google28bd058d7aa4ad26.html THE PEOPLE WHO MATTER: 2010

Stephen William Hawking ( Legendary British Scientist)

Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific career spans over forty years. His books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity and he is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts,a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.
Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include the runaway best seller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestsellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking's key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein–Hawking radiation). Hawking has a neuro-muscular dystrophy that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition that has progressed over the years and has left him almost completely paralysed.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 to Dr. Frank Hawking, a research biologist, and Isobel Hawking. He had two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward. Though Hawking's parents were living in North London, they moved to Oxford while his mother was pregnant with Stephen, desiring a safer location for the birth of their first child. (London was under attack at the time by the Luftwaffe.) According to Hawking, a German V-2 missile struck only a few streets away. After Hawking was born, the family moved back to London, where his father headed the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research.In 1950, Hawking and his family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire, where he attended St Albans High School for Girls from 1950 to 1953. (At that time, boys could attend the Girls' school until the age of ten.) From the age of eleven, he attended St Albans School, where he was a good, but not exceptional, student.When asked later to name a teacher who had inspired him, Hawking named his mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta.He maintains his connection with the school, giving his name to one of the four houses and to an extracurricular science lecture series. He has visited it to deliver one of the lectures and has also granted a lengthy interview to pupils working on the school magazine, The Albanian. Hawking was always interested in science.Inspired by his mathematics teacher, he originally wanted to study the subject at university. However, Hawking's father wanted him to apply to University College, Oxford, where his father had attended. As University College did not have a mathematics fellow at that time, it would not accept applications from students who wished to read that discipline. Hawking therefore applied to read natural sciences, in which he gained a scholarship. Once at University College, Hawking specialised in physics.His interests during this time were in thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics. His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said in The New York Times Magazine:

It was only necessary for him to know that something could be done, and he could do it without looking to see how other people did it. He didn't have very many books, and he didn't take notes. Of course, his mind was completely different from all of his contemporaries.

Hawking was passing, but his unimpressive study habits resulted in a final examination score on the borderline between first and second class honours, making an "oral examination" necessary. Berman said of the oral examination:

And of course the examiners then were intelligent enough to realize they were talking to someone far more clever than most of themselves.

After receiving his B.A. degree at Oxford in 1962, he stayed to study astronomy. He decided to leave when he found that studying sunspots, which was all the observatory was equipped for, did not appeal to him and that he was more interested in theory than in observation. He left Oxford for Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he engaged in the study of theoretical astronomy and cosmology.

CAREER IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS
Almost as soon as he arrived at Cambridge, he started developing symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, known colloquially in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease), a type of motor neurone disease which would cost him almost all neuromuscular control. During his first two years at Cambridge, he did not distinguish himself, but, after the disease had stabilised and with the help of his doctoral tutor, Dennis William Sciama, he returned to working on his Ph.D.
Hawking was elected as one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society in 1974, was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982, and became a Companion of Honour in 1989. Hawking is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Hawking's achievements were made despite the increasing paralysis caused by the ALS. By 1974, he was unable to feed himself or get out of bed. His speech became slurred so that he could be understood only by people who knew him well. In 1985, he caught pneumonia and had to have a tracheotomy, which made him unable to speak at all. A Cambridge scientist built a device that enables Hawking to write onto a computer with small movements of his body, and then have a voice synthesizer speak what he has typed. Hawking's principal fields of research are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity. In the late 1960s, he and his Cambridge friend and colleague, Roger Penrose, applied a new, complex mathematical model they had created from Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.This led, in 1970, to Hawking proving the first of many singularity theorems; such theorems provide a set of sufficient conditions for the existence of a gravitational singularity in space-time. This work showed that, far from being mathematical curiosities which appear only in special cases, singularities are a fairly generic feature of general relativity. He supplied a mathematical proof, along with Brandon Carter, Werner Israel and D. Robinson, of John Wheeler's no-hair theorem – namely, that any black hole is fully described by the three properties of mass, angular momentum, and electric charge. Hawking also suggested upon analysis of gamma ray emissions that after the Big Bang, primordial mini black holes were formed. With Bardeen and Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics. In 1974, he calculated that black holes should thermally create and emit subatomic particles, known today as Bekenstein-Hawking radiation, until they exhaust their energy and evaporate. In collaboration with Jim Hartle, Hawking developed a model in which the universe had no boundary in space-time, replacing the initial singularity of the classical Big Bang models with a region akin to the North Pole: one cannot travel north of the North Pole, as there is no boundary. While originally the no-boundary proposal predicted a closed universe, discussions with Neil Turok led to the realisation that the no-boundary proposal is also consistent with a universe which is not closed. Along with Thomas Hertog at CERN, in 2006 Hawking proposed a theory of "top-down cosmology," which says that the universe had no unique initial state, and therefore it is inappropriate for physicists to attempt to formulate a theory that predicts the universe's current configuration from one particular initial state. Top-down cosmology posits that in some sense, the present "selects" the past from a superposition of many possible histories. In doing so, the theory suggests a possible resolution of the fine-tuning question: It is inevitable that we find our universe's present physical constants, as the current universe "selects" only those past histories that led to the present conditions. In this way, top-down cosmology provides an anthropic explanation for why we find ourselves in a universe that allows matter and life, without invoking an ensemble of multiple universes. Hawking's many other scientific investigations have included the study of quantum cosmology, cosmic inflation, helium production in anisotropic Big Bang universes, large N cosmology, the density matrix of the universe, topology and structure of the universe, baby universes, Yang-Mills instantons and the S matrix, anti de Sitter space, quantum entanglement and entropy, the nature of space and time, including the arrow of time, spacetime foam, string theory, supergravity, Euclidean quantum gravity, the gravitational Hamiltonian, Brans-Dicke and Hoyle-Narlikar theories of gravitation, gravitational radiation, and wormholes. At a George Washington University lecture in honour of NASA's fiftieth anniversary, Hawking theorised on the existence of extraterrestrial life, believing that "primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare." Hawking was in the news in July 2004 for presenting a new theory about black holes which goes against his own long-held belief about their behaviour, thus losing a bet he made with Kip Thorne and John Preskill of Caltech. Classically, it can be shown that information crossing the event horizon of a black hole is lost to our universe, and that thus all black holes are identical beyond their mass, electrical charge and angular velocity (the "no hair theorem"). The problem with this theorem is that it implies the black hole will emit the same radiation regardless of what goes into it, and as a consequence that if a pure quantum state is thrown into a black hole, an "ordinary" mixed state will be returned. This runs counter to the rules of quantum mechanics and is known as the black hole information paradox.

HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT
At the fiftieth anniversary of NASA in 2008, Hawking gave a keynote speech on the final frontier exhorting and inspiring the space technology community on why we (the human race) explore space. At the celebration of his sixty-fifth birthday on 8 January 2007, Hawking announced his plan to take a zero-gravity flight in 2007 to prepare for a sub-orbital spaceflight in 2009 on Virgin Galactic's space service. Billionaire Richard Branson pledged to pay all expenses for the latter, costing an estimated £100,000. Stephen Hawking's zero-gravity flight in a "Vomit Comet" of Zero Gravity Corporation, during which he experienced weightlessness eight times, took place on 26 April 2007. He became the first quadriplegic to float in zero-gravity. This was the first time in forty years that he moved freely, without his wheelchair. The fee is normally US$3,750 for 10–15 plunges, but Hawking was not required to pay the fee. A bit of a futurist, Hawking was quoted before the flight saying:

Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight. I am doing it for many reasons. First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he suggested that space was the Earth's long term hope.He continued this theme at a 2008 Charlie Rose interview.


