Alyssa Milano

Birthname: Alyssa Jayne Milano
Date of birth: 1972-12-19
Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
Height: 5' 2''
Nationality: American
Profession: actress, musician

Alyssa Jayne Milano (born December 19, 1972 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles on the sitcom Who's the Boss? and on the supernatural series Charmed.

Biography

Early life and career

Milano was born to parents Tom and Lin Milano, and she has a younger brother, Cory (born 1982), who is also an actor. She and Cory grew up on Staten Island. She began her career at the age of eight when she won a part in an open audition for a national tour of Annie. Having gained a reputation, she appeared in television commercials and off-Broadway productions. One of her first acting roles was at the age of 11 in the television program Who's the Boss?, alongside Tony Danza, Judith Light, Danny Pintauro and Katherine Helmond. She starred as Samantha Micelli, the daughter of Danza's character, Tony Micelli. Her family relocated from Brooklyn to Hollywood when Alyssa won the role.
In 1985, Milano played the role of Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter in Commando. When this film aired on cable in Japan in 1988, she became an overnight sensation and record executives took notice and asked if she could sing. Having recorded the theme song to her workout video, released earlier that year, she said yes. She signed a five album deal with Pony Canyon and a few months later, her first album, Look In My Heart, was released. The album was a #1 in Japan and she continued this success with every album she released, all of them reaching #1 in Japan with the exception of a compilation CD of remixes which reached #5. The lead single from the compilation, "The Best In The World" did reach #1 on the Pop charts and #1 on the Dance club charts.

Later career

At the beginning of her career, Milano was known mainly for her role as Samantha Micelli on Who's the Boss? (1984-1992). She tried to shed her "nice girl" image by appearing in several films targeted at adults, such as (1992), Embrace of the Vampire (1994), Confessions of a Sorority Girl (1994), Deadly Sins (1995), and (1995), where she starred opposite Johnathon Schaech and Xander Berkley. She gained more mainstream success in TV as Jennifer Mancini on Melrose Place (1997-1998), Meg Winston in Spin City and most notably as Phoebe Halliwell on Charmed (1998-2006). Both Milano and Holly Marie Combs became producers for Charmed during the show's fifth season. Milano played the role of Eva Savelot in MCI's 1-800-COLLECT commercials.
On stage, she starred in Tender Offer, a one-act play written by Wendy Wasserstein, All Night Long, and the first American musical adaptation of Jane Eyre. She returned to her theater roots in 1991, when she starred in and produced a Los Angeles production of Butterflies Are Free.

In 2007 Alyssa will begin her new television show Me and Everyone Else. She plays a thirty year old Mia, who is trying to find her way in life. She is also filming a new movie called The Blue Hour; although very little has been released about the film, we know she plays a grieving mother.

Personal life

Milano is an avid fan of tattoos and has seven of them. She is a liberal and supported John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election.
Milano has taken groundbreaking action to protect her rights and the rights of celebrities on the World Wide Web. She has won several copyright infringement suits, and has dedicated the settlement money to the launch of a new search index on the web, Safesearching.com, a global community dedicated to offering a safe way to get the best entertainment information on the Internet.
Milano recently became a National Ambassador for UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund). She traveled to India this summer, as well as Angola in 2004, to work with UNICEF field officers there. In the fall of 2004, she launched UNICEF's pivotal "Trick or Treat" campaign as an official spokesperson. In 2005, she visited India for UNICEF. She raised approximately $50,000 for South African women and children who have AIDS by selling her photo work, and that of a school's.
Milano is also an avid supporter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
Milano announced on June 30, 2006, that she'll be partnering with G-III Apparel Group and Major League Baseball to create a line of ladies' baseball gear designed for juniors.
Milano resides in Los Angeles, California. Outside of acting, her hobbies include photography, humanitarian work and spending time with her 4 dogs; Ripely, Stella, Hugo, and Lucy. 

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Date of birth: 1979-02-21
Birthplace: Waco, Texas, USA
Height: 5' 3"
Nationality: American
Profession: actress, musician 

Jennifer Love Hewitt (born February 21 1979) is an American actress and singer. She is well-known for her roles in the Fox television series Party of Five, as Sarah Reeves, from (1995-1999), and also starred in the I Know What You Did Last Summer films, as Julie James. Hewitt can currently be seen on the CBS television series Ghost Whisperer, as Melinda Gordon, a young newlywed who communicates with the dead. As a singer, her single "How Do I Deal" reached twenty-six on the American charts.

