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Audrina Patridge: Trying to Move Out Of The Hills

Posted by Vogt
at May 22, 2008

Audrina Patridge: Trying to Move Out Of The Hills

Proving that Joel and Benji Madden’s clothing boutique DCMA Collective isn’t just for rock star guys, Audrina Patridge invaded the newly-opened store to pick up a few items.

Following a lunch out with some friends, the “Hills” beauty did some DCMA shopping, along with her boyfriend Bernard Steimann.

And it sounds like Miss Patridge may be getting ready to hang up her “Hills” gig in favor of some big screen stardom.  She’s hired a new agent and has already begun scoping out new projects.

Jonathan Perry from the Agency for Performing Arts told press, “We only just started working with her, but are already in talks for a feature film.”

“She wants to do other things besides stay in that reality space.  We are going to be getting her some television roles outside of The Hills, if they allow it. A lot of it is going to depend on what The Hills will be signing off on.”

“Audrina is interested in a lot of things, and I know she wants to get more involved with the Hollywood community on many levels.  We just started working with her a week ago. Our job is to create opportunity for her.”

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Melina Kanakaredes Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Melina Kanakaredes Biography.jpg

With her wavy brunette hair, piercing green eyes and expressive personality, Melina Kanakaredes has been winning fans since her 1991 breakout role as Greek immigrant Eleni Andros on CBS’ daytime serial “Guiding Light”. The Ohio-born former beauty contestant spent nearly five years playing the character who moved from wide-eyed innocent to more mature wife and mother, earning a Daytime Emmy nod along the way. Her talent and abilities transcended the genre and like others who began their days in daytime (e.g., Meg Ryan, Marisa Tomei), it seemed only a matter of time before she would make the leap to primetime and features. Kanakaredes made her feature debut in Gregory Hines’ uneven portrait of an interracial romance “Bleeding Hearts” (1994) and went on to small roles in “The Long Kiss Goodnight” (1996), “Dangerous Beauty” and “Rounders” (both 1998) and “15 Minutes” (2001).

But that one role which would propel her to the ranks of A-list screen actresses remained elusive. Instead, Kanakaredes has made strong impressions in a number of small screen parts. She first caught the attention of primetime viewers in the recurring role of the journalist girlfriend of Jimmy Smits’ Bobby Simone on “NYPD Blue” (1995) and as a mysterious woman from the past of Royal Canadian Mountie Benton Fraser on the two-part finale of CBS’ “Due South”. The actress had her first regular role in primetime as tabloid reporter Angela Villanova on the short-lived “New York News” (CBS. 1995). In 1999, Kanakaredes finally achieved small screen stardom as Dr. Sydney Hansen, a California-based plastic surgeon who returns to her New England home in the soapy but highly watchable “Providence” (NBC, 1999-2002). While critics carped over the show’s maudlin plotlines and dream sequences (in which Sydney communicates with her dead mother) and pronounced the show “awful”, “Providence” proved a winner, debuting as the highest-rated new drama since “ER” and catapulting its lead to stardom.

After the series folded, the actress took to the stage as Sally Bowles in a revival of the Broadway play “Cabaret” and shot the indie film “Into the Fire” (2004) before making her return to primtime network TV with a smart choice, joining the thrid instalment of the popular forensic-oriented police drama franchise “CSI: New York” (CBS, 2004 - ) as Det. Stella Bonasera.

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Angelina Jolie Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Angelina Jolie Biography.jpg

With her long legs, ample bee-stung lips and striking deep-set blue eyes, Angelina Jolie may have been destined for screen stardom even without the benefit of her acting lineage or her considerable talent. The daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, she began studying acting at age 11 at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in NYC. Even before commencing her formal training, Jolie made her screen debut as a tyke in a bit part in the Hal Ashby-directed comedy “Lookin’ to Get Out” (filmed in 1980; released 1982). Co-scripted and co-produced by her father, the movie was savaged by reviewers but its littlest thespian emerged unscathed.

Abandoning her youthful plans to become a funeral director, Jolie segued to show business as a professional model and actress in music videos. She went on to appear in five student films directed by her older brother, James Haven Voight, and as part of the Met Theater in Los Angeles honed her craft alongside such veteran players as Holly Hunter, Ed Harris and Amy Madigan. Jolie returned to the screen in “Cyborg II: Glass Shadows” (1993), a better than average direct-to-video sci-fi actioner in which she played a heroic human-machine hybrid but garnered more attention and better notices in the cyber-thriller “Hackers” (1995). Playing Kate (a.k.a. ‘Acid Burn’), she was paired with rising young British actor Jonny Lee Miller as teen computer whizzes battling an evil genius. The film fizzled at the box office but the romantic leads sizzled and were briefly married from 1996 to 1999.

