Biographies - Celebrity Wallpapers

Rachel Griffiths Biography

Rachel%20Griffiths Rachel Griffiths Biography

This Australian actress scored a big hit playing Rhonda, the ABBA-loving, party-hearty friend who helps Toni Collette break out of her shell, in P J Hogan’s 1994 comedy “Muriel’s Wedding”, for which she won an Australian Film Institute Award as Best Supporting Actress. The dark-haired, offbeat-looking Griffiths (who is often confused with Juliette Lewis and Amanda Plummer) has parlayed her success into an active career in leads and second leads in Australia as well as the USA, becoming a virtual workhorse in features.

Griffiths first won attention in 1991 when she devised and performed in the short film “Barbie Gets Hip”, which received festival screenings. She has also appeared on the Australian TV series “Secrets” (1993) as well as the comedy special “The Jimeon Show”. Between her film assignments, the actress has appeared frequently with the Melbourne Theatre Company, including productions of “The Grapes of Wrath”, “The Sisters Rosenzweig” and “Sylvia” before getting her breakthrough film role.

Melanie Griffith Biography

Melanie%20Griffith Melanie Griffith Biography

With her whispery baby-doll voice and voluptuous figure, blonde, blue-eyed Melanie Griffith could easily have been typecast as bimbos or wide-eyed innocents. Instead, this savvy performer, the daughter of actors Peter Griffith and Tippi Hedren, chose to defy convention and undertake roles that demonstrated her versatility and capabilities. While her mother specialized in playing cool Hitchcock blondes (e.g., “Marnie” 1964), Griffith attempted (not always successfully) to transcend her party girl image (fueled in part by very public troubles with substance abuse). With a strong director and the right material, she could hold her own against powerhouse actors like Paul Newman and James Woods.

Griffith made her first film appearance as an extra in “The Harrad Experiment” (1973) which featured her mother and soon-to-be first husband Don Johnson. Her first role of note, though, was as a runaway heiress in “Night Moves” (1975). That same year, she displayed a light comic touch as one of the pageant contestants in the satirical “Smile”. Over the next decade, she worked less frequently, taking acting classes with Stella Adler and concentrating on her marriages to Johnson and actor Steven Bauer and motherhood. Ironically, it was a role much like those Tippi Hedren played that rejuvenated her career. Brian De Palma tapped Griffith for the pivotal role of porn actress Holly Body in his Hitchcock hommage “Body Double” (1984). Critics were pleasantly surprised by the actress’ work and coupled with her role as the mysteriously rebellious adventuress in “Something Wild” (1986), Griffith’s star was ascending. With her turn as Tess Magill, a Staten Island secretary with dreams of bettering herself (“I have a head for business and a bod for sin”) in “Working Girl” (1988), her position as a top notch comic actress was solidified, crowned by a Best Actress Oscar nomination. But bad career advice and a string of box office disappointments nearly curtailed her career.

Pam Grier Biography

Celebrity Image Pam%20Grier Pam Grier Biography

Voluptuous African-American leading lady and second lead of the 1970s and 80s who primarily appeared in low-budget exploitation and Blaxploitation movies. Grier burst on the scene as one of a bevy of sexy inmates harassed by a sadistic prison warden in “The Big Doll House” (1971). She followed with starring roles in a slew of Black-oriented action pictures that juxtaposed her apparent femininity with an extremely violent streak in flicks like “Hit Man” (1972), “Sheba Baby” (1975), “Bucktown” (1975), and a female version of “The Defiant Ones” called “Black Mama, White Mama” (1972).

In a bit of a switch, Grier played the victimizer in “Women in Cages” (1972), a sadistic lesbian prison guard who tortures her charges. Her biggest hits of the 1970s, “Coffy” (1973) and “Foxy Brown” (1974), cast her as a sexy nurse who goes after the junkies who turned her sister into an addict, and the drug ring that killed her lover.

Eva Green Biography

Eva%20Green Eva Green Biography

Eva Green (born July 5, 1980 in Paris) is a French actress and composer.

Green is the daughter of French actress MarlÃ¨ne Jobert and Walter Green, a Swedish dentist. She has one sibling, a fraternal twin (non-identical) sister, Joy. Eva studied in Paris and London and performed on stage before making her film debut as the female lead in the Bernardo Bertolucci’s 2003 NC-17-rated film The Dreamers with Michael Pitt and Louis Garrel. In addition to her acting, Green composed original music for the film. The Dreamers brought her some notoriety for her explicit, extensive full frontal nudity. While filming Dreamers, Green was said to have found Bertolucci manipulative, though in a creative way that wasn’t pushy. In comparison to her previous stage acting, she has said that acting in front of the camera makes you its “plaything.”

Described by Bertolucci as “so beautiful it’s indecent”, her performance brought her critical acclaim. In 2004 she co-starred alongside of Romain Duris and Kristin Scott Thomas in ArsÃ¨ne Lupin, directed by Jean-Paul SalomÃ©. In 2005 she starred in her first Hollywood blockbuster as Sibylla of Jerusalem in the film Kingdom of Heaven with Orlando Bloom and Liam Neeson and directed by Ridley Scott. She has recently been cast as Bond girl Vesper Lynd in the upcoming James Bond film Casino Royale with new 007 actor Daniel Craig. Casino Royale will be released in theaters worldwide on November 17, 2006.

Green has been in a relationship with Yann Claasen since the late-1990s. The multi-lingual Green’s name in Swedish is pronounced “grain” and comes from the Swedish word gren, which means (tree) branch.

Lauren Graham Biography

Lauren%20Graham%2001 Lauren Graham Biography

Lauren Helen Graham (born March 16, 1967) is an American actress. She is best known for her acting role in Gilmore Girls.

Lauren was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. When she was five, her parents divorced. Her mother, Donna Grant, moved to London to join a rock and roll band. Lauren and her father, Lawrence, moved to the D.C. area where he became a congressional staffer and single parent. She traveled extensively with her father while growing up. He is currently a lobbyist for the chocolate and confection industry.

Lauren discovered acting while in elementary school. Graham attended Langley High School, where she took part in the Drill Team which is a mix of Dance and Cheerleading. She began acting in community theatre and any other production she could find. She graduated from Barnard College/Columbia University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Lauren then moved to Texas where she earned a Master’s Degree in Acting from Southern Methodist University in 1992.

After completing her education, Lauren returned to New York where she worked as a cocktail waitress and aspiring actress. In 1995, she moved to Hollywood. In addition to her many guest starring and co-starring roles on prime time TV, she had three starring roles on failed sitcoms before landing the lead role of Lorelai Gilmore on the WB’s Gilmore Girls (2000-present), for which she is best known. In addition, she has had many roles in theatrical movies, including several NYU student films and several major studio releases. She has appeared in the movies Bad Santa, The Pacifier and Sweet November. She appeared on Third Rock from the Sun as a grad student who caught the eye of Dick (John Lithgow). In addition, she has appeared on the hit comedy Seinfeld (as one of Jerry’s dates), as well as on Newsradio and Law & Order. She would like to return to the stage and hopes she will never have to do a Porky’s movie or be asked to have plastic surgery.

She is currently set to appear in the movie Evan Almighty, playing the role of Evan’s wife.

Lauren Graham is not married and lives in West Hollywood. She dated actor Tate Donovan. As of February 2006, she is dating actor Marc Blucas.

When Graham appeared on Law & Order in 1997, actor Scott Cohen also guest starred. Three years later when Graham started Gilmore Girls, Cohen became a regular on the show as Lorelai Gilmore’s boyfriend and then fiancÃ©, Max Medina.

She dated Robert Maschio during his senior year at Columbia University and helped persuade him to try out acting as a career.

Heather Graham Biography

Heather%20Graham Heather Graham Biography

Blue-eyed and angelic, with delicate doll-like features and long wavy mermaid blonde hair, actress Heather Graham has often played the bad girl who steals the audience’s heart, her innocent looks in juxtaposition with her onscreen antics helping to make her an unpredictable and especially compelling presence. After debuting with a strong performance as a drunken dream girl in 1988′s silly “License to Drive” (a vehicle for the Coreysâ€”Feldman and Haim), Graham was hired by director Gus Van Sant for his gripping “Drugstore Cowboy” (1989). Her performance as a young and doomed addict won praise and notice for this veteran of small TV parts (e.g., two 1987 episodes of the ABC sitcom “Growing Pains”) as well as a Best Actress nomination from the Independent Spirit Awards. The following year saw Graham take on the recurring role of Annie, an ex-nun who becomes the love interest of Kyle MacLachlan’s Agent Cooper, in David Lynch’s always strange series “Twin Peaks” (ABC). In 1991, she took on a more conventional role as a college student with parental difficulties in the unimpressive 1950s set musical drama “Shout”. She returned to television that year with a starring role alongside Josh Hamilton and Anne Heche, as the young version of Jessica Lange’s character in “O Pioneers!” for CBS. After reprising her role of Annie in the incoherent “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” (1992) the actress appeared in “Diggstown” (also 1992) and “Six Degrees of Separation” (1993), both roles playing up Graham’s fresh-faced innocence. She went on to bide her time in features like the poorly received “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” and the little-seen independent drama “Desert Winds” (both 1994).

Ginnifer Goodwin Biography

Ginnifer%20Goodwin Ginnifer Goodwin Biography

A curvy brunette with a charming smile and bubbling confidence, Ginnifer Goodwin has established herself as a star-in-the-making in the early 2000â€™s. With an impressive pedigree of training and education, Goodwin possesses the skills and talent to become the next big thing. And though she has shared screen time with more famous actresses, like Julia Roberts and Kate Bosworth, Goodwin has used her considerable gifts to separate herself enough to capture the attention of both critics and audiences alike.

Goodwin fostered her acting bug in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, where she attended the Lausanne Collegiate School. She went on to earn her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Boston University, while performing in numerous student short films, as well as several college and local stage productions. Goodwin was given the Excellence in Acting: Professional Promise Award by the Bette Davis Foundation and graduated with honors. Soon after leaving BU, Goodwin studied at Stratford-Upon-Avonâ€™s Shakespeare Institute in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company. As a self-described â€œShakespeare nerdâ€ who fell in love with â€œRomeo and Julietâ€ in the fifth grade, Goodwin must have been thrilled. Following the Shakespeare Institute, the budding thespian earned an Acting Shakespeare Certificate from Londonâ€™s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she played Joan of Arc, Ophelia in â€œHamletâ€ and Jessica in â€œThe Merchant of Venice.â€