Namie Amuro

Namie Amuro born September 20, 1977 is a Japanese pop singer and occasional songwriter. In the Japanese press she was referred to as the "Queen of J-pop" before Ayumi Hamasaki eclipsed her popularity in the mainstream pop scene. She is still considered the Queen of J-pop, but with Hamasaki as the Empress of J-pop. She was noted in her early years for her Westernized dance music and popularized fashion whose followers came to be nicknamed Amurā (Amurer in English).

Debuting in 1992 as part of the quintet, Super Monkey's, she later debuted solo in 1995 to phenomenal success with producer Tetsuya Komuro. Severing her ties with Komuro in 2001, Amuro has reestablished herself as a R&B artist. Her latest album, PLAY (2007) debuted at #1. She has nine #1 singles, five of which have sold over a million copies.

Her parents divorced while she was only a toddler, leaving her mother responsible for bringing up Namie and her 3 siblings all alone. The low funds of the family didn’t prevent Namie from chasing her dreams to be a star. She was attending Okinawa Actors School successfully, despite her having to walk everyday for 2 hours to go and return from the school - her family couldn’t afford public transportation.

At her fifteen, she formed a girl group with some classmates of hers, called “SUPER MONKEY’S”, under TOSHIBA EMI label. At first, their sales were pretty decent but after the 5th single “TRY ME” (01/25/1995), the group started having proper recognition at the charts, getting into the top 10 and being invited at 紅白歌合戦 (Kouhaku Uta Gassen), a big annual music show. During that period, the group had already moved in Tokyo and changed its name to “Namie Amuro with SUPER MONKEY’S” with Namie taking the upper hand and the lead role of the group. The two following singles made big success as well, resulting to Avex, through the superstars’ producer Tetsuya Komuro, noticing the band, offering a solo career contract for Namie. The rest of the members regrouped with the name Musical Active eXperience or, simply, MAX.

Utada Hikaru

Japanese-American Hikaru Utada is a popular pop singer in Japan, but she was actually born in New York City. Not only was her mother a popular Japanese singer, but for you trivia fans, her favorite author is Edgar Allan Poe, who she was born on the same day as! How’s that for weird? Well, when it comes to Poe, everything’s weird. Anyways, here’s the cute as a button Hikaru!

She has been hailed as one of the most successful, influential and acclaimed musicians in Japanese music history. With the release of her seven studio albums, including one compilation and two all-English, 24 solo singles (18 Japanese and 6 English) and several VHS/DVD releases, she has sold a combined estimated total of some 36,000,000 records in Japan as of 2007, making her the 9th most successful musical act ever in Japan. Her worldwide total sales of albums, singles and VHS/DVDs to date is well past 40,000,000 units. Her unusual success has been, in large part, because of her fluent bilingual skills in English and Japanese, having been raised in New York City and Tokyo.

Utada became an unprecedented musical icon in Japan after her debut, First Love, began shattering a number of records in 1999, and has shown extremely consistent and strong sales of albums, singles and chart presence since. She has won the Nihon Golden Disk (Japan's most-esteemed musical award) "Song of the Year" award for thirteen of her singles since 2000, a record for a solo or group artist. In addition, she has won the Golden Disc "Pop/Rock Album of the Year" award for all four of her Japanese studio albums. Utada is also the only solo or group artist in Japanese, and possibly world, music history to hold the #1 position five times on a Year-End chart in a territory (four albums and one single from 1999-2004)

In 2003, HMV Japan announced that Utada Hikaru is the #24 Japanese pop artist in its survey of "Top 100 Japanese pop artists" of all time, making her the youngest artist with the highest rank in that survey. In 2006, Utada Hikaru also ranked #10 in HMV's "Top 30 Best Japanese Singers of All Time". And in July 2007, it was announced by her label EMI records that Utada's 18th Japanese-language (23rd overall) single Flavor of Life had sold the most digital units to date of any song release worldwide.

Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston (born February 11, 1969) is an Emmy- and Golden Globe Award-winning American film and television actress, best known for her role as Rachel Green in the popular television sitcom Friends. Since Friends she has starred in several successful Hollywood films, including Bruce Almighty, Along Came Polly and The Break-Up.

Aniston moved to Hollywood and was cast in her first television roles in 1990, starring as a regular on the short-lived series Molloy and in the TV movie Camp Cucamonga. She also co-starred in Ferris Bueller, a television adaptation of the 1986 hit movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the same year; the series, however, was quickly canceled. Aniston then appeared in two more failed television comedy shows, The Edge and Muddling Through, and guest-starred on Quantum Leap, Herman's Head, Burke's Law, on South Park in episode Rainforest Schmainforest. After the string of cancelled shows, along with her appearance in the critically derided 1993 horror film, Leprechaun, Aniston considered giving up acting.

