Gisele Bundchen

Gisele Caroline Bündchen (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒiˈzɛli ˈbĩtʃẽ], German pronunciation: [gi:zɛlə ˈbʏndçn̩]; born 20 July 1980) is a Brazilian fashion model, occasional film actress, and goodwill ambassador for the UN Environment Programme. In the late 1990s, Bündchen became the first in a wave of Brazilian models to find international success.In 1999, Vogue magazine dubbed her "The Return of the Sexy Model" and she was credited with ending the "heroin chic" era of modeling. Bündchen was one of Victoria's Secret Angels from 2000 until 2006. Since 2004, she has been the highest-paid model in the world and the sixteenth richest woman in the entertainment industry (as of 2007) with an estimated $570 million fortune.

Models Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell have stated that Bündchen is the only true remaining "supermodel" and according to Forbes she may become the world's first ever billionaire supermodel. In June 2011, Forbes magazine estimated that Bundchen's total earnings over the last 10 years have passed the $550 million mark.As an occasional actress, she had supporting roles in Taxi (2004) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006). From 2000 to 2005, Bündchen was in a much-publicized relationship with American actor Leonardo DiCaprio. She married New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in 2009.

Bündchen is a sixth-generation German Brazilian, born in Três de Maio, Rio Grande do Sul, to Vânia Nonnenmacher, a bank clerk pensioner, and Valdir Bündchen, a university teacher and writer who are both of German descent.Bündchen was born and raised in Horizontina, a southern region in Brazil where there is a large ethnic German community. She grew up with her five sisters—Raquel, Graziela, Gabriela, Rafaela and her fraternal twin Patrícia, her junior by five minutes. She speaks Portuguese as her native language, in addition to Spanish and English. She also learned German in school, but has not kept up with it.

In 1993, a then-13-year-old Bündchen joined a modeling course with her sisters Patrícia and Gabriela, at their mother's insistence. The following year, Bündchen went to São Paulo on a school excursion to give them an opportunity to walk in a big city. In a shopping mall, with her friends, Bündchen was discovered by a modeling agency. She was subsequently selected for a national contest, Elite Look of the Year, in which she placed second – Claudia Menezes, from Bahia, took first place. Bündchen placed fourth in the world contest, held in Ibiza, Spain. Then she moved to São Paulo to launch her modeling career. In 1996, Bündchen had her first New York City break at Fashion Week.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gisele_Bundchen

Behati Prinsloo

Behati Prinsloo (born May 16, 1989 in Grootfontein, Namibia) is a Namibian model. She is known for her work as spokesmodel for the Victoria's Secret sub-brand Pink.While on holiday in Cape Town, South Africa, at the age of 16, Prinsloo was discovered by model scout Sarah Doukas.Photographed by British Royal Family photographer Mario Testino, Prinsloo has graced magazines such as Vogue, American Velvet and the British Telegraph. Behati has walked the velvet ropes of Chanel, Dolce and Gabbana, Prada, Miu Miu and Versace. She has been on the covers of Italy's Muse, Russian Vogue, French, Swedish & Italian Elle, American Velvet and A'FOUR magazine. Her ad campaigns include Adore, Aquascutum, Chanel, H&M, Hugo Boss, Kurt Geiger, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Max Studio, Nina Ricci, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, DKNY Jeans and Nine West as well as a Vogue Italia editorial with ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov.

On her resume are appearances in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show for years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. In 2009, Prinsloo was made a Victoria's Secret Angel.She has been doing print work for the company as the face for their sub-brand "Pink". Prinsloo ranked 14th on 'The Top Sexiest Models' list by models.com.]Media appearancesShe plays the rich girl in the "Rich Girls" music video by The Virgins.She also appears in the first episode of MTV's reality show, The City.Prinsloo is close friends with Canadian model Coco Rocha.


Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behati_Prinsloo

Olga Kurylenko

Kurylenko was discovered by a female model scout while on vacation in Moscow at the age of 13. When she was 17, she signed a contract with the Paris-based Madison modeling agency.By the age of 18, she had appeared on the covers of Vogue and Elle. While working as a model in Paris, Kurylenko supported her mother in Ukraine.She also appeared on the covers of Madame Figaro and Marie Claire.She became the face of Triumph lingerie, Lejaby lingerie, Bebe, Clarins, and Helena Rubinstein Furthermore, she modelled for Roberto Cavalli and Kenzo, and appeared in the Victoria's Secret catalog.[citation needed]

Kurylenko's first acting appearance was in Seal's music video, 'Love's Divine' in 2003,[citation needed] but her film career began in France during 2005. She received the certificate of excellence award at the 2006 Brooklyn International Film Festival for her performance in L'Annulaire, and also starred in the Paris, je t'aime segment Quartier de la Madeleine opposite Elijah Wood. That same year, she was selected to be the face of Kenzo's new fragrance, Kenzo Amour.[citation needed] She has appeared in all subsequent Kenzo Amour ads.[citation needed] In 2007, Kurylenko starred in Hitman alongside Timothy Olyphant. She had a minor role in Max Payne as Natasha. She played Bond girl Camille Montes in the 2008 James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. In the film she plays the role of a Bolivian Secret Service agent named Camille, who teams up with James Bond to avenge the death of her parents.

Kurylenko was featured on the cover of the December 2008 issue of the US edition of Maxim and on the cover of the February 2009 issue of the Ukrainian edition of Maxim magazine.The fact that she is the first Bond girl from a post-Soviet state received mixed reactions in Russia. The Saint Petersburg based Communist group KPLO has accused her of "moral and intellectual betrayal" in starring in a film about the "enemy of the Soviet people" (meaning James Bond) (Kurylenko considered that a PR move). In Ukraine the then-mayor of Berdyansk suggested naming a street after her in early 2008, and Kurylenko and her mother met Ukraine's First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko in President Yushchenko's family country house.Kurylenko will appear in Terrence Malick's sixth feature, shot in fall 2010 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Also starring Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem and Rachel McAdams, the film is currently in post-production.[citation needed] She will also appear in Oblivion (2013 film), an sci-fi project starring Tom Cruise and directed by Joseph Kosinski.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Kurylenko

Nina Dobrev

Nina Dobrev (born Nina Constantinova Dobreva, January 9, 1989) is a Bulgarian-Canadian actress and model. She played the role of Mia Jones, the single teenage mother, on Degrassi: The Next Generation, from the show's sixth to ninth season. She currently stars as Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce on The CW television teen drama, The Vampire Diaries.Nina Dobrev was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and moved to Canada at the age of two, where she was raised in Toronto, Ontario. She speaks fluent French, English, and Bulgarian. She has an older brother, Alexander; her father is a computer specialist and her mother is an artist.Dobrev attended J. B. Tyrrell Sr. Public School, where she started ballet and jazz classes, and competed in rhythmic gymnastic.Then, she attended and Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in Scarborough, Ontario and Ryerson University in Toronto, majoring in sociology. She left in 2008 to pursue her acting career.While working on the show, she began dating her Vampire Diaries co-star Ian Somerhalder.
 

