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Amy Irving Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Amy Irving.jpg

A dark-haired beauty with striking eyes and an intelligent air, Amy Irving seemingly came by her talent genetically: Her father Jules was an accomplished stage director and her mother Priscilla Pointer is a fine character actress. (Pointer has often been teamed onscreen with her offspring, playing either the mother or a motherly figure to characters essayed by Irving.) Although she actually began her career as a guest performer in episodic television and on stage, Irving shot to attention as Sue Snell, the sole teen survivor of Brian De Palma’s splashy “Carrie” (1976). Irving lent her astringent good looks and spunk to De Palma’s “The Fury” (1978), playing a woman with psychokinetic powers, and to her portrayal of an Indian princess in love with a British cavalryman (Ben Cross) in the HBO miniseries “The Far Pavilions” (1984). She also triumphed on Broadway, first as Constanza Weber, the wife of Mozart, in “Amadeus” (1980) and again as Ellie to Rex Harrison’s Shotover in a 1983 revival of Shaw’s “Heartbreak House”. Despite having some misgivings over the role, Irving accepted the part of Hadass, the bride of “Yentl” (1983), a woman masquerading as a man, in Barbra Streisand’s directorial debut. Despite the inherent pitfalls, she imbued the role with a delicacy and intelligence that was rewarded with an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress.

Despite her strong performances, for much of the late 1970s and into the 80s, Irving was better known for her on-again, off-again relationship with rising director Steven Spielberg. Their 1985 marriage overshadowed her career. With the perspective of hindsight, the actress told THE LOS ANGELES TIMES (April 17, 1994): “During my marriage to Steven, I felt like a politician’s wife. There were certain things expected of me that definitely weren’t me. One of my problems is that I’m very honest and direct. You pay a price for that. But then I behaved myself and I paid a price too.” Despite putting these pressures on herself, she continued with her career, turning in well-rounded portrayals of a woman who may or may not be the Czar’s daughter in “Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna” (NBC, 1986) and a sophisticated New Yorker who is romanced by a pickle seller in “Crossing Delancey” (1988). Irving also displayed her sultry vocal abilities providing the singing voice of the animated Jessica Rabbit in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (also 1988; Kathleen Turner provided the speaking voice). During the filming of “A Show of Force” (1990), the actress, cast as Puerto Rican TV journalist, fell in love with the film’s Brazilian director Bruno Barreto.

After an amicable split from Spielberg in 1989, she and Barreto moved in together and gave birth to their son in 1990. After playing a brassy blonde cocktail waitress in “Benefit of the Doubt” (1993), her husband gave her a fine role as a middle-aged schoolteacher finding romance in “Carried Away” (1996). Irving continued to return to the stage as well, headlining the West Coast production of Wendy Wasserstein’s “The Heidi Chronicles” (1990), playing a Brooklyn woman who suffers paralysis from her over-identification with German Jews in Arthur Miller’s Broadway play “Broken Glass” (1995), and teaming with Lili Taylor and Jeanne Tripplehorn as Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” (1997). Irving again teamed with Barreto to play an acerbic, overly-ambitious FBI agent in “One Tough Cop” (1998), based on the life of NYC policeman Bo Dietl, and as an American teacher in Brazil who finds unexpected romance in “Bossa Nova” (2000). The actress also revisited the role of Sue Snell in the sequel “The Rage: Carrie II” (1999).

Irving appeared as part of director Steven Soderberg’s high-powered acting ensemble in 2000’s traffic, playing the wife of Michael Douglas’ drug czar and mother to their troubled drug addict daughter, and the critically acclaimed indie “13 Conversations about One Thing.” In 2002 she reunited with Spacek in another feature film, this time a family-oriented flip side to their “Carrie” collaboration, Disney’s adaptation of author Natalie Babbitt’s children’s classic “Tuck Everlasting.” She also was featured in a recurring role on the ABC spy series “Alias.”

