2006 July - Celebrity Wallpapers

Taryn Manning Biography

Taryn%20Manning%20Biography Taryn Manning Biography

A petite, pretty actress, Taryn Manning alternately appears as a blonde and a brunette and possesses both a tough girl air and a childlike vulnerability that has helped her win some interesting roles early in her career. An Arizona native who relocated to Southern California at age 12, Manning spent her early years filled with competitive karate, roller-skating and dance. The multitalented teen was also a talented singer and attended the Orange County High School of the Arts. Making her breakthrough in 1999, Manning was featured in the film drama “Speedway Junky” and landed a recurring role on the Fox drama series “Get Real”, which suffered an early cancellation. Guest shots on “The Practice” (ABC) and “Ryan Caulfield: Year One” (Fox) rounded out the year for the up and comer. Continuing to work in television, the actress appeared in the Fox TV-movie “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” (2000) and 2001 episodes of “NYPD Blue” (ABC) and “Boston Public”, the latter a role tailor-made for her and BoomK.A.T., her musical collaboration with brother Kellin.

In 2001, Manning had a high-profile role in the teen romance “crazy/beautiful”, stealing scenes from talented co-stars Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez with her energetic and charming performance as a party girl. One of the few highlights of the film (which was driven by an uninspired middle-of-the-road soundtrack) was Manning’s moment in the sun, ditching school and singing the appropriate “Bein’ Bad”, a song co-written by the actress and her brother.

Leslie Mann Biography

Leslie%20Mann%20Biography Leslie Mann Biography

A squeaky-voiced, diminutive attractive blonde player, Leslie Mann landed the role of Nurse Mary on the short-lived medical drama “Birdland” (ABC, 1994). She made her screen debut in the 1996 independent feature “Things I Never Told You” before landing the high profile female lead in Ben Stiller’s comic thriller “The Cable Guy” (also 1996), opposite Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick, and she would later go on to marry the film’s screenwriter, Judd Apatow. Mann also played a lesbian in Edward Burns’ “She’s the One” and appeared as a prostitute opposite Bruce Willis in “Last Man Standing” (both 1996).

In 1997, she starred as the damsel-in-distress Ursula in the genial family comedy “George of the Jungle”. After taking time out for motherhood, the actress resumed her career with a sexy turn as a well-endowed waitress in the Adam Sandler comedy “Big Daddy” (1999). She would go on to turns in writer-director Mike Figgis’ experimental film “Timecode” (2000), director Jake Kasdan’s comedy “Orange County” (2002) and as Jason Lee’s fiance who inexplicably weeps during sex in the comedy “Stealing Harvard” (2002). The actress then gave the best demonstration of her considerable comedic skills yet in a scene-stealing appearance as Nicky, the drunken bar pick-up who takes Steve Carell’s sexually inexperienced character on a white-knuckled ride home in the hit comedy “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” (2005), written and directed by her husband, Apatow.

Jena Malone Biography

Jena%20Malone%20Biography Jena Malone Biography

This rising young child actress made a big splash on the big screen in 1997 playing Jodie Foster’s character as a young girl in “Contact”. Jena Malone had already garnered raves and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for her debut performance in Anjelica Huston’s gritty adaptation of “Bastard Out of Carolina” (1996). Originally filmed for TNT, the network’s owner Ted Turner deemed the film too violent for showing. Eventually Showtime purchased the film and aired it to great applause. Malone demonstrated a veteran’s aplomb in the difficult central role of a young girl who is subjected to violent abuse by her stepfather. Although she had earlier been seen in the music video for Michael Jackson’s single “Childhood”, Malone had little acting experience when she appeared in a memorable 1996 episode of “Chicago Hope” (CBS) playing a young girl who received a kidney transplant, but must face child abuse at home. She followed her acclaimed turn in “Bastard” with another controversial but critically acclaimed Showtime TV-movie, “Hidden in America” (1996), in which she was cast as the daughter of the poor-but-proud Beau Bridges.

Maggie Q Biography

Maggie%20Q%20Biography Maggie Q Biography

Maggie Q born May 22, 1979, at Honolulu, Hawaii

Born to an American father and a Vietnamese mother, Maggie Denise Quigley was raised among the palm trees and golden sand of Honolulu, Hawaii. Her destiny, however, awaited beyond her picturesque island home, and at the age of 18 she moved to Hong Kong in order to pursue a career in modeling.

Maggie’s unique look made her a popular attraction and before long she was gracing the covers of major publications such as Cosmopolitan, Harpers Bazaar, Elle, FHM, and Marie Claire. Her burgeoning supermodel status prompted a plethora of movie offers and Maggie finally made her big-screen debut in 1999′s The Legendary Tai Fei. There was just one problem: She didn’t actually speak Cantonese, meaning Maggie had to learn all of her lines phonetically.

Additional roles — and plenty of voice coaching — followed in 2000 with Model From Hell and the immensely popular Gen-Y Cops, an action film produced by Jackie Chan. Chan was so impressed with Maggie’s acting that he had her cast in Manhattan Midnight, starring Richard Grieco, and included her in his own film, Rush Hour 2. She teamed up with Chan again in 2004 for Around the World in 80 Days and is set to star opposite Tom Cruise in the highly anticipated Mission: Impossible III.

Mia Maestro Biography

Mia%20Maestro%20Biography Mia Maestro Biography

MÃa Maestro (born June 19, 1978) is an Argentinian actress and a trained classical music vocalist, which she learned in Berlin at age 18. There she also learned the Brechtian acting technique as well as dance. She was born in Buenos Aires and won an ACE Award for performance in the stage production of Pandora’s Box. She starred in Alias as Nadia Santos in Season 4 of the drama. She then had a recurring role in the program’s 5th season. In December 2005, she starred in Prince’s music video for “Te Amo CorazÃ³n.” She loves scuba diving and South Park, and her favorite movie is the School of Rock. She has a Wheaten Terrier named River. When she was a child, she admits to having been convinced she was a boy. In 2001, she was ranked #61 in Stuff’s 100 Sexiest Women. Also in 2001, she ranked #67 in Maxim’s 100 Sexiest Women.

Virginia Madsen Biography

Virginia%20Madsen%20Biography Virginia Madsen Biography

With her luxurious blonde hair, almond-shaped hazel eyes and comely figure, Virginia Madsen initially specialized in playing either femme fatales or imperiled heroines in unambitious made-for-cable movies, but her consistently strong performances ultimately earned her a career second act that included an Oscar nomination.

Early in her career, Madsen gained attention playing glamorous companions of larger-than-life men in several telefilms. As actress Marion Davies, she played opposite Robert Mitchum as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst in “The Hearst and Davies Affair” (ABC, 1985). Madsen made for a golden blonde version of the historically dark and brooding Claretta Petacci opposite George C. Scott’s Italian dictator in the miniseries “Mussolini: The Untold Story” (NBC, 1985). She was a more apt choice to play a tough-as-nails beauty queen in “Long Gone” (HBO, 1987), a well regarded comedy-drama about a minor league baseball team in the 1950s.

Madonna Biography

Madonna%20Biography Madonna Biography

A pop diva of the 1980s, Madonna created a raunchy blonde bombshell persona that propelled such music-video hits as “Like a Virgin” (1984), “Material Girl” (1985), “Like a Prayer” (1989), “Vogue” (1990) and “Justify My Love” (1991). A high-energy performer of aggressively sexual and irreverent material who has been called “the queen of bimbo rock” and a “punk Mae West”, Madonna has outraged many with her messages of assertiveness and kinky sexuality as well as her outrageously suggestive costuming. Her champions, however, have praised her catchy, danceable music (most of which she co-writes and produces), her iconoclastic humor, her bravado in expressing female desire, her provocative assaults on such sacred cows as interracial relationships, homophobia and ignorance about birth control, her shrewd business sense and her post-modern performance style, ideally suited to the end of the 20th century.

The working-class Midwesterner moved to New York in 1978 to become a dancer, but after several false starts as a model and actress (in an underground soft-core feature, “A Certain Sacrifice”, 1979), she hit the clubs and made her name as a high-energy singer. Vibrantly ambitious, Madonna propelled herself Continue Reading »