Modeling jobs led to commercials, which then turned into film auditions. Shortly thereafter, she booked roles in feature films, including Fugitive Pieces, Away from Her, Never Cry Werewolf, and the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. She starred in a number of Lifetime original movies. She also was in an MTV movie called The American Mall on CTV. She is currently starring in The CW's drama The Vampire Diaries, playing the dual role of Katherine Pierce, a vampire loved by two human brothers during the American Civil War, and Katherine's doppelgänger Elena Gilbert, a human who is caught between the same two brothers, now vampires, Damon and Stefan Salvatore.She also had a minor role in the erotic thriller Chloe, theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on March 26, 2010. The film had enjoyed commercial success and became director Atom Egoyan's biggest moneymaker ever.
 

In April 2011, she was cast as Candace in the film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, alongside Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Paul Rudd.Shooting began in May of that year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and she completed her scenes on June 27, 2011.In September 2011, Dobrev co-hosted We Day alongside Joe Jonas.We Day is organized by Free the Children. Dobrev also designed a T-Shirt with Me to We Style, which gives 50% of its profits to Free the Children.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Dobrev

Taylor Swift

Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Scott Kingsley Swift, a Merrill Lynch financial adviser, and Andrea (née Gardner), a homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift was named after singer James Taylor; her mother believed a gender-neutral name would help her forge a successful business career. Her only sibling, a younger brother named Austin, is currently a student at Vanderbilt University. She spent the early years of her life on an 11-acre Christmas tree farm near Pottstown, Pennsylvania and was educated at the fee-paying Wyndcroft School. When Swift was nine, her family moved to Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. Swift spent her summers at her parent's vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey and has described it as the place "where most of my childhood memories were formed".

At the age of nine, Swift developed an interest in theatre and performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions of Grease, Annie, Bye Bye Birdie and The Sound of Music. She travelled regularly to Broadway, New York for vocal and acting lessons. However, "after a few years of auditioning in New York and not getting anything”, Swift turned her attention to country music. She was inspired by LeAnn Rimes's Blue and her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, an opera singer. When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem, "Monster in My Closet". At the age of eleven, after many attempts, Swift won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes’s “Big Deal”, and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater. She spent her weekends performing at local festivals, fairs, coffeehouses, karaoke contests, garden clubs and Boy Scout meetings. Swift recorded a demo of karaoke covers, and travelled with her mother to Nashville, Tennessee for spring break, leaving a copy of the demo with record labels along Music Row. She received label rejections and realised that "I needed to know how to do something more than just sing a song".
 

Swift began performing the national anthem at many sporting events in an attempt to create record label interest. On one occasion, an 11-year-old Swift high-fived Jay-Z after singing the national anthem at a 76ers game in Philadelphia. At the age of 12, Swift was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You". She then recorded a second demo of original songs. In 2003, Swift and her parents began working with music manager Dan Dymtrow, after he spotted her singing at the US Open. Swift's second demo caught the attention of RCA Records, who offered the eight-grader an artist development deal. In 2004, Swift modelled for Abercrombie and Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign and had an original song included in a Maybelline Cosmetics compilation CD.
 

When Swift was 14, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch and the family relocated to a lake-shore house in Hendersonville, Tennessee Swift has said her parents "presented it as a move to a nice community" rather than as her chance to become a star. Her mother has said, "We've always told her that this is not about putting food on our table or making our dreams come true." In Tennessee, Swift attended Hendersonville High School for her freshman and sophomore year. Later, to accommodate her touring schedule, Swift transferred to the Aaron Academy, a private Christian school which offered homeschooling services, and earned her high school diploma in 2008.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift

Isabeli Fontana

Isabeli Bergossi Fontana (born July 4, 1983) is a Brazilian model.Fontana was born in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. In 1996 she made it to the finals of the Elite Model Look when she was just 13 and in the following year she moved from South brazil to Milan, Italy.Career.In 1999, at the age of 16, she appeared in the Victoria's Secret lingerie catalogue. The shoot caused controversy, as Victoria's Secret stated that they would not use girls younger than 18.[citation needed] Soon after the Victoria's Secret shoot, she was signed by Versace, Ralph Lauren and Valentino.Since 1999 she has modeled for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, Marie Claire, ELLE, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Numéro, i-D, Arena and many others.
 

Fontana has been the face of a variety of advertising campaigns including Shiatzy Chen, Armani Jeans, Chanel, Colcci, Disritmia, Dolce and Gabbana, Emporio Armani, Enrique Martinez[disambiguation needed ], Escada, H&M, Helena Rubinstein, Hugo Boss, Hussein Chalayan, Massimo Dutti, M. Officer, Nicole Farhi, Oscar de la Renta, Peter Hahn, Philips, Ralph Lauren, Revlon, Roberto Cavalli, Rosa Chá, Saks Fifth Avenue, Tommy Hilfiger, Triton[disambiguation needed ], Valentino, Versace, Victoria's Secret, Vivara and others. Photographed by Steven Meisel, she was presented on the September 2004 cover of American Vogue as one of the "Models of the Moment".Fontana can be seen in the Spring/Summer 2011 campaigns for Escada, Dolce and Gabbana, Uniqlo & Ann Taylor.Fontana is the current[when?] face of Viktor & Rolf's fragrance Flowerbomb.In 2008, Fontana made her debut on the Forbes The World's 15 Top-Earning Models list at place 11, having earned $3 million.
 

She has appeared in the Pirelli Calendar on a number of occasions, including in the 2011 calendar, which features models posing as Greek and Roman gods, photographed by Karl Lagerfeld.
Isabeli Fontana, with her son, Zion.Personal lifeAs a youth, Fontana attended Catholic School in the Portão district of Curitiba. She is often seen making the Sign of the Cross in footage.[citation needed] She was married to model Álvaro Jacomossi but they divorced in 2004. Their son, Zion, was born in 2003.Fontana married actor and model Henri Castelli on December 10, 2005 and their son, Lucas, was born on October 23, 2006 in São Paulo. Fontana and Castelli divorced in 2007.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabeli_Fontana

Beyoncé Knowles

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (born September 4, 1981), known mononymously as Beyoncé (play /biˈjɒnseɪ/ bee-YON-say; legal name, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles–Carter) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child. Knowles rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R&B girl group Destiny's Child, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time.

During the hiatus of Destiny's Child, Knowles released her debut solo album, Dangerously in Love, in 2003, which spawned two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100—"Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy"—and became one of the most successful albums of that year, earning her a then record-tying five Grammy Awards. Following the disbandment of Destiny's Child in 2005, Knowles released her second solo album, B'Day, in 2006, and included the top 10 singles "Déjà Vu", "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Her third solo album I Am... Sasha Fierce, released in 2008, spawned four commercially successful singles—"If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo" and "Sweet Dreams". The album helped Knowles earn six Grammys in 2010, breaking the record for most Grammy Awards won by a female artist in one night. Knowles released her fourth solo album, 4, in 2011, and became her fourth consecutive number-one album on the Billboard 200 as a solo artist. This made her the third artist in history to have her first four studio albums debut atop the chart.

Apart from her work in music, Knowles has also launched a career in acting. She made her debut in the 2001 musical film Carmen: A Hip Hopera, prior to appearing in major films, including Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Dreamgirls (2006), which earned her two Golden Globe nominations, Cadillac Records (2008) and Obsessed (2009). Knowles and her mother introduced their family's fashion line, House of Deréon, in 2005, and has also endorsed brands including, L'Oréal, Pepsi, Tommy Hilfiger, Nintendo and Vizio. In June 2010, she was ranked first on Forbes list of the 100 Most Powerful and Influential musicians in the world, and second on its list of the 100 Most Powerful and Influential celebrities in the world.
 