EXISTENCE AND EXTRA TERRESTRIAL LIFE
Hawking has indicated that he is almost certain that alien life exists in other parts of the universe and uses a mathematical basis for his assumptions. "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like." He believes alien life not only certainly exists on planets but perhaps even in other places, like within stars or even floating in outer space. He also warns that a few of these species might be intelligent and threaten Earth. Contact with such species might be devastating for humanity. "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. He advocated that, rather than try to establish contact, man should try to avoid contact with alien life forms.

ILLNESS
Stephen Hawking is severely disabled by a motor neuron disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Hawking's illness is markedly different from typical ALS in that his form of ALS would make for the most protracted case ever documented. A survival for more than ten years after diagnosis is uncommon for ALS; the longest documented durations are thirty-two and thirty-nine years and these cases were termed benign because of the lack of the typical progressive course. When he was young, he enjoyed riding horses and playing with other children. At Oxford, he coxed a rowing team, which, he stated, helped relieve his immense boredom at the university. Symptoms of the disorder first appeared while he was enrolled at University of Cambridge; he lost his balance and fell down a flight of stairs, hitting his head. Worried that he would lose his genius, he took the Mensa test to verify that his intellectual abilities were intact.The diagnosis of motor neurone disease came when Hawking was 21, shortly before his first marriage, and doctors said he would not survive more than two or three years. Hawking gradually lost the use of his arms, legs, and voice, and as of 2009 has been almost completely paralysed. During a visit to the research centre CERN in Geneva in 1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia, which in his condition was life-threatening as it further restricted his already limited respiratory capacity. He had an emergency tracheotomy, and as a result lost what remained of his ability to speak. He has since used an electronic voice synthesizer to communicate. The DECtalk DTC01 voice synthesizer he uses, which has an American English accent, is no longer being produced. Asked why he has still kept it after so many years, Hawking mentioned that he has not heard a voice he likes better and that he identifies with it. Hawking is said to be looking for a replacement since, aside from being obsolete, the synthesizer is both large and fragile by current standards. As of mid 2009, he was said to be using NeoSpeech's VoiceText speech synthesizer. In Hawking's many media appearances, he appears to speak fluently through his synthesizer, but in reality, it is a tedious drawn-out process. Hawking's setup uses a predictive text entry system, which requires only the first few characters in order to auto-complete the word, but as he is only able to use his cheek for data entry, constructing complete sentences takes time. His speeches are prepared in advance, but having a live conversation with him provides insight as to the complexity and work involved. During a Technology, Entertainment, & Design Conference talk, it took him seven minutes to answer a question. He describes himself as lucky despite his disease. Its slow progression has allowed him time to make influential discoveries and has not hindered him from having, in his own words, "a very attractive family."When his wife, Jane, was asked why she decided to marry a man with a three-year life expectancy, she responded, "Those were the days of atomic gloom and doom, so we all had a rather short life expectancy." On 20 April 2009, Cambridge University released a statement saying that Hawking was "very ill" with a chest infection, and was admitted to Addenbrooke's Hospital. The following day, it was reported that his new condition is "comfortable" and he should make a full recovery from the infection.


AS POPULAR SCIENCE ADVOCATE
Hawking has played himself on numerous television shows and has been portrayed in many more. He has played himself on a Red Dwarf anniversary special, played a hologram of himself on the episode "Descent" of Star Trek: The Next Generation, appeared in a skit on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and appeared on the Discovery Channel special Alien Planet. He has also played himself in several episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama. When he was portrayed on episodes of Family Guy, the voice was actually done by a speech synthesizer on a Macintosh computer, according to DVD commentary. In The Fairly OddParents, it is mentioned that he was Denzel Croker's college roommate. He has also appeared in an episode of the Dilbert cartoon. His actual synthesizer voice was used on parts of the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking" from the 1994 album The Division Bell, as well as on Turbonegro's "Intro: The Party Zone" on their 2005 album Party Animals, Wolfsheim's "Kein Zurück (Oliver Pinelli Mix)". As well as being fictionalised as nerdcore hip hop artist MC Hawking, he was impersonated in duet with Richard Cheese on a cover of "The Girl Is Mine". In 2008, Hawking was the subject of and featured in the documentary series Stephen Hawking, Master of the Universe for Channel 4. He was also portrayed in the movie Superhero Movie by Robert Joy. In the TV series Dark Angel Logan's technology savvy colleague Sebastian is characterised with many similarities to the actual physicist. In September 2008, Hawking presided over the unveiling of the 'Chronophage' (time-eating) Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College Cambridge.


DISTINCTION
Hawking's belief that the lay person should have access to his work led him to write a series of popular science books in addition to his academic work. The first of these, A Brief History of Time, was published on 1 April 1988 by Hawking, his family and friends, and some leading physicists. It surprisingly became a best-seller and was followed by The Universe in a Nutshell (2001). Both books have remained highly popular all over the world. A collection of essays titled Black Holes and Baby Universes (1993) was also popular. His most recent book, A Briefer History of Time (2005), co-written by Leonard Mlodinow, aims to update his earlier works and make them accessible to an even wider audience. He and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, have recently published a children's book focusing on science that has been described to be "like Harry Potter, but without the magic." This book is called George's Secret Key to the Universe and includes information on Hawking radiation. Hawking is also known for his wit; he is famous for his oft-made statement, "When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol." This was a deliberately ironic paraphrase of "Whenever I hear the word culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning", from the play Schlageter (Act 1, Scene 1) by German playwright and Nazi Poet Laureate Hanns Johst. His wit has both entertained the non-specialist public and helped them to understand complex questions. Asked in October 2005 on the British daytime chat show Richard & Judy, to explain his assertion that the question "What came before the Big Bang?" was meaningless, he compared it to asking "What lies north of the North Pole?" Hawking has generally avoided talking about politics at length, but he has appeared on a political broadcast for the United Kingdom's Labour Party. He supports the children's charity SOS Children's Villages UK.

PERSONAL LIFE
Hawking revealed that he did not see much point in obtaining a doctorate if he were to die soon. Hawking later said that the real turning point was his 1965 marriage to Jane Wilde, a language student. After gaining his Ph.D. at Trinity Hall, Stephen became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. Jane Hawking (née Wilde), Hawking's first wife, cared for him until 1991 when the couple separated, reportedly because of the pressures of fame and his increasing disability. They had three children: Robert (b. 1967), Lucy (b. 1969), and Timothy (b. 1979). Hawking then married his nurse, Elaine Mason (who was previously married to David Mason, the designer of the first version of Hawking's talking computer), in 1995. In October 2006, Hawking filed for divorce from his second wife. In 1999, Jane Hawking published a memoir, Music to Move the Stars, detailing her own long-term relationship with a family friend whom she later married. Hawking's daughter, Lucy, is a novelist. Their oldest son, Robert, emigrated to the United States, married, and has one child, George Edward Hawking. Reportedly, Hawking and his first family were reconciled in 2007.
Hawking was asked about his IQ in a 2004 newspaper interview, and replied, "I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers."