Aniston's plans changed, however, after auditioning for Friends, a sitcom that was set to debut on NBC's 1994-1995 fall line-up. The producers of the show originally wanted Aniston to audition for the role of Monica Geller, but she persuaded them that she was better suited for the role of Rachel Green. She was cast in the role and played the character from 1994 until the show ended in 2004.

The program was hugely successful and Aniston, along with her co-stars, gained wide renown among television viewers. Her hairstyle at the time, which became known as the "Rachel", was widely copied. Aniston received a salary of one million dollars per episode for the last two seasons of Friends, as well as five Emmy nominations, including a win for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series".

According to the Guinness World Book of Records (2005), Aniston (along with her female costars) became the highest paid TV actress of all time with her $1 million-per-episode paycheck for the tenth season of Friends.

Aniston has starred in several theatrical films, including the cult hit Office Space and Picture Perfect (1997) .

She gained the most critical acclaim for her role in the low-budget 2002 film, The Good Girl, directed by Miguel Arteta, playing an unglamorous cashier in a small town. The film opened in relatively few theaters - under 700 in total - taking $14M in the U.S. box office.

Jennifer's biggest box office success was her appearance in 2003's Bruce Almighty, in which she played the girlfriend of title character (Jim Carrey); the film grossed $243M at the United States box office and almost twice that worldwide. Aniston's 2004 film, Along Came Polly (opposite Ben Stiller), also did well at the box office after opening at the #1 spot.

In late 2005, Aniston headlined two major studio films, Derailed and Rumor Has It, both of which performed fairly at the box office, grossing over $36 million each despite little support from critics.

In 2006, Aniston appeared in the low-budget drama, Friends with Money, which was first shown at the Cannes Film Festival, received a limited release, and grossed over $13 million. Aniston's next film, The Break-Up, which was released on June 2, grossed approximately $39.17 million during its opening weekend, despite lukewarm reviews. It has currently grossed over $118 million at the U.S. box office and over $203 million worldwide.

In addition to acting, Aniston has also directed a hospital emergency room-set short film named Room 10, starring Robin Wright Penn and Kris Kristofferson; Aniston has noted that she was inspired to direct by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who directed a short film in 2006.

Forbes listed Aniston as the 10th richest woman in the entertainment industry for the year 2007. She is behind such powerhouses as Oprah Winfrey, J. K. Rowling, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez and is ahead of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and the Olsen twins. Aniston's net worth is approximately $110 million. Aniston was also included in the annual Star Salary Top 10 of trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter for 2006. Aniston has been signed to play a role in the up-coming thriller Wanted along with Meryl Streep and Martin Hernandez.

Teri Lynn Hatcher

Teri Lynn Hatcher (born December 8, 1964) is an Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe Award-winning American actress and author as well. She gained attention for her role as Lois Lane in the television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman co-starring with Dean Cain. Hatcher is also well-known for portraying Susan Mayer, in Desperate Housewives, an accident-prone divorcee. She is also a "Bond Girl", having played Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997.

Hatcher began her performing career as a young girl taking ballet lessons at the San Juan Girls' Ballet Studio in downtown Los Altos, California. She later studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater. One of her early jobs (in 1984) was as a cheerleader with the San Francisco 49ers. During this time she also appeared as one of the mermaids on the show The Love Boat in its final season.

Hatcher landed a co-starring role in 1993, opposite Dean Cain, in Lois and Clark. Her role proved to be the best move to gain the attention of audiences, and the one role she had most fallen in love with. While probably most noted for playing Lois Lane in the TV series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997), Hatcher has also appeared in such feature films as Spy Kids (2001), the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, Dead in the Water (1991), 2 Days in the Valley (1996), The Cool Surface (1994) and Heaven's Prisoners (1996). The last two films featured Hatcher's only on-screen nude scenes, but neither did well at the box office. The ABC had cancelled Lois & Clark in 1997, and Hatcher was very disappointed about the show's demise. She was also desperate in looking for work. She has made a guest appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation and had a recurring role on MacGyver as Penny Parker, a naïve, high-strung, young woman who always seemed to get into trouble.

he also had a guest appearance in an episode of Seinfeld, in which her character, Sidra, broke up with Jerry because she found out Jerry was trying to have Elaine surreptitiously determine whether Sidra had breast implants. In one of the more memorable lines in the show, she declared, "Oh, and by the way: they're real, and they're spectacular." Hatcher has also appeared in a series of popular Radio Shack television commercials alongside NFL Hall of Famer Howie Long. The pair remain close friends, and together have bought farm land on the outside of Los Angeles, with the intent of eventually raising endangered species. Hatcher said her plan to do so came about after reading an article featuring the world's top 25 endangered species.