Biography

Early life and career

Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas to Herbert Daniel Hewitt and Patricia Mae Shipp (who are of mostly English descent). she moved to Garland, Texas in 1987, Her father is a technician and her mother worked as a speech pathologist. Hewitt grew up in Harker Heights, Texas. After the divorce of her parents, Hewitt and her only sibling, Todd Hewitt, were brought up by her mother. Her first name was given to her by her brother, after a girl of whom he was fond as a youngster, while her middle name, "Love", was given to her by her mother after her best friend in college.
As a young girl, Hewitt was attracted to music which led to her first encounters with the entertainment industry. At the age of three, she sang "The Greatest Love of All" (as recorded by Whitney Houston) at a livestock show. Just a year after that, at a restaurant-dance hall, she entertained an audience with her version of "Help Me Make It Through the Night". By the time she was five, Hewitt already had tap dancing and ballet in her portfolio. At nine, she became a member of the Texas Show Team (which also toured in the Soviet Union). At the age of ten, at the suggestion of talent scouts, she moved to Los Angeles, California, with her mother to pursue a career in both acting and singing.
After moving to Los Angeles, Hewitt appeared in more than twenty television commercials. Her first break came as a child actor on the Disney Channel variety show Kids Incorporated (1989-1991). In 1992, she played Pierce Brosnan's daughter in a pilot for NBC called Running Wilde, which featured Brosnan as a reporter for Auto World magazine whose stories cover his own wild auto adventures, but the series wasn't picked up and the pilot never aired. She later played on television in several short-lived series, such as Fox's Shaky Ground (1992-1993), ABC's Byrds of Paradise (1994), and McKenna (1994-1995). Finally, Hewitt became a young star after landing the role of Sarah Reeves on the popular Fox Television show Party of Five (1995-1999), joining the cast during its second season. She continued the same role in the short-lived Party of Five spinoff, Time of Your Life (1999). Hewitt was also one of the producers, but the show was cancelled after only half a season.
Her mother is very dear to her. She won sexiest woman of the year in 1997.

Film and music career

She made her film debut in the independent film Munchie (1992). Hewitt became a film star after a lead role in the horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The film had great box-office appeal (125,000,000 U.S. dollars worldwide), and Hewitt became one of the most popular young stars in the USA (together with her co-stars: Freddie Prinze Jr., Ryan Phillippe, and Sarah Michelle Gellar). She also played in the sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). Other notable film roles included the high-school comedy flop Can't Hardly Wait (1998) and a starring role with Sigourney Weaver in the romantic comedy hit Heartbreakers (2001).
In 2000, Hewitt appeared in The Audrey Hepburn Story. That same year, she was the "most popular actress on television" due to her Q-rating (a measurement of a celebrity's popularity) of thirty-seven. For that reason, Nokia chose her to become its spokesperson, because of her "fresh image", and her being "a symbol of youthfulness and wholesomeness". In 2002, she was paired with Jackie Chan in the action comedy The Tuxedo which was a box office bomb.
Since September 2005, Hewitt has starred in the television series Ghost Whisperer. In Australia, Ghost Whisperer has been popular since its introduction; in the United States, the show averages 9-10 million viewers for each new episode.
To date, she has released four albums with some success, most notably in Europe and Japan. Her first album was released in Japan, where she is widely considered a pop star. Her explanation for her success in Japan is that the Japanese "love perky music. The poppier the music, the better."
In March 2005, Hewitt was featured in Maxim magazine and their Girls of Maxim gallery. In May 2006, the magazine named her #29 in their Hot 100 list.

Trivia

• Apparently a big fan of Sizzler restaurants. On a September 21, 2006 appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, she expressed her desire to be a spokesperson for Sizzler.

• She has been dating actor Ross McCall since January 2006.

• According to talkshow interviews, she never learned to ride a bicycle.

Awards

• Blockbuster Entertainment Award — Favorite Female Newcomer (I Know What You Did Last Summer) (1998)
• Blockbuster Entertainment Award — Favorite Actress (I Know What You Did Last Summer) (1998)
• People's Choice Award — Favorite Female Television Performer in a New Series (Time of Your Life) (2000)

Penelope Cruz

Birthname: Penolope Cruz Sonchez
Date of birth: 1974-04-28
Birthplace: Madrid, Spain
Height: 5' 55''
Nationality: Spanish
Profession: Actress, Model

Penélope Cruz Sánchez (born April 28, 1974 in Madrid, Spain), better known as Penélope Cruz (colloquially shortened to Pe), is a Spanish actress. Originally a dancer, she soon moved into Spanish television, and since then she has appeared in a string of films, in Spanish, English, French and Italian, with relative success and some awards.