Knowles' work has earned her numerous awards and accolades, including 16 Grammy Awards, 11 MTV Video Music Awards, 4 American Music Awards, a Billboard Millennium Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with Destiny's Child. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Radio Songs Artist of the 2000s decade, and ranked her as the 4th overall Artist of the Decade (and as the First Female Artist of that period). The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), also recognized Knowles as the Top Certified Artist of the 2000s. In the US, Knowles has sold over 11.2 million albums as of May 2010, and more than 30.4 million digital singles as of January 2012. She has sold 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In 2010, VH1 included Knowles in its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and ranked her third in their 2012 list of the 100 Greatest Women in Music.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyonc%C3%A9_Knowles

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie (play /dʒoʊˈliː/ joh-LEE, born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress and director. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie promotes humanitarian causes, and is noted for her work with refugees as a Special Envoy and former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She has been cited as the world's "most beautiful" woman, a title for which she has received substantial media attention.

Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in Lookin' to Get Out (1982), but her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in the cyber-thriller Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999).

Jolie achieved wide fame after her portrayal of video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and established herself among the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood with the sequel The Cradle of Life (2003). She reinforced her reputation as a leading action star with Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and Wanted (2008)—her biggest non-animated commercial successes to date and received further critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Mighty Heart (2007) and Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Jolie made her directorial debut with the wartime drama In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011). Because of this film, Sarajevo's regional government named Jolie an honorary citizen of Sarjevo and credited her and the film, which she wrote and directed, for bringing awareness to the three-year Bosnian War that began in 1992.Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie now lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship notable for fervent media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children, Maddox, Pax, and Zahara, and three biological children, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne.


Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_Jolie

Keira Knightley

Keira Christina Knightley (play /ˌkɪərə ˈnaɪtli/;[3] born 26 March 1985) is an English actress and model. She began acting as a child and came to international notice in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham. From 2003, her appearances in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series took her to much greater prominence.Knightley has appeared in several Hollywood films and earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. Two years later she again was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in Atonement.In 2008, Forbes claimed Knightley to be the second highest paid actress in Hollywood, having reportedly earned $32 million in 2007, making her the only non-American on the list of highest paid actresses.Knightley was born in Teddington, London, England, the daughter of Sharman MacDonald, an award-winning playwright, and Will Knightley, a theatre and television actor.[8] Her father is English and her Scottish mother is of half Welsh ancestry. She has an elder brother, Caleb.

 

Knightley lived in Richmond, attending Stanley Junior School, Teddington School and Esher College.[citation needed] She was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of six, but nevertheless was successful in school and was thus permitted to acquire a talent agent and pursue an acting career. She requested an agent as early as the age of three and 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.She performed in a number of local amateur productions, including After Juliet (written by her mother) and United States (written by her then drama teacher, Ian McShane, no relation to the actor of the same name). She focused on art, history, and English literature while at Esher, but left after a year to focus on her acting and she also turned down her spot at the London Academy of Music and Drama.After getting an agent at 6, she did work mostly on commercials and small TV roles. Her first role was "Little Girl" in Royal Celebration, a 1993 TV movie. A year later, she had a small role in the movie A Village Affair. She later starred in 1995's Innocent Lies and 1998's Coming Home. She was a princess in the 1996 movie The Treasure Seekers. Later in 1999, she appeared as Rose in Oliver Twist.

 

Keira Knightley appeared in several television films in the mid to late 1990s—as well as ITV1's The Bill—before being cast as Sabé, Padmé Amidala's decoy, in the 1999 science fiction blockbuster Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Sabé's dialogue was dubbed over with Natalie Portman's voice. This was to hide the fact that the handmaiden Padmé (played by Natalie Portman) was actually disclosed as the real Queen Amidala at the end of the film. Knightley was cast in the role due to her close resemblance to Portman; even 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 the made-for-television Walt Disney Productions feature, Princess of Thieves. She trained for several weeks in archery, sword fighting, and horse riding. 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 miniseries adaptation of Doctor Zhivago which first aired in 2002 to mixed reviews but high ratings.[citation needed] In the same year, she also was in the movie Pure, in which she portrays a pregnant teenager who is a heroin addict and had a child taken by social services. 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.

 

 

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keira_Knightley

Halle Berry

Halle Berry (play /ˈhæli ˈbɛri/; born August 14, 1966) is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming the first and, as of 2012, only woman of African American descent to have won the award for Best Actress. She is one of the most highly paid actresses in Hollywood and also a Revlon spokeswoman. She has been involved in the production side of several of the films in which she performed.

Before becoming an actress, Berry entered several beauty contests, finishing as the 1st runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant (1986), and coming in 6th place in the Miss World Pageant in 1986. She made her film debut with a small role in 1991's Jungle Fever. This led to starring roles in The Flintstones (1994), Bulworth (1998), X-Men (2000) and its sequels, and as Bond Girl Jinx in Die Another Day (2002). She also won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress in 2005 for Catwoman and accepted the award in person—one of the few performers to do so.

Berry was born Maria Halle Berry, though her name was legally changed to Halle Maria Berry in 1971.Berry's parents selected her middle name from Halle's Department Store, which was then a local landmark in her birthplace of Cleveland, Ohio. Her mother, Judith Ann (née Hawkins), who is of European descent, was a psychiatric nurse. Her father, Jerome Jesse Berry, was an African American hospital attendant in the same psychiatric ward where her mother worked; he later became a bus driver. Berry's maternal grandmother, Nellie Dicken, was born in Sawley, Derbyshire, England, while her maternal grandfather, Earl Ellsworth Hawkins, was born in Ohio. Berry's parents divorced when she was four years old; she and her older sister Heidi were raised exclusively by her mother. Berry has said in published reports that she has been estranged from her father since her childhood, noting in 1992, "I haven't heard from him since [he left]. Maybe he's not alive."
 

Berry graduated from Bedford High School, afterward working in the children's department at Higbee's Department store. She then studied at Cuyahoga Community College. In the 1980s, she entered several beauty contests, winning Miss Teen All-American in 1985 and Miss Ohio USA in 1986. She was the 1986 Miss USA first runner-up to Christy Fichtner of Texas. In the Miss USA 1986 pageant interview competition, she said she hoped to become an entertainer or to have something to do with the media. Her interview was awarded the highest score by the judges. She was the first African-American Miss World entrant in 1986, where she finished sixth and Trinidad and Tobago's Giselle Laronde was crowned Miss World.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halle_Berry

Monica Bellucci

Monica Bellucci began modeling at age 13 by posing for a local photo enthusiast.Portrait of Bellucci taken in 2008.In 1988,Bellucci moved to one of Europe's fashion centers, Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. By 1989, she was becoming prominent as a fashion model in Paris and across the Atlantic, in New York City. She posed for Dolce & Gabbana and French Elle, among others. In that year, Bellucci made the transition to acting and began taking acting classes. The February 2001 Esquire's feature on Desire featured Bellucci on the cover and in an article on the five senses. In 2003, she was featured in Maxim. Men's Health also named her one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time", ranking her at No. 21. AskMen named her the number one most desirable woman in 2002. Bellucci's modelling career is managed by Elite+ in New York City. She is considered an Italian sex symbol. From 2006 to 2010 she was the face of a range of Dior products. Bellucci is signed to D'management group in Milan and also to Storm Model Management in London.