More film work readily followed, initially in small-scale character-driven indies including an indifferently received adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel “Foxfire” (1996), where she played a mysterious outsider named Legs Sadovsky–described in Variety as “sort of a female James Dean”–who helps some other teenaged girls stand up for their rights. Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna’s romantic comedy-drama “Love Is All There Is” (also 1996) displayed Jolie in a humorous and innocent light as half of a pair of star-crossed lovers divided by their families’ feud. That same year, she appeared in the high-minded suspense drama “Without Evidence”, playing a drug-addicted teen, and “Mojave Moon”, opposite car dealer Danny Aiello as what Variety called “a male fantasy figure who rapidly alternates between nymphomaniac and ice maiden”. “Playing God” (1997) was next, and Jolie capably essayed a woman torn between her gangster boyfriend (Timothy Hutton) and a discredited doctor (David Duchovny) in his employ. While the films remained unseen by most moviegoers, Jolie received strong notices for each of these projects.

As with many performers, Jolie had no compunction about working on the small screen and, in fact, has appeared in a handful of exceptional productions, including a co-starring role alongside Annabeth Gish and Dana Delany as Texas pioneers in the 1997 CBS historical miniseries “True Women”. Jolie then brought a fiery passion to her portrayal of Cornelia Wallace, the politician’s first wife, in the biographical miniseries “George Wallace” (TNT, 1997). But it was her dazzling turn as another real-life figure that catapulted her into public consciousness. Her brave, sensitive performance as the drug-addicted, AIDS-stricken model Gia Carangi in HBO’s “Gia” (1998) brought her widespread critical acclaim. Jolie was twice Emmy-nominated in 1998 in the supporting category for “George Wallace” (losing to co-star Mare Winningham) and as in the leading one for “Gia” (losing to Ellen Barkin). She did, however, win back-to-back Golden Globe Awards for the performances.

After this spate of acclaimed appearances in highly-rated television productions, Jolie found her way to roles in films that similarly showcased her acting strength. She received special notice for her work in the comedy-drama “Playing By Heart” (1998), as Joan, an outgoing club kid smitten with the sullen Keenan (Ryan Phillippe). Vivid and engaging, Jolie easily held her own among an ensemble cast featuring such luminaries as Gena Rowlands and Sean Connery. The actress joined John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton in Mike Newell’s NYC-set comedy about air traffic controllers, “Pushing Tin” (1999), playing Thornton’s raucous wife, and played a tough detective assisting a quadriplegic colleague (Denzel Washington) in the search for a serial killer in the crime thriller “The Bone Collector”. Jolie rounded out the year landing the sought after co-starring role of a sociopathic inmate in a psychiatric hospital in “Girl, Interrupted”, based on Susanna Kaysen’s best-selling memoir of her own two-year stay in a similar institution. Her showy co-starring turn netted her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and her equally showy personal life–which included a eyebrow-raising close relationship with her lookalike brother James Haven, exotic tattoos, knife collections, provocative revalations and intimations of a profoundly edgy sex life–captivated the public.

Media saturation ensued when she became the fifth wife the equally eccentirc and significantly older actor Billy Bob Thornton, a match made in tabloid heaven, in May of 2000–the couple’s constant declarations of love and erotic devotion to each other was capped by the revelation that they wore vials of one another’s blood around their necks. On-screen, the actress continued portraying tough young women, this time a car thief, in the flashy but unfulfilling car heist thriller “Gone in 60 Seconds” (2000) opposite Nicolas Cage and as the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the titular, wildly popular, shorts-wearing video game action heroine “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (2001), an Indiana Jones-style adventure which failed to impress critics but racked up a healthy box office take–the action flick also marked her first adult collaboration with her father, who played her character’s father in the film. Jolie was unable to capitalize on her goth sex goddess image when she played opposite Antonio Banderas in the dismal wannabe noir “Original Sin” (2001) despite some steamy–and heavily hyped–erotic sequences, and her follow-up dramatic vehicle “Life or Something Like It” (2002), in which she played a superficial, platinum blonde newscaster forced to examine her existence more closely, also fizzled quickly.

Jolie subsequently took a significant hiatus from film but continued to make headlines in her personal life, including taking a significant interest in the plight of violence-torn nations, and publicly feuding with her father after he suggested on television that she was having emotional problems and ultimately divorcing Thornton in 2003 amid rumors of his infidelity (which he denied). The actress returned to familiar territory for her comeback screen vehicle, the sequel “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life” (2003), a lackluster follow-up to a lackluster first outing; followed by a turn in the too-righteous political/romantic drama “Beyond Borders” (2003); then a dangerous foray into Ashley Judd territory by starring the routine thriller “Taking Lives” (2004) as an FBI profiler caught up in dangerous and erotic intrigue. Slowly squandered in subpar films, Jolie remained an actress who excites interest but whose projects to not capitalize on her potential. The actress adopted another arch accent as she winkingly played the eyepatch-sporting Captain Frankie Cook, the leader of an all-female amphibious attack squadron, in the retro action-adventure “Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow” (2004) opposite Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, battling giant robots in an Art Deco, 1930s-era envionment. Then she lent her voice to the finny femme fatale Lola in DreamWorks’ CGI-animated underwater underworld opus “Shark Tale” (2004) and has a bizarrely seductive turn as Alexander the Great’s mother Olympias, who raises her son to believe in his impressive destiny, in Oliver Stone’s epic historical drama “Alexander the Great”–despite being only one year older than the actor playing her son, Colin Farrell.

Jolie’s profile as both a movie star and public figure was raised to more epic proporions when she co-starred with the equally gorgeous actor Brad Pitt in the Doug Liman-helmed action-fest “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” (2005), in which the actors played a bored married couple surprised to learn that they are each secretly assassins, ultimately hired to kill each other. Rumors quickly abounded that a on-set romance between Jolie and Pitt was a contributing factor to Pitt’s subsequent spit from his high-profile marriage to Jennifer Aniston. Though both actors initially refuted the rumors–and, after frequently being photographed together in their private lives, took a coyer stance later on–the intense media and public interest in their possible relationship propelled the film to huge box office receipts, thanks in large part to their palpable on-screen chemistry. Their “are they or aren’t they?” coupling captivated star watchers and was the most written-about celebrity story of 2005 (prompting the coining of the term “Brangelina”) as their relationship gradually emerged in the public eye as Pitt accompanied Jolie on her missions of mercy to third world nations, petitioned to adopt her two adopted children, and ultimately revealed that he and Jolie were expecting their own biological child together as well.

Away from the screen, Jolie’s expressed a dedication and commitment to increasing awareness and aid to counties devastated by internal and external conflicts, disease and third world conditions. In 2001, after the actress made several trips to the war-torn nations of Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Pakistan, Jolie was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In 2002 she adopted a baby boy from a Cambodian orphange whom she named Maddox, and in 2005 she adopted an infant daughter from an Ethiopian orphanage whom she named Zahara.

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Courteney Cox Arquette Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Courteney Cox Arquette.jpg

A whisper-thin, raven-haired beauty of TV and film, Courteney Cox first registered with audiences when she was plucked from the crowd by Bruce Springsteen in the Brian De Palma-directed video for The Boss’ hit 1984 single “Dancing in the Dark”. Work for the prestigious Ford Modeling Agency and appearances in Noxzema and Maybelline commercials (among others) and a bit part on the CBS soap “As the World Turns” preceded the video, after which she snagged a regular role in the short-lived primetime series “Misfits of Science” (NBC, 1985-86). Cox then joined the cast of the hit NBC sitcom “Family Ties” for the final two seasons (1987-89) as the brainy girlfriend of Alex P Keaton (Michael J Fox). She made the leap to the big screen, appearing in the little-seen caper film “Down Twisted” and the children’s sci-fi epic “Masters of the Universe” (both 1987), and “Cocoon: The Return” (1988), none of which registered much with critics or audiences.

For the rest of the 80s and into the early 90s, Cox alternated between TV and feature films, often trading on her girl-next-door qualities. While she landed the female lead opposite Jim Carrey in the smash hit “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” (1994), she was overshadowed by the flashy antics of her co-star. Cox finally achieved small screen stardom as the neurotic aspiring chef Monica Geller, serving as the anchor of the ensemble, in the hit sitcom “Friends” (NBC, 1994-2004)–initially viewed as the star of the show, she easily settled into the emerging ensemble and, after a few seasons of playing Monica relatively straight, she showed her comedic chops as the character’s quirks–such as her hyper-cleanliness–emerged. She displayed her dramatic prowess as a blind rape victim in the made-for-cable movie “Sketch Artist II: Hands that See” (Showtime, 1995) before becoming the first of the “Friends” to score a big screen hit with Wes Craven’s “Scream” (1996). Cast against type as savvy, ambitious TV newscaster Gale Weathers, Cox delivered a strong performance and she reprised the part in the inevitable sequels “Scream 2″ (1997) and “Scream 3″ (2000). Unfortunately, “Commandments” (both 1997), in which she portrayed the unhappy wife of Anthony LaPaglia, embarking on an affair with her brother-in-law (Aidan Quinn), failed to mine the versatility she displayed in the Craven movies. After a string of roles in unimpressive films–”3000 Miles to Graceland,” “The Shrink Is In” and “Get Well Soon” (all 2001), Cox focused primarily on her series and her marriage to her “Scream” co-star David Arquette, whom she married in 1999 (the actress also added the Arquette name to her professional credits). As the final season of “Friends” wound down in 2004, Cox Arquette, had her share of options, motherhood was looming, she’d signed to appear in a slate of feature films, and she ahd her husband had already served as executive producers and design consultants on the home improvement reality series “Mix It Up” (2003-2004) on the cable network WE: Women’s Entertainment, a series that focused on helping couples blend their disparate design senisbilities when they move in together.

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