RELIGOUS VIEWS
Hawking has repeatedly used the word "God" (in metaphorical meanings) to illustrate points made in his books and public speeches. His ex-wife, Jane said during their divorce proceedings that he was an atheist. Hawking has stated that he is "not religious in the normal sense" and he believes that "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws."Hawking compared religion and science in 2010, saying: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works." On September 2010, The Telegraph reported, "Stephen Hawking has declared that his latest work shows there was no creator of the universe" and that the new m-theory "accounts for the birth of the universe...and replaces the need for religious accounts in Hawking's mind." Hawking wrote in his new book The Grand Design that "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

Emmanuelle Chriqui (sexiest woman of 2010)

Emmanuelle Sophie Anne Chriqui born December 10, 1977 is a Canadian actress who has appeared on both television and in cinema. She is perhaps best known for her role on HBO's Entourage as Sloan McQuewick, as well as the love interest of Adam Sandler in the movie You Don't Mess with the Zohan. In May 2010, she topped the AskMen.com Most Desirable Women of 2010 list.


Chriqui was born in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of Jewish Moroccan immigrants.Her mother was born in Casablanca and her father in Rabat, and Chriqui has relatives in Israel.Her family practiced Orthodox Judaism in the Sephardic tradition.


Chriqui has an older brother, Serge, and an older sister, Laurence. When she was almost two, her family moved to Toronto, Ontario. She grew up in Markham-Unionville, a suburb northeast of the city.Her mother, who once told her she would become an actress, passed away when she was at an early age.

As a child, she took acting classes, for which her older brother paid. Chriqui attended the drama program at Unionville High School. After high school, Emmanuelle decided to pursue a career in acting.

Chriqui began acting as a 10-year-old in a McDonald's commercial. She moved to Vancouver in the mid-1990s, guest-starring in series such as Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Forever Knight, Once a Thief, and Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal. Her first Hollywood role was as a supporting character in Detroit Rock City (1999). Chriqui later appeared in several movies such as 100 Girls, Wrong Turn, On the Line, and In the Mix.


She starred opposite Cameron Douglas in the movie National Lampoon's Adam & Eve and played the character of Eve. One of her more recent parts was in the film You Don't Mess with the Zohan, where she played a Palestinian immigrant living in New York, who is the star's (Adam Sandler) love interest.

Chriqui was nominated for a Best Actress DVD Exclusive Award for her performance in 100 Girls and was nominated, with Lance Bass, for a Choice Liplock Teen Choice Award in On the Line.Recently, she won the Standout Performance Trophy at the Young Hollywood Awards. Chriqui also starred in Hinder's "Lips of an Angel" music video as well as in the Zac Brown Band's "Whatever It Is" music video.

She threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Los Angeles Dodgers game on June 8, 2008. Chriqui was on the cover of the Autumn 2008 issue of Naked Eye.
She acted in the movie Cadillac Records (2008) as Revett Chess, where she performed with Beyoncé Knowles. Chriqui was seen in 2009 as one of several women whose lives interconnect in the comedy Women in Trouble and will appear in its sequel, Elektra Luxx, its release in 2010.



Height5' 3" (1.60 m)
Mini Biography
Emmanuelle Chriqui was born in Montreal, Quebec, to Moroccan immigrants. Her family moved to Toronto when she was 2 years old.
At the age of 10, Chriqui appeared in a McDonald's commercial.
She moved to Vancouver guest-starring in series such as "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" (1991), Forever Knight, "Once a Thief" (1997), and "PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal" (1996). Her first Hollywood role was in Detroit Rock City (1999).
Her breakout performance came in 2000's Snow Day (2000), in which she played the foxy Claire Bonner.
She appeared in rock band Hinder's "Lips of an Angel" music video in 2006. Emmanuelle later starred in several films and was nominated for a DVD Exclusive Award as Best Actress for her performance in 100 Girls (2000).

She also starred in the movie Adam and Eve (2005), opposite Cameron Douglas.
Chriqui increased her visibility by having playing Sloan on the HBO hit show, "Entourage" (2004) and by starring opposite Adam Sandler in You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008).
TriviaHer family is from Morocco. Has one sister named Laurence and a brother - both older. They were raised for several years in Unionville, Ontario.
Her last name is pronounced "Shreeky".
Filmed an appearance for the television series, "Manchester Prep" (1999). The series was not picked up despite having several episodes filmed, and was later edited into the movie Cruel Intentions 2 (2000) (V). Emmanuelle's scenes were not used, although she appears in the trailer.

Ranked #1 on AskMen.com's Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2010 Edition.
She is bilingual, English and French.
Is an alumna of the Arts York Drama Program at Unionville High School, a school that specializes in the creative arts.

Voted 8th most sexiest girl 2008 by FHM.

Many of her relatives spell their last name, "Chreky".
Friend of Lance Bass.


Personal Quotes(On Judaism)
You know I grew up with the same holidays and such, in an Orthodox manner, in a Kosher home, and all of that. And those are strict rules to live by that I think really shape your personality and discipline. I think they definitely, whether I knew it at the time or not, subconsciously it definitely seeped in to just create a good balance.

Kelly Brook (Sexiest English Actress)

Kelly Brook (born Kelly Ann Parsons in Rochester, Kent, England, on 23 November 1979(1979-11-23)) is an English model, actress, occasional swimwear designer, and television presenter.

She is the daughter of Sandra, a cook, and Ken, a scaffolder. Ken Parsons died from cancer on 26 November 2007, during Brook's time on Strictly Come Dancing.

Kelly attended The Thomas Aveling School in Warren Wood, Rochester, Kent. She then studied at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London for three years before becoming a professional model.

Brook's modelling career began at 16 after winning a beauty competition for which her mother entered her.Following this success she worked on a range of advertising campaigns, including for Foster's Lager, Renault Megane, Walkers crisps, Piz Buin and Bravissimo, a company that specialises in bras and lingerie for large-breasted women. Her figure eventually caught the eye of the editorial team of the Daily Star tabloid, which began featuring her as a Page Three girl.

Brook's picture soon began appearing in other lad mags such as GQ, Loaded and FHM. In April of the same year, a poll over 5,000 women for Grazia magazine considered her to have the best British female body. She also topped the 'FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World' list in 2005, which was said to have polled 15 million people. She later ranked 5th in FHM's '100 Sexiest Women in the World 2006', 17th in 2007 and 34th in 2008. She is currently the cover star of FHM's World Cup 2010 special issue, her first shoot with the magazine in five years.

Brook has also done a large amount of commercial swimwear, sportswear and hosiery modeling. Her work for Triumph bras caused quite a stir because of specially commissioned 50-foot (15 m) high billboard of Brook's bust, said to be the largest billboard in the world.

In 2005, Brook posed for a ten-page, nude black-and-white photo spread for the photographer David Bailey, which appeared in the British design magazine Arena, in the November 2005 issue.

In 2006 she signed a contract, reported to be worth around £1m, to present Unilever's Lynx body spray, known as Axe in the US and in continental Europe. She has appeared on billboards, in newspapers, and on-line as part of an advertising campaign.

She has also appeared in commercials for Sky + & T Mobile and modelled for Reebok. In 2010, fourteen years after she started off her career as a lingerie model, she was chosen as the "new face and body" of lingerie maker Ultimo's advertising campaign.

Brook will appear on the cover of Playboy magazine in 2010.

In 2006, she introduced her own range of swimwear and lingerie at New Look stores in the United Kingdom.

She also competed in the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special 2008, dancing the Jive with Brian Fortuna, Brendan Cole having to compete with his later partner Lisa Snowdon. Brook and Fortuna received a ten from Craig Revel Horwood, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli, but a nine from Arlene Phillips, for a total of 39 points. Three other couples were also awarded 39 points so the head judge, Len Goodman, had to sort them into the top four places. Brook and Fortuna were put into fourth place, but with the studio audience's vote they came second to Jill Halfpenny and Darren Bennett.

