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Naomi Shows Her Ugly Side

Posted by Vogt
at June 2, 2008

Naomi Campbell

Ugly Betty just got a beauty of a guest star. Lookswise, anyway.

An ABC rep has confirmed to News that Naomi Campbell will be bringing her arresting screen presence and her own rather infamous brand of drama to the fashion-forward hit, signing on to guest star in the show's second-season finale May 22.

The 37-year-old, who's no stranger to acting out (albeit not on camera) has yet to film her part for the episode. While the show's brain trust is mum on her role, she presumably will follow the high-heeled footsteps of former guest stars Victoria Beckham and Gene Simmons and play herselfor at least a version of herself that's appropriate for family-hour television.

Campbell was originally tapped to appear as a guest star last year but, for reasons unknown, that casting coup never materialized. She was again due to appear earlier this year, but the writers' strike derailed those plans.

Warning to the wardrobe department: Unless you're itching for a concussion, guard her jeans with your life.

Celebrity Stories
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Madonna Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Madonna Biography.jpg

A pop diva of the 1980s, Madonna created a raunchy blonde bombshell persona that propelled such music-video hits as “Like a Virgin” (1984), “Material Girl” (1985), “Like a Prayer” (1989), “Vogue” (1990) and “Justify My Love” (1991). A high-energy performer of aggressively sexual and irreverent material who has been called “the queen of bimbo rock” and a “punk Mae West”, Madonna has outraged many with her messages of assertiveness and kinky sexuality as well as her outrageously suggestive costuming. Her champions, however, have praised her catchy, danceable music (most of which she co-writes and produces), her iconoclastic humor, her bravado in expressing female desire, her provocative assaults on such sacred cows as interracial relationships, homophobia and ignorance about birth control, her shrewd business sense and her post-modern performance style, ideally suited to the end of the 20th century.

The working-class Midwesterner moved to New York in 1978 to become a dancer, but after several false starts as a model and actress (in an underground soft-core feature, “A Certain Sacrifice”, 1979), she hit the clubs and made her name as a high-energy singer. Vibrantly ambitious, Madonna propelled herself to pop stardom, becoming the first queen of the MTV era by the mid-80s. After a cameo appearance in the film “Vision Quest” (1985), she had her first starring role as the rule-breaking, free-living, punk title character in Susan Seidelman’s “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985). It won her acclaim as a unique new screen presence and showed her talent at wisecracking farce, not unlike tough 30s comics Patsy Kelly and Thelma Todd.

Madonna’s subsequent film performances, however, have proven less than sensational and it has been said that she is an actress “desperately seeking a role.” While never abandoning her music, she has tried to refashion herself into a modern-day Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich. In 1986, she co-starred with then-husband Sean Penn in the flop comedy “Shanghai Surprise”. Despite her charmingly kooky performance, her next film, the screwball “Who’s That Girl?” (1987) also bombed. She got an “A” for effort for her Broadway debut in the underwritten female role in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow” (1988). Madonna went on to appear in a small role in the episodic period film “Bloodhounds of Broadway” (1989), then turned on the high-voltage glamour to good effect as Breathless Mahoney in the big-budgeted Warren Beatty showcase “Dick Tracy” (1990).

In 1991, Madonna returned to the character she plays best–herself–in Alek Keshishian’s behind-the-scenes documentary of her Blonde Ambition tour, “Truth or Dare”. A riveting, self-important and fascinating look at superstardom, it is overshadowed only by comedienne Julie Brown’s dead-on parody, “Medusa: Dare to be Truthful”. Madonna engaged in unintentional self-parody with “Sex” (1992), an X-rated photo book of herself and “friends” disporting themselves. She earned her best notices since “Susan” for another tough-gal comic role, in Penny Marshall’s ensemble film “A League of Their Own” (1992). As WWII baseball player Mae Mordabito, Madonna expertly played off co-stars Geena Davis and Rosie O’Donnell and once again proved what a smart, funny performer she could be.

But Madonna’s hoped-for dramatic breakthrough continued to elude her: the over-wrought melodramas “Body of Evidence” and “Dangerous Game” (both 1993) quickly disappeared. She made cameo appearances as a hooker in Woody Allen’s “Shadows and Fog” (1991), as a singing telegram girl in Wayne Wang’s “Blue in the Face” (1995), portrayed a witch in Allison Anders’ segment of the critically lambasted “Four Rooms” (1995) and briefly appears as a phone sex veteran in and Spike Lee’s “Girl 6″ (1996). Madonna was cast in what many feel was a role she was born to play, the Argentine First Lady Eva Peron in Alan Parker’s film musical “Evita” (1996).

The Material Girl’s seemingly inexhaustible energy continued to propel her through a number of projects, despite her new role as a mother. While continuing to actively develop projects at her Maverick company, she released the electectronica influenced album album “Ray of Light” to rave reviews in 1998. Sporting an unbelivably fit post-birth body in the trendy dance floor video which accompanied the video for the “Ray of Light” single, Madonna proved once again how adept she is at morphing into just the right thing at just the right time. She also proved still influential in pushing trends and ideas forward: her commitment to the religion Kaballah, which influenced the album, helped popularlize its practice outside of its core followers and a small cadre of the Hollywood elite. She followed up the success of this album with the smash hit from the “Austin Powers” soundtrack in 1999, the infectious tune “Beautiful Stranger.” In 2000, Maddonna starred in the film “The Next Best Thing” opposite Rupert Everett but she found that she still could not find the success in acting that has come so easily to her in her pop career. The movie was not a hit but, not surprisingly, her “Drowned World Tour” of 2001 was a phenomenal success.

Now a mother of two and wife to acclaimed director Guy Ritchie, Madonna showed no signs of slowing her takeover of the world. In 2002, she made her stage debut in London, to mixed but not horribly scathing reviews and also began working on her husband’s next film “Swept Away,” playing the role of a rich and spoiled, arrogant wife who finally meets her match in a brash fisherman who despises her all-consuming self obsession. That same year, Madonna also made the switch from “Material Girl” to Bond Girl, writing and performing the title song to the 20th 007 outing “Die Another Day” and appearing in a cameo role in the action film. She proved to still be able to capture headlines when she appeared on stage with the of-the-moment superstars Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at the 2003 MTV Music Video Awards and shared a steamy lip-lock with Spears (the two later collaborated on Spears’ single “Me Against the Music”). In 2005 she released her latest album “Confeessions on a Dance Floor,” which completely set aside any ballads in favor of a full slate of dance tunes.

In additon to her musical and acting efforts, Madonna also had a successful side career as a bestselling children’s book author, penning 2003’s The English Roses and Mr. Peabody’s Apples 2004’s Yakov and the Seven Thieves and The Adventures of Abdi and 2005’s Losta de Casha

Significant Others

Education

Milestones
Celebrity Biography
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Anne Hathaway Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Anne_Hathaway.jpg

With her long dark hair, large expressive eyes and obvious talent, Anne Hathaway was earmarked as one to watch from the time she made her primetime acting debut as eldest daughter Meghan Green in the short-lived Fox drama series “Get Real” (1999-2000). The Brooklyn-born, New Jersey-raised player developed her craft as a child performer in theater, earning her stripes in several productions at the famed Paper Mill Playhouse (including “Gigi” with Gavin MacLeod and early stagings of the musical version of “Jane Eyre”). Hathaway was reportedly also the first and (to date) only teenager accepted into the acting program at The Barrow Group based in Manhattan.

Although she had attempted to land Broadway roles, Hathaway found her height (five feet eight inches) and youth detrimental. (She was too tall to be accepted in children’s roles and too young-looking to portray adult parts.) She was perfect for TV and films, though, and soon landed the part of the overachieving high schooler on “Get Real” which earned her positive critical reviews. Segueing to the big screen, Hathaway was cast in the independently produced fact-based tale of a missionary to Tonga “The Other Side of Heaven,” which did not make it to theaters until 2002. Instead, audiences first saw the actress as Mia, an awkward San Francisco teen who learns she’s actually royalty, in the comedy “The Princess Diaries” (2001), directed by veteran Garry Marshall. Holding her own with such talented co-stars as Julie Andrews (as her grandmother), Hector Elizondo (as an adviser) and Heather Matarazzo as Mia’s pal, Hathaway proved a supple comic and displayed a commanding screen presence that could easily lead to a long and distinguished career. The actress reprised her role in the equally entertaining sequel “The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement” (2004), the same year she appeared in the fantasy twist of the Cinderella story, “Ella Enchanted,” in which her character Ella is bound by a spell of obedience that is the reason for her shrinking violet nature.

Attempting to more into more adult territory, in 2003 Hathaway appeared in the feature “Havoc” as part of a group of Beverly Hills high school students who are heavily influenced by the hip-hop culture of kids from South Central are taught a lesson by one of their teachers when tragedy strikes the affluent teens. Though it aspired to be edgy–Hathaway ditched her good-girl image for her first nude sex scene in the film–the inauthentic movie was never able to find distribution and went staright to video in 2005. A much better step on the road to more mature roles came with her knowing performance in director Ang Lee’s sensitive and haunting “Brokeback Mountain” (2005), in which she played the sexy, rodeo-riding Texan Lurleen, who becomes the well-off wife of ranch hand Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), despite his closeted, years-long love affair with another cowboy (Heath Ledger). The actress was poised to break into the elite ranks of Hollywood’s leading ladies when she was cast as Andrea Sachs, the heroine of the film adaptation of the juicy bestseller “The Devil Wears Prada” (lensed 2005), a small-town girl who takes a job working for the imperious editor (Meryl Streep) of a New York fashion magazine.

Family
Significant Others
Education
Milestones
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”

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