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Significant Others
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Celebrity Biography
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Jill Hennessy Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Jill Hennessy.jpg

A slender, dark-haired beauty with an intelligent demeanor and an attractive alto voice, Jill Hennessy made her Broadway debut as the Puerto Rican wife of the singer in “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” in 1990 and, after a handful of TV appearances, got her break in 1993 when she was cast as assistant district attorney Claire Kincaid on the engrossing NBC police and courtroom drama series “Law & Order”. The show had been running for several seasons, but personnel changes had already occurred, and Hennessy’s coolly confident manner meshed well with those of her more experienced co-stars. That same year, the Canadian actress played her first prominent feature film role, that of Dr. Marie, the mechanized hero’s smart chemist, in the ill-advised sequel, “Robocop 3″. Hennessy later acted smaller supporting roles in the modestly satirical comedy-drama “The Paper” (1994), as Robert Duvall’s daughter. and “I Shot Andy Warhol” (1996), as a reporter.

After three seasons playing the buttoned-down lawyer on “Law & Order”, Hennessy asked to leave the series to try her hand at other ventures. Fearful of becoming typecast as ultra-serious and subdued because of her TV persona, the actress turned to comedy to undertake the thankless role of a predatory architect with designs on married construction worker Greg Kinnear in the cutesy “A Smile Like Yours” (1997). In 1999, Hennessy displayed her versatility as the patient lover of an Indian woman who has decided to act as a surrogate mother for her sister in “Chutney Popcorn”. She then portrayed the doctor who was able to turn an autistic woman into a genius in the fable-like “Molly” (also 1999). The actress returned to TV once again playing a lawyer, this time one assisting in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the acclaimed 2000 TNT production “Nuremberg”. Hennessy next portrayed First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the miniseries “Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot” (NBC, 2001) and was seen on the big screen as a cop in the actioner “Exit Wounds” (2001).

In the fall, the performer returned to the weekly series grind, this time headlining the NBC drama “Crossing Jordan”. Cast as an unconventional medical examiner who has returned to her hometown of Boston, Hennessy’s Jordan Cavannaugh was a dedicated if impetuous person who often went beyond the call of duty looking for clues. Working well with a cast that included Ken Howard (as her father) and Miguel Ferrer (as her boss), the actress had a chance to create a complex, intelligent female character that audiences seemed to embrace.

While she had committed to the small screen, Hennessy continued to seek out intriguing feature roles as well. She co-starred in the romantic comedy “The End of Love” (2002), which screened at Sundance and also wrote, co-directed and starred in the comedy “The Acting Class” (lensed 2000), which featured cameo appearances by former “Law & Order” co-stars Jerry Orbach, Chris Noth and Benjamin Bratt.

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Celebrity Biography
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Helena Bonham Carter Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

helena_bonham_carter_biography.jpg

While she may seemingly be typecast in period films, Helena Bonham Carter has proven her range and ability in a variety of roles in her relatively short career. As a teenager, the pale-skinned, dark-haired beauty won a writing contest and used the proceeds to buy an advertisement in a British casting guide. The great-granddaughter of British Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, Bonham Carter has often been cast in solemn aristocratic roles. To some, she has become the quintessential Edwardian heroine, particularly after her successful turns in several adaptations of E M Forster novels.

Her dark looks and heart-shaped face made Bonham Carter a perfect choice for her first film lead in Trevor Nunn’s film version of the life of the doomed Tudor monarch “Lady Jane” (1986). Despite her relative youth, she was also able to project the requisite mix of hauteur and innocence required for the role. Her second film, the Merchant-Ivory production of Forster’s “A Room With a View” (1986), firmly established her as a screen presence. As Lucy Honeychurch, Bonham Carter perfectly essayed a young woman swept up in passion. She further solidified her stereotyping as a “period player” with her dead-on mad Ophelia to Mel Gibson’s “Hamlet” (1990), by playing the impulsive younger sister of Emma Thompson in Merchant-Ivory’s meticulous rendering of “Howards End” (1992) and her turn as the delicate love interest of scientist Kenneth Branagh in “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” (1994).