Reality TV judge
In 2008, Brook took Jennifer Ellison's place as one of the three judges on the second series of the reality TV programme Dirty Dancing: The Time of Your Life,broadcast between September and November 2008.

In January 2009, she was to join the third series of Britain's Got Talent as a fourth judge, but was subsequently axed from the programme after less than a week on the panel, the producers having decided that the four-judge format was "too complicated".Brook was billed as a guest judge in the episode in which she appeared, taped in Manchester and aired on May 16.

Acting career

In 1997, she appeared in a Pulp video Help the Aged with Huck Whitney of the cult band The Flaming Stars, in a slow dance sequence.

Brook made her full screen debut with a minor role in the film Sorted, where she can be seen involved in a lesbian scene. Shortly thereafter she also appeared in the film Ripper. She played the girlfriend of Clark Kent/Superman's nemesis Lex Luthor in four episodes of Warner Bros.' Smallville during the show's first season (2001 - 2002). She has also completed assignments as a movie actress in Canada and made a short appearance as Lyle's girlfriend in the 2003 movie The Italian Job.

Her first starring role was in School for Seduction, a 2004 film - she received positive reviews for her role, "Seduction offers a few twists on the rapidly degenerating format, not the least of which is the comely Brook in the lead role." In 2004 she also played character Nikki Morris in the video game Need for Speed Underground 2, alongside Brooke Burke. In 2005 she appeared in the Philippe Vidal film House of 9, a thriller about nine seemingly unconnected strangers captured and locked in a house together. The people are forced to compete against one another, in order to survive.

She caused a minor controversy in 2006 opposite Juan Pablo Di Pace whilst in the film Survival Island (also known as Three), also co-starring Billy Zane, who would later become her fiancé. Brook requested her nude scenes with Di Pace be excised from the final cut, which the producers refused to do.

In 2006, she also starred in a Marple drama on ITV and appeared as herself throughout the second series of Moving Wallpaper for ITV1, in 2009. She stars also in the Science-Fiction thriller Shadow Play who is directed by Nick Simon.

Theatrical work
In December 2000, she played the exotic dancer Anya in the play "Eye Contact" at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, a role that gathered some tabloid publicity, since the finale of the show featured her topless.In October 2008, she returned to the west end as Jeannie, in Neil LaBute's Fat Pig at London's Comedy Theatre. Although her performances have had mixed reviews, the Daily Mail said "Kelly Brook has a pencil waist and rabbit-thigh legs, but she is not a great interpreter of a role".
In November 2009 she began playing Celia in Calendar Girls at the Noel Coward Theatre, a role previously played by Jerry Hall.


Personal life
Dated English actor Jason Statham for seven years before splitting in 2004. The couple lived together in Los Angeles and Herne Hill, south London.Brook met American actor Billy Zane while filming thriller Survival Island in Greece in 2004. Brook and Zane were engaged to be married in the summer of 2008 and acquired a house in Kent, but Brook postponed the wedding upon the death of her father in November 2007. The couple split in April 2008 and briefly got back together before ending their relationship for good in August 2008.Brook was dating Wasps rugby player Danny Cipriani from September 2008 until they announced their break up in June 2010.

Iker Casillas Fernández (Spanish Football Team Captain)

Iker Casillas Fernández ; born 20 May 1981 in Móstoles, Madrid) is a Spanish football goalkeeper who plays for the Spanish La Liga club Real Madrid and serves as captain for the Spanish national team. He is currently first-choice goalkeeper for both club and country and serves as a vice captain for his club. As captain of the national side, he led a young Spanish team to their first European Championship in 44 years, his first senior international honour.

Since bursting onto the scene as a teenager, Casillas has been recognised as one of the best goalkeepers in Europe, illustrated by the many awards he has received. He was ranked 4th in the 2008 European Footballer of the Year voting, and also the highest ranked goalkeeper in 2009. At the end of 2009 he was voted into the UEFA Team of the Year for the third consecutive time. In 2010 his national team made history for themselves by making it into their first ever FIFA World Cup Final.

Real Madrid
He is a product of Real Madrid's youth system, and started in the junior squad during the 1990–91 season. He was first called up to the first team on the 27 November 1997 at age 16 to face Rosenborg in UEFA Champions League 1997–98, but it wasn't until the 1998–99 season that he debuted in the senior side, substituting Bodo Illgner. By the next season, he relegated Illgner to the bench and became first choice. In 2000, he became the youngest-ever goalkeeper to ever play in a Champions League final when Real Madrid defeated Valencia 3-0 just four days after his nineteenth birthday.


Casillas lost his place in the side to backup César Sánchez after a patch of bad form during the 2001–02 campaign, but redeemed himself when Sánchez suffered an injury in the last minutes of 2002 Champions League final match. Casillas came on and pulled off several brilliant saves to deny a rampant Bayer Leverkusen the Champions League crown. The Whites won 2-1 and the twenty-year-old has maintained the number 1 shirt ever since.

The 2007–08 season was a fruitful season for Casillas. He helped Real Madrid reclaim their 31st La Liga title and conceded only 32 goals in 36 games to claim the Zamora Trophy. On 14 February 2008, he and club captain Raúl were awarded new contract extensions. Casillas signed a contract extension that will keep him at the club until 2017, with an automatic extension if he plays 30 competitive matches during the final season of the contract and a buy-out clause of £113 million. His performances earned him a spot in the UEFA Team of the Year for the second time.

In February 2009, Casillas equalled Paco Buyo's record of 454 matches played (for a goalkeeper) and has since surpassed it to become Real Madrid's most-capped goalkeeper of all time at only twenty-seven years old. During the 2009 summer transfer window, some Spanish media reported that Manchester City had launched a record £129 million bid for the goalkeeper. However the club denied the allegations saying that no such offer had been made. He had been linked with other Premier League clubs before but Casillas himself stated that he "had no intention of leaving" his boyhood club.

During the 2009–10 season on 4 October in a game against Sevilla F.C., Casillas made an extraordinary save; he ran from one side of his goal to the other and denied Diego Perotti in a one-on-one close range encounter. After the match, he received praise from fellow Spanish goalkeepers and England goalkeeping legend Gordon Banks, who stated "Casillas' reflexes are incredible. If he continues to play this well he will become one of the best goalkeepers in the history of the game."

International Career
Casillas debuted for the national team in the U–17 level. At age 16, he was the youngest player in the Spanish squad that placed third at the 1997 FIFA U-17 World Championship in Egypt. He was later made captain of the U-17's. Two years later, he went on to win the FIFA World Youth Championship and the UEFA-CAF Meridian Cup that same year. Initially second-choice, he soon worked his way up to first-choice and eventually earned his first senior cap following some brilliant performances at club level.Casillas is currently the second-most capped goalkeeper in the history of the Spanish national team, behind Andoni Zubizarreta, who appeared in 126 matches. Following his full international debut at the senior level against Sweden (at 19 years and 14 days), Casillas was an unused substitute at Euro 2000. He was part of the roster for the 2002 World Cup, initially as the understudy to Santiago Cañizares. Coincidentally, Casillas became the first-choice goalkeeper when Cañizares had to withdraw from the tournament due to injury from a freak accident. At 21, he was one of the youngest first-choice goalkeepers in the tournament. He gained hero status when he saved two penalties in the penalty shoot-out during the round of 16 match against the Republic of Ireland.Casillas played in all eight Group six fixtures during Euro 2004 qualifying, conceding just four goals. He kept a clean sheet in the second leg victory of the playoff against Norway which ended 3-0 in Oslo, and started all of Spain's Euro 2004 matches. He was first choice for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, captaining the team twice, but could not prevent the La Roja from losing 3-1 to a Zidane-inspired France in the Round of 16.

