Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek

Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez (born September 2, 1966) is a Mexican actress, director, and television and film producer. Hayek's charitable work includes increasing awareness on violence against women and discrimination against immigrants.

Hayek is the first Mexican national to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She is one of the most prominent Mexican figures in Hollywood since silent film actress Dolores del Río. She is also, after Fernanda Montenegro, the second of three Latin American actresses (the other being Catalina Sandino Moreno) to achieve a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

In July 2007, The Hollywood Reporter ranked Hayek fourth in their inaugural Latino Power 50, a list of the most powerful members of the Hollywood Latino community.That same month, a poll found Hayek to be the "sexiest celebrity" out of a field of 3,000 celebrities (male and female); according to the poll, "65 percent of the U.S. population would use the term 'sexy' to describe her".In December 2008, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hayek number 17 in their list of the "25 Smartest People in TV."

Early life

Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico, the daughter of Diana Jiménez, an opera singer and talent scout, and Sami Hayek, an oil company executive.Hayek's father is Mexican of Lebanese descent while her mother is Mexican of Spanish descent.[8] Her first given name, Salma, is Arabic for "safe". Raised in a wealthy, devoutly Catholic family, she was sent to the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Grand Coteau, Louisiana, at the age of twelve. While there, she was diagnosed with dyslexia. She was also an accomplished gymnast aspiring to compete in the Olympics, but her father prevented her from being recruited by the Mexican national team. The religious sisters running the Academy ejected Hayek, citing behavioral problems, so she returned to Mexico. She was later sent to live with her aunt in Houston, Texas, where she stayed until she was 17 years old. She attended college in Mexico City, where she studied International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana. To the surprise of her family, she dropped out to pursue a career as an actress.

Career
Mexico
At the age of 23, Hayek landed the title role in Teresa (1989), a successful Mexican telenovela that made her a star in Mexico. In 1994, Hayek starred in the film El Callejón de los Milagros (Miracle Alley), which has won more awards than any other movie in the history of Mexican cinema. For her performance, Hayek was nominated for an Ariel Award.

Early Hollywood acting work

Hayek moved to Los Angeles, California in 1991 to study acting under Stella Adler. She had limited fluency in English, which was attributed to her suffering from dyslexia. Robert Rodriguez and his producer wife Elizabeth Avellan soon gave Hayek the break she needed, a starring role opposite Antonio Banderas in 1995's Desperado.[7] The movie caught Hollywood's attention, as moviegoers proved to be dazzled by Hayek as Rodriguez had been. Due to Hayek's loyalty to the director, she would later decline playing the role Catherine Zeta-Jones eventually took in The Mask of Zorro after Rodriguez abandoned the project. She also appeared in the Spy Kids trilogy.Hayek had a starring part opposite Matthew Perry in the romantic comedy Fools Rush In. She followed her success in Desperado with a brief but memorable role as a vampire queen in From Dusk Till Dawn, in which she performed a table-top snake dance. In 1999, she co-starred in Will Smith's big-budget Wild Wild West, and played a supporting role in Kevin Smith's Dogma. In 2000, Hayek had an uncredited acting part opposite Benicio del Toro in Traffic. In 2003, she reprised her role from Desperado by appearing in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, the final film of the Mariachi Trilogy.

Later Hollywood work: Director, producer and actress

Around 2000, Hayek founded film production company Ventanarosa, through which she produces film and television projects. Her first feature as a producer was 1999's El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escriba, Mexico's official selection for submission for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars.

Frida, co-produced by Hayek, was released in 2002. Starring Hayek as Frida Kahlo, and Alfred Molina as her unfaithful husband, Diego Rivera, the film was directed by Julie Taymor and featured an entourage of stars in supporting and minor roles (Valeria Golino, Ashley Judd, Edward Norton, Geoffrey Rush) and cameos (Antonio Banderas). She earned a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her performance. This made Hayek, along with Katy Jurado and Adriana Barraza, one of only three Mexican actresses to have been nominated for an Academy Award. The film earned two Oscars.

In the movie, Salma Hayek plays one of the sisters, Minerva, and Edward James Olmos plays the Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo whom the sisters opposed. Marc Anthony plays a brief role as Minerva's first love, and as the motivation for her later revolutionary activities.

In 2003, Hayek produced and directed the The Maldonado Miracle, a Showtime movie which won her a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Children/Youth/Family Special. In December 2005, she directed a music video for Prince, titled "Te Amo Corazon" ("I love you, sweetheart") that featured her good friend Mia Maestro.

Hayek is an executive producer of Ugly Betty, a television series airing around the world since September 2006. Hayek adapted the series for American television with Ben Silverman, who acquired the rights and scripts from the Colombian telenovela Yo Soy Betty La Fea in 2001. Originally intended as a half hour sitcom for NBC in 2004, the project would later be picked up by ABC for the 2006–2007 season with Silvio Horta also producing. Hayek guest-starred on Ugly Betty as Sofia Reyes, a magazine editor. She also had a cameo playing an actress in the telenovela within the show. The show quickly became a ratings hit and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Series in 2007. Hayek's performance as Sofia resulted in a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Singing credits

Hayek has been credited as a song performer in three movies. The first was Desperado for the song Quedate Aquí. In Frida she performed with band Los Vega the Mexican folk song La Bruja. She also recorded Siente mi amor, which played during the end credits of Once Upon a Time in Mexico. She also contributed to Happiness is a Warm Gun in "Across the Universe" as the singing nurses.

Promotional work

Hayek has been a spokesperson for Avon cosmetics since February 2004. She formerly acted as spokesperson for Revlon in 1998. In 2001, she modeled for Chopard and was featured in 2006 Campari adverts as photographed by Mario Testino.[23] On April 3, she helped introduce La Doña, a watch by Cartier inspired by fellow Mexican actress María Félix.

Hayek was also featured in a series of Spanish language commercials for Lincoln cars. Consequently, sales of the Lincoln Navigator among Hispanics increased by twelve percentage points.

Personal life
Hayek is a naturalized U.S. citizen. She dated actor Edward Norton between 1999 and 2003, and then Josh Lucas in 2003. She is a good friend of Spanish actress Penélope Cruz and co-starred with her in the 2006 film Bandidas. Hayek studied at Ramtha's School of Enlightenment. Her brother, Sami Hayek, is a designer with his own line of products at Target and clients that include Louis Vuitton, Brad Pitt, and the Mexican Government.

Hayek often uses method acting to play characters. While she was cast as Frida Kahlo, Hayek had to smoke for the role using real cigarettes. As a result in her own admission she became a smoker and is currently trying to kick the habit.

On March 9, 2007, Hayek confirmed she was expecting her first child with PPR CEO François-Henri Pinault. On September 21, 2007, she gave birth to daughter Valentina Paloma Pinault at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. On July 18, 2008, Hayek and Pinault announced the end of their engagement. They later reconciled and were married on Valentine's Day, 2009 in Paris. On April 25, 2009, they were married a second time in Venice.

On October 12, 2007, the Beatles-inspired musical Across the Universe premiered. Once again, Salma worked with director Julie Taymor (who directed Frida), as she has a small role as six singing nurses in the movie.

Salma's pregnancy delayed the shooting of the movie Keep Coming Back, directed by actor William H. Macy. The movie now has no set cast but actress Milla Jovovich is rumored to have taken over the role.

Ms. Hayek filmed the family horror/drama Cirque Du Freak in February 2008, it was announced in early January the same year. Salma will portray the bearded lady in the movie which centers around a young boy named Darren Shan who meets a mysterious man at a freak show. The man, Larten Crepsley, turns out to be a (good) vampire. After a series of events Darren must leave his normal life and go on the road with the Cirque Du Freak and become a half-vampire. The movie is due for release October 23, 2009.

Advocacy

On July 19, 2005, Hayek testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary supporting reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. In February 2006, she donated $25,000 to a Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, shelter for battered women and another $50,000 to Monterrey based anti-domestic violence groups.

Since the birth of her daughter, Hayek has worked to help mothers in developing nations worldwide, teaming up with Pampers and UNICEF to help stop the spread of life-threatening maternal and neonatal tetanus. She is a global spokesperson for the Pampers/UNICEF partnership 1 Pack = 1 Vaccine to help raise awareness of the program.

Hayek also advocates breastfeeding, because of its benefits, including building stronger infant immune systems. During a UNICEF fact-finding trip to Sierra Leone, she breastfed a hungry week-old baby whose mother could not produce milk.

In late 2008, Salma Hayek was tapped by Tina Fey to guest star on an episode of her hit comedy 30 Rock. After filming her first episode and having such a great time she was asked back for another episode; and again, and again. Salma has filmed 5 episodes which begin airing January 7th and will continue to until the end of her character arc. She plays Elisa, a funny Puerto Rican nurse and the love interest of Alec Baldwin's Jack. Salma told Conan O'Brien on a guest appearance in early 2008 that she is considering a sixth episode.
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Angelina Jolie | Angelina Jolie wallpapers | Angelina Jolie Photo

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie (born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress and Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency. She has received three Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and an Academy Award. Jolie has promoted humanitarian causes throughout the world, and is noted for her work with refugees through UNHCR. She has been cited as one of the world's most beautiful women and her off-screen life is widely reported.

Though she made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in the 1982 film Lookin' to Get Out, Jolie's acting 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 Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical 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 wider fame after her portrayal of video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and since then has established herself as one of the best-known and highest-paid actresses in Hollywood. She has had her biggest commercial successes with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and the animated film Kung Fu Panda (2008).

Early life and family

Born in Los Angeles, California, Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. She is the niece of Chip Taylor, sister of James Haven and the god-daughter of Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. On her father's side, Jolie is of Czechoslovakian and German descent,and on her mother's side she is French Canadian and is said to be part Iroquois.However, Voight has claimed Bertrand was "not seriously Iroquois", and they merely said it to enhance his ex-wife's exotic background.

After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother were raised by their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions and moved with them to Palisades, New York. As a child, Jolie regularly saw movies with her mother and later explained that this had inspired her interest in acting; she had not been influenced by her father. When she was eleven years old, the family moved back to Los Angeles and Jolie decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she trained for two years and appeared in several stage productions.

While growing up, Angelina Jolie modeled professionally. Her very first acting gig was in her dad's film, Looking To Get Out at age five. When Angelina grew up, she settled in New York and attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. She auditioned her heart out and got her first big break when she landed a role in 1995's Hackers.
Angelina Jolie - Award Winner!

At the age of 14, she dropped out of her acting classes and dreamed of becoming a funeral director. During this period, she wore black clothing, dyed her hair purple and went out moshing with her live-in boyfriend.Two years later, after the relationship had ended, she rented an apartment above a garage a few blocks from her mother's home. She returned to theatre studies and graduated from high school, though in recent times she has referred to this period with the observation, "I am still at heart—and always will be—just a punk kid with tattoos".

She later recalled her time as a student at Beverly Hills High School (later Moreno High School), and her feeling of isolation among the children of some of the area's more affluent families. Jolie's mother survived on a more modest income, and Jolie often wore second-hand clothes. She was teased by other students who also targeted her for her distinctive features, for being extremely thin, and for wearing glasses and braces.[10] Her self-esteem was further diminished when her initial attempts at modeling proved unsuccessful. She started to cut herself; later commenting, "I collected knives and always had certain things around. For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me."

Jolie has been long estranged from her father. The two tried to reconcile and he appeared with her in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001).In July 2002, Jolie filed a request to legally change her name to "Angelina Jolie", dropping Voight as her surname; the name change was made official on September 12, 2002. In August of the same year, Voight claimed that his daughter had "serious mental problems" on Access Hollywood. Jolie later indicated that she no longer wished to pursue a relationship with her father, and said, "My father and I don't speak. I don't hold any anger toward him. I don't believe that somebody's family becomes their blood. Because my son's adopted, and families are earned." She stated that she did not want to publicize her reasons for her estrangement from her father, but because she had adopted her son, she did not think it was healthy for her to associate with Voight.

