Saturday, July 23, 2011

Pamela Anderson

Pamela Denise Anderson (born July 1, 1967) is a Canadian-American actress, model, producer, author, activist, and former showgirl, known for her roles on the television series Home Improvement, Baywatch, and V.I.P.

She was chosen as a Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine in February 1990. For a time, she was known as Pamela Anderson Lee (or Pamela Lee) after marrying Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee. She holds both United States and Canadian citizenship.
Anderson was born in Ladysmith, British Columbia. the daughter of Barry Anderson, a furnace repairman, and Carol (née Grosco), a waitress. Her great-grandfather Juho Hyytiäinen was Finnish, a native of Saarijärvi, and left the Grand Duchy of Finland (which was a part of the Russian Empire at the time) in 1908, changing his name to Anderson when he arrived as an immigrant. Anderson also has Russian ancestry on her mother's side.

After graduating from Highland Secondary School in 1985, Anderson moved to Vancouver and worked as a fitness instructor. During the summer of 1989, Anderson went with her friends to a BC Lions game at BC Place, and during the game she was shown on the stadium screen wearing a Labatt's t-shirt, causing the crowd to cheer for the 21-year-old Anderson. She was taken down to the field to receive an ovation from the crowd. Photographer and boyfriend Dan Ilicic produced the Blue Zone Girl poster on his own. In October 1989 she appeared as the cover girl on Playboy magazine. At this stage in her modelling career, she had decided to live in Los Angeles to further pursue her career ambitions. She became a centrefold for Playboy when the magazine chose her to be their Playmate of the Month for their February 1990 issue. She then chose to get breast implants. Anderson has since appeared in Playboy several times in the 1990s and 2000s.
After her move to Los Angeles, she won a minor role as the original "Tool Time girl" on the hit television sitcom, Home Improvement. She left the show after two seasons and won the role of C. J. Parker on Baywatch, a role she played between 1992 and 1997. Anderson was still modelling for Outdoor Life and appearing on the cover of the magazine each year. In 1993 Pam appeared in a music video "Can't Have Your Cake" by Vince Neil to promote his first solo album "Exposed" in which Steve Stevens played all guitars for the recording of that project.

In 1994, she was cast in her first starring role in Raw Justice also known as Good Cop, Bad Cop, a film in which she costarred with Stacy Keach, David Keith and Airplane! star Robert Hays. The film won the Bronze Award at the Worldfest-Charleston in the category for dramatic theatrical films under the title Good Cop, Bad Cop. The notable cast was the focus of many reviewers.

In 1996, she acted in the film Barb Wire playing Barbara Rose Kopetski, which was thought by some to be Anderson's real name. The movie, a thinly veiled futuristic remake of Casablanca, was not a commercial success. In April 1997, she guest-hosted Saturday Night Live. She also appeared on one of two covers for the September issue of Playboy.

In September 1998, Anderson starred as Vallery Irons in the Sony Pictures Entertainment hit syndicated show V.I.P. created by J. F. Lawton. Blending action and humor in a fast-paced adventure series, with Anderson often poking fun at her tabloid image, the show explored the exciting and sometimes treacherous lives of the rich and famous. The series lasted through a successful four year run.

In 1999, she appeared as a giantess in the music video for "Miserable" by California alternative rock band Lit.

Her role as C.J. Parker gave her more popularity and gained her attention from international viewers. She returned to Baywatch for the 2003 reunion movie, Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding. She also appeared on The Nanny as Fran's rival, Heather Biblow.

Chris Hemsworth

Chris Hemsworth (born 11 August 1983) is an Australian actor. He played the role of Kim Hyde in the Australian soap opera Home and Away and the titular character in the Marvel Studios film, Thor. Hemsworth will portray Thor again in the upcoming films The Avengers in 2012 and "Thor 2" in 2013.

Hemsworth was born in Melbourne, Australia to Leonie and Craig Hemsworth. He attended Heathmont College in his years as a teenager before His family relocated to a cattle station in the Northern Territory and lived there for a few years before moving to Phillip Island. Chris enjoyed surfing and playing sports while growing up.
In 2004, he auditioned for Home and Away, for the part of Robbie Hunter (played by Jason Smith), but failed to get the part. He was subsequently recalled for the part of Kim Hyde. He was successful in gaining the role of Kim Hyde and moved to Sydney to join the cast of Home and Away, appearing in 171 episodes of the series. He left the cast of Home and Away on 3 July 2007. He has received two Logie Award nominations and has won one for Most Popular New Talent on Home and Away back in 2005.