Breaking free from her usual fare, Bonham Carter delivered a fine portrayal of a drug addict engaged to Don Johnson’s detective on NBC’s “Miami Vice” in 1987. She won applause as a working-class stripper in the British TV-movie “Dancing Queen” and was superb as Marina Oswald in the NBC telefilm “Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald” (both 1993). As Woody Allen’s unhappy spouse contemplating an affair in “Might Aphrodite” (1995), Bonham Carter seemed to be eerily channeling Mia Farrow, especially in her vocal cadences. The role of the foul-mouthed, married coal miner’s daughter in the Canadian-made “Margaret’s Museum” (also 1995) earned her fine notices (and a Genie Award) but the film was little seen.

Returning to the bread-and-butter roles in period garb, Trevor Nunn tapped her for Olivia in his filming of “Twelfth Night” (1996). For personal reasons, Bonham Carter turned down the role of Bess in Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” (1996) and watched Emily Watson receive critical bouquets and accolades. In 1997, it was her turn in what many felt was the best role of her career to date. As the manipulative Kate Croy, a role that in another era may have been played by Bette Davis, in Iain Softley’s “The Wings of the Dove”, Bonham Carter finely walked a line between desperation and hedonism (and also performed her first nude scenes). Her imaginative and finely calibrated performance earned her a number of year-end critics’ awards and spawned talk of an Oscar nomination. After a turn as a dowdy spinster in “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, she and Branagh reunited for the modern romance “Theory of Flight” (both 1998), in which she essayed a victim of motor neuron disease. And not forsaking period roles, Bonham Carter was the bewitching Morgan Le Fey opposite Sam Neill’s “Merlin” (NBC, 1998).

In 1999, she once again left behind the petticoats and pretty frocks to essay a contemporary neurotic, a woman who attends various self-help groups just for a kick, opposite Edward Norton and Brad Pitt in the intriguing if not wholly satisfying “Fight Club”. Bonham Carter easily made Marla a complex yet sexily engaging character and the change of pace made audiences and critics recognize anew her prodigious gifts. For her next high profile role — that of the sympathetic Ari in the new adaptation of “Planet of the Apes” (2001) for director Tim Burton, the actress’ pretty features were covered with simian makeup. Still, her expressive eyes and plummy voice made her recognizable and she once again offered a fine turn. Later that year, Bonham Carter once again played an alluring siren as a patient who drives her dentist (Steve Martin) into a world of sex, drugs and murder in the thriller “Novocaine” (2001).

In 2003, Bonham Carter was cast in Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s “The Heart of Me”. That same year, she lured Guy Pearce into a supernatural mystery as the enigmatic amnesiac, Ruby, in the haunting tale, “Till Human Voices Wake Us.” Her personal relationship with Burton flourished as well as her professional relationship, in 2003 the couple had their first child and Bonham Carter appeared as a one-eyed witch with a glass eye in his appealing film “Big Fish.” After the critical success of “Big Fish,” Bonham Carter reunited with Burton for his next film, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (2005), a remake of the Mel Stuart’s “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (1971) that hewed closer to the original Roald Dahl novel, in which she played the downtrodden yet hopeful mother of the young protagonist Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore). Next for the actress were vocal roles in two popular films that happened to be stop-motion-animated: she provided the voice of the titular undead ghoul in her companion’s macabre “Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride,” as well as Lady Campanula Tottington, who hires the cheese-loving inventor and his faithful dog to battle a marauding veggie-chomping beast in “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” (both 2005).