With the exclusion of Real Madrid teammate Raúl from the squad for Euro 2008, Casillas was given the captain's armband. He started the first two Euro 2008 Group D games against Russia and Sweden before being rested in place of second-choice goalkeeper Pepe Reina for Spain's group stage elimination of Greece. Casillas saved two penalties from Antonio Di Natale and Daniele De Rossi as Spain eliminated Italy in the quarterfinals with a 4–2 shootout win following a goalless draw on 22 June.Spain later went on to win the competition with a 1–0 win over Germany in the final on 29 June; Casillas kept clean sheets for the quarterfinal, semifinal, and final matches, with Sweden's first round goal by Zlatan Ibrahimović being the last one scored against him. In his 82 appearances for Spain, he has kept 42 clean sheets. On 29 June 2008 Casillas became the first goalkeeper-captain to lift the UEFA European Championship trophy when Spain beat Germany 1–0 in the final.

In October 2008, Casillas and deputy in goal Pepe Reina broke the national record for the longest time spent without conceding a goal. The pair went unbeaten for 710 minutes, longer than the legendary Andoni Zubizarreta and Paco Buyo.Wesley Sonck of Belgium ended their goalless streak when he scored against them a 2010 World Cup qualifying match.

One of his saves during the quarterfinals versus South Korea during the 2002 FIFA World Cup was rated by FIFA as one of the top 10 saves of all time. Casillas was the highest ranked goalkeeper (4th place) in the 2008 Ballon d'Or behind Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and national teammate Fernando Torres.

He was named the world's best goalkeeper in 2008 by the IFFHS. He also came in third place in the best goalkeepers of all time ranking; beating Oliver Kahn.

On 5 September 2009, after a 5-0 win over Belgium in a qualifying match for the World Cup, Casillas equalled Andoni Zubizarreta's national record of 56 clean sheets, and during the Spanish team's next match against Estonia on 9 September 2009, he surpassed Zubizarreta as the record holder for the most Spanish international clean sheets (this being achieved in Casillas' 98th appearance for the national team, while Zubizarreta made 126 before his retirement).

On 14 November 2009, he made his 100th appearance for the Spanish squad in the friendly win over Argentina, making him only the third player in history of Spanish football to ever reach this far internationally. Only Andoni Zubizarreta, on 126, now stands ahead of him.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst (Netherlands Football Captain)

Giovanni Christian van Bronckhorst (Dutch pronunciation: born 5 February 1975 in Rotterdam), known as Gio for short, is a Dutch footballer of Indonesian descent who plays for Dutch Eredivisie club Feyenoord and serves as the captain of the Dutch national team.

Van Bronckhorst signed a three-year contract with Feyenoord in June 2007, leaving FC Barcelona as a free agent. Prior to joining Barcelona, Bronckhorst played for RKC Waalwijk (1993–94), Feyenoord (1994–98), Rangers (1998–2001), and Arsenal (2001–03).

He has earned over 100 caps for the Dutch national team, and played for his country in three World Cups (1998, 2006 and 2010), as well as three European Championships (2000, 2004, and 2008).


Childhood and early career
Van Bronckhorst was born in Rotterdam to an Indo father and a Moluccan mother.He began playing for a local amateur youth team in Rotterdam from the age of 6, joining the youth academy at Feyenoord the following year.In 1990, aged 15, the club offered him a professional contract, which he accepted.He won the Dutch Youth League with Feyenoord in 1991, but struggled to break into the first team.He was loaned out to RKC Waalwijk, making his Eredivise debut in 1993. He returned to Feyenoord for the 1994/5 season, but was used as a fringe player, making only ten appearances for the club.1995–96 was his breakthrough season, as he started almost every game for Feyenoord, playing alongside the likes of Regi Blinker and Henrik Larsson.

He also made his debut for the national Olympic team in 1996, although they failed to qualify for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.He was given his first full international cap in August 1996, being given a starting place by Guus Hiddink in the Oranje's lineup to face Brazil in a friendly at the Amsterdam Arena. He was part of the Holland squad for the 1998 World Cup, but did not play during the tournament.

Domestically, with Feyenoord failing to break the PSV-Ajax strangehold on the Eredivise for the fourth year in a row, and major players such as Larsson leaving the team, van Bronkhorst began to search for a new club.He chose to join up with Dick Advocaat (his former manager at international U-16 and U-18 level) at Glasgow Rangers, joining the club in 1998 for a fee of £5.5m.He cites Larsson, who had joined Rangers' Glasgow rivals Celtic, as a major factor in persuading him to move to Scotland.Fellow Feyenoord teammates Regi Blinker and Bobby Petta had also joined Celtic.

Rangers
Van Bronckhorst was already a regular international when he signed for Rangers in 1998, joining up with compatriot Dick Advocaat, the Scottish club's new manager. In his first competitive game for Rangers, a remarkable UEFA Cup tie away to League of Ireland side Shelbourne (although played at Tranmere Rovers' Prenton Park), van Bronckhorst marked his debut with a finely-struck goal as Rangers came back from 3–0 down to win the match 5–3. Van Bronckhorst went on to score 22 goals for Rangers (13 in the league, three in the Scottish Cup, one in the Scottish League Cup, three in the Champions League and two in the UEFA Cup), mostly as a play-making midfielder of notable skill and subtlety, before an £8.5 m transfer to Arsenal in the summer of 2001.

Arsenal
Arsène Wenger signed van Bronckhorst to replace the midfield void left by the departure of Emmanuel Petit from Arsenal and he was expected to partner Patrick Vieira in the centre. However, his period at Arsenal was marked by a cruciate knee ligament injury which saw him sidelined after only a few months at the club. When he returned, his role was increasingly minimal and he found himself behind Vieira, Edu and shortly before his departure to Barcelona, Gilberto Silva in the pecking order. He did not leave Arsenal without any silverware, however, as he collected two FA Cup winners' medals (despite not playing in either final) and a Premier League winners medal in 2002. He scored two league goals in his time at Arsenal, one against Leicester City in January 2002 and one against Chelsea in January 2003.
Barcelona
As the 2003–04 season approached, van Bronckhorst had the opportunity to move to FC Barcelona and work with new boss Frank Rijkaard on a one-year loan, with a view to a permanent transfer. After adapting to his new role as a left back, he helped Barça to a revival in the second half of the season. In May 2004, van Bronckhorst completed his move from Arsenal to Barcelona for a fee of €2 million, signing a three-year deal. He won the La Liga title with Barça in the 2004–05 season after some of his finest displays together with 4 goals to his credit. In 2005–06, he helped his club repeat as Liga champions while winning the 2006 Champions League as well (he was the only player who participated in all Champions League matches that season). In Spain, he used 'Gio' as the name on his shirt, as opposed to 'Bronckhorst' from his time at Arsenal. He said on Dutch soccer program Studio Voetbal, that he could return to Feyenoord due to a contract clause that allows him to sign immediately with the club he supported as a boy.
Feyenoord
On 21 August 2007, van Bronckhorst's contract with Barça ended and he subsequently joined up with Feyenoord for the second time in his career. Since joining, van Bronckhorst has become a pivotal member of the Eredivisie team's squad, most recently proving to be something of a rock in an injury-hit side. At the beginning of his first season in Rotterdam, coach Bert van Marwijk made van Bronckhorst captain.On 12 May 2010, he announced that he will end his playing career after the World Cup 2010 in South Africa.
International Career
Van Bronckhorst made his national team debut in August 1996 and has since gone on to earn over 100 caps, including three World Cup and three Euro campaigns. He did not appear in the 1998 World Cup and only saw limited action in Euro 2000 as cover for leftback Arthur Numan.