In 2004, while pregnant with her daughter Deva, Bellucci posed nude for the Italian Vanity Fair Magazine in protest against Italian laws that prevent the use of donor sperm. She posed pregnant and semi-nude again for the magazine's April 2010 issue. ActingBellucci's film career began in the early 1990s. She played some minor roles in La Riffa (1991) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). In 1996 she was nominated for a César Award for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Lisa in L'Appartement and strengthened her position as an actress. She became known and popular with worldwide audiences, following her roles in Malèna (2000), Brotherhood of the Wolf, and Irréversible (2002). She has since played in many films from Europe and Hollywood like Tears of the Sun (2003), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Passion of the Christ (2004), The Brothers Grimm (2005), Le Deuxième souffle (2007), Don't Look Back (2009), and The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010).

She was supposed to be seen portraying Indian politician Sonia Gandhi in the biopic Sonia, originally planned for release in 2007, but it has been shelved.Bellucci dubbed her own voice for the French and Italian releases of the film Shoot 'Em Up (2007). She also voiced Kaileena in the video game Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and the French voice of Cappy for the French version of the 2005 animated film Robots.She is for Empire, for her role of "Persephone" in Matrix, one of "The Sexiest 25 Characters In Cinema". Personal life.Bellucci is married to French actor Vincent Cassel, with whom she has appeared in several films. They have two daughters, Deva (born 2004) and Léonie (born 2010).In the documentary movie The Big Question, about the film The Passion of the Christ, she stated: "I am an agnostic, even though I respect and am interested in all religions. If there's something I believe in, it's a mysterious energy; the one that fills the oceans during tides, the one that unites nature and beings."

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Bellucci

Dianna Agron

Dianna Agron was born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised in San Antonio, Texas and San Francisco, California. She is the daughter of Mary and Ronald S. Agron, a general manager of Hyatt hotels. Agron's father's family is originally from Russia, and their original surname, Agronsky, was altered by Ellis Island officials. Her father was born Jewish and her mother converted to Judaism; Agron attended Hebrew school and had a bat mitzvah. Agron attended Burlingame Intermediate School and then Burlingame High School in Burlingame, California. She has been dancing since the age of three,and began teaching dance as a teenager. Before she moved to California at the age of nine, she was the subject of anti-Semitic bullying in school.

 

Agron has appeared on television shows such as Shark, Close to Home, CSI: NY, Numb3rs,[citation needed] and had a recurring role on Veronica Mars. She then appeared as Harper on a 13-episode series of short films called It's a Mall World, directed by Milo Ventimiglia, and airing on MTV, and then on the second season of Heroes as Debbie Marshall, the head cheerleader/captain of the cheer squad at Costa Verde High School. Dianna has also hosted a mini Music Festival for 826LA in Los Angeles called Chickens in Love.She was among many young Hollywood stars selected to be in Wal-Mart's Ocean Pacific spring 2010 marketing campaign. The national campaign debuted in fashion, lifestyle and entertainment magazines such as Elle, Teen Vogue, Seventeen and Cosmopolitan, outdoor and online at the official Ocean Pacific website.[citation needed] In addition, the celebrities hosted an Ocean Pacific party in Los Angeles in late April and made personal appearances on behalf of the brand.

 

Agron's most notable role to date is as Quinn Fabray, a high school cheerleader, on the Fox series Glee. The show has received high ratings and critical acclaim, including a Screen Actors Guild cast award in 2009 and two Golden Globes for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy.In 2010, Agron directed the music video for "Body" by Thao with the Get Down Stay Down.In 2010, Agron played the small role of Natalie, fiancée to main character Ali's love interest Jack, in the movie Burlesque alongside Christina Aguilera, Cher, and Stanley Tucci.Agron was chosen by People to be part of their Most Beautiful 2010. She also came 8th in the 2011 Afterellen.com "Hot 100" list.Agron appeared alongside Alex Pettyfer and Timothy Olyphant in the 2011 science-fiction action thriller I Am Number Four, directed by D. J. Caruso.Agron appeared as herself in Punk'd.

 

 

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianna_Agron

Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lynn Lopez (born July 24, 1969)—often known by her moniker J.Lo (sometimes JLo or J-Lo)—is an American actress, businesswoman, dancer and recording artist. Born and raised in The Bronx, New York, she enrolled in singing and dancing classes as a child before starting her career as a fly girl on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller Money Train. Her first leading role was in the biographical film Selena (1997), in which she earned an ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress. She earned her second ALMA Award for her performance in Out of Sight (1998). She has since starred in various films, including The Cell (2000), The Wedding Planner (2001), Maid in Manhattan (2002), Shall We Dance? (2004), Monster-in-Law (2005) and The Back-up Plan (2010).

Lopez came to prominence within music after the release of her album On the 6 (1999), which spawned the hit singles "If You Had My Love" and "Waiting for Tonight". Her second album J.Lo (2001) reached number one on the Billboard 200 the same week her film, The Wedding Planner led the box office. She released J to tha L–O! The Remixes (2002), which became the first number-one remix album in the United States; her third and fourth studio albums, This Is Me... Then (2002) and Rebirth (2005) reached number two. In 2007 she released her first full Spanish album, Como ama una Mujer. Returning to music in 2011, she released her seventh album, Love? which spawned her most successful single "On The Floor", one of the best-selling singles of all time.

As of 2010, Lopez has amassed estimated sales of over 55 million records worldwide, Billboard ranked her as the 27th Artist of the 2000s decade. In 2010, Lopez became a member of the judging panel for the American reality television competition American Idol. She was selected for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012. She led People en Español's list of "100 Most Influential Hispanics" in February 2007. That year, Lopez made the Forbes magazine's list of "The 20 Richest Women In Entertainment," ranking ninth.
 

She has appeared multiple times on The Hollywood Reporter's Annual Actress Salary List, and is the highest-paid Latin actress in Hollywood. She has parlayed her media fame into a fashion line and various perfumes with her celebrity endorsement. She has worked with L'Oreal since 1999. A fashion icon, several of her dresses have received considerable media attention, most notably the Jungle green Versace dress which she wore at the 43rd Grammy Awards in 2000—voted the fifth most iconic red carpet dress of all time. Outside of her work in the entertainment industry, Lopez advocates for human rights and vaccinations, and is a supporter of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. In 2011 she was named the most "Beautiful Person" by People magazine in its annual issue. As of 2012, her net worth is estimated to be $250 million—she has been named one of the wealthiest and most influential Hispanics in the United States. Lopez's personal life has also garnered media attention since the beginning of her career in the entertainment industry, particularly her high profiled relationships.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Lopez

Hilary Rhoda

Hilary Hollis Rhoda[citation needed] (born April 6, 1987, in Chevy Chase, Maryland) is an American model. She is perhaps best known for her work with the brand Estée Lauder and her 2009, 2010, and 2011 appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Rhoda attended St. Jane de Chantal school in Bethesda, Maryland for grade school. Before her career as a model, Rhoda graduated from the Academy of the Holy Cross, a Catholic all-girls' school in Maryland. While a student, Rhoda played on her school's field hockey and lacrosse teams.Rhoda was originally discovered at a ProScout event in Washington, D.C. After getting numerous call backs, she decided to be represented by Women Model Management.[citation needed] She soon appeared in ads for Hollister and Abercrombie, before switching to Click Model Management and recently with IMG Models, globally. She is currently represented by Woman Management.

She is currently featured in the 2011 Max Mara AW campaign. Before she has appeared in advertisements for Balenciaga, Valentino, Belstaff, Dolce & Gabbana, Givenchy, Donna Karan, Gucci, Gap, Dsquared, Shiatzy Chen, Blumarine, and Ralph Lauren, and in Victoria's Secret catalogs. She has also appeared on the covers of American Vogue, Vogue Italia, Vogue Paris, British Harper's Bazaar, Time, Numéro, and W. In particular, for the May 2007 issue of American Vogue, Rhoda was featured on the cover with fellow models Doutzen Kroes, Caroline Trentini, Raquel Zimmermann, Sasha Pivovarova, Agyness Deyn, Coco Rocha, Jessica Stam, Chanel Iman, and Lily Donaldson as the "World’s Next Top Models."

In January 2007, Rhoda signed an exclusive contract with Estée Lauder as their newest face. In July of that same year, earning at an estimated total of $2 million in the past 12 months, Forbes named her twelfth in their list of The World's 15 Top-Earning Supermodels. She is the current face of St. John Knits (replacing Angelina Jolie), ERES Beachwear, and the Neiman Marcus spring/summer 2009 campaigns. 2009 also marks Rhoda's debut in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.


Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Rhoda

Rachel Weisz

Rachel Hannah Weisz  born 7 March 1970 is an English film and theatre actress and former fashion model. She started her acting career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she co-founded the theatrical group Cambridge Talking Tongues. The group was awarded the Student Drama Award for the improvised piece Slight Possession during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by The Guardian.

Weisz started working in television, appearing in Inspector Morse, the British mini-series Scarlet and Black, and the television film Advocates II. She made her film début in the 1994 film Death Machine, but her breakthrough role came in the 1996 film Chain Reaction, leading to a high-profile role as Evelyn Carnahan-O'Connell in the films The Mummy, in 1999, and The Mummy Returns in 2001. Other notable films featuring Weisz are Enemy at the Gates, About a Boy, Constantine, The Fountain and The Constant Gardener, for which she received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors' Guild award for her supporting role as Tessa Quayle.Weisz also works in theatre. Her stage breakthrough was the 1994 revival of Noël Coward's play Design for Living, which earned her the London Critics Circle Award for the most promising newcomer. Weisz's performances also include the 1999 Donmar Warehouse production of Tennessee Williams" Suddenly Last Summer, and their 2009 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. Her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in the latter play earned her the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress of 2009.

Weisz was born in Westminster, London, and grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Her mother, Edith Ruth (née Teich), is a teacher turned psychotherapist from Austria. Her father, George Weisz, was an inventor from Hungary. Her parents moved to England during the Holocaust and Second World War. Her father is Jewish and her mother has Jewish, "Catholic Viennese", and Italian ancestry. Weisz' maternal grandfather, Alexander Teich, was a secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students; whilst one of Weisz' maternal great-grandmothers was Italian. She has a sister, Minnie, who is a photographer and curator.
 

Weisz's parents valued the arts, and encouraged her and her sister to form opinions of their own by introducing them to family debates. Her parents later divorced. Weisz left North London Collegiate School and attended Benenden School for one year completing A-levels at St Paul's Girls School. Weisz claimed that she was a bad student until an English Literature teacher inspired her at the age of sixteen.Weisz started modelling when she was fourteen. In 1984, she gained public attention when she turned down an offer to star in King David, along with Richard Gere.After school, she entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she graduated with a 2:1 in English. During her university years, she appeared in various student productions, co-founding a student drama group called Cambridge Talking Tongues. It won a Guardian Student Drama Award at the 1991 Edinburgh Fringe Festival for an improvised piece called Slight Possession, directed by David Farr. The group existed until 1993.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Weisz

Diane Kruger

Kruger soon became interested in acting and took lessons at the Cours Florent. She landed some small appearances in several French films. She made her onscreen debut in 2002, opposite Dennis Hopper and Christopher Lambert in The Piano Player, a TV-movie by Jean-Pierre Roux. Her first major role was the same year when she starred in her then husband's directorial debut Mon Idole.

She played Julie Wood in 2003's Michel Valliant and Lisa in Wicker Park (2004), alongside Josh Hartnett and Rose Byrne. One of her more high-profile roles to date is her portrayal of Helen of Sparta in Wolfgang Petersen's epic Troy. She was ranked 50th on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2005. In 2004, Kruger starred with Nicolas Cage and Sean Bean (who co-starred with her in Troy) in the film National Treasure, going on to appear in movies Joyeux Noël (2005) and Copying Beethoven (2006). She reprised her role as Dr. Abigail Chase in National Treasure: Book of Secrets, released in December 2007.
Kruger at the 2009 Venice Film Festival

Kruger was the hostess of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.Kruger at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival.Kruger was a jury member of the 58th Berlin International Film Festival in 2008. The festival is chaired by Costa Gavras.In 2009, she co-starred as a German actress turned Axis saboteur in Quentin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds. Kruger starred in 2011 in the Liam Neeson film Unknown alongside January Jones.In December 2009, she announced the nominations of the 67th Golden Globe Awards and also picked up nominations from the Screen Actors Guild for Best Supporting Actress and Outstanding Performance by a Cast of a Motion Picture for her role in Inglourious Basterds.
 

Kruger played Anna in Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody, which was mostly funded through European financiers, and was given limited release in certain countries in 2010. Critical response has praised the film's artistry and Kruger's acting. She was nominated the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 66th Venice International Film Festival for her performance.[citation needed]Kruger made a cameo appearance in an April 2010 episode of the Fox show Fringe, in which her boyfriend, actor Joshua Jackson is a star. In 2010, Kruger also appeared in Mark Ronson's music video for "Somebody to Love Me", where she plays Boy George. In 2011, it was announced that she had replaced Eva Green in the role of Marie Antoinette in the French-language film, Les Adieux à la Reine.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Kruger

Jessica Stam

Stam won the Los Angeles Model Look contest in 2002. Photographer Steven Meisel jump-started her career and soon after cast her in every advertisement campaign of his.[citation needed] "I guess I'm his muse", she has said. She has appeared on the cover of UK, Turkish & German Vogue and in advertisements for Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, Giorgio Armani and others. In 2004, Stam appeared in the short film Agent Orange. She was once sued by New York Model Management in 2004, because of a breach of contract.Fashion designer Marc Jacobs created The Marc Jacobs Stam, a bag inspired and named after her. For the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in 2006, she opened the fourth runway theme "Pink". The appearance also included a featurette showing a Victoria's Secret commercial shoot and what a model sees when walking the runway. In the January 2006, she appeared in the Rochas ad campaign, shot and directed by Bruno Aveillan.Jessica Stam modeling for Miss Sixty, Fall 2007 at New York Fashion Week.For Spring 2006 Ready-to-Wear, Stam walked a total of 64 shows combined during the New York, Milan, and Paris Fashion Weeks. During Paris's Spring/Summer 2007 Haute Couture fashion week, she walked for Chanel, Christian Lacroix, Christian Dior, Givenchy, and Jean Paul Gaultier. She was featured on the May 2007 issue of American Vogue among the new crop of supermodels. Stam fell at the Chloé Fall 2006 show in Paris, while wearing "ridiculously high patent-leather pumps" that got caught on each other as her feet crossed on the runway. Her fall received millions of views on YouTube and took first spot on the "Top Five Runway Falls" list by New York Magazine.
 

She was presented on the May 2007 cover of American Vogue as one of the "World’s Next Top Models." In July 2007, earning at an estimated total of $1.5 million in the previous 12 months, Forbes named her fifteenth in the list of the World's 15 Top-Earning Supermodels. Currently, she stars in campaigns for Bulgari, Dior, Lanvin and Escada. She also appears in the F/W 2007 Christian Dior, DKNY, Miss Sixty, Loewe and Roberto Cavalli ad campaign. She has also walked in the 2006, 2007, and 2010 Victoria's Secret fashion shows. For F/W 08, Stam can be seen in ads for Giorgio Armani's "Onde" fragrance, Dolce & Gabbana and Bulgari. The Wall Street Journal featured Jessica Stam in their article on "How to Walk Like a Model" and taught a DKNY intern her runway moves.Stam at the Anna Sui Show 2009.
 

In 2009, she returned as the face of Bulgari and in March she appeared on the cover of Tokyo Numéro. She starred in the fall Fendi campaign, shot by Karl Lagerfeld. She starred in Nina Ricci's new floral fragrance named Ricci Ricci for summer 2009. Stam guest starred in Season 1, episode 4 of CW’s The Beautiful Life.She was chosen to model the Nina Ricci spring 2010 campaign. Stam has transitioned from modeling into designing, first collaborating with Rag & bone on pieces for the spring 2010 collection, and then signing up with Rachel Roy to co-design a capsule collection consisting of jeans, a bag, and a cardigan for her Rachel Rachel Roy label, launch in October 2011. Stam models for Victoria's Secret Giles Deacon's show in Paris. She appeared on the inaugural cover of Vogue Turkey, launched March 2010. Stam designed and modeled four pieces for Rachel Roy's lower-priced line, RACHEL Rachel Roy, which launched August 2010 at Macy's.In 2011, Stam was named the face of CoverGirl, teaming up with makeup artist Pat McGrath for the brand's new Lip Perfection campaign.

 

 

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Stam

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Zeta-Jones' stage career began in childhood. She often performed at friends and family functions and was part of local dance troupe the Hazel Johnson School of Dance which rehearsed at St Alban's Church, Treboeth. Zeta-Jones made her professional acting debut when she played the lead in Annie, a production at Swansea Grand Theatre. When she was 14, Micky Dolenz cast her as Tallulah in Bugsy Malone.[citation needed] In 1986, at age 17 she had a part in the chorus of The Pajama Game at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester starring Paul Jones and Fiona Hendley. The show subsequently toured the UK and in 1987, she starred in 42nd Street as Peggy Sawyer at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. She was cast in the leading role after both the actress playing Peggy Sawyer and her understudy fell ill. She also played Mae Jones in the Kurt Weill opera Street Scene with the English National Opera at the London Coliseum Theatre in 1989. After the show closed, she travelled to France where she played the lead role in French director Philippe de Broca's Les 1001 Nuits, her feature film debut. She was determined and resourceful in her early auditions, sometimes changing her costume and auditioning again the same day, resulting in always getting the job, by figuring out what they wanted.
 

Her singing and dancing ability suggested a promising future but it was in a straight acting role as Mariette in the successful British television adaptation of H. E. Bates' The Darling Buds of May that brought her to public attention and made her a British tabloid darling.[citation needed] She briefly flirted with a musical career, beginning with a part in the 1992 album Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of Spartacus, from which the single "For All Time" was released in 1992. It reached No. 36 in the UK charts. She went on to release the singles "In the Arms of Love", "I Can't Help Myself", and a duet with David Essex "True Love Ways", reaching No. 38 in the UK singles chart in 1994.[citation needed] She also starred in an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles as well as in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.[citation needed]

In 1990, Zeta-Jones participated in a television commercial for the German Deutsche Bahn at the age of 21, playing the part of a young woman eloping with her lover from a joyless marriage, a role which apparently helped in promoting her acting career. She continued to find moderate success with a number of television projects, including The Return of the Native (1994) based on the novel of the same name and the mini-series Catherine the Great (1995). She also appeared in Splitting Heirs (1993), a comedy starring Eric Idle, Rick Moranis and John Cleese. In 1996, she was cast as the evil aviatrix Sala in the action film, The Phantom, based on the comic by Lee Falk. The following year, she co starred in the CBS mini-series Titanic, which also starred Peter Gallagher, Tim Curry and George C. Scott.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Zeta-Jones

Aishwarya Rai

In 1999 Rai starred in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, opposite Salman Khan and Ajay Devgan. The film had Rai playing Nandini, who is forced to marry Devgan despite being in love with another man (Khan). Her husband tries to help her locate her previous love, and his caring attention eventually wins her over. Rai's portrayal won her critical acclaim, with a review on Rediff.com stating, "Aishwarya looks beautiful as usual ... This film will most likely draw her accolades from all over, may be even get her recognised as an actress the way Manisha Koirala did in Khamoshi. In many scenes, there is no trace of makeup and she looks very fresh". The film was her first box office success in Bollywood, and earned her a Filmfare Best Actress Award.
 

In the same year she appeared in Subhash Ghai's Taal, in which she played Mansi, a young village woman who becomes a big pop star after being hurt by her lover, played by Akshay Khanna. The film was an average grosser in India but was a big success outside India, especially in the United States, where it became the first Indian film in the top 20 on Variety's box office list. Her performance was praised, with a reviewer from Rediff.com writing, "After being praised for her looks and acting talent in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Aishwarya has excelled in Taal. She looks ethereal and unlike the former film, has a very sober and soft role. Though she looks pained and tragic in most of the film, she does a good job of a woman who is very protective of her father and one who doesn't think twice before rejecting a lover who has insulted her father." She received another Best Actress nomination from the Filmfare Awards for her work in the film.
 

In 2000 she appeared in Mansoor Khan's Josh alongside Shahrukh Khan and Chandrachur Singh, in which she plays a Catholic named Shirley who falls in love with the sibling of her brother's enemy. The film was a commercial success. Later that year she appeared in Satish Kaushik's Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai, opposite Anil Kapoor. It was a moderate success, and her performance earned her a Filmfare Best Actress Award nomination. Later that year she played a supporting role in Aditya Chopra's Mohabbatein, alongside Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan. The second-highest grosser of the year, the film was a major commercial success, and earned her a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award nomination. Later that year, she starred in the Tamil film Kandukondain Kandukondain, alongside Mammooty, Ajith Kumar, and Tabu. Rai plays Tabu's younger sibling, a dreamer at heart, whose hopes come crashing down when she discovers she's been cheated by her lover. Directed by Rajiv Menon, the movie was a successful venture commercially.
 

In 2002 Rai appeared alongside Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas, an adaptation of Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel of the same name. She played the role of Paro (Parvati), the love interest of the protagonist, played by Khan. The film received a special screening at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. It became the highest-grossing film of the year in India and overseas, earning a revenue of Rs 390 million domestically. Devdas won numerous awards, including 10 Filmfare Awards, and Rai received her second Filmfare Best Actress Award for her performance.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aishwarya_Rai

Penélope Cruz

Penélope Cruz Sánchez (Spanish pronunciation: peˈnelope kruθ ˈsantʃe) (born April 28, 1974) is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón (1992), to critical acclaim. Her subsequent roles in the 1990s and 2000s included Open Your Eyes (1997), The Hi-Lo Country (1999), The Girl of Your Dreams (2000) and Woman on Top (2000). Cruz achieved recognition for her lead roles in Vanilla Sky and Blow. Both films were released in 2001 and were commercially successful worldwide.

In the 2000s she has appeared in films from a wide range of genres, including the comedy Waking Up in Reno (2002), the thriller Gothika (2003), the Christmas movie Noel (2004), the action adventure Sahara (2005), the animated G-Force and the musical drama Nine. Her most notable films to date are Volver (2006), for which she earned Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), for which she received an Academy Award. She was the first Spanish actress in history to receive an Academy Award and the first Spanish actress to receive a star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
 

Cruz has modeled for companies such as Mango, Ralph Lauren and L'Oréal. Penélope and her younger sister Mónica Cruz have designed items for Mango. She has donated both her time and money to charities. Cruz has volunteered in Uganda and India, where she spent one week working for Mother Teresa; she donated her salary from The Hi-Lo Country to help fund the late

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen%C3%A9lope_Cruz

Jessica Alba

Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981) is an American television and film actress. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994). Alba rose to prominence as the lead actress in the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002). Alba later appeared in various films including Honey (2003), Sin City (2005), Fantastic Four (2005), Into the Blue (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Good Luck Chuck both in 2007.

Alba is considered a sex symbol. She appears on the "Hot 100" section of Maxim and was voted number one on AskMen.com's list of "99 Most Desirable Women" in 2006, as well as "Sexiest Woman in the World" by FHM in 2007. The use of her image on the cover of the March 2006 Playboy sparked a lawsuit by her, which was later dropped. She has also won various awards for her acting, including the Choice Actress Teen Choice Award and Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television, and a Golden Globe nomination for her lead role in the television series Dark Angel.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Alba

Alessandra Ambrosio

When Ambrosio was 12 years old, she enrolled in modeling classes, and then began modeling for Dilson Stein at age 15. Winning Brazil's Elite Model Look started her modeling career in earnest. Her first notable modeling job was the cover of Brazilian Elle magazine. Elite passed along some of her Polaroids to Guess which led her booking the Millennium GUESS? campaign along with friend and fellow Brazilian Ana Beatriz Barros. She has since appeared in advertisements for brands like Revlon, Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani, and Ralph Lauren, as well as the Pirelli Calendar.he has walked the catwalks for designers such as Prada, Chanel, and Oscar de la Renta. She has appeared in numerous international magazine covers, including Cosmopolitan, Elle, GQ, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, Ocean Drive, Vogue and the only model to appear on the cover of Glamour in the United States in 2006.
 

In 2004, Ambrosio launched her line of swimwear called Alessandra Ambrosio by Sais, a division of Rosa Chá. It sold 10,000 units in only its first month on the market.Ambrosio was the face for the UK company Next and starred in their first television campaign in 12 years. She is also signed to Storm Model Management in London.citation needed]On the July, 2009 cover of Marie Claire, Ambrosio appeared in a spread with Sacha Baron Cohen to promote Baron Cohen's 2009 film Brüno.Ambrosio, became the face of Brazilian sportswear brand Colcci costarring with Ashton Kutcher in a steamy denim ad. She was ranked No. 5 on Forbes' The World's Top-Earning Models list, with an estimated earnings of $5 million over the past 12 months (2010–2011).In October 2011, Ambrosio became Vogue's blogger, commenting on her wardrobe by posting one photo of herself each day for a month.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandra_Ambrosio

Heidi Klum

<sup>Heidi Klum is the current host of Project Runway, filmed at the Parsons The New School for Design. She has been featured on the covers of Vogue, Elle, and Marie Claire, and became widely known after appearing on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and for her work with Victoria's Secret as an "Angel". Klum has hosted the 2002, 2006, 2007 and 2009 Victoria's Secret Fashion Shows. On October 1, 2010, the New York Post reported in its "Page Six" gossip column that Heidi Klum would be leaving Victoria's Secret, which was later confirmed by Klum.

In addition to working with well-known photographers on her first husband's Sports Illustrated shoots, she was the object and subject of Joanne Gair body painting works in several editions from 1997 to 2010. She wrote the foreword to Gair's book of body paint work, Body Painting, Masterpieces. She was a spokesmodel for McDonald's, Braun, Dannon, H & M, and Liz Claiborne, among others. She is currently a celebrity spokesmodel for Jordache and Volkswagen. In addition to modeling, she has appeared in several TV shows, including Spin City, Sex and the City, Yes, Dear, and How I Met Your Mother. She had a role as an ill-tempered hair model in the movie Blow Dry, played a giantess in the movie Ella Enchanted and was cast as Ursula Andress in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. She had cameo appearances in The Devil Wears Prada and Perfect Stranger.

Her other projects include dance and video games. She is featured in the 2006 James Bond video game Everything or Nothing, wherein she plays the villain Dr. Katya Nadanova. She has appeared in several music videos, including Jamiroquai's video "Love Foolosophy" from their album A Funk Odyssey, Kelis's "Young, Fresh n' New", off her second 2001 album Wanderland and, most recently, the second video for her husband Seal's song "Secret" off his 2010 album Seal 6: Commitment. The latter video depicts the married couple sharing intimate moments while naked in bed; the concept was Klum's idea.</sup>

^{Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Klum}

Kate Beckinsale

Kathrin Romary "Kate" Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress. After some minor television roles, she made her film debut in Much Ado About Nothing (1993) while still a student at Oxford University. She then appeared in British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland (1994), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Emma (1996) and The Golden Bowl (2000), in addition to various stage and radio productions. She began to seek film work in the United States in the late 1990s and, after appearing in small-scale dramas The Last Days of Disco (1998) and Brokedown Palace (1999), she had a breakout year in 2001 with starring roles in the war epic Pearl Harbor and the romantic comedy Serendipity. She built on this success with appearances in the bio-pic The Aviator (2004) and the comedy Click (2006).

Beckinsale became known as an action star following an appearance in 2003's Underworld and has since starred in many action films, including Van Helsing (2004), Underworld: Evolution (2006), Whiteout (2009), Contraband (2012), and Underworld: Awakening (2012). She also makes occasional appearances in smaller dramatic projects such as Snow Angels (2007), Winged Creatures (2008), Nothing but the Truth (for which she earned a Critic's Choice Award nomination in 2008) and Everybody's Fine (2009). Her next onscreen appearance will be in the sci-fi action remake Total Recall, due for release in August 2012.


Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Beckinsale

Adriana Lima

Lima never thought about being a model, although she had won many beauty pageants in elementary school. However, she had a friend at school who wanted to enter a modeling contest and did not want to enter alone, so Lima entered with her. Both sent in pictures, and the contest sponsor soon asked Lima to come out for the competition. Soon after, at the age of 15, she entered and finished in first place in Ford's "Supermodel of Brazil" model search. She subsequently entered the 1996 Ford "Supermodel of the World" contest and finished in second place. Three years later, Lima moved to New York City and signed with Elite Model Management. After acquiring representation, Lima's modeling portfolio quickly began to expand, and she appeared in numerous international editions of Vogue and Marie Claire. As a runway model, she has walked the catwalks for designers such as Vera Wang, Giorgio Armani and Valentino, among others. Lima became a GUESS? girl in 2000, appearing in that year's fall ad campaign. She also appeared in the book A Second Decade of Guess? 

Lima continued to build upon her portfolio, doing more print work for Maybelline, for whom she worked as a spokesmodel from 2003 until 2009, the same year she appeared in the company's first calendar, a limited edition run also featuring Kemp Muhl, Jessica White, Julia Stegner, and Anna Wang. Lima has also worked for notable fashion brands bebe, Armani, Versace, BCBG and Louis Vuitton. She also appeared on the covers and in the editorials of other fashion magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, GQ, Arena, Vogue, V, Esquire and French Revue des Modes. Her April 2006 GQ cover was the highest-selling issue that magazine for the year. She also appeared in the 2005 Pirelli Calendar and became the face of Italy's cell phone carrier, Telecom Italia Mobile, a move that earned her the nickname, "the Catherine Zeta-Jones of Italy."
In February 2008, Lima was featured on the cover of Esquire, re-creating the classic 1966 Angie Dickinson cover on Esquire's 75th anniversary along with fellow Victoria's Secret Angels Alessandra Ambrosio, Karolina Kurkova, Izabel Goulart and Selita Ebanks. She appeared only in shoes, diamonds and gloves for the November 2007 issue of Vanity Fair celebrating 20 years of supermodels with her fellow Angels. In February 2008, she was chosen to be the face of Mexico's Liverpool department store chain and launched the partnership with a press conference, runway show, and summer campaign. Lima returned to the high fashion runway in 2009, walking for Givenchy. That same year, after visiting Turkey, Lima signed a contract with Doritos to appear in print campaigns and commercials which began airing in Turkey that April. She was also one of the faces of Givenchy for the Fall/Winter 2009 season, alongside Mariacarla Boscono and Iris Strubegger. Lima is one of the two faces of Blumarine's Fall/Winter 2011 season.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriana_Lima

Charlize Theron

Theron was born in Benoni, in the then Transvaal Province of South Africa, the only child of Gerda Jacoba Aletta Maritz (who has also called herself Gerta) and Charles Jacobus Theron (born 27 November 1947). Her mother is of German descent and her father was of Occitan (French) and Dutch ancestry; Theron is descended from early Huguenot settlers, and Boer War figure Danie Theron was her great-great uncle. "Theron" is an Occitan surname (originally spelled Théron) pronounced in Afrikaans as [tron], although she has said that the way she pronounces it in South Africa is [θron]. She changed the pronunciation when she moved to the U.S. to give it a more "American" sound.

She grew up on her parents' farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg. Her father died on 21 June 1991, after he was shot by Theron's mother. Theron's father, an alcoholic, physically attacked her mother and threatened both women while drunk. The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defence and her mother faced no charges.Theron attended Putfontein Primary School (Laerskool Putfontein), a period she later characterised as not "fitting in". At 13, Theron was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg. Although Theron became fluent in English (which she speaks with a General American accent) around age nineteen, her first language is Afrikaans.

 Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlize_Theron

Doutzen Kroes

Kroes described herself as a "tomboy" in her youth, though she applied to a modeling agency in Holland when older. The agency sent her to New York City, and after being cast a few times by Victoria's Secret, they asked her to try out as an "angel." When she moved to New York from Holland, she had never heard of the brand before. Kroes has been featured on the covers of Time, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Seventeen, Elle, Marie Claire, Glamour, W, Avantgarde, Dazed & Confused, and Numéro.[citation needed] She also appears regularly in the Victoria's Secret catalog and walked the runway of the company's fashion show in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2011.[citation needed] Kroes's campaigns include Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Versace, Valentino, Blumarine and Calvin Klein for both their 'White' label and their fragrance 'Eternity'.[citation needed] In 2005, Kroes was selected as "Model of The Year" on Vogue.com by readers.She was presented on the May 2007 cover of American Vogue as one of the “World’s Next Top Models” next to Chanel Iman among others. Along with several of these models, she appeared in the 2008 Pirelli Calendar.[citation needed]
Doutzen Kroes at Cannes Film Festival in 2009

In 2006, a Frisian documentary about a week in Kroes' life as a model was released, directed by J.J.M. Jansen. It documented Kroes at Milan Fashion Week and her thinking about the modeling industry.
In July 2007, earning at an estimated total of $1.5 million in the previous twelve months, Forbes named Kroes fourteenth in the list of the World's 15 Top-Earning Supermodels. In April 2008, she was in fifth position, with an estimated income of $6 million. In May 2009 and May 2010 respectively, Forbes named Kroes fifth again in the list of the World's 15 Top- Earning Supermodels.Kroes is in the official Frisian provincial campaign for the Frisian language, her mother tongue.At the end of August 2008, Victoria's Secret confirmed to People magazine that Kroes was to be the newest Victoria's Secret Angel. Her first campaign as the brand's newest Angel was "Supermodel Obsession".[citation needed] In September 2009, she signed to be the new face for Swiss cashmere label Repeat for two years.There is a wax figure of Kroes in the Amsterdam branch of Madame Tussaud's wax museum.
 

From November 2009 to July 2010, she wrote a monthly column about her life for the Dutch edition of 'Marie Claire.Currently, she is signed by DNA Model Management.In February 2010, Kroes returned to the catwalk during fashion week for Prada with fellow Angels Alessandra Ambrosio and Miranda Kerr. Prada was praised by former editor-in-chief of Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire magazines, Bonnie Fuller in her blog for using a curvy model such as Kroes for the fashion show.

Source article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doutzen_Kroes

Anne Hathaway

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress. After several stage roles, she appeared in the 1999 television series Get Real. She played Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries (2001). Over the next three years, Hathaway reprised that role for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement in 2004. Hathaway is also an Emmy winning actress for her voice-over performance in The Simpsons'. Hathaway had dramatic roles in Havoc and Brokeback Mountain, both in 2005. She starred in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and in Becoming Jane (2007) as Jane Austen. In 2008, she was acclaimed for her lead role in Rachel Getting Married, for which she won awards and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2010, she starred in the box office hits Valentine's Day and Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, as well as Love and Other Drugs. In 2011, she had a voice role in the animated film Rio and starred in Lone Scherfig's adaptation of One Day. She portrays Selina Kyle in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises and Fantine in Tom Hooper's Les Misérables. People magazine named her one of its breakthrough stars of 2001, and she first appeared on its list of the world's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2006.

Article source: wikipedia