Biography

Early life

Cruz was born in Madrid and was named after a song by Joan Manuel Serrat. Her parents are Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. She was a dancer as a child and young teen. She completed 2º B.U.P. (2nd year of secondary school), but dropped out of school at the age of 15 after she beat more than 300 other girls in a dance competition. She received nine years of classic ballet training at the Conservatorio Nacional in Madrid, four years of dance performance with several dance courses at the Cristina Rota School in New York, and three years of Spanish Ballet with Ángela Garrido. She also had jazz dance courses with Raúl Caballero.

Career

Cruz first achieved fame when she appeared in the video clip La fuerza del destino for the Spanish synthpop group Mecano. She later started a relationship with Nacho Cano, a member of the group.
She was a TV presenter for the teen-oriented program La Quinta Marcha.
Cruz's first major films were Jamón, Jamón and Belle Epoque, a film which won an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film.
In 1997, she starred as Sofía alongside Eduardo Noriega in Abre los Ojos, directed by Alejandro Amenábar, and in 2000 she appeared with Matt Damon in All the Pretty Horses (film). In 1999, she appeared in Pedro Almodóvar's Todo sobre mi madre, which won an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film.
In early 2001, she appeared in the film Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, which sparked a supposed three-year relationship with the actor. Vanilla Sky was the Hollywood remake of Abre los Ojos ("Open Your Eyes"), and she played the same part in both films.

Personal life

Cruz has a younger brother Eduardo, who is a singer, and a younger sister Mónica Cruz, who closely resembles her: a similarity exploited for some Spanish TV ads. In the 2000s, Mónica left her dancing career and achieved note on her own in the youth-oriented TV series Un Paso Adelante. They are also distant cousins of Alexandra Cruz.
She has been a vegetarian since 2000.
She speaks four languages: Spanish, Italian, French and English. She learned Italian because she wanted a part in the 2004 movie Non ti muovere, and she went on to win the Italian equivalent of the Oscars for Best Actress.
She has donated a considerable amount of money and time to charity. In 1997 she volunteered in Uganda for two months.
After appearing in 2001 in the film Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, they had a three year relationship. Cruise and Cruz split in January 2004.
After filming Sahara in February 2005, she started dating actor Matthew McConaughey. In May 2006, they released a joint statement to People, saying that they "have decided to take time off as a couple. Due to busy work schedules and so much time apart, they mutually decided four weeks ago that separating was the best thing to do at this time."
Spanish press has been linking Cruz to Academy Award winner Adrien Brody, whom she co-stars in the upcoming film Manolete. Cruz herself has denied the rumors.
Cruz is best friends with actress/producer, Salma Hayek. The two co-stared in the 2006 movie Bandidas. 

Claudia Schiffer

Date of birth: 1970-08-25
Birthplace: Rheinberg, Germany
Height: 5' 11"
Nationality: German
Profession: actress, model

Claudia Schiffer (born August 25, 1970) is a German supermodel and actress, who reached the height of her popularity during the 1990s.
Claudia Schiffer was born in Rheinberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and began modelling in 1987, after being spotted in a nightclub in Düsseldorf. Just weeks later she appeared in ELLE and within a short time she began modelling for Chanel. In the early 1990s she starred in Guess? jeans adverts in North America. She has appeared in a number of films and has also appeared in the music video of Westlife's cover of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl," as the iconic uptown girl. In 1993, she appeared in the children's movie, Richie Rich.
Schiffer was engaged to the magician David Copperfield for about 6 years until 1999 when she met Tim Jefferies. The magazine, Paris Match, claimed their engagement was possibly contractual, but this assertion was later found to be dubious by a French Court.
On 25 May, 2002, she married film producer Matthew Vaughn, son of George Albert Harley Drummond (also known as George de Vere Drummond). Schiffer and Vaughn have two children together; son Caspar Matthew, born 30 January, 2003 and daughter Clementine, born 11 November, 2004. They all now live in London.

Trivia

• Claudia holds the record for the supermodel with the most magazine covers. She has graced over 900