* Also Credited As:Helena Bonham-Carter

* Born:on 05/26/66 in London, England

* Job Titles:Actor, Model

Family

* Brother: Edward Bonham Carter. older

* Brother: Thomas Bonham Carter. served in the Irish Guards; older

* Father: Raymond Bonham Carter. was alternate UK director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC for two years in the 1960s; became ill when Bonham Carter was around 10 years old; suffered a stroke while undergoing an operation to remove a benign brain tumor; subsequently confined to a wheelchair

* Grandmother: Violet Bonham Carter.

* Great-grandfather: Herbert Henry Asquith. was Liberal Party prime minister in England

* Great-uncle: Anthony Asquith. made such famous and acclaimed English features as “Pygmalion” (1938), “Quiet Wedding” (1940), “The Browning Version” (1950) and “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1952)

* Mother: Elena Bonham Carter. half-Spanish, half-French; reportedly had a nervous breakdown when Bonham Carter was five years old

Significant Others

* Companion: Kenneth Branagh. together from c. 1994 to summer 1999; co-starred together in “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” (1994) and “Theory of Flight” (1998)

* Companion: Tim Burton. born in 1958; directed her in “Planet of the Apes” (2001); reportedly began relationship in October 2001

Education

* Westminster School, London, England

Milestones

* 1979 At age 13, entered national writing contest; used money won in poetry competition to pay for her entry into the actor’s directory, “Spotlight”

* 1982 Professional acting debut, a commercial at age 16

* 1983 Acting debut in British telefilm, “A Pattern of Roses”

* 1985 Feature film debut, “Lady Jane”, directed by Trevor Nunn

* 1986 First collaboration with director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, “A Room with a View”, which brought her to international attention

* 1987 Played Don Johnson’s girlfriend in two episodes of “Miami Vice”

* 1987 US TV-movie debut in “A Hazard of Hearts” (CBS)

* 1988 London stage debut, “The Woman in White”

* 1990 Co-starred as Ophelia to Mel Gibson’s “Hamlet”, directed by Franco Zeffirelli

* 1992 Cast as Emma Thompson’s sister in the Merchant-Ivory production “Howards End”

* 1993 Played Marina Oswald in the NBC TV-movie “Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald”

* 1994 Did a comic cameo as a dream version of Julia Sawalha’s Saffron on the comedy “Absolutely Fabulous”

* 1994 Portrayed Elizabeth, Victor Frankenstein’s lover, in Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”

* 1995 Appeared as Woody Allen’s American wife in “Mighty Aphrodite”

* 1995 Played a foul-mouthed miner’s daughter in the Canadian film “Margaret’s Museum”

* 1996 Returned to Shakespeare to play Olivia in Trevor Nunn’s “Twelfth Night”

* 1997 Garnered critical attention and accolades for her performance as the manipulative Kate Croy in “The Wings of the Dove”; nominated for a Best Actress Oscar

* 1998 Cast as Morgan Le Fey in the NBC miniseries “Merlin”

* 1998 Played a wheelchair-bound woman in “Theory of Flight”

* 1999 Co-starred in “Women Talking Dirty”; screened at the Toronto Film Festival

* 1999 Was the female lead opposite Brad Pitt and Edward Norton in “Fight Club”

* 2001 Played Ari, the ape daughter of a powerful politician, in Tim Burton’s adaptation of “Planet of the Apes”

* 2001 Starred opposite Steve Martin in the thriller “Novocaine”

* 2002 Co-starred in the feature drama “Live From Baghdad“; received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie

* 2003 Co-starred in the 1930’s based-on-a-novel feature “The Heart of Me”

* 2003 Co-starred with Ewan McGregor and Alison Lohman in “Big Fish”

* 2003 Received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress In A Miniseries Or A Moviefor her role in “Live From Baghdad”

* 2003 Starred opposite Guy Pearce in the supernatural thriller “Till Human Voices Wake Us”

* 2005 Cast as Charlie’s mother in Tim Burton’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic tale “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”

* 2005 Voiced the title role in Tim Burton’s animated feature “Corpse Bride”

Celebrity Biography