She hosted Saturday Night Live in 1996. Hatcher beat out four other actresses for the lead role on ABC's Desperate Housewives, on which she stars as single mother Susan Mayer, a role for which she won the Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Golden Globe Award in January 2005. In 2005, Hatcher also won the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award in the same category. In July 2005, she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Comedy Series for the same role, along with co-stars Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman, who won the award.

As of April 2006, Hatcher is one of the highest paid television actresses in the United States. She reportedly earns $285,000 per episode of Desperate Housewives. In May 2006, she released her first book, Burnt Toast: And Other Philosophies of Life. In conjunction with the book, she has also launched a line of apparel and merchandise. Furthermore she is prominently featured in an international campaign for Repeat Cashmere.

Teri Lynn Hatcher On Desperate Housewives

Teri Hatcher News:

If you watched the 'Desperate Housewives' season premiere you know exactly what we're about gonna talk about. If not pay attention!

The writer's of Desperate Housewives have pissed off the Philippine government and they are seeking an apology.

During the show, Teri Hatcher (Susan Mayer) used a racial slur against Filipino medics and they are requiring an apology according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

During a medical examination Susan Mayer asked, "Can I check those diplomas because I want to make sure that they're not from some med school in the Philippines."

Naturally, that comment pissed off some people.

Filipino consul in Los Angeles Mary Jo Bernardo Aragon was so pissed that she wrote a letter to ABC networks stating that their comment was not true because Filipino medical workers were in demand all over the world.

"The US recognizes the students of Philippine medical and nursing schools and in general, does not require additional schooling in the US for Filipino healthcare professionals," she added.

The funny thing is I watched the episode on Sunday and after hearing that comment, I instantly knew it would piss off a lot of people. Didn't the writers of the show have the common knowledge to figure it would tick people off? Either they didn't have the common knowledge or they just didn't care.

Megan Fox

Born in Tennessee on May 16, 1986, Megan Denise Fox started taking drama and dance lessons at the age of five and thrived from the very beginning. Despite a move to Florida when she was 10, Megan's parents did not let their youngest daughter forego her talent, and so the future actress continued her training.

By age 13, her dancing led to modeling opportunities and Fox excelled in this new arena. In 1999, she won several awards at the American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina. With this new credit, Fox began venturing into acting, and after she moved to Los Angeles, a future career in showbiz looked probable.Fox made her acting debut in 2001, appearing in the straight-to-video release Holiday in the Sun, a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen film. She then garnered a recurring role in the low-key soap opera Ocean Ave. and appeared in an episode of the Amanda Bynes series What I Like About You. 2004 was the year Fox joined the legion of female teens overtaking Hollywood, as she appeared alongside Lindsay Lohan in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, did the TV movie Crimes of Fashion and secured a spot on the Kelly Ripa-led sitcom Hope & Faith.

As Hollywood began to take notice of this budding star, Megan started joining the ranks of her fellow female actresses by posing in photo spreads, like her 2005 shoot for FHM. The following year, the magazine named her No. 68 on their 100 Sexiest Women of 2006 list. And in 2007, she continued her lasting relationship with the magazine for another spread in their March issue.

Megan's biggest break, however, came in 2007 when she was cast as the lead actress in the highly anticipated Transformers movie, in which she plays Shia LaBoeuf's love interest.

Fox made her film debut in the 2001 film Holiday in the Sun as the spoiled heiress and rival of Ashley Olsen. She then landed guest appearances on Ocean Ave., What I Like About You, Two and a Half Men and The Help from 2003 to 2004. In 2004, Fox starred in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen alongside Lindsay Lohan. She was subsequently cast in her first recurring role in a television series on Hope & Faith, in which she portrayed Sydney Shanowski from 2004 until 2006.

Fox won the role of female lead, Mikaela Banes, in the film Transformers, where she plays the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character Sam Witwicky. In June 2007, Fox was reportedly cast in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, also starring Jeff Bridges and Kirsten Dunst. Ironically, the character Fox will portray is that of a young Hollywood starlet getting her first taste of fame.

Fox has appeared in a five page spread for the November 2005 issue of the popular men's magazine FHM and was ranked number sixty-eight on the FHM 100 Sexiest Women of 2006. She also posed for the March 2007 issue of FHM, the June 2007 issue of GQ and the July 2007 issue of Maxim.

Fox is represented by The Gersh Agency.

Perhaps one of Fox's best known characteristics is her array of tattoos on her body:

* "There once was a little girl who never knew love until a boy broke her HEART." (left section of torso)
* "We will all laugh at gilded butterflies." (back, near right shoulder)
* Marilyn Monroe portrait (right forearm)
* Tribal waves symbol (left wrist)
* Star and crescent moon (inner right leg above ankle)
* Brian (right upper groin)

Haller Maria Berry

Halle Maria Berry (born August 14, 1966) is an American actress. Berry has received Emmy and Golden Globe awards, and received an Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002 for her performance in Monster's Ball. She is the only woman of African American descent to have won the award for Best Actress.

In the late 1980s, she went to Chicago to pursue a modeling career as well as acting. One of her first acting projects was a television series for local cable by Gordon Lake Productions called Chicago Force. In 1992, Berry was cast as the love interest in the video for R. Kelly's seminal hit, "Honey Love". Berry auditioned for a role in an updated Charlie's Angels television series by producer Aaron Spelling. She impressed Spelling and he encouraged her to continue acting.

In 1989, Berry landed the role of Emily Franklin in the short-lived ABC television series Living Dolls (a spin-off of Who's the Boss?). Her breakthrough feature film role was in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever in which she played a drug addict named Vivian. Her first co-starring role was in the 1991 film Strictly Business. In 1992, Berry portrayed a career woman who falls for Eddie Murphy in the romantic comedy Boomerang. That same year, she caught the public's attention as a headstrong biracial slave in the TV adaption of Queen: The Story of an American Family, based on the book by Alex Haley. Berry also played the sultry secretary whom Fred Flintstone was attracted to in the live action Flintstones movie as "Sharon Stone".

Playing a former drug addict struggling to regain custody of her son in Losing Isaiah (1995), Berry showed she could tackle more serious roles, holding her own opposite co-star Jessica Lange. She portrayed Sandra Beecher in Race the Sun (1996), which was based on a true story, and co-starred along side Kurt Russell in Executive Decision. In Bulworth, Berry received praise for her role as an intelligent woman raised by activists who gives politician Warren Beatty a new lease on life, and as the singer Zola Taylor, one of the three wives of pop singer Frankie Lymon, in the biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love both in 1998.

In the 1999 film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, Berry portrayed the first black woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. In this HBO biopic, Berry's performance was recognized with several awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe. (She was also one of the producers of the project.)

Berry portrayed the mutant Storm in the movie adaptation of the popular comic book series X-Men (2000) and its successful sequels X2: X-Men United (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). In 2001, Berry appeared in the movie Swordfish, which featured her first on-screen nude scene.

Later in 2001, Berry appeared as Leticia Musgrove, the wife of an executed murderer, in the film Monster's Ball. Her performance was awarded the National Board of Review and the Screen Actors Guild prizes. The role earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress: she made history by becoming the first African American woman to earn a Best Actress Academy Award, but also received criticism for only accepting her reward as an African American instead of a Multi-Racial Women in so showing pride in all of her heritage.

As Bond Girl Jinx in the (2002) blockbuster Die Another Day she famously re-created the scene from Dr. No, bursting from the surf to be greeted by James Bond, as Ursula Andress had 40 years earlier. In late 2003, Berry starred in the psychological thriller Gothika opposite Robert Downey Jr. Her next lead role was in the film Catwoman, for which she was awarded a "worst actress" Razzie award in 2005, which she accepted in person with a sense of humor and recognition that "to be at the top, you must experience the rock bottom".

Berry next appeared in the Oprah Winfrey-produced ABC telepic Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005), an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's novel, in which Berry portrayed Janie Crawford, an iconoclastic, free-spirited woman whose unconventional mores regarding relationships upset her 1920s contemporaries in her small community. Meanwhile, she voiced the character of Cappy, one of the many mechanical beings in the animated feature, Robots (2005). She has filmed the thriller Perfect Stranger with Bruce Willis and wrapped shooting Things We Lost in the Fire with Benicio del Toro. She is set to star in Class Act, based on the real life story of a teacher whose students helped her run for political office and "Tulia", which will reunite her with Monster's Ball costar Billy Bob Thornton.

Berry is making the transition to working on the production side of film and television. She is working with author Angela Nissel to executive produce a comedy series based on Nissel's two memoirs, The Broke Diaries and Mixed: My Life in Black and White.[8] Berry has served many years as the face of Revlon cosmetics, and was recently named the face of Versace. She is featured in Maxim magazine's Girls of Maxim gallery.

Berry is one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, commanding $14 million each for Gothika and Catwoman. In July 2007 she topped In Touch magazine's list of the world's most fabulous 40-something celebrities.