Hemsworth portrayed James T. Kirk's father, George Kirk, in the opening scenes of J. J. Abrams' 2009 film Star Trek. He also played the character Kale in the thriller A Perfect Getaway the same year. Hemsworth will star in upcoming horror film The Cabin in the Woods executive produced by Joss Whedon and will portray Jed Eckert in the upcoming Red Dawn remake.
Hemsworth portrayed Thor in the film adaption of the Marvel Comics superhero of the same name. Initially, his brother Liam reached the final four for the role, while Chris failed to make the shortlist, but he won the role after director Kenneth Branagh decided to re-evaluate earlier candidates. Chris Hemsworth received advice from his brother, saying "We're competitive, but in the best way." His mother helped him with his audition tape by playing Odin. Hemsworth is also scheduled to reprise his role as Thor in The Avengers, also based on a Marvel comic about a team of superheroes assembled to protect Earth, which is scheduled for release in 2012.

In the 2010 film CA$h, Hemsworth played Sam Phelan, an economically troubled young man. CA$h marked Hemsworth's Hollywood debut, as it was the first film he shot upon his arrival in the United States. In behind-the-scenes interviews, the film's director Stephen Milburn Anderson stated that Hemsworth had only been in the United States for six weeks when he had auditioned for the role. Anderson said, "Here's a guy who is young, has the right look, is a very good actor and, let's face it, he's beautiful. So I say, we need to get this guy in. I was very impressed". On November 2010 The Hollywood Reporter named Hemsworth as one of the young male actors who are "pushing – or being pushed" into taking over Hollywood as the new "A-List". MTV Networks' NextMovie.com named him one of the 'Breakout Stars to Watch for in 2011'.

In May 2011, Hemsworth was cast opposite Kristen Stewart in Snow White and the Huntsman. Hemsworth is also set to star in Shadow Runner, an original thriller involving elite commandos. The project is based on an original idea from Hossein Amini, who is one of the writers of Snow White and the Huntsman. In June 2011, it was announced that Hemsworth would reprise his role as the titular character in Thor 2, planned for a mid-2013 release. Before shooting starts though, he will work with Ron Howard on Rush.

Hemsworth is married to actress Elsa Pataky, whom he met through their mutual representative in early 2010. They made their relationship public at a party held by LACMA in Los Angeles on 25 September 2010, and got married three months later.

His older brother Luke and younger brother Liam are also actors, and have had recurring roles as Nathan Tyson and Josh Taylor on Neighbours, respectively.



Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title role in Forrest Gump, Commander Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, Captain John H. Miller in Saving Private Ryan, Joe Fox in You've Got Mail, Chuck Noland in Cast Away, and voicing the character Woody in the Toy Story series. Hanks won consecutive Best Actor Academy Awards, in 1993 for Philadelphia and in 1994 for Forrest Gump. U.S. domestic box office totals for his films exceed US$4.0 billion. He is the father of actor Colin Hanks.

Hanks was born in Concord, California. His father, Amos Mefford Hanks (born in Glenn County, California, on March 9, 1924 – died in Alameda, California, on January 31, 1992), an itinerant cook, was a distant relative of President Abraham Lincoln (through Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks). His mother, Janet Marylyn (née Frager; born in Alameda County, California, on January 18, 1932), was a hospital worker. Hanks' mother is of Portuguese ancestry, while two of his paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Britain. Hanks's parents divorced in 1960. The family's three oldest children, Sandra (now Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer), Larry (now Lawrence M. Hanks, PhD, an entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Tom, went with their father, while the youngest, Jim, now an actor and film maker, remained with his mother in Red Bluff, California. Afterwards, both parents remarried. Hanks's first stepmother came to the marriage with five children of her own. Hanks once told Rolling Stone: "Everybody in my family likes each other. But there were always about 50 people at the house. I didn't exactly feel like an outsider, but I was sort of outside it." That marriage ended in divorce after two years.[citation needed]
Amos Hanks became a single parent, working long hours and often leaving the children to fend for themselves, an exercise in self-reliance that served the siblings well. In addition to having a family history of Catholicism and Mormonism, Hanks was a "Bible-toting evangelical teenager" for several years. In school, Hanks was unpopular with students and teachers alike, later telling Rolling Stone magazine: "I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn't get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible." In 1965, Amos Hanks married Frances Wong, a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children, two of whom lived with Tom during his high school years. Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California.

Hanks studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California, and after two years, transferred to California State University, Sacramento. Hanks told The New York Times: "Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant. I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn't take dates with me. I'd just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat, and read the program, and then get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Henrik Ibsen, and all that, and now look at me, acting is my job. I wouldn't have it any other way."
During his years studying theater, Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the Festival. His internship stretched into a three-year experience that covered most aspects of theater production, including lighting, set design, and stage management, all of which caused Hanks to drop out of college. During the same time, Hanks won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his 1978 performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times he played a villain.

In 1979, Hanks moved to New York City, where he made his film debut in the low-budget slasher film He Knows You're Alone (1980) and got a part in the television movie Mazes and Monsters. Early in 1979, Hanks was cast in the lead role of Callimaco in the Riverside Shakespeare Company's production of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Mandrake, directed by Daniel Southern. This remains Hanks's only New York stage performance to date; as a high profile Off Off Broadway showcase, the production helped Tom land an agent, Joe Ohla with the J. Michael Bloom Agency. The next year, Hanks landed a lead role on the ABC television pilot of Bosom Buddies, playing the role of Kip Wilson. Hanks moved to Los Angeles, where he and Peter Scolari played a pair of young advertising men forced to dress as women so they could live in an inexpensive all-female hotel. Hanks had previously partnered with Scolari in the 1970s game show Make Me Laugh. Bosom Buddies ran for two seasons, and, although the ratings were never strong, television critics gave the program high marks. "The first day I saw him on the set," co-producer Ian Praiser told Rolling Stone, "I thought, 'Too bad he won't be in television for long.' I knew he'd be a movie star in two years." But if Praiser knew it, he was not able to convince Hanks. "The television show had come out of nowhere," best friend Tom Lizzio told Rolling Stone. "Then out of nowhere it got canceled. He figured he'd be back to pulling ropes and hanging lights in a theater."

Bosom Buddies and a guest appearance on a 1982 episode of Happy Days ("A Case of Revenge," where he played a disgruntled former classmate of The Fonz) prompted director Ron Howard to contact Hanks. Howard was working on Splash (1984), a romantic comedy fantasy about a mermaid who falls in love with a human. At first, Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, a role that eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks got the lead role and a career boost from Splash, which went on to become a box office hit, grossing more than US$69 million. He also had a sizable hit with the sex comedy Bachelor Party, also in 1984.

In 1983–84, Hanks made three guest appearances on Family Ties as Elyse Keaton's alcoholic brother, Ned Donnelly.

With Nothing in Common (1986) – about a young man alienated from his parents who must re-establish a relationship with his father, played by Jackie Gleason – Hanks began to establish the credentials of not only a comic actor but of someone who could carry a serious role. "It changed my desires about working in movies," Hanks told Rolling Stone. "Part of it was the nature of the material, what we were trying to say. But besides that, it focused on people's relationships. The story was about a guy and his father, unlike, say, The Money Pit, where the story is really about a guy and his house."[citation needed]

After a few more flops and a moderate success with Dragnet, Hanks succeeded with the film Big (1988), both at the box office and within the industry. The film established Hanks as a major Hollywood talent. It was followed later that year by Punchline, in which he and Sally Field co-starred as struggling comedians. Hanks's character, Steven Gold, a failing medical student trying to break into stand-up, was somewhat edgy and complex. Hanks' portrayal of Gold offered a glimpse of the far more dramatic roles Hanks would master in films to come. Hanks then suffered a pile of box-office failures: The 'Burbs (1989), Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), as a greedy Wall Street type who gets enmeshed in a hit-and-run accident. Only the 1989 movie Turner & Hooch brought success for Hanks during this time. In a 1993 issue of Disney Adventures, Hanks said, "I saw Turner & Hooch the other day in the SAC store and couldn't help but be reminiscent. I cried like a baby." He did admit to making a couple of "bum tickers," however, and blamed his "...deductive reasoning and decision making skills."