Relationships

On March 28, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller, her co-star in the film Hackers (1995). She attended her wedding in black rubber pants and a white shirt, upon which she had written the groom's name in her blood. Jolie and Miller separated the following year and subsequently divorced on February 3, 1999. They remained on good terms and Jolie later explained, "It comes down to timing. I think he's the greatest husband a girl could ask for. I'll always love him, we were simply too young."

While shooting Pushing Tin (1999) she met American actor Billy Bob Thornton, and subsequently married him on on May 5, 2000. As a result of their frequent public declarations of passion and gestures of love—most famously wearing one another's blood in vials around their necks—their relationship became a favorite topic of the entertainment media. Jolie and Thornton divorced on May 27, 2003. Asked about the sudden dissolution of their marriage, Jolie stated, "It took me by surprise, too, because overnight, we totally changed. I think one day we had just nothing in common. And it's scary but... I think it can happen when you get involved and you don't know yourself yet."

Jolie has said in interviews that she is bisexual and has long acknowledged that she had a sexual relationship with her Foxfire (1996) co-star Jenny Shimizu, "I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband. I fell in love with her the first second I saw her." In 2003, asked if she was bisexual, Jolie responded, "Of course. If I fell in love with a woman tomorrow, would I feel that it's okay to want to kiss and touch her? If I fell in love with her? Absolutely! Yes!"

In early 2005, Jolie was involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal when she was accused of being the reason for the divorce of actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The allegation was that she and Pitt had started an affair during filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). She denied this on several occasions, but admitted that they "fell in love" on the set. In an interview in 2005, she explained, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife."

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Lindsay Lohan - Another World

Lindsay Lohan appeared in Another World (Soap opera Television) as Alli Fowler. Another World is a television soap opera that ran on the NBC network from May 4, 1964 to June 25, 1999. Another World was created by legendary serial creator Irna Phillips along with William J. Bell, and Another World was produced by Procter & Gamble Productions in studios located in Brooklyn.

The 1990s
In common with other daytime soaps, Another World experienced a gradual erosion of viewership but, amazingly enough given its turbulent history, held on to ninth place on the ratings chart until the end of its run. While it never showed signs of moving up through this period, it was for most part never in danger of falling to last place.

Between 1974 and 1999, Another World won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series only once (in 1976), a stark contrast to 7 wins for The Young and the Restless and 10 wins for General Hospital.

Notable alumni; Before they were stars
Many well-known film and television actors and celebrities appeared on the serial before their big break, including:
* Christine Baranski (Beverly Tucker)
* Theodore Bikel (Henry Davenport)
* Charles Durning (Gil McGowan)
* Faith Ford (Julia Shearer)
* Morgan Freeman (Roy Bingham)
* Joanna Going (Lisa Grady)
* Kelsey Grammer (Dr. Canard)
* Jackee Harry (Lily Mason)
* Anne Heche (Marley Hudson / Vicky Hudson)
* Audra Lindley (Liz Matthews)
* Ray Liotta (Joey Perrini)
* Lindsay Lohan (Alli Fowler)
* Nancy Marchand (Irene Kimbalt / Therrese Lamonte)
* Rue McClanahan (Caroline Johnson)
* Julian McMahon (Ian Rain)
* Luke Perry (Kenny)
* Brad Pitt (Chris)
* Ving Rhames (Czaja Carnek)
* Christopher Rich (Sandy Cory)
* Kim Rhodes (Cynthia 'Cindy' Brooke Harrison)
* Eric Roberts (Ted Bancroft)
* Howard E. Rollins, Jr. (Ed Harding)
* Kyra Sedgwick (Julia Shearer)
* Ted Shackelford (Ray Gordon)
* Susan Sullivan (Lenore Moore Curtin Delaney)
* Dolph Sweet (Gil McGowan)
* Janine Turner (Patricia Kirkland)
* Jean Smart (Passenger on Bus)
* Ed O'Neill (Kidnapper)