However later national team coaches appreciated van Bronkhorst's leftback capabilities, most notably Dick Advocaat who played him for the Netherlands in the Euro 2004 competition in Portugal. The Dutch team reached the semi-finals of the tournament when the host team, Portugal, eliminated them.

He was a regular in the national team for the 2006 World Cup qualification campaign. However, in the Round of 16 match against Portugal (see Battle of Nuremberg), he received a red card in a match that saw four red cards given, a World Cup record. There was an unusual scene in which van Bronckhorst was sitting in the stands next to his FC Barcelona teammate at the time, Deco of Portugal who had also been sent off.

Van Bronckhorst scored the winning goal in a Euro 2008 qualifying match against Slovenia on 28 March 2007. The Netherlands won the match 1–0.

On 9 June 2008, while playing in a 3–0 victory over Italy in UEFA Euro 2008, he assisted in the second goal scored by the Netherlands and also scored the third goal, after running all the way from the back. For the second goal, he first cleared the ball off his own line and ran deep into the Italian half, then received the ball and crossed it to Dirk Kuyt who headed it down to Wesley Sneijder to slot between the post and the advancing Gianluigi Buffon. He later even scored another one himself to condemn the world champions to an embarrassing defeat.

2010 World Cup
Van Bronckhorst has announced that he will retire from football after the 2010 World Cup. He was included in the preliminary squad for the tournament, and on 27 May 2010, Netherlands manager Bert van Marwijk announced that he would be part of the final squad of 23, and would serve as the team captain. Van Bronckhorst earned his 100th cap in the opening group match versus Denmark. In the semi-final against Uruguay he scored the opening goal of the match, which the Netherlands won 3–2.

Kate Winslet (English Actress)

Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She is the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader (2008). Winslet has been acclaimed for both dramatic and comedic work in projects ranging from period to contemporary films, and from major Hollywood productions to less publicised indie films. She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association among others, and has been nominated for an Emmy Award for television acting.

Raised in Berkshire, Winslet studied drama from childhood, and began her career in British television in 1991. She made her film debut in Heavenly Creatures (1994), for which she received her first notable critical praise. She achieved recognition for her subsequent work in a supporting role in Sense and Sensibility (1995) and for her leading role in Titanic (1997), the highest grossing film for more than 12 years until 2010.

Since 2000, Winslet's performances have continued to draw positive comments from film critics, and she has been nominated for various awards for her work in such films as Quills (2000), Iris (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006), The Reader (2008) and Revolutionary Road (2008). Her performance in the latter prompted New York magazine to describe her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation".The romantic comedy The Holiday and the animated film Flushed Away (both 2006) were among the biggest commercial successes of her career.

Winslet was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2000. She has been included as a vocalist on some soundtracks of works she has performed in, and the single "What If" from the soundtrack for Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001), was a hit single in several European countries. Winslet has a daughter with her former husband, Jim Threapleton, and a son with her current husband, Sam Mendes, from whom she is separated. She lives in New York City.


Born in Reading, Berkshire, Winslet is the daughter of Sally Anne (née Bridges), a barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming-pool contractor. Her parents were "jobbing actors", which led Winslet to comment that she "didn't have a privileged upbringing" and that their daily life was "very hand to mouth".Her maternal grandparents, Linda (née Plumb) and Archibald Oliver Bridges, founded and operated the Reading Repertory Theatre, and her uncle, Robert Bridges, appeared in the original West End production of Oliver!. Her sisters, Beth and Anna Winslet, are also actresses.

Raised in an Anglican household, Winslet began studying drama at the age of 11 at the Redroofs Theatre School, a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl.At the age of 12, Winslet appeared in a television advertisement directed by filmmaker Tim Pope for Sugar Puffs cereal. Pope said her naturalism was "there from the start".

While on the set of Dark Season, Winslet met actor-writer Stephen Tredre, with whom she had a nearly five-year relationship. He died of bone cancer soon after Winslet completed filming Titanic, causing her to miss the film's premiere in order to attend his funeral in London. She and Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio have remained good friends since the filming.

Winslet was later in a relationship with Rufus Sewell, but on 22 November 1998 she married director Jim Threapleton, whom she met while on the set of Hideous Kinky.They have a daughter, Mia Honey, who was born on 12 October 2000 in London. Winslet and Threapleton divorced in 2001,Winslet began a relationship with Sam Mendes, whom she married on 24 May 2003 on the island of Anguilla in the Caribbean. Their son, Joe Alfie Winslet Mendes, was born on 22 December 2003 in New York City.Mendes and Winslet announced a separation in March 2010, stating, "The split is entirely amicable and is by mutual agreement."

Mendes and his production company, Neal Street Productions, purchased the film rights to the long-delayed biography of circus tiger tamer Mabel Stark.The couple's spokesperson said, "It's a great story, they have had their eyes on it for a while. If they can get the script right, it would make a great film."

The media have documented her weight fluctuations over the years.Winslet has been outspoken about her refusal to allow Hollywood to dictate her weight.In February 2003, British GQ magazine published photographs of Winslet which had been digitally altered to make her look dramatically thinner than she really was.Winslet issued a statement that the alterations were made without her consent, saying "I just didn't want people to think I was a hypocrite and that I'd suddenly lost 30 lbs. or whatever".GQ subsequently issued an apology.She won a libel suit in 2009 against British tabloid The Daily Mail after it printed that she lied about her exercise regimen.Winslet said she had always expressed the opinion that women should be encouraged to accept their appearance with pride, and therefore "was particularly upset to be accused of lying about my exercise regimen, and felt that I had a responsibility to request an apology in order to demonstrate my commitment to the views that I have always expressed about body issues, including diet and exercise."

Winslet and Mendes live in Greenwich Village in New York City.They also own a Grade II-listed five-bedroom house, set in 22 acres in the village of Church Westcote in Gloucestershire, England.After purchasing the house for £3 million, they have reportedly spent a further £1 million in renovations, as the house had fallen into disrepair after the death of its former owner, the equestrian artist Raoul Millais in 1999.

Mendes was scheduled to fly on American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked on 11 September 2001 and subsequently crashed into the Pentagon.In October 2001, Winslet was seven hours into a London-Dallas flight with her daughter Mia when a passenger who claimed to be a terrorist, later charged with creating mischief, stood up and shouted "We are all going to die."As a result of these incidents, Winslet and Mendes never fly together on the same aircraft, as they fear leaving their children parentless.

Academy Award nomination milestones

Winslet was 26 when she received her third Academy Award nomination, for Iris, just missing the mark of Natalie Wood, who received her third nomination at age 25.She set the mark as the youngest actor to receive five nominations, at age 31, for Little Children (2006). She surpassed Bette Davis, who was 33 when she received her fifth nomination for her performance in The Little Foxes (1941).With her Best Actress nomination for The Reader, Winslet became the youngest actor to receive six Oscar nominations. At age 33, Winslet passed the mark Davis, one year older, set with Now, Voyager (1942).

Winslet received Academy Award nominations as the younger versions of the characters played by fellow nominees Gloria Stuart, as Rose, in Titanic (1997) and Judi Dench, as Iris Murdoch, in Iris. These are the only instances of the younger and older versions of a character in the same film both yielding Academy Award nominations.

