British Actress Minnie Driver
Early Ambition
Amelia Fiona J. Driver (Minnie) was born January 31, 1970 in London. Her father was a businessman and her mother, a model and designer, was her father’s mistress. With multi European heritage she was raised and attended schools in various locations such as Barbados, Paris and Hampshire, England. At age 16, Minnie attended The Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.
Starting out
Shortly after graduating in 1991, Minnie won roles on popular British Television shows such as House of Elliott, Casualty, and Lovejoy. Her big break happened five years later when she portrayed two very different characters, a politician’s seductive mistress in Channel Four’s drama, The Politician’s Wife, and a plump, plain, small town girl in the film Circle of Friends, based on Maeve Binchy’s novel. This was followed by supporting roles in films GoldenEye with Pierce Brosnan, Sleepers with Brad Pitt and Grosse Pointe Blank with John Cusack.
Where there’s a Will there’s a Way
In 1997 Minnie received her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in the highly successful film Good Will Hunting, which was written by and starred Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Minnie also proved her diversity by taking on an action role in Hard Rain, a sexually charged drama in The Governess, comedy drama in An Ideal Husband staring Rupert Everett and romantic comedy opposite David Duchovny in Return to Me.
Back to her Roots
Returning to Television in 2003, Minnie became Karen Walker’s nemesis, Lorraine Finster on NBC’s popular sit-com Will & Grace. Her often hilarious and over the top performance gained her many fans. Likewise in 2007 for FX Network prime time show, The Riches as Dahila Malloy, co head of a family of Con-artist Travellers who assume new identities in an affluent community. The show was cancelled after the writers strike but it did get her nominated for an Emmy Award and Golden Globe.
Vocal Talents
Ironically, even though she had been a singer songwriter for many years, when she got a role in the screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s theatre production of The Phantom of the Opera in 2004, due to vocal requirements, she was the only actress to have her voice dubbed. As compensation she sang a song on the end credits written by Andrew especially for the film. She also provided the voice to two animated characters, Jane in Walt Disney’s version of Tarzan in 1999 and Lara Croft in Revisioned: Lara Croft in 2007.
Personal Life
After being romantically linked with co-stars, like Matt Damon and John Cusack, in 2001 she got engaged and subsequently broke up with Josh Brolin. During an appearance on The Tonight show with Jay Leno in 2008 she announced that she was pregnant and in September gave birth to a boy named Henry Story Driver.
Waxing Lyrical
Minnie sang in clubs to pay her way during school, signed to Island Records but later concentrated on acting. She returned to the Music professional in 2000 and signed to EMI. Her debut single ‘Everything I’ve Got In My Pocket’ was released in 2004 and reached 34 in UK charts. Her debut album of the same name received warm reviews. Minnie released her second album entitled Seastories in July 2007 with Ryan Adams among the list of collaborators.
More Recently
In 2009 Minnie played the part of an Eco scientist in mini series called The Deep shown on BBC One also staring James Nesbitt and late 2010 early 2011 sees her in two films, Barney’s Version staring Paul Giamatti and Conviction alongside Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell.
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Italian Actor, Michele Placido
Michele Placido
Michele Placido is the eldest of eight kids,Enzo (who followed the legal career), Donato (a journalist and newscaster of “Rai Due” channel), and also Alessandro, Virginia and Anna Maria. His father Beniamino is originally from Rionero in Vulture, while his mother Maria Lazetti comes from Ascoli Satriano.
LEAVING HOME
He moved to Rome to follow two of his greatest passions, becoming a policeman and studying acting.
While he was getting his qualification to be a member of the ” Polizia”, the governance body which controls traffic and minor violence, he studied at the “National Academy of Dramatic Art“. In 197 he made his debut as an actor working with the director Luca Roncini in a new version of the “Orlando Furioso”.
Michele Placido
ACTING CAREER
The first and real breakthrough as a cinema actor came in 1989, playing the role of Corrado Cattini, a lieutenant, in the TV series “ La Piovra“. This role was defined by some critics as his first serious role , even if he had previously played other important melodramatic characters in movies such as “Un Uomo in Ginocchio”, working closely with another famous actor, Giuliano Gemma in 1979.
Another important success which led him to become very important in the Italian film industry is ” Mery per sempre” directed by Marco Risi. The movie falls under the dramatic genre. It was written by Aurelio Grimaldi, Sandro Petraglia, and Stefano Rulli. It was produced by Carlo Bonivento. The soundtrack of the movie was made by Giancarlo Bigazzi. It stars prominant actors including, Claudio Amendola, Alessandro di Sanzo, Francesco Benigno, Salvatore Termini, and Tony Sparandeo.
The movie portrays the dramatic reality of the prison in Sicily, Palermoi, in the southern part of Italy. The movie is set in a juvenile detention center during the eighty’s. Marco Terzi is a teacher who has been transferred from Milan to Palermo to give lectures inside the juvenile center. The movie describes the difficulty that the main character has to establish realtionships with the juveniles of the center, who don’t seem to listen to him. Marco finds it particularly hard to get inside the head of one of his students, named Natale Sparendeo (played by Francesco Benigno).
The movie aims to portray the hardship that the isolated prisoners have to go through in their ordinary routine in Italy to give the audience some food of thought about a problem that has drastically increased in the past years.
However, Placiod also had some falldowns in his career, especially with the directing of his movie ” Ovunque Sei” which created a strong debate on a particular scene of nudity of one of the actors, Stefano Accorsi.
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Michele had several important relationships in his life. He has five sons. . He and Simonetta Stefanelli (another famous Italian actress) got a divorce in 1994 after he had three children with her,Violante Placido(a singer), Michelangelo Placido (an actor) and Marco Branno (an actor known to the public with a nickname of Marco Brenno).
In 1988, Placido had another son named Inigo, with Virginie Alexandre. And with his actual partner,Federica Vincenti he had another child in 2006 named Gabriele.
Italian Actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno
Giovanna Mezzogiorno
GROWING UP
Giovanna was born on the 9th of November, 1974 in Rome into an artistic oriented family, with both her parents being in the acting industry, Vittorio Mezzogiorno and her mother Cecilia Sacci.
Since she was a little girl she had always wanted to become an actress, being able to play different characters, and to entertain the audience with her charm and her beauty. However she was different from the other girls of her age, she did not show any particular interest in becoming famous or a celebrity.
LEAVING HOME
When Giovanna left home she was really young after her father died when she was only eighteen. Moving away from home, represented the first time in her life in which she had to face the reality of living in another country, like France, by herself . In Paris she studied the art of acting, by attending the workshops with Arianna Monouchkine and taking classes at the Peter Brook workshop.
In Paris Giovanna also experienced her debut as an actress in her role of Ofelia in Brook theatrical play ” Qui est la? ” based on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet ”.
Giovanna Mezzogiorno in " La Bestia Nel Cuore"(Don't tell me) 2005
ACTING CAREER
After experiencing the first taste of acting by working with Peter Brook, Giovanna came back to Italy to play in Sergio Rubini’s film “Il viaggio della sposa” in 1997. Thanks to her performance she won the ”Flaino” award for best female actress.
In 1998 she starred in the film ” Del Perduto Amore” directed by Michele Placido and also for this movie she was awarded the Nastro D’oro, the Ciak d’Oro and the Premio Passinetti.
Her second important movie was ” L’ultimo Bacio” as co-star with the other famous actor, Stefano Accorsi. This movie led the way for her to become known nationally across all of Italy.
However the real success which led her to become known internationally was the movie “La Bestia Nel Cuore” ( Don’t tell me) in 1995. The film was directed by Cristina Comencini. The film was based on a novel also written by Cristina with the cooperation of Giulia Calenda and Francesca Marciano. The movie starred important Italian Actors such as Alessio Boni, Luigi Lo Cascio, Stefania Rocca, Angela Finocchiaro, Giuseppe Battiston, Valerio Binasco, Simona Lisi and Francesca Inaudi. The film was distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment and was released on September 9th 2005. For her role she won one of the most important prizes for an actress, the ” Coppa Volpi”, and the movie gained an award as Best Foreign Language Film.
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Giovanna Mezzogiorno had an important love story with the other famous Italian Actor, Stefano Accorsi, with whom she had two sons. Even if their relationship seems to be going well, problems were on the horizon for the two lovers which turned them apart until the couple decided to finally break up.
Giovanna seemed incapable of finding true love until she met her actual partner Alessio Fugolo, working on the film ” Vincere” directed by Marco Bellocchio. As a romantic fairy tale she and her beloved Alessio exchanged their vows in Como Lake with the promise to live happily ever after.
American Actress Sandra Bullock
Early Life
Sandra Annette Bullock, an American actress and producer, was born on July 26, 1964 in Arlington, Virginia. Her father, John W.Bullock is an Army employee and part time voice coach and her mother, Helga D. Meyer is a German opera singer and voice teacher. As a child Bullock frequently accompanied her mother on her opera tours throughout Europe. She spent a lot of time in Salzburg and Nuremberg, where she became fluent in German. While there she also studied ballet and vocal arts, taking small parts in her mother’s productions. Back in America, she attended Washington-Lee High School, where she performed in several high school theatre productions. After graduating in 1982, she attended East Carolina University, however she dropped out in her fourth year to pursue an acting career, despite being just three credits short of graduating. She moved to Manhattan, supporting herself by taking on bartending and waitressing jobs. Later she completed her coursework and graduated from University.
Career
While living in New York, Bullock appeared in many student films and later in an off-broadway play called No Time Flat. The director, Alan J. Levi was so impressed by Bullock’s performance that he offered her a part in the TV film Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman in 1989. From there she was cast in a few independent films, and also as the lead in the short-lived NBC version of the film Working girl in 1990. Over the next few years she appeared in Love Potion No.9, The Thing called Love and Fire on the Amazon. One of the most prominent supporting roles she took was in the movie Demolition Man, which led to her breakthrough performance in Speed in 1994.
In the late 1990’s, Bullock was in a string of successes, including While you were Sleeping, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Miss Congeniality and Miss Congeniality 2: and Armed and Fabulous, for which she received $17.5 million. In 1996 and 1999, she was selected as one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World and was also ranked number 58 in Empire magazine’s Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time list. In 2002, she starred in the global hit Two Weeks Notice and in 2004; she had a supporting role in the film Crash. Later on she appear in The Lake House, Infamous, and Premonition, which was released in 2007.
2009 proved to be an especially good year for Bullock. Early in the year she starred in the box office success The Proposal, and later in the year she starred in The Blind Side, for which she won awards at the Oscars, Golden Globes, Academy awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Originally she turned down the role three times due to the discomfort of playing a devout Christian.
By 2009, it is estimated that Bullock’s films have grossed over $3.1 billion and according to The Numbers, her total domestic gross stands at around $1.7 billion, placing her among the Top 100 Stars at the Box Office.
Personal Life
Bullock was once engaged to actor Tate Donovon, whom she met while filming Love Potion No. 9. She has also dated Troy Aikman, Bob Schneider, Matthew McConaughey and Ryan Cosling.
In July 2005, Bullock married Jesse James, who she met after arranging for her godson to meet him as a Christmas present. In November 2009, Bullock and James won full legal custody for his five-year daughter from his previous marriage.
In March 2010, she had to cancel her European promotional appearances for The Blind Side as several women claimed to have had affairs with James during their marriage. James publicly apologized to Bullock and it was reported that he checked into rehab in order to ‘deal with personal issues’ and ‘save his marriage.’ However in April 2010, Bullock filed for divorce, with it been finalized in June 2010.
Despite the divorce Bullock decided to proceed with plans to adopt a baby boy who the couple had began to adopt four years earlier. The child began living with them in January 2010 although it wasn’t announced until March.
Away from work, Bullock has been a great supporter of the American Red Cross and has donated at least $4 million to the organization. She is also a supporter of the Texas non-profit organization, The Kindred Life Foundation, Inc.
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American Actor Brad Renfro
Early Life Brad Renfro was an American Actor who had a short life. He was born on 25 July, 1982 in Knoxville, Tennessee a child of Mark, a factory worker, and Angela Renfro. The couple later split up when Renfro was only five years old, leaving him to be taken care of by his grandmother, Joanne Barron Renfro. Renfro had a half sister named Haley Rose Olsen and a cousin, Jesse Hasek, who was a singer of 10 Years in a band from Knoxville, Tennesse. Renfro was a fan of Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Paige and had played guitar since he was six years old. Little Renfro went studying at Fountain City Elementary School in Knoxville, Tennesee before finally his talent was found by a casting director.
Acting Career Starring in 21 films and television episodes, Brad Renfro was named as one of the most wanted young actors, and had been paired with famous actors and actresses in several movies. His career started after Mali Finn cast him in Joel Schumacher’s The Client (1995), a movie based on the bestselling novel by John Grisham. Renfro, who was just ten years old at that time, played with Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones and won Hollywood reporter’s “Young Star” award for his role. He was also chosen as one of the Top 30 under 30 by People’s magazine. In the same year, Renfro took a role as Huckleberry Finn in Tom and Huck. Renfro won another “Young Star” award and “Young Artist” for performing in The Cure.
Brad Renfro's first act in The Client
Sleepers (1996) was his next casting where he played alongside Robert DeNiro, Kevin Bacon, Brad Pitt and Dustin Hoffman. He appeared two years later in a movie by Bryan Singer, Apt Pupil, and in an action preview, Resident Evil 2. He received an award from Tokyo International Film Festival for the Best Actor Award, Director’s Choice Award for Most Spirited Rising Performer by Sedona International Film Festival. He had also been nominated by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for Saturn Award Best Performance by a Younger Actor for his role in Apt Pupil. His other performances were in early 2000s in Ghost World (2001), Bully (2002), Confession of an American Girl, The Jacket (2005), and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and The Informers with Winona Ryder.
Crime and Death At the age 15, Renfro was arrested after police officers in Tennesse found him carrying two bags of cocaine and marijuana, but agreed to be screened and evaluated randomly to avoid trial. In August 2000, he once again was arrested after trying to steal a yacht at Fort Lauderdale harbor and spent two years in jail for probation which later was violated after he tried to drive without carrying a license. He had to join three-month substance abuse treatment for his violation. In 2005, Renfro was sentenced to three-year probation after being found buying heroin during an undercover drug operation in Los Angeles which prevented him from appearing on the scene for a year. He once again went to jail for 10 days in 2006 for driving under the influence and using heroin.
On 15 January, 2008, Renfro was found dead from an accidental heroin overdose and was buried a week later in north of Knoxville, Tennesse, at Red House Cemetery. Anya Bergstedt Jordanova, who was Renfro’s ex-girlfriend, started a Memorial fund to remember the life of Brad Renfro. Renfro was revealed to have a son with a Japanese woman by his family a week after his death. The son lived in Japan with his mother.
Irish Actor Colin Farrell
Colin Farrel
Early Life Colin Farrell is an Irish actor who made a success in Hollywood. His origin was from Dublin, born on 31 May, 1976, as one of sons of football player, Eamon Farrell, and a housewife, Rita. There were two other daughters from the marriage named Claudine, who became Farrell’s personal assistant, and Catherine, also a brother, Eamon Jr. Farrell’s family moved from the city to Castleknock and he went to St. Brigid’s National school Castleknock. He continued studying for higher education at Castleknock College and Gomanston College, and learnt acting at The Gaiety School of Acting. He dropped out early and gave up his education for a cast in Ballykissangel, on BBC Drama during year 1998 – 1999. Farrell auditioned for a boyband group, Boyzone, but he failed the selection.
Filmography and Awards Farrell won several awards during his film career. His talent was recognized soon after he starred the BBC drama and played in another TV miniseries Falling For a Dancer (1999). In Film, he had uncredited roles in The Dissappearance of Finbar (1996) and Drinking Crude (1997) and finally credited as Colin J. Farrell in The War Zone (1999). His role in American film started when he played American Outlaws (2001) and Hart’s War (2002), but didn’t become famous until he appeared in Phone Booth, S.W.A.T., and The Recruit in 2003 which took his career to a higher level. He won an award from Shanghai International Film Festival for Best Actor for his role in Hart’s War.
Farrell is excellent in pronouncing accents. He could play a character speaking with a fluent American accent in film although he has strong Irish Accent. With his talent, he received several nominations including The Best Actor at Irish Film & Television Awards for his roles in S.W.A.T. and Intermission, Academy Award for The New World, and finally won Golden Globe for In Bruges.
Farrell’s big castings in Hollywood started with Minority Report (2002) and Daredevil (2003) playing as a villain Bullseye. In 2003, he happened to get an opportunity to play with his childhood idol, Al Pacino, in The Recruit. Following these successes, he was offered the role of Alexander in Alexander The Great (2004), and played with Salma Hayek in Ask the Dust (2006). Farrell’s other hit was to appear in Miami Vice (2006) with Jamie Fox, then became a homeless man in a movie Kicking It. In 2007, Woody Allen cast him in Cassandra’s Dream. Pride and Glory (2008) followed a year later, but it wasn’t as successful as the previous movies.
Colin Farrel in London Boulevard
Alongside Johnny Depp and Jude Law, Ferrell replaced the role of Heath Ledger in Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) who died because of a heroin overdose before filming ended. He had left his salary to Ledger’s heir. In the same year he played in Crazy Heart and took a part in Ondine and London Boulevard with Keira Knightley in the following year.
Private Life Colin Farrell has been named as The Sexiest Man by Company magazine and selected as one of “50 Most Beautiful People” in 2003 by People’s magazine.
Farrell has had chronic insomnia since he was child that caused him struggle with addiction to drugs and painkillers. He had routine rehabilitation meetings to cure his back injury in 2005.
Ferrell’s first marriage was to Amelia Werner in 2001, which lasted only four months. He then dated Kim Bordenave and had a son in 2003, who later was found to have Angelman Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. In 2009 Ferrell’s girlfriend, Alicja Bachelda-Curus delivered him another son, but the couple split later in 2010. Media reported Farrell as a close friend of Elizabeth Taylor and he was one of the few non-family attendants who came to her funeral.
French Actress Arletty
Arletty
London Academy of Media Film TV
Early Life
Arletty was born as Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat on 15 May, 1898, in Courbevoie close to Paris. Her family who was categorized as working class with their profession as waged labor. Her parents worked mostly in a factory. Arletty herself had once worked in a factory before she got a chance to be a model. It was just right after she finished her study at school when she started working in a factory just as the other of her family members.
Career Development
Arletty had worked as a secretary before she got a chance to be an actress. While she was working as a secretary, she had also posed as a model. She was basically a multi talented woman. Modeling did not bring her to be an actress directly. Her career continued in music as a singer in 1918. Her acting career was started later in 1920. At that time she had performed in some cabaret and also theater. She played some roles in plays on stage. It had been an initial sign of her future career as an actress. She had been involved in the theater and on stage shows for about a decade before she got her first chance to be in a motion picture.
Film Career
In 1930, Arletty had firstl appeared in a motion picture. Some of her early films include a film entitled Un chien qui rapport produced in 1932. Through these years, Arletty was still acting on stage. In 1936 when she was acting in a play entitled Les Joies du Capitole she got more recognition. The play brought her to a point where she could strengthen her role as an actress. Another play at that time that was also influential included the Fric Frac. In 1938 she starred in Hôtel du Nord and Le jour se lève in 1939. Her career was plain at that time even though she had collaborated with the other famous actors. But, it was not until she acted in Les Enfants du Paradis in 1945 that
Arletty
became the most famous film of her career in the film industry. After a hard time imprisoned and also banned, she was back to the screen. She played in Portrait d’un Assassin in 1949 followed by Huis Clos in 1954 and Air of Paris in the same year. In 1962, she acted in The Longest Day that was to be her last film before retirement.
Imprisonment
Arletty had been imprisoned once in France. It was in 1945 right after the World War II. It was because of her communication with a German officer. She was suspected of betrayal by having such correspondence with the German officer. She was then imprisoned in Drancy concentration camp and then moved later to Fresnes prison which is close to Paris.
Death
In 1963, Arletty had an accident that nearly made her blind. This was also a reason of her retirement in the film industry. She died in 1992. Her ashes were buried in Nouveau Cimetière de Courbevoie.
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British Actor Richard E. Grant
EARLY LIFE
Richard E. Grant is a British actor born on the 5th May 1957 in Swaziland, as Richard Esterhuysen. His father, Henrik Esterhuysen, was head of education for the British government administration in the British Protectorate of Swaziland and was of Afrikaner extraction. His mother was a white South African local ballet teacher of German extraction. Grants’ parents separated after the revelation of his mother’s affair.
He studied English and Drama at the University of Cape Town, but moved to the UK as an adult and changed his name to Grant upon registering with the British Actor’s Equity Association.
CAREER
Grant moved to London in 1982 but took the lead in his first feature film role in Withnail and I in 1986. A story of two drunken, hopeless actors living in squalor, the film’s black humour and distinctive Britishness led it to become quite a cult success. He soon began appearing in Hollywood productions and established himself as a reputable character actor. Grant has appeared in films such as L.A Story, Gosford Park, Spice World, Portrait of a Lady and Penelope.
Taking on a range of different projects, in 2006 Grant investigated with BBC Newsnight to expose a $98 million scam selling a bogus AIDs cure.
In 2008 he made his musical theatre debut at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, playing Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady with Opera Australia.
Loosely based on his childhood experiences in Swaziland, Grant wrote and directed the feature film Wah-Wah (2005). The film stars Julie Walters, Miranda Richardson and Nicholas Hoult and his memoirs of this film experience, as documented in The Wah-Wah Diaries, he writes of the troubled relationship he had with the film’s producer, Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar.
PERSONAL LIFE
Since the break up of his parents’ marriage Grant has kept a diary and he wears a watch on both wrists, one given to him by his dying father which remains on Swaziland time.
He has been married to voice coach Joan Washington since 1986 and they have a daughter, Olivia and he has a stepson, Tom.
Grant is teetotal, despite his role as the intoxicated Withnail, and he is a passionate supporter of West Ham United.
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British actress, Thandie Newton
London Academy of Media Film and TV
English actress Thandie Newton
Early Life and Heritage
English actress Thandiwe Adjewa Newton, most commonly known as Thandie Newton, was born on November 6th 1972, during her parents two week stay, in London, England. Thandie is of royal heritage stemming from her mother, Nyasha, a Zimbabwean Shona princess and health care worker. Her father Nick is an English artist and laboratory technician. The name Thandiwe means beloved in the South African dialects of Ndebele, Zulu and Swazi. Thandie lived with her family in Zambia until the age of five years old. Thandie recalls her fondest memory of life in Zambia, as watching her mother get dressed in the traditional African garb because it made her proud of her Zambian heritage. Political unrest in the country caused the family to move back to London. At the age of 11 years old Thandie and her family relocated to Penzance, Cornwall, where Thandie attended Tring Park School for the Performing Arts, where she studied modern dance, until a back injury forced her to quit dancing; Thandie then turned to acting and started auditioning for film roles.
Thandie Newton in Crash
In 1991, at the age of 16, Thandie landed her first acting role in the Australian coming of Age film Flirting, while filming Thandie became good friends with her co-star Nicole Kidman. Thandie then moved to Los Angles, USA, to pursue an acting career. Her strong British accent limited the roles Thandie was offered, after a year in America, Thandie then moved back to England. At the age of 18 Thandie enrolled in Cambridge University to study Anthropology, in which she gained a 2:1 degree. In 1994, while still studying Thandie landed the role of Yvette, the maid of the lead character, played by Brad Pitt, in the hit film; Interview with a Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles. In 1995, 23 year old Thandie gained international recognition in the American historical drama and Merchant-Ivory production of Jefferson in Paris, as the character Sally Hemings. This casting helped Thandie land her first lead role in Jonathan Demme’s, Beloved (1998), in which she played the title character and co-starred alongside Oprah Winfrey. This role cemented Thandie as female lead material, putting her alongside Hollywood male leads. Thandie went on to play the female lead, Nyah Hall, in the blockbuster hit; Mission Impossible II (2000), co-starring Tom Cruise. She then starred in the American science fiction film; The Chronicles of Roddick, alongside Vin Diesel. In 2006, Thandie gained the prestigious accolades; BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award for best supporting actress, in the film Crash (2004) for her performance as Christine Thayer, a wealthy black woman who with her husband (played by Terrence Howard) are targeted by racist policemen. This achievement elevated Thandie Newton as a Hollywood star, she then went to star in Guy Richie’s, Crime film, RocknRolla (2008), alongside Gerald Butler. In the same year, Thandie Played Condoleezza Rice in the film W, an autobiographical film on George W Bush. In 2007, Thandie continued to showcase her versatile acting talent, as she ventured into the comedy genre. She stared in Norbit alongside Eddie Murphy, as the title characters’ love interest, and opposite Simon Pegg, as his ex-girlfriend in the comedy Run Fat Boy Run. In 2010 Thandie joined a constellation of stars; Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson and Kerry Washington to name a few, in the controversial stage adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1975). The film title; For Coloured Girls. Thandie also dabbled in TV, starring as Makemba ‘Kem’ Likasu, ion the hit American TV drama, ER. Thandie has currently finished filming, the thriller, Retreat.
Italian Actress, Claudia Cardinale
Claudie Cardinale
GROWING UP
Claude Josephine Rose Cardinale was born in La Goulette on the 15th of April 1939 in La Goulette, an Italian Tunisian neighborhood. Her mother Yolande Greco was Tunisian born to Italian immigrants from Sicily, and her father was an Italian railway worker, born in Gela Italy. Since she was a young girl she had to learn to speak different languages including, French,Tunisian, Arabic and Italian.
She was educated together with her younger sister, Blanche, at the Saint-Joseph-de-l’Apparition in Cartagine. However she was a bit of rebel spirit and her behavior cost her some time off school, and difficult relationships with her classmates. As with her teenage friends, she was fascinated by the lives of Hollywood stars such as Brigitte Bardot, who became known world wide for her movie ” Et Dieu…crea la femme” in 1956.
LEAVING HOME …
Her first breakthrough in the film industry came with her role in the short movie ” Anneaux d’or” directed by Rene Vautier. That movie was presented to the Berlin Film Festival and led to her to become known locally.
"IL GATTOPARDO " (1963) by Luchino Visconti
Thanks to her first movie, she was then cast in other movies such as ” Goha” ( I giorni dell’ Amore), directed by Jacques Baratier. However, she played the second main character, and for this reason she felt abandoned and apart from the film director.
Her big success came with the film directed by Pietro Germi called “Un Maledetto Imbroglio“. The movie also known in English as “The Facts of Murder”, in 1959. The film was based on the novel written by Carlo Emilio Gadda named ” Quer Pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana”. The movie was produced by Giuseppe Amato and Carlo Silvestri . It included a fabulous cast of actors including: Pietro Germi, Franco Fabrizi, Cristina Gaioni, Claudio Gora, Eleonora Rossi Drago, Saro Urzi, Nino Castelnuovo, Ildebrando Santafe, Peppino de Martino and Silla Bettini. The music was produced by Carlo Rustichelli. The film was edited by Roberto Cinquini.
This movie was a huge success finding agreement among different critics not only for Claudia but for the entire crew. The director was awarded at the Mar de Plata Film festival and Claudio Gora was awarded the “Nastro D’Argento” prize as Best Male Supporting Actor.
Claudia’s third most important film is considered to be ” La Ragazza con la Valigia“. It was directed by Valerio Zurlini and was presented at the 14th Cannes Festival. This movie was really close to her heart and she found the character particularly hard to play it because it portrayed her life, the life of a poor young girl who gets pregnant and has to live through her pregnancy in complete silence. Because of her attachment to that role, she had to spend some months away from the film scene to find her self again after the movie was over.
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
She had a long loving relationship with the Italian Film producer, Franco Cristaldi. The couple separated in 1975. Claudia is in a relationship with her existent partner, Pasquale Squitieri.
Claudia has two children. The first, Patrizio, who was born out of a violent realationship when she was only seventeen, who was then adopted by Pasquale, and Claudio whose biological father is Squitieri.
Claudia is an activist involved in different humanitarian causes such as the protection of gay rights, and always has a lot of pride in her Tunisian and Arabic heritage .
Cardinale has been an ambassador of UNESCO, spreading knowledge on protecting women everywhere in the world.
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