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.

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Marcia Cross

Marcia Anne Cross is an Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated American actress, currently starring as Bree Hodge on the hit TV show Desperate Housewives. She is also well-known for her role as Dr. Kimberly Shaw on the prime-time soap opera Melrose Place.

Cross graduated from the Juilliard School in New York, and earned master's degree in psychology at LA's Antioch University. She began her television career in 1984 on the soap opera The Edge of Night. She then moved from New York to Los Angeles, and soon landed roles in television movies such as The Last Days of Frank and Jessie James, co-starring with Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. In 1986 she joined the cast of the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live, where she played Kate Sanders, until 1987.

In 1991, Cross guest-starred on the 13th season of Knots Landing as the mysterious wife of Pierce Lawton (Bruce Greenwood). Ironically, she spent most of her screen-time on the show confronting Paige Matheson, played by her future Desperate Housewives co-star Nicollette Sheridan.

In 1992, Cross was cast as Dr. Kimberly Shaw on the FOX drama series Melrose Place. Initially cast for one season, she so impressed the producers that they kept bringing her back for more episodes, although she curiously didn't become a full-fledged cast member in the opening credits until the fourth season. Cross' character started off as a love interest for the character of Dr. Michael Mancini, but gradually became more and more mentally unbalanced, providing some of the show's most memorable moments, which included blowing up the apartment building, trying to kill Michael, and stealing her neighbor Jo's baby. Her character's increasingly outrageous and disturbing behaviour made her a firm fan favorite and one Melrose Place website listed her as the most popular character on the show. She left the show in 1997, after five seasons.

Cross was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts and is of English descent. She was the long time companion of Richard Jordan. Jordan died from a brain tumor on August 30, 1993.

In early 2005, the Internet and tabloids swirled with rumors that Cross was gay and in a long-term relationship with another woman, and planning to come out of the closet. Cross actually appeared on the television show The View to deny the reports, but stated that she was very supportive of the gay community.

In August 2005, Cross's publicist also told the American celebrity newsmagazine Us Weekly that Cross had accepted the proposal of Tom Mahoney, a stock broker whom she had been dating for six months, and that the couple were engaged to be married. The couple got married on June 24, 2006, in front of 200 guests at the Church of Our Savior Episcopal Parish in San Gabriel, California. "It was a beautiful ceremony," a representative for Cross told People.

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Chyler Leigh

Chyler Leigh Potts in Charlotte, North Carolina, the daughter of Yvonne Norton and Robert Potts.She was raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia, until the age of twelve when she moved with her mother and brother Christopher Khayman Lee to Miami, Florida. During eighth grade she started modeling. She soon moved on to acting by appearing in local television commercials and a syndicated teen news show called Hall Pass. Leigh did not graduate from high school and she took the California High School Proficiency Exam.

Leigh started acting at an early age and debuted in the film world at age 15 in 1997's Kickboxing Academy. In 2001, Leigh had the lead role in the film Not Another Teen Movie as Janey Briggs. She also appeared in Marilyn Manson's music video "Tainted Love", a song which appeared in the film. She was ranked 65 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2002.

In 2002, Leigh was cast in two short-lived TV series: Girls Club, in which she played lawyer Sarah Mickle, and That '80s Show, in which she played punk rocker June Tuesday. She then became a series regular on the ABC legal drama The Practice, but was let go at the end of the season due to budget cuts. Following that, she joined the cast of Reunion in September, 2005. In ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Leigh first appeared as a woman in Joe's bar who tried to pick up Derek Shepherd. In the third season finale, it was revealed that she was Lexie Grey, Meredith's half-sister.She was made an official series regular for season four.


On July 20, 2002, she married actor Nathan West and together they have two children. Their son, Noah Wilde, was born in December 2003. She gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Taelyn, in September 2006.Leigh and West worked side-by-side in 2000 on the television series 7th Heaven playing Mary Camden's troubled friends, Frankie and Johnnie. On December 28, 2008 it was announced that Chyler and her husband were expecting their third child.

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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.

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Ai Takahashi

Ai Takahashi

Ai Takahashi is a Japanese pop singer associated with Hello! Project, best known as the current leader of Morning Musume and member of its popular subgroup, Mini Moni.

Ai Takahashi joined Morning Musume in 2001 as part of the group's fifth generation, along with Makoto Ogawa, Asami Konno, and Risa Niigaki. Her debut appearance with the group was on their single Mr. Moonlight Ai no Big Band, and her first appearance on a Morning Musume full-length release was their fourth studio album, the appropriately named 4th Ikimasshoi!. Her first appearance within a Hello! Project shuffle unit release was on the 2002 single "Shiawase Beam! Suki Suki Beam!" under the group name Happy 7.

In 2003, Takahashi replaced Mari Yaguchi in the Morning Musume spinoff group Mini Moni, first appearing in the group's movie Mini Moni ja Movie: Okashi na Daibōken! and its accompanying soundtrack. Her best-known nickname amongst non-Japanese fans, "Takitty", was derived from the cat suit which she wears in the movie.