When she was not nominated for her work in Revolutionary Road, Winslet became only the second actress to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Drama) without getting an Oscar nomination for the same performance (Shirley MacLaine was the first for Madame Sousatzka [1988], and she won the Golden Globe in a three-way tie). Academy rules allow an actor to receive no more than one nomination in a given category; as the Academy nominating process determined that Winslet's work in The Reader would be considered a lead performance—unlike the Golden Globes, which considered it a supporting performance—she could not also receive a Best Actress nomination for Revolutionary Road.

Awards and nominations

Winslet won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Reader (2008). She won two Golden Globe Awards in the same year: Best Actress (Drama) for Revolutionary Road and Best Supporting Actress for The Reader. She has won two BAFTA Awards: Best Actress for The Reader, and Best Supporting Actress for Sense and Sensibility (1995). She has earned a total of six Academy Award nominations, seven Golden Globe nominations, and seven BAFTA nominations.

She has received numerous awards from other organisations, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for Iris (2001) and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Sense and Sensibility and The Reader. Premiere magazine named her portrayal of Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) as the 81st greatest film performance of all time.

Mr.Bean (Rowan Atkinson:British Actor)


Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born January 6, 1955) is an English comedian, actor and writer. He is most famous for his work in the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and The Thin Blue Line. He has been listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians.

Atkinson was born in Consett, County Durham, England.His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and his wife Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29th June 1945. He has two elder brothers, Rodney Atkinson, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert Atkinson.

Atkinson was brought up Anglican. He was educated at Durham Choristers School, followed by St. Bees School, and studied electrical engineering at Newcastle University. He continued with an M.Sc. at The Queen's College, Oxford, first achieving notice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976.[8] At Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.

Atkinson starred in a series of comedy shows for BBC Radio 3 in 1978 called "Atkinson People". It consisted of a series of satirical interviews with fictional great men, who were played by Atkinson himself. The series was written by Atkinson and Richard Curtis, and produced by Griff Rhys Jones.

After university, Atkinson toured with Angus Deayton as his funny man in an act that was eventually filmed for a television show. After the success of the show, he did a one-off pilot for ITV in 1979 called Canned Laughter. Atkinson then went on to do Not the Nine O'Clock News, produced by his friend John Lloyd. He starred on the show along with Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith, and was one of the main sketch writers.

The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to his starring in the medieval sitcom The Black Adder, which he also co-wrote with Richard Curtis, in 1983. After a three-year gap, in part due to budgetary concerns, a second series was written, this time by Curtis and Ben Elton, and first screened in 1986. Blackadder II followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era. The same pattern was repeated in the two sequels Blackadder the Third (1987) (set in the Regency era), and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) (set in World War I). The Blackadder series went on to become one of the most successful BBC situation comedies of all time, spawning television specials including Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988) and Blackadder: The Cavalier Years (1988).

Atkinson's other famous creation, the hapless Mr. Bean, first appeared on New Years Day in 1990 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. The character of Mr. Bean has been likened somewhat to a modern-day Buster Keaton. During this time, Atkinson appeared at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal in 1987 and 1989. Several sequels to Mr. Bean appeared on television in the 1990s, and it eventually made into a major motion picture in 1997. Entitled Bean, it was directed by Mel Smith, his former co-star from Not the Nine O'Clock News. A second movie was released in 2007 entitled Mr. Bean's Holiday.

Atkinson has fronted campaigns for Hitachi electrical goods, Fujifilm, and Give Blood. Most famously, he appeared as a hapless and error-prone espionage agent in a long-running series for Barclaycard, on which character his title role in Johnny English was based.

Atkinson's film career began in 1983 with a supporting part in the 'unofficial' James Bond movie Never Say Never Again and a leading role in Dead on Time with Nigel Hawthorne. He appeared in former Not the Nine O'Clock News co-star Mel Smith's directorial debut The Tall Guy in 1989. He also appeared alongside Anjelica Huston and Mai Zetterling in Roald Dahl's The Witches in 1990. In 1993 he played the part of Dexter Hayman in Hot Shots! Part Deux, a parody of Rambo III, starring Charlie Sheen.

Atkinson gained further recognition with his turn as a verbally bumbling vicar in the 1994 hit Four Weddings and a Funeral. That same year he featured in Walt Disney's The Lion King as Zazu the Red-billed Hornbill. Atkinson continued to appear in supporting roles in successful comedies, including Rat Race (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002), and Love Actually (2003).

In addition to his supporting roles, Atkinson has also had success as a leading man. His television character Mr. Bean debuted on the big screen in 1997 with Bean to international success. A sequel, Mr. Bean's Holiday, was released in March 2007 and may be the last time he plays the character. He has also starred in the James Bond parody Johnny English in 2003. Its sequel, Johnny English 2 will be released in 2011. Keeping Mum (2005) was a departure for Atkinson, starring in a straight role.

Best known for his use of physical comedy in his trademark character of Mr. Bean, others of Atkinson's characters rely more heavily on language. Atkinson often plays authority figures (especially priests or vicars) speaking absurd lines with a completely deadpan delivery.

One of his better-known trademark comic devices is over-articulation of the "B" sound, such as his pronunciation of "Bob" in a Blackadder episode. Atkinson suffers from stuttering, and the over-articulation is a technique to overcome problematic consonants.[citation needed]

Atkinson's style is often visually-based. This visual style, which has been compared to Buster Keaton, sets Atkinson apart as most modern television and film comedies rely heavily on dialogue, and stand-up comedy is mostly based on monologues. This talent for visual comedy has led to Atkinson being called "the man with the rubber face": comedic reference was made to this in an episode of Blackadder the Third, in which Baldrick (Tony Robinson) refers to his master, Mr. E. Blackadder, as a "lazy, big nosed, rubber-faced bastard".

Marriage and children

Atkinson married Sunetra Sastry at the Russian Tea Room in New York City, U.S. with Stephen Fry as his best man. The couple have two children, Benjamin Atkinson and Lily Grace Atkinson, and live in Northamptonshire as well as Oxfordshire and London, while their children go to school in Oundle.
[edit] Politics

In June 2005, Atkinson led a coalition of the UK's most prominent actors and writers, including Nicholas Hytner, Stephen Fry and Ian McEwan, to the British Parliament in an attempt to force a review of the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill — on the grounds that the bill would give religious groups a "weapon of disproportionate power" whose threat would engender a culture of self-censorship among artists.

In 2009, he criticized homophobic speech legislation, saying that the House of Lords must vote against a government attempt to remove a free speech clause in an anti-gay hate law.
[edit] Cars

With an estimated wealth of £100 million, Atkinson is able to indulge his passion for cars that began with driving his mother's Morris Minor around the family farm. He has written for the British magazines Car, Octane, Evo, and "SuperClassics", a short-lived UK magazine, in which he reviewed the McLaren F1 in 1995.

Atkinson holds a category C+E (formerly 'Class 1') lorry driving licence, gained in 1981, because lorries held a fascination for him, and to ensure employment as a young actor. He has also used this skill when filming comedy material.

A lover of and participant in car racing, he appeared as racing driver Henry Birkin in the television play Full Throttle in 1995. In 1991, he starred in the self-penned The Driven Man, a series of sketches featuring Atkinson driving around London trying to solve his car-fetish, and discussing it with taxi drivers, policemen, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists.

Atkinson has raced in other cars, including a Renault 5 GT Turbo for two seasons for its one make series. He owns one McLaren F1, which was involved in an accident in Forton with an Austin Metro. He also owns a Honda NSX. Other cars he owns include an Audi A8,[18] and a Honda Civic Hybrid.

