cast of the USA Network show Suits (2011), playing Rachel Zane. The character began as a paralegal and eventually became an attorney. She completed work on the seventh season in late 2017. According to a critique in The Irish Times, Markle deftly and actively re-positioned her character from ingenue to moral conscience and gave viewers the unique portrayal of a daughter, whose African American father is in a position to help her career and advance her strong desire to break several racial and gender "glass ceilings". She appeared in two 2010 films, Get Him to the Greek (2010) and Remember Me (2010), and one 2011 film, Horrible Bosses (2011). She also appeared in episodes of Cuts (2005); Love, Inc. (2005); 90210 (2008); Knight Rider (2008); Without a Trace (2002); The League (2009); and Castle (2009).
From 2014 to 2017, Markle was founder and editor in chief of lifestyle website The Tig. She derived the name from Tignanello red wine. One of The Tig's features was Tig Talk, a column that profiled women including Jessica Alba, Gail Simmons, Ella Woodward, Daphne Oz, Elizabeth Hurley, Lauren Bush Lauren, Ivanka Trump, Dianna Agron, and Jessica Stam. In April 2017, she closed The Tig. Markle developed an adept and polished social media presence at the time of its closing, her Instagram account had 1.9 million followers. In January 2018, Markle deleted her social media accounts and, in a statement issued by Kensington Palace, thanked "everyone who has followed her social media accounts over the years".
Since her marriage with Prince Harry of Wales, the Duke of Sussex, Markle is known as HRH Meghan Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton and Baroness Kilkeel.- Actress
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Melissa Ivy Rauch was born in Marlboro, New Jersey. She attended Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, where she received a BFA degree. While going to school, Melissa performed stand-up comedy around Manhattan, and soon made a name for herself on the NYC comedy scene. Her one-woman show, "The Miss Education of Jenna Bush", in which she portrayed Jenna Bush Hager, the former President's daughter, garnered critical acclaim and played to sold-out audiences (Outstanding Solo Show and TheaterMania's Audience Favorite Award--New York International Fringe Festival/HBO's US Comedy Arts Festival).
Melissa resides in Los Angeles, California, with Winston Rauch, her husband and writing partner.- Actress
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Monica Raymund is best know for starring as Gabriela Dawson in NBC's drama "Chicago Fire."
A graduate of The Juilliard School, she is the recipient of the John Houseman Award for her commitment and dedication. Immediately following her graduation, she went on to star opposite Tim Roth for three seasons in "Lie to Me." During this time, she also became a founding member of The Mechanical Theatre Group, has been on faculty and co-head of the Communications Department at The Heifetz Institute and served as faculty for The Broadway Theatre Project. Raymund currently serves on the board and faculty of the Performing Arts Project, is a board member for The Hollywood Arts Organization in Los Angeles, is executive producing the independent feature "Submarine Kid", and is the Founder/President of the theatrical production company, SISU Theatrical Productions, LLC. She was a producer also on the Broadway production of "The Velocity of Autumn".
Other credits include, a lead role in director Stephen Elliott's latest feature "Happy Baby", a supporting role in the feature "Arbitrage" opposite Richard Gere, a starring role in the Sundance Lab musical production of "Like Water for Chocolate," and a recurring role on "The Good Wife." She also guest starred on the 200th episode of "Law & Order: SVU" opposite Robin Williams.
Monica won The Imagen Award this past year for leading actress in a drama.
Monica separated from her husband early 2013 and they completed their divorce in 2014.
Raymund resides in New York City.- Actress
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Meaghan Rath was born on 18 June 1986 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is an actress and producer, known for Hawaii Five-0 (2010), New Girl (2011) and Schitt's Creek (2015). She has been married to Jack Cutmore-Scott since 16 May 2020. They have two children.- Actress
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Meg Tilly was set on being a dancer, and at 17 connected to the Connecticut Ballet Company and later Throne Dance Theatre. It was in this capacity that she had her screen debut in Alan Parker's Fame (1980). Unfortunately, an injury to her back cut short her plans for a dance career, and a small appearance in the TV series Hill Street Blues (1981) turned her towards acting (her dancing skills were not all forgotten, as was evident in The Big Chill (1983) and Psycho II (1983)). She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Agnes of God (1985), and nobody doubted that she was on her way to stardom. One step on the road to that status was her being cast in Milos Forman's Amadeus (1984) as Constanza, but again her body interfered, and seven weeks into the production with her foot in a cast were more than the producers could accept, and she was replaced. Her "consolation", was a role in Forman's next project Valmont (1989), didn't do her career much good. Since then she has averaged a movie a year, and with the exception of Leaving Normal (1992), none have tapped the enormous reservoir of talent she has.- Actress
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Meghan Heffern was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She is an actress and producer, known for Chloe (2009), The Fog (2005) and American Pie Presents: Beta House (2007).- Malaya Rivera Drew was born and raised in a very urban neighborhood in Washington D.C. Her parents, both activist lawyers, sent her to public schools with her two brothers.
She then attended Middlebury College, where she studied English Literature and Theater. After graduating college, she moved to London and attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts for graduate training in classical acting. She left a term early, when she was cast in the world premiere of Neil LaBute's The Distance From Here at London's Almeida Theater.
She works in television, film and theater. She lives in Los Angeles. - Mallory Ervin was born on 26 October 1985 in Henderson, Kentucky, USA.
- Meagan Tandy was born on 3 May 1985 in Fremont, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Piranha 3DD (2012), Unstoppable (2010) and Teen Wolf (2011).
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From Cleveland to Hollywood, actress, producer, entrepreneur, funny woman, tear-jerker, designer, decorator, builder, creator, fixer, cook, cleaner, host, wife, Browns fan, homemaker, (very) amateur bowler and -her favorite title- mom, Monica Potter has achieved success in several different ways....save having a concise bio intro.
Monica Potter was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Nora Marie (Sexton), a homemaker and part-time cleaning lady, and Paul Ely Brokaw, Jr., who -among many other widely-used innovations- invented the first flame-resistant car wax. Her maternal grandparents were Irish.
A passionate creator by genes and trade, Potter, along with her 12-person "Monica Potter Home" team, is producing a line of natural, locally-crafted home and beauty products sold on mrspotter.com as well as the company's first standalone store, which opened in Garrettsville Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, in 2014. Building the company had been a dream for Potter. Through it, she aims to supplement the beauty and comfort of customers' homes at an affordable price, while creating sustainable job opportunities in the area. Appropriately enough, "Monica Potter Home" is headquartered in Potter's own childhood house in Cleveland; a structure Potter recently bought and renovated as part of an initiative to improve the neighborhood's condition.
When not running a company and knocking down walls, Potter is at work producing a sitcom, with Ellen DeGeneres and Warner Bros. Television, in which she will star as a mom, living under the same roof as her three ex-husbands. The script is in development and a pilot will be shot this spring. She is also producing a docu-series, tracking the renovation of her childhood home, with her favorite cast of characters...her family.
To the dismay of its extraordinarily vocal fans, Potter recently wrapped production on five seasons of NBC's acclaimed drama series, Parenthood (2010). For her portrayal of "Kristina Braverman" and her struggles to raise three children (including one with Autism), an emotional battle with breast cancer and run for mayor, Potter has garnered a 2014 Golden Globes nomination, a 2013 Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama, a TCA Award nomination for Individual Achievement in Drama & continued Emmy buzz.
Potter's previous television credits include roles in Boston Legal (2004), for which Potter and her cast mates were nominated for a 2005 Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, TNT's Trust Me (2009), USA's Reversible Errors (2004) and the beginning of it all, The Young and the Restless (1973).
Potter burst onto the film scene with her co-starring role, opposite Nicolas Cage in Simon West's Con Air (1997). She then starred, with Robin Williams, in the acclaimed dramedy, Patch Adams (1998) and appeared opposite Morgan Freeman in the thriller, Along Came a Spider (2001). Other film credits include the comedies, Head Over Heels (2001) and I'm with Lucy (2002), the mega-hit horror classic Saw (2004), Without Limits (1998), Lower Learning (2008) and The Last House on the Left (2009).
Potter resides in both Cleveland and Los Angeles with her family.- Actress
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Monica Keena was born in Brooklyn on May 28, 1979, to Bill and Mary Keena and was little sister to Samantha, the Keenas' first daughter. Growing sup, Monica shone in all things arts. Dance, singing, acting, and drawing. At 13, Keena enrolled in the prestigious LaGuardia school for acting and made it. At age 15, she had a small role in her first film, and that was followed by a series of TV movies, such as First Daughter (1999) and the A Promise Kept: The Oksana Baiul Story (1994). Monica starred in her first movie, Ripe (1996), at 16 and considers that her favorite role, as of now. In 1998, she premiered on the WB's Dawson's Creek (1998) as truth-telling "Abby Morgan" and later left the show when she "got bored playing one character".
Today, Monica continues to make movies like Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Man of the House (2005), and Fifty Pills (2006). In her free time, she enjoys skating.- Actress
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Melissa Fumero is an American actress. From the age of ten, she aspired to become an actress and attended New York University, from which she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama. She made her professional debut in 2004, recurring as Adriana Cramer in the soap opera One Life to Live. Following several minor roles, Fumero had her first main role in the Fox (later NBC) comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Amy Santiago, a role she played from 2013 to 2021. Since this breakthrough, Fumero has voiced Melissa Tarleton in the critically acclaimed animated series M.O.D.O.K. (2021) and is set to star in Netflix's upcoming series Blockbuster. She is married to actor and former model David Fumero, with whom she has two sons.- Actress
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Marianne Oldham is known for A Very English Scandal (2018), Finding Your Feet (2017) and The Crimson Field (2014).- Marianne Gordon was born on 23 July 1946 in Athens, Georgia, USA. She is an actress, known for Rosemary's Baby (1968), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965) and The Being (1981). She was previously married to Kenny Rogers and Michael Trikilis.
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Marianne Raigipcien Jean-Baptiste is an English actress. She is known for her role in the 1996 comedy-drama film Secrets & Lies, for which she received acclaim and earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award in the same category. Baptiste is also known for her role as Vivian Johnson on the television series Without a Trace from 2002 to 2009, and has since starred in television shows such as Blindspot (2015-2016) and Homecoming (since 2018).- Actress
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Miranda Frigon is a Canadian Actress and Singer-Songwriter. Born in Edmonton, Alberta she began her acting career at the age of eight, appearing in numerous television commercials. Her childhood and adolescence revolved around competitive gymnastics, ballet and classical piano so performing was a huge part of her life from an early age. She traveled and competed across Canada with her gymnastics team all the while training professionally as a dancer. She then went on to dance in a ballet company for several years before joining and touring with a more diverse company that included more various styles of dance. She then attended the University of Alberta where she studied Theater and Psychology in addition to competing on the varsity gymnastics team. Shortly after, Miranda received a scholarship to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City where she trained in musical theater before landing her first recurring television role on the Disney series "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids." This brought her back to Canada to where she began working and building her film, television and music career. After moving and settling into Vancouver, B.C. she immediately began booking numerous guest stars on hit network U.S. shows such as "The 4400", "Higher Ground", "The Chris Isaak Show", "John Doe" "True Calling" and "The Dead Zone" to name a few. In her spare time she was writing music and playing live with her band in venues in and around Vancouver. She then landed a 13 episode run on UPN's "Jake 2.0" and the producers also placed 2 of her original songs in the series. This kicked off Miranda's music career of placing her songs in film and television.
In addition to her numerous feature and indie film credits, her most notable pasts TV roles include guest stars on hit shows such as "Bones", ,"Ugly Betty", "Dexter", "The New Adventures of Old Christine", "V", "Motive" "Supernatural" and "The Magicians".
Miranda was nominated for a Canadian Leo Award in 2013 for her leading role on Syfy's "Primeval: New World", was recurring for 5 seasons on the hit drama "Heartland" and is now most recognized for her leading role on Hallmark's "Aurora Teagarden Mysteries" alongside Candace Cameron and Marilu Henner which films in Vancouver, B.C. She was nominated for a Canadian Leo award again in 2015, for her role in this series.
Miranda's original song "Hiding Place" was used in episode 5 of Syfy's "Primeval New World" and it unleashed a worldwide fan base for her music. Since, her original songs have been placed in television series, Indie and feature films by Fox, Paramount, The CW, NBC, UPN, CBC, Space, Syfy, Hallmark & Lifetime. Her placements have gotten her worldwide exposure and attracted new fans from all over the globe. Miranda just released her new Kickstarter fan-funded album "First" in 2017 which can be found on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and any additional online stores.
In addition to all of her creative and athletic talents, Miranda is also a skilled Mixed Martial Artist. She has been trained in Boxing and Thai Kickboxing for over 10 years.- Actress
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Miranda Otto is an Australian actress. Otto is a daughter of actors Barry Otto and Lindsay Otto, and half-sister of actress Gracie Otto. She began her acting career at age 18 in 1986, and has appeared in a variety of independent and major studio films. Otto made her major film debut in Emma's War (1987), in which she played a teenager who moves to Australia's bush country during World War II. After a decade of critically acclaimed roles in Australian films, Otto gained Hollywood's attention during the 1990s after appearing in supporting roles in the films The Thin Red Line (1998) and What Lies Beneath (2000). She played Éowyn in the second and third installments of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film series.
Otto's first post-graduation film role in 1991, as Nell Tiscowitz in The Girl Who Came Late (1992), was her breakthrough role, which brought her to the attention of the Australian film industry and the general public. In the film, directed by Kathy Mueller, she starred as a young woman who could communicate with horses. Her appearance garnered Otto her first Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actress the following year.
Otto's next role was in the film The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992), which portrayed the complex relationships between the members of an Australian family. The film earned Otto her second Australian Film Institute nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1993, Otto co-starred with Noah Taylor in the sexually provocative comedy film The Nostradamus Kid (1993), which was based on the memories of author Bob Ellis during the 1960s. Otto was drawn to the film because she was "fascinated by the period and the people who came out of it." A small role in the independent film Sex Is a Four Letter Word (1995) followed in 1995.
In 1995, she began to doubt her career choice as she failed to get the parts for which she auditioned. She fled to her home in Newcastle for almost a year, during which she painted her mother's house. In 1996, director Shirley Barrett cast Otto as a shy waitress in the film Love Serenade (1996). She played Dimity Hurley, a lonely young woman, who competes with her older sister Vicki-Ann for the attention of a famous DJ from Brisbane. She starred in the 1997 films The Well (1997) and Doing Time for Patsy Cline (1997). When Otto received the film script for The Well, she refused to read it, fearing that she would not get the part. Otto believed that she could not convincingly play the role of Katherine, who is supposed to be 18, as she was 30 at the time. The film, directed by Samantha Lang, starred Otto as a teenager involved in a claustrophobic relationship with a lonely older woman. The Well received mixed reviews; critic Paul Fisher wrote that Otto's performance was not "convincing" as she was "playing another repetitious character about whom little is revealed", while Louise Keller stated that Otto had delivered "her best screen performance yet." Otto earned her third Australian Film Institute nomination for the film. Later that year, she co-starred with Richard Roxburgh in the drama Doing Time for Patsy Cline. The low-budget Australian film required Otto to perform country music standards and also received mixed reviews from film critics.
Soon after the release of The Well and Doing Time for Patsy Cline, magazines and other media outlets were eager to profile the actress. In 1997, Otto began dating her Doing Time for Patsy Cline co-star Richard Roxburgh. Her involvement with Roxburgh made her a regular subject of Australian tabloid magazines and media at the time, a role to which she was unaccustomed.
Otto's next project was the romantic comedy Dead Letter Office (1998). The film was Otto's first with her father, Barry, who makes a brief appearance. In the Winter Dark (1998), directed by James Bogle, followed later that year. Otto played Ronnie, a pregnant woman recently abandoned by her boyfriend. The film was a critical success in Australia, and Otto was nominated for her fourth Australian Film Institute Award. A small role in The Thin Red Line, led to further film roles outside of Australia, such as in Italy, where she co-starred as Ruth in the low-budget Italian film The Three-Legged Fox (2004), produced in 2001 and broadcast for the first time on Italian television in March 2009.
Otto's first Hollywood role was opposite Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer in the suspense thriller What Lies Beneath in 2000. She played Mary Feur, a mysterious next-door neighbor. The film was met with mixed reviews, but was an international success, grossing US$291 million. In 2001, she was cast as a naturalist in the comedy Human Nature (2001). Writer Charlie Kaufman, impressed by her audition two years earlier for his film Being John Malkovich (1999), arranged for Otto to audition and meet with the film's director Michel Gondry. Human Nature was both a commercial and critical disappointment.
Otto made her theatrical debut in the 1986 production of The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant for the Sydney Theatre Company. Three more theatrical productions for the Sydney Theatre Company followed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 2002, she returned to the stage playing Nora Helmer in A Doll's House opposite her future husband Peter O'Brien. Otto's performance earned her a 2003 Helpmann Award nomination and the MO Award for "Best Female Actor in a Play".
Her next stage role was in the psychological thriller Boy Gets Girl (2005), in which she played Theresa, a journalist for a New York magazine. Otto committed to the project days before she found out she was pregnant. Robyn Nevin, the director, rescheduled the production from December 2004 to September 2005 so Otto could appear in it. In 2005, Nevin began pre-production on a play commissioned especially for Otto.- Actress
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Mélanie Thierry was born on 17 July 1981 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines, France. She is an actress and director, known for The Zero Theorem (2013), Da 5 Bloods (2020) and Babylon A.D. (2008).- Melanie Rose Papalia is a Canadian actress. She has appeared in films such as Postal (2007), American Pie Presents: The Book of Love (2009), Frankie and Alice (2010), Smiley (2012), The Den (2013), and Hell or High Water (2016). Papalia has also appeared in various television series including Intelligence (2005), Painkiller Jane (2007), Endgame (2011), Suits (2014), and You Me Her (2016-2020).
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At sixteen years old, Melanie Lynskey dazzled the film world with an audacious debut in Peter Jackson's revered psychological crime picture, Heavenly Creatures (1994). Her electrifying portrait of Pauline Parker - high school misfit whose fierce rapport with her only friend (a pre-fame Kate Winslet) spirals dangerously out of control - was deemed "perfect" (Richard Corliss, TIME) and secured the humble New Zealander a Best Actress trophy in her motherland. Following a three-year interval spent studying at university and relocating to Los Angeles, Lynskey made a welcome return to the silver screen when she was cast as Drew Barrymore's sweet-natured stepsister in Andy Tennant's 'girl power' twist on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998). Parts in But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), Coyote Ugly (2000), Snakeskin (2001), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), Shattered Glass (2003), and Clint Eastwood's Oscar-nominated war epic Flags of Our Fathers (2006) came next.
In the consequent years, Lynskey emerged as one of the industry's most celebrated character actors, picking up plaudits for a host of appearances in prestige vehicles such as Sam Mendes's Away We Go (2009), Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009), Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! (2009), Tom McCarthy's Win Win (2011), Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), and Adam McKay's Don't Look Up (2021). Prolific supporting roles - opposite the calibre of George Clooney, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio - aside, spotlight turns in Hello I Must Be Going (2012), Happy Christmas (2014), The Intervention (2016) - for which she scored a Special Jury Prize at Sundance - and the genre-bending I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017) have equally proved her mettle as a dynamite leading lady.
Since entering the annals of 21st century popular culture with her riotous embodiment of Rose - on the toweringly successful Two and a Half Men (2003), where she appeared for over a decade as Charlie Sheen's duplicitous admirer - Lynskey has injected her scene-stealing prowess into a multitude of small-screen gigs: among them, HBO's exalted tragicomedy Togetherness (2015), which showcased her "sublime" (Vanity Fair) depiction of a dissatisfied stay-at-home mom; macabre Stephen King spookfest Castle Rock (2018), where she headlined as pill-popping psychic Molly Strand; and all-star political period piece Mrs. America (2020), in which she joined forces with Cate Blanchett. For her spellbinding work on Showtime's Yellowjackets (2021) - where she's front-and-centre as Shauna, a suburban housewife consumed by horrific secrets - Lynskey collected the coveted Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series (2022), with Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall describing her turn in the runaway cult smash as the "dark, messy, charismatic part she's been waiting her whole career to play".- Actress
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Megan McKinnon was born on 2 May 1996 in Lindsay, Ontario, Canada. She is an actress and writer, known for The Last Mimzy (2007), Little Samantha Tripp (2006) and Illusional (2008).- Actress
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Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam (born 18 July 1975), better known by her stage name M.I.A. (pronounced as distinct initials), is a British - Sri Lankan rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and activist. She is of Sri Lankan Tamil origin. Her stage name M.I.A. is wordplay on her name as well as a reference to the abbreviation Missing in Action. Her compositions combine elements of alternative, dance, electronic, hip hop and world music.
M.I.A. began her career in 2000 as a visual artist, filmmaker and designer in west London before beginning her recording career in 2002. Since rising to prominence in early 2004 for her singles "Sunshowers" and "Galang", charting in Canada and the UK and reaching number 11 on the Billboard Hot Dance Singles Sales in the US, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, three Grammy Awards and the Mercury Prize.
She released her debut album Arular in 2005 and her second album Kala in 2007, both to wide critical acclaim. Arular charted in Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Japan and the US, where it reached number 16 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart and number three on the Dance/Electronic Albums chart. Kala was certified silver in the UK and gold in Canada and the US, where it topped the Dance/Electronic Albums chart. It also charted in several countries across Europe, in Japan and Australia. The album's first single "Boyz" reached the Top 10 in Canada and on the Billboard Hot Dance Singles Sales in 2007, becoming her first Top 10 charting single.
Her single "Paper Planes" peaked in the Top 20 worldwide and reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. "Paper Planes" was certified gold in New Zealand and three times platinum in Canada and the US where, as of November 2011, it was ranked the seventh best-selling song by a British artist in the digital era. It has become XL Recordings' second best-selling single to date. M.I.A.'s third album Maya was released in 2010 soon after the controversial song-film short "Born Free". This became her highest-charting album in the UK and the US, reaching number nine on the Billboard 200, topping the Dance/Electronic Albums chart and debuting in the Top 10 in Finland, Norway, Greece and Canada. Her single "XXXO" reached the Top 40 in Belgium, Spain and the UK. M.I.A. has embarked on five global headlining tours and is the founder of her own multimedia label, N.E.E.T. Her fourth studio album, Matangi, was released in 2013, followed by AIM in 2016.
M.I.A.'s early compositions relied heavily on the Roland MC-505 music sequencer and drum machine. Her later work marked an evolution in her sound with rare instruments, electronics and unusual sound samples. Critics have acclaimed a distinctive style to her music, which lyrically incorporate a range of political, social, philosophical and cultural references. M.I.A. was one of the first acts to come to public attention through the internet. She posted many of her songs and videos from 2002 onwards on platforms such as MySpace.
In 2001, she received an "Alternative" Turner Prize nomination for her visual art. In 2005 and 2008, M.I.A. was artist of the year by Spin and URB, and she was named one of the defining artists of the 2000s decade by Rolling Stone in its "Best of the Decade" list in December 2009. Time named her one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2009. Esquire ranked M.I.A. on its list of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century in January 2010.
In 2006, M.I.A. recorded her second studio album Kala, this time named after her mother. Due to visa complications in the United States, the album was recorded in a variety of locations - India, Trinidad, Liberia, Jamaica, Australia, Japan, and the UK. Eventually the album was completed in the US. Kala featured live instrumentation and layers of traditional dance and folk styles such as soca and the urumee drum of gaana, rave music and bootleg soundtracks of Tamil film music, incorporating new styles into her avant-garde electronic dance music. The songs, artwork and fashion of Kala have been characterised as simultaneously celebratory and infused with raw, "darker, outsider" themes, such as immigration politics, personal relationships and war. In February 2007, the first track from the album to be made available to the public was "Bird Flu", which was posted with an accompanying music video to her MySpace. Later that year, M.I.A. featured in the song "Come Around", a bonus track on Timbaland's 2007 album Shock Value and a track on Kala. The album's first official single "Boyz" was released in June 2007, accompanied by a music video co-directed by Jay Will and M.I.A., becoming M.I.A.'s first top ten charting song. The single "Jimmy", written about an invitation to tour genocide-affected regions in Rwanda that the singer received from a journalist while staying in Liberia, was released next. The single "Paper Planes", described a "satire on immigrant stereotypes", and the EP Paper Planes - Homeland Security Remixes EP were released digitally in February 2008, the single eventually selling three times platinum in the US and Canada, certified Gold in New Zealand, and becoming the 29th most downloaded song in the digital era in the US and earning a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year. "Paper Planes" is to date XL Recordings' second best selling single, and by November 2011 it had sold 3.6 million copies in the US, the seventh best-selling song by a British artist in the digital era. In 2007, M.I.A. also released the How Many Votes Fix Mix EP which included a remix of "Boyz" featuring Jay-Z. "Paper Planes" is one of M.I.A.'s most popular songs. On this song she collaborated with Florida-based DJ Diplo. Their work on this song landed him a Grammy nomination for Record of the year and got number three in the US Charts.They also worked together on her first album "Arular" Like its predecessor, universal acclaim met Kala's release in August 2007 and the album earned a normalised rating of 87 out of 100 on the review aggregator MetaCritic. Kala was a greater commercial success than Arular. To support Kala, M.I.A. performed at a series of music festivals on the Kala Tour featuring performances in Europe, America and Asia. She performed three dates opening for Björk in the US and France. In 2008, M.I.A. provided guest vocals on Buraka Som Sistema's kuduro song "Sound of Kuduro", recorded in Angola with an accompanying video. The same year, M.I.A. and director Spike Jonze filmed a documentary in Woolwich, South London, in which they both appeared with Afrikan Boy, a Nigerian immigrant rapper and she disclosed plans to launch her own record label, Zig-Zag. She ended the year with concerts in the United Kingdom. By year end, Kala was named the best album of 2007 by publications including Rolling Stone and Blender. MetaCritic reported in 2010 that Kala was the tenth Best-Reviewed Electronic/Dance Album on Metacritic of the 2000-09 decade, one position below her debut album Arular. M.I.A. performed on the People vs. Money Tour during the first half of 2008. She cancelled the final leg of her tour in Europe through June and July after revealing her intentions to take a career break and work on other art projects, go back to college and make a film.
In 2008, M.I.A. started her independent record label N.E.E.T. Recordings. The first artist signed to the label was Baltimore rapper Rye Rye, who performed with M.I.A. at the Diesel XXX party at Pier 3 in Brooklyn in October 2008 where it was revealed that M.I.A. was pregnant with her first child. M.I.A. contributed songs for A. R. Rahman's score of the film Slumdog Millionaire, which included the collaboration "O...Saya"; she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song and a World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Song Written Directly for a Film for the song. M.I.A. was due to perform at the Oscars ceremony two weeks after her Grammy Award performance, but could not as she had just given birth to her son. M.I.A. is the first person of Asian descent to be nominated for an Oscar and Grammy award in the same year.
At the 2009 BRIT Awards in February, M.I.A. was a nominee for Best British Female Artist. Seeking to promote new, underground music with N.E.E.T., M.I.A. signed more bands including Baltimore musician Blaqstarr, indie rock band Sleigh Bells and visual artist Jaime Martinez by late 2009. 3D photographic images of M.I.A. by Martinez were commissioned in April of that year. In August 2009, M.I.A. began composing and recording her third studio album in a home studio section in her Los Angeles house. In January 2010, M.I.A. posted her video for the song "Space". While composing it, she helped write a song with Christina Aguilera called "Elastic Love" for Aguilera's album Bionic. By April 2010, the song and music video/short film "Born Free" were leaked online. The video-film short was directed by Romain Gavras and written by M.I.A., depicting genocide against red-haired adolescents being forced to run across a minefield and caused controversy due to its violent content. The video was removed from YouTube the same day it was released, then reinstated with an age restriction, then removed once more. Although not an official single, the song charted in Sweden and the United Kingdom. M.I.A.'s third album, Maya was released on 23 June 2010 in Japan with bonus tracks before its release in other countries. Maya became M.I.A.'s highest charting album globally. Its release in the US was delayed by two weeks. The album garnered a generally favourable, although divided, reception from critics. A more internet-inspired album illustrating how a multimedia artist worked within the music industry, elements of industrial music were incorporated into M.I.A.'s sound for the first time. She described the album in an interview with Dazed & Confused as a mix of "babies, death, destruction and powerlessness".
On 11 May 2010, the first official single from Maya, "XXXO", was released and reached the top forty in Belgium, Spain and the UK. "Steppin' Up", "Teqkilla", and "Tell Me Why" were also released as promotional singles exclusively on iTunes in the days leading to the release of Maya, with "Teqkilla" reaching the top 100 in Canada on digital downloads alone.
The video for "XXXO" was released online in August. M.I.A. hinted in an interview to Blitz that a music video is being made with director Spike Jonze for the single "Teqkilla." She completed her live tour dates on the Maya Tour in summer of 2011. From 2000 until 2010, she directed the video for Elastica single "Mad Dog God Dam" and videos for her songs "Bird Flu", "Boyz", "S.U.S. (Save Ur Soul)", "Space" and "XXXO" as well as personally choosing the directors for the videos of her songs Galang, Sunshowers, which she described in 2005 and again in 2011 as being her favourite video experience and favourite video adaptation of a song of hers, in her words as of 2011, "If you watch only one of my videos, please try Sunshowers", "Jimmy," "Born Free," and "Bad Girls.", a video inspired by YouTube videos of car stunts and photographs, including one of an Arab female trucker, from the Middle East, which she described as her second favourite music video. She directed a video for Rye Rye's "Bang". She judged in the Music Video category at the inaugural Vimeo Festival & Awards in New York in October 2010.
M.I.A. released her second mixtape, Vicki Leekx, on 31 December 2010, and followed this with Internet Connection: The Remixes, an EP to a bonus track from Maya in January 2011. M.I.A. performed on the song "C.T.F.O." on SebastiAn's album Total. On 21 April 2011, it was reported that M.I.A. had been in the studio with Chris Brown, the Cataracs, Swizz Beatz and Polow da Don. On 24 July 2011, the day after Amy Winehouse's death, M.I.A. uploaded a previously-unreleased Maya/Vicki Leekx demo titled "27" to her SoundCloud account. The song was released as a tribute to the 27 Club.
On 13 July 2015, M.I.A. released a five-minute video titled "Matahdatah Scroll 01 Broader Than a Border" which features two of her tracks: Matangi's "Warrior" and a new track "Swords". The music is sampled from Yo Yo Honey Singh's Manali Trance. The video was filmed in India and West Africa and shows different forms of dancing in those regions.
On 27 November 2015, M.I.A. released "Borders" as her new single on iTunes, prior to that her new single was announced via her Instagram account. Serving as both a rallying cry and a call for compassion, the track mocks first world problems and shares her views on the escalating global refugee crisis. The self-directed video that accompanied its release shows her joining "those attempting to flee their homes by cramming on boats, wading in the ocean and climbing barbed-wire fences".
In late February 2016, she released "Boom ADD", an expanded version of the "Boom Skit", which appeared on M.I.A.'s fourth studio album Matangi; it is a diss-track to the NFL's lawsuit of her performance at the Super Bowl XLVI. On 9 September 2016, she released her fifth studio album AIM to mixed reviews, with "Poc Still A Ryda", a lyrical mix of the songs on the album, preceding the album's release. On 8 February 2017, she released a new song, along with a music video, entitled "P.O.W.A", a previously unreleased song from her recording sessions for AIM.- Mia Talerico is the adorable baby Charlotte "Charlie" Duncan in Disney Channel's Good Luck Charlie (2010). Her parents are Chris and Claire Talerico. She was born in Santa Barbara, California. Her infancy is seen in her character in the comedy series. Phil Baker, co-creator of the show, said that they talk to Mia's mom to know what Mia does and likes, and they incorporate them into their stories.
- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Maya Rudolph was born on July 27, 1972 in Gainesville, Florida, to Richard Rudolph, a music producer, and soul singer Minnie Riperton. Her mother was African-American and her father is Ashkenazi Jewish (from a family from Lithuania, Russia, Germany, and Hungary). In 1973, Maya, her parents, and her older brother, Marc Rudolph, moved to California to further Minnie's music career. Here Minnie recorded "Lovin' You", her most famous single, in which one can hear her sing "Maya, Maya, Maya" at the end of the song; Riperton said that the song was used as a lullaby for Maya.
During adolescence, Maya attended St. Augustine by the Sea School, where she met childhood friend, Gwyneth Paltrow. The Paltrows and the Rudolphs became family friends and, in 2000, Richard Rudolph and Maya filled the role of music supervisors on the Bruce Paltrow-directed film Duets (2000), which starred Gwyneth.
In 1990, Maya enrolled at the University of California at Santa Cruz, majoring in photography. It was here that Maya formed the band "Supersauce" with fellow students. After graduation in 1994, Maya left the band and soon joined The Rentals, fronted by Weezer bassist Matt Sharp. Maya was featured on the 1999 release "Seven More Minutes", where she sang backup vocals on "Barcelona" and "My Head is in the Sun". Maya began touring with the group, singing backup and playing Moog synthesizer. When The Rentals disbanded, Maya decided to pursue her dream of a career in comedy, joining the famed troupe "The Groundlings".
On May 6, 2000, Maya joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975), and became one of that show's most popular performers. Famous sketches include a dead-on impression of fashion diva Donatella Versace; high school flake "Megan", the host of her own morning talk show, "Wake-up WakeField"; and one of the members of the R&B parody "Gemini's Twin". In 2006, she co-starred in the film A Prairie Home Companion (2006), directed by the legendary Robert Altman and based on the NPR show by Garrison Keillor.
Maya has four children with her partner, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.- Actress
- Producer
Morena Baccarin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to actress Vera Setta and journalist Fernando Baccarin. Her uncle was actor Ivan Setta. She is of Italian as well as Lebanese and Portuguese/Brazilian descent. She moved to New York at the age of 10, when her father was transferred there. She attended the LaGuardia High School of Music and Performing Arts and then the Juilliard School.
Staying in New York she worked in the theater, notably in the Central Park production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" where she was also Natalie Portman's understudy, and also appeared in several movies. After making Roger Dodger (2002), she moved to Los Angeles where she came to the attention of Joss Whedon, who cast her in his short-lived cult sci-fi show Firefly (2002). Since then she has rarely been off our TV screens.- Actress
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Maude Apatow is an American actress. She is the eldest daughter of director Judd Apatow and actress Leslie Mann, and is possibly best known for her very popular Twitter page. After minor roles in Knocked Up (2007) and Funny People (2009), as the daughter of Leslie Mann's characters, she had a slightly bigger role in the 2012 film, This Is 40 (2012), again as Leslie Mann's character's daughter.