Later in 2003, she was part of the Morning Musume splinter group Morning Musume Sakuragumi, which performed mainly slower numbers on the group's two EPs, "Hare Ame Nochi Suki" and "Sakura Mankai", and the shuffle group 7Air, an R&B-inspired septet.

Takahashi's vocals became more prominent on the second and final Mini Moni album, Mini Moni Songs 2 (2004), as well as on Morning Musume's singles from their Spring 2004 release "Roman My Dear Boy" onward. She also had a duet with Tsunku on the cover version of Tsunku and Ayumi Hamasaki's duet "Love ~since 1999~" on his solo album Take1.

In 2005, Morning Musume's first single release of the year, "The Manpower!!!", featured Takahashi in a prominent co-lead-vocal role, a role she has retained on subsequent singles since. In the summer of that year, she became part of the 2005 shuffle Group Elegies.

In 2006, Takahashi played the lead role, Sapphire, in the musical "Ribbon no Kishi The Musical" which was a collaboration work of Takarazuka Revue and Hello! Project. The musical was based on Tezuka Osamu's manga and also starred v-u-den, Nozomi Tsuji, Aya Matsuura, and Natsumi Abe, as well as Marcia and Kaoru Ebira of the Takarazuka Revue. Soon thereafter, Takahashi released her first and only solo single to date, "Yume Kara Samete".

Following then-leader Hitomi Yoshizawa's graduation from Morning Musume on May 6, 2007, the current sub-leader, Miki Fujimoto ascended to the leader position, with Takahashi becoming the new sub-leader of the group. However, on June 1, 2007, after Fujimoto's resignation,Takahashi took over as the new leader.

Takahashi is also captain of the Hello! Project kickball team, Metro Rabbits H.P..

In 2008 Takahashi became a member of Hello Project's new unit High-King,a group created to promote Morning Musume's upcoming Cinderella the Musical, in which Takahashi will play the main character.

It was announced in July 2008, that Takahashi and fellow Morning Musume member Risa Niigaki would play the 80s J-Pop duo Pink Lady in the TV Drama Hitmaker Aku Yuu Monogatari.

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Mandy Moore

Mandy Moore

Mandy Moore is an American pop singer, songwriter, actress, and fashion designer. She grew up in Florida and came to fame as a teenager in the early 2000s, after the release of her teen-oriented pop albums So Real, I Wanna Be with You, and Mandy Moore. Moore has branched out into a film career, starring in 2002's A Walk to Remember and later appearing in the lead roles of other movies also aimed at teenage audiences. Two of her later films, American Dreamz and Saved!, were satires in which Moore portrayed darker characters than in her previous roles. Moore's private life, including her relationships with tennis player Andy Roddick as well as with actors Wilmer Valderrama and Zach Braff, has been much discussed in the media. Moore's fifth album, Wild Hope, was released in 2007.

Moore was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, the daughter of Stacy, a former news reporter who once worked for the Orlando Sentinel, and Don Moore, a pilot for American Airlines.Moore's father is of Irish and Cherokee descent and her mother is of English and Jewish ancestry.Moore has two brothers, Scott and Kyle; she grew up in Altamonte Springs, Florida, outside of Orlando, moving there shortly after her birth because of her father's job as an airline pilot.[5] She was raised in the Catholic religion and attended Bishop Moore High School,a Catholic school in Orlando, as well as Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs.

she was also encouraged to perform by her maternal grandmother, who was her inspiration.Some of Moore's first public exposure occurred when she sang the national anthem at several Florida sporting events. She subsequently came to the attention of the head of A&R at Epic Records after his friend, a FedEx employee, overheard her as she sang at a recording studio.She was then signed to a record deal with the label.

Moore toured with the Backstreet Boys throughout 1999.Her first album, So Real, was released in December that year and reached #31 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart.At the time of the album's release, reviewers considered Moore the latest in a series of heavily-marketed female singers described as "pop princesses", akin to Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson.Entertainment Weekly's review noted that Moore's songs, revolving around "not-yet-experienced love", were performed with "suffocating professionalism", and that the album's ballads were "nauseating".Moore reached mainstream radio later and at a younger age than Simpson, Aguilera and Spears had, and was initially not as successful as they were, although So Real was certified platinum in the U.S. in early 2000 and sold nearly one million copies.Moore's debut teen-oriented pop hit single "Candy", which Yahoo! Movies described as "strangely provocative",peaked just outside the top forty on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and was certified gold.The single was more successful in Europe especially in the UK where it reached number 6. All Music Guide noted the single was "mediocre" and "typical", containing lyrics that described love "in terms of sugar treats".The video for Candy features a "blink and you'll miss it" cameo from a young Scarlett Johansson, as a girl on a swingset.

Moore released I Wanna Be with You, a re-worked version of her debut album, in May 2000.The album, which was mostly completed with synthesizers, bass, guitar, and drums,comprised new songs alongside tracks and remixes from So Real. Several reviewers criticized it on the basis that it was a remix album and not a true follow-up,with All Music Guide writing that its style was "trashier, flashier, gaudier, and altogether more disposable" than its predecessor.

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Keira Knightley

Keira Christina Knightley

Keira Christina Knightley is a Golden Globe-, BAFTA- and Academy Award-nominated Englishfilm and television actress. She began her career as a child actress, and came to international prominence in 2003, after co-starring in the films Bend It Like Beckham and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Knightley has since become a notable lead actress, having appeared in several Hollywood films and earning an Academy Award nomination for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Knightley was born in Teddington, Middlesex England, the daughter of Sharman Macdonald, a Scottish award-winning playwright, and Will Knightley, an English theatre and television actor. She has an elder brother, Caleb, who was born in 1979. Knightley lived most of her life in Richmond, attending Teddington School and Esher College. Knightley has dyslexia, but nevertheless was successful in school and was thus permitted to acquire a talent agent and pursue an acting career. She required for an agent as early as the age of three but got one when she turned six, from her mother as a reward for studying hard. Knightley has noted that she was "single-minded about acting" during her childhood.

Knightley appeared in several made-for-television films in the mid to late 1990s, before being cast as Sabé, Padme Amidala's decoy, in the 1999 science fiction blockbuster Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. Knightley was cast in the role due to her close resemblance to Natalie Portman, who played Padmé; the two actresses' mothers had difficulty telling their daughters apart when the girls were in full makeup.Knightley's first starring role followed in 2001, when she played the daughter of Robin Hood in a made-for-television Walt Disney Productions feature, Princess of Thieves. During this time, Knightley also appeared in The Hole, a thriller that received a direct-to-video release in the United States. She appeared in a mini-series adaptation of Doctor Zhivago that first aired in 2002 to mixed reviews but high ratings.

Knightley's breakthrough role was in the football-themed film, Bend It Like Beckham, which was a success in its August 2002 UK release, grossing $18 million, and in its March 2003 U.S. release, grossing $32 million.After Bend It Like Beckham's UK release raised her profile, she was cast in the big budget action film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (along with Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp) which was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and opened in July 2003 to positive reviews and high box office grosses, becoming one of the biggest hits of summer 2003 and cementing Knightley as the new "It" girl.

Knightley had a role in the British romantic comedy Love Actually, which opened in November 2003. Though charismatic, her performance was overlooked in the crowded A-List cast. Her next film, King Arthur, opened in July 2004 to negative reviews. In the same month, Knightley was voted by readers of Hello! magazine as the film industry's most promising teen star. Additionally, Time magazine noted in a 2004 feature that Knightley seemed dedicated to developing herself as a serious actress rather than a film star.

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Courteney Cox

Courteney Cox

Courteney Bass Cox , also known as Courteney Cox Arquette, is an American actress and former model, known for her role as Monica Geller in the popular television sitcom Friends and as Lucy Spiller, in the television drama Dirt.

Cox was born Courteney Bass Cox in Birmingham, Alabama to a wealthy Southern family. Her mother, also named Courteney and her late father, Richard Lewis Cox, was a contractor.Cox has two older sisters , an older brother and nine half-brothers and half-sisters. Her parents divorced in 1974, and her father eventually wound up in Panama City, Florida, where he opened a company called Cox Pools, while Cox grew up with her mother and her stepfather, New York businessman Hunter Copeland.

Cox was raised in a wealthy suburb of Birmingham, Mountain Brook, Alabama where she was known as CeCe. She attended Mountain Brook High School, where she was a cheerleader, tennis player and swimmer. Upon graduation, Cox went to study architecture and interior design at Mount Vernon College for Women. She dropped out after a year to pursue a modeling career, after being signed by the Ford modeling agency in New York City. While modeling, she also took acting classes and worked to lose her southern accent.

Cox first came to prominence in the 1984 music video for Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" (in which she was the pulled-on-stage girl who danced onstage with Springsteen for 26 seconds). Cox is also notable for being the first person to use the word "period" on U.S. television in its physiological sense, in a 1985 advertising campaign for Tampax brand tampons.Her early film roles include Masters of the Universe and Cocoon: The Return. Cox's early television work include a starring role in the short-lived television series Misfits of Science, and later a recurring role on the television series Family Ties as the last girlfriend of Alex P. Keaton. She had a supporting role as Jewel, the hard-as-nails assistant to Jim Belushi's character in the 1990 fantasy film Mr. Destiny.

Later in 1994, Cox was asked to audition for the part of Rachel Green on a new sitcom called Friends, but she was instead cast as the character Monica Geller. At first the most famous cast member of the new show, Cox joined fellow castmates Jennifer Aniston , Lisa Kudrow , Matt Le Blanc , Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer for what would become her most famous role, lasting for 10 seasons until 2004.

Between seasons, Cox married David Arquette, becoming Courteney Cox Arquette. An in-joke reference to this is made in the opening credits of the episodes The One After Vegas, where the rest of the cast and executive producers have "Arquette" added to their names. The dedication "To Courteney and David, who did get married" appears during the fade out to the tag scene.

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