The Conservative Party politician Alan Clark, himself a devotee of classic motor cars, recorded in his published Diaries this chance meeting with a man he later realised was Atkinson while driving through Oxfordshire in May 1984: "Just after leaving the motorway at Thame I noticed a dark red DBS V8 Aston Martin on the slip road with the bonnet up, a man unhappily bending over it. I told Jane to pull in and walked back. A DV8 in trouble is always good for a gloat." Clark writes that he gave Atkinson a lift in his Rolls Royce to the nearest telephone box, but was disappointed in his bland reaction to being recognised, noting that: "he didn't sparkle, was rather disappointing and chétif."

One car Atkinson will not own is a Porsche: "I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people — and I wish them no ill — are not, I feel, my kind of people. I don't go around saying that Porsches are a pile of dung, but I do know that psychologically I couldn't handle owning one.

Maria Sharapova (Russian Tennis Player)

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova Mariya Yur’evna Shara'pova born April 19, 1987) is a former World No. 1 Russian professional tennis player. She has won 3 Grand Slam titles (2004 Wimbledon, 2006 US Open, and 2008 Australian Open). She was also runner-up at the 2007 Australian Open. She is currently ranked World No. 17.

Sharapova made her professional breakthrough in 2004 when, at age 17, she upset two-time defending champion and top seed Serena Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final for her first Grand Slam singles title. She entered the top ten of the WTA Rankings with this win. Despite not winning a major in 2005, Sharapova briefly held the number one ranking, and reached three Grand Slam semifinals, losing to the eventual champion each time. She ultimately won her second major at the 2006 US Open defeating then-World No. 1 Amélie Mauresmo in the semifinals and World No. 2 Justine Henin in the final. Sharapova's 2007 season was plagued with a chronic shoulder injury, and saw her ranking fall out of the top 5 for the first time in two years. She ultimately won her third Grand Slam at the 2008 Australian Open, defeating Henin in the quarterfinals and Ana Ivanović in the final. After reclaiming the number one ranking in May 2008, Sharapova's shoulder problems re-surfaced, ultimately requiring surgery in October and forcing her out of the game for nearly ten months. Sharapova returned in May 2009 and was ranked No. 126 in the world due to her extensive lay-off. Since her comeback, Sharapova has won 3 singles titles (bringing her career total to 22) and recovered her ranking to World No. 12.

Sharapova's public profile extends beyond tennis, as she has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Also she has been featured in many advertisements including: Nike, Prince, Canon and many more, also being the face of many fashion houses, primarily Cole Haan. Sharapova was the most searched-for athlete on Yahoo! in both 2005 and 2008. Since February 2007, she has been a United Nations Development Project Goodwill Ambassador, concerned specifically with the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme.

Sharapova was born in 1987 to Yuri and Yelena, ethnic Russians, in the town of Nyagan' in Siberia, Russia. Her parents moved from Gomel, Belarus after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 affected the region. When Sharapova was two, the family moved to Sochi where her father befriended Aleksandr Kafelnikov, whose son Yevgeny would go on to win two Grand Slam singles titles and became Russia's first ever World No. 1 tennis player. Aleksandr gave Sharapova her first tennis racket at the age of four, whereupon she began practicing regularly with her father in a local park. She took her first tennis lessons with veteran Russian coach Yuri Yutkin, who was instantly impressed when he first saw her, noting her "exceptional hand-eye co-ordination."

At the age of seven, Sharapova attended a tennis clinic in Moscow run by Martina Navrátilová, who recommended professional training at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida, which had previously trained players such as Andre Agassi, Monica Seles and Anna Kournikova. With money tight, Yuri was forced to borrow the sum that would allow he and his daughter, neither of whom could speak English, to travel to America, which they finally did in 1994. Visa restrictions prevented Sharapova's mother from joining them for two years. Arriving in Florida with just $700 to his name,Sharapova's father took various low-paying jobs, including dish-washing, to fund her lessons until she was old enough to be admitted to the academy. In 1995, she was signed by IMG, who agreed to pay the annual tuition fee of $35,000 for Sharapova to stay at the academy, allowing her to finally enroll at the age of 9.


2001–03: Professional debut

Sharapova first gained attention on the tennis scene in November 2000 when she won the Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championships in the girls' 16 division at the age of just 13. She was then given a special award, the Rising Star Award, which is awarded only to players of exceptional promise.She made her professional debut in 2001, and played her first WTA tournament at the Pacific Life Open in 2002, winning a match before losing to Monica Seles.

From 2003, Sharapova played a full season, and made a rapid climb into the top 50 by the end of the year. She made her debuts at both the Australian Open and the French Open, but failed to win a match in either. It wasn't until the grass season that she began to fulfill her promise, beating a top 20 player for the first time and reaching her first ever semifinal at the WTA level. Then, as a wildcard at Wimbledon, she defeated 11th seed Jelena Dokić to reach the fourth round, where she lost in three sets to Svetlana Kuznetsova.

By the end of September, Sharapova had already captured her first WTA title, at a smaller event, the Japan Open Tennis Championships, before winning her second in her final tournament of the season, the Bell Challenge. To cap her first full season as a professional off, she was awarded the WTA Newcomer of the Year honor.


2004: Breakthrough Season
Sharapova was defeated in the third round of the Australian Open by seventh seed Anastasia Myskina. The highlight of the remainder of her spring hardcourt season was a run to the semifinals at the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup, where she ultimately lost to Vera Zvonareva.

During the spring clay court season, Sharapova entered the top 20 on the WTA world rankings as a result of reaching the third round of the Qatar Telecom German Open and the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, both of which were Tier I events. At the latter event, she defeated a player ranked inside the top 10 for the first time with a straight-sets win over World No. 10 Elena Dementieva. Later that clay court season, she went on to make the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time at the French Open, losing there to Paola Suárez.

Sharapova won the third title of her career at the Wimbledon warm-up DFS Classic, defeating Tatiana Golovin in the final.Seeded 13th and aged 17 at Wimbledon, she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal by defeating Ai Sugiyama. There, she came back from a 6–2, 3–1 deficit to defeat fifth seed and former champion Lindsay Davenport. In the final, Sharapova upset top seed and defending champion Serena Williams to win her first Grand Slam singles title, and become the third youngest woman to win the Wimbledon title, behind only Lottie Dod and Martina Hingis. The victory was hailed as "the most stunning upset in memory",with other writers commenting on her arrival as a serious challenger to the Williams' dominance at Wimbledon. She entered the top ten in the rankings for the first time as a result of the win.

Following her Wimbledon win, attention and interest in Sharapova in the media greatly increased, a rise in popularity dubbed as "Maria Mania." However, on court, she was struggling to achieve results, winning just three of six matches in her preparations for the US Open. At the US Open itself, she reached the third round before being eliminated by Mary Pierce. In order to regain confidence, Sharapova played and won consecutive titles in Asia in the fall, the Hansol Korea Open Tennis Championships and the Japan Open Tennis Championships.

In October, Sharapova defeated Venus Williams en route to making the final of a Tier I event for the first time at the Zurich Open, losing in the final to Alicia Molik. She then made her debut at the year-ending WTA Tour Championships. There, she won two of her three round-robin matches (including a win over US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova) in order to advance to the semifinals, where she defeated Myskina. In the final, she defeated Serena Williams 4–6, 6–2, 6–4, after trailing 4–0 in the final set

Sharapova started the year at the Australian Open, where she defeated fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova to reach the second Grand Slam semifinal of her career. Sