Geri Halliwell

Geri Halliwell (born 6 August 1972, Watford, Hertfordshire) is an English pop singer-songwriter, children's author, actress and Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund. Halliwell first became famous in the late 1990s as a member of the girl group the Spice Girls, which became one of the most successful girl groups of all time, selling in excess of 55 million records worldwide.[1] As a solo artist, she has received four Brit Award nominations, released four number-one singles in the UK and sold around 4 million albums as a solo artist worldwide.

Halliwell was born to Laurence Francis Halliwell, who was of English/Swedish descent, and his wife Ana Maria, who was of Spanish descent from Huesca, Spain and who grew up in Watford, Hertfordshire.For a brief time, Halliwell's mother tried to bring her up as a Jehovah's Witness. Halliwell took her A-Levels at Camden School for Girls having taken her GCSEs at Watford Girls Grammar School. Before starting her music career, Halliwell had worked as a nightclub dancer in Majorca (Spain),a model and presenter on the Turkish version of Let's Make a Deal and as a glamour model.Following her rise to fame with the Spice Girls, nude photos of Halliwell were re-published in a number of top-shelf magazines in the UK. During the documentary Spice Girls: Giving You Everything broadcast on UK television on 31 December 2007, Halliwell repeated her claim to have only done 'harmless, topless shots', despite extensive evidence to the contrary, including pictures in her own autobiography.

Geri first found fame as one of the five members of the girl group the Spice Girls, and was dubbed Ginger Spice for her "liveliness, zest and flaming red hair".She wore many over-the-top outfits, the most recognized being for her famous Union Jack dress that she wore for the 1997 Brit Awards.

Halliwell became renowned for her independent and feminist attitude. The group joined the most successful musical artists of the 1990s, selling over thirty-five million albums with the studio releases Spice and Spiceworld.Their debut single "Wannabe" became the first of a string of number-ones in the United Kingdom and reached the top position in 41 countries around the globe, including Australia, Canada and the United States. Other successful releases followed, including "Say You'll Be There" and "2 Become 1" from Spice, and "Spice Up Your Life", "Too Much" and "Stop" from Spiceworld.As a songwriter, Geri - as part of the Spice Girls - set the record for the shortest time to achieve 6 no. 1 UK singles, taking 1 year 5 months from Wannabe's first week at no. 1 to the ascent of Too Much. This outpaced Lennon/McCartney, who took 1 year 6 months (From Me to You through I Feel Fine).

In 1999 Halliwell launched her solo career and released her debut solo album Schizophonic, with lead single "Look at Me", produced by co-writers and old friends, Absolute. The single reached number two in the UK, just 700 copies behind Boyzone's "You Needed Me". The single would go on to sell over 1 million copies worldwide. Further singles from the album, "Mi Chico Latino" and "Lift Me Up", became UK number ones with the latter outselling Halliwell's former bandmate Emma Bunton. The fourth single, "Bag It Up", also reached number one. Geri set another two records for shortest time for a female songwriter to achieve her ninth and tenth no. 1 UK singles. "Lift Me Up" hit no. 1 3 years, 3 months, and 3 weeks after Wannabe's first week at no. 1, and Bag It Up hit 4 months later. Melanie C, in contrast, took seven more months to achieve her tenth no. 1 single as a songwriter, with I Turn To You. All-time leaders Lennon/McCartney took 3 years, 1 month, 3 weeks between From Me To You and their tenth no. 1 UK hit Paperback Writer.

More about → Geri Halliwell

Jaime King

Jaime King is an American film actress and model. In her modeling career and early film roles, she went by the names Jamie King and James King, which was a childhood nickname given to King by her parents,[1] because her agency already represented another Jaime — the older, then-more famous model Jaime Rishar.King, because of the latter name, is sometimes referred to as the "Model with a man's name".

Called by Complex magazine "one of the original model-turned-actresses",King appeared in Vogue, Mademoiselle, and Harper's Bazaar, among other fashion magazines. Afterwards, she began taking small film roles. Her first larger role was in Pearl Harbor (2001). Jaime's first starring movie role in Bulletproof Monk (2003). She has gone on to appear as a lead in various other films, gaining more note after Sin City (2005), a role which she will perform in its sequel Sin City 2 (2009).

King was born in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Nancy King, a beauty queen, and Robert King. She has an older sister, Sandra, and a younger brother, Barry.King was named after Lindsay Wagner's character, Jaime Sommers, of the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman.King's parents separated in 1994,eventually divorcing amicably in 1995. The two continue to work together in Omaha where they rent out low-income apartments. King had attended the modeling school Nancy Bounds's Studios and later dropped out of Westside High School in 1995 to pursue a modeling career in New York, afterwards enrolling in a home-study program run by the University of Nebraska.

She was discovered in November 1993, at the age of fourteen, while attending Nancy Bounds' Studios, a school for modeling. After being spotted at her graduation fashion show by New York model agent Michael Flutie, King was invited to New York to begin modeling professionally. She joined with Company Management, who already represented Jaime Rishar, a more established model at the time. To avoid confusion, King opted to go by her childhood nickname, James, for the duration of her modeling career and later, the beginning of her film career. In March 1994 she traveled to New York for test pictures and received enthusiastic responses, however, she did not return to New York until July 1994, after gaining a successful advertisement for Abercrombie & Fitch. Much of fall and spring 1994 were spent commuting between Omaha and New York.

King had a successful early career as a fashion model, and by age fifteen she had been featured in the fasion magazines Vogue, Mademoiselle, Allure, and Seventeen. At sixteen, King had graced the pages of Glamour and Harper's Bazaar. She was featured in the cover story of the New York Times Magazine published on February 4, 1996 and had walked the runway for Chanel and Christian Dior. In 1998, she began co-hosting MTV's fashion series, House of Style, with fellow model turned actress Rebecca Romijn. Despite her success, King noted that she "remember the times where I was so alone" and thought she was "never gonna be able to be a kid.She, along with Kate Moss, had been often cited as those who helped popularize the idea of heroin chic in the 1990s.

In 2004, King, along with Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, and Eva Mendes were chosen as spokesmodels for a high profile ad campaign for Revlon. The advertisements were featured in print, television, theatrical, outdoor and Internet venues,banking on their spokeswomen's "collective star power" to sell the cosmetics products. In 2006, King was chosen by Rocawear CEO Jay-Z to become the new face of the line; her advertisements were featured for the winter 2006 season.

More about → Jaime King

Natalia Vodianova

Natalia Vodianova

Natalia Vodianova was born on February 28, 1982.She is a Russian model.Born in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod, Russia's fourth largest city), Vodianova, nickname 'SuperNova', had a difficult childhood. Her mother's abusive boyfriends and a tight financial situation dogged her throughout childhood. Having helped her mother with her fruit stall business from the age of 11, Vodianova moved into her own apartment with a friend at 15 and started her own fruit-stall business. She was thus able to help out her sisters, one of whom is disabled.

At age 15, Vodianova enrolled in a modeling academy, and started going to castings. A scouting agent from Paris told her that she could have a great future if she learned English quickly. Convinced that her life would change for the better, Vodianova learned English in three months, moved to Paris and signed up with the Viva agency at age 17. Soon, Gucci made her the new face for their perfume line. After working at more than 40 runway shows, she was hired to appear in Calvin Klein's spring show. Around this time she also made a brief appearance in Roman Coppola's film CQ, with Billy Zane.

Vodianova has done campaigns for David Yurman, Louis Vuitton, L'Oreal, Marc Jacobs, Miss Sixty, Pepe Jeans, and Calvin Klein's collection and his fragrance, "Euphoria".

In July 2007, Vodianova was featured the cover of American Vogue as the solo subject, a considerable feat during an era that relies heavily on celebrity cover subjects to push sales. She first appeared on the cover along with eight other top models in September 2005. The only other models to have singularly graced the cover of US Vogue in between those two issues have been Linda Evangelista and Liya Kebede.

According to Forbes, Vodianova is ranked as the seventh highest-earning model in the world after Carolyn Murphy, Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Heidi Klum, Kate Moss and Gisele Bündchen. Her earnings for the past year were in the order of $4.5 million.

Her husband is British real estate heir, Justin Portman, a half-brother of the 10th Viscount Portman, son of a Viscount and Scion of one of Britain's wealthiest real estate families, owning swatches in London. The couple had their first son, Lucas Alexander, on December 22, 2001. On September 1, 2002, Vodianova and Portman married in a lavish ceremony in Saint Petersburg. Their second child, daughter Neva (named after the Russian river Neva) was born on March 24, 2006, weighing 7 pounds. She posed with her baby in Vogue. Her third child, a boy named Viktor, was born on September 13, 2007; Viktor is named after Natalia's grandfather. Vodianova's husband and children often travel with her.

Social Bookmark

More about → Natalia Vodianova

Daisy Fuentes

Daisy Fuentes

Daisy Fuentes was on born November 17, 1966 in Havana, Cuba.She is a Cuban American model and actress.When Daisy was three years old, the Fuentes family moved to Madrid, Spain, and finally emigrated to Harrison, New Jersey four years later. Fuentes studied communications and journalism at Bergen Community College, finally being selected as the weather-girl for WNJU Channel 47, a Telemundo station. She quickly moved up the ranks, eventually becoming news anchor and reporter for the evening news.


MTV took notice of the 19-year-old and snatched her up as host of MTV International, which later became MTV en Español and later MTV Latin America. She began to develop acting credits and landed a role on the ABC soap opera Loving. Fuentes had appearances on shows such as Dream On, The Larry Sanders Show, and Cybill. From 1994 to 1995, she hosted her own talk show, Daisy, on CNBC. She was the host of America's Funniest Home Videos for three seasons.
She hosted The ALMA Awards, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, the 1998 World Music Awards, the 1999 Billboard Latin Awards, and the Miss Teen USA, Miss USA, and Miss Universe pageants. She has been a spokes model for Revlon, American Express, Pantene, M&M's, and Miller Lite.

Hugh Hefner reportedly invited Fuentes numerous times in the early 90's to appear in Playboy magazine, but she has insisted that she will never do nude modeling.

Fuentes played on the World Poker Tour in the Hollywood Home games for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital charity. She also has designed a clothing line bearing her name, sold exclusively by Kohl's Department Stores.

She was married to actor Timothy Adams, but later divorced. She is currently engaged to ex-Bros member Matt Goss, who is the twin brother of movie actor Luke Goss.She and fiancé Matt Goss reside in the Los Angeles area, with their two dogs, Alfie and Rita, who were featured on National Geographic's show Dog Whisperer.


Social Bookmark

More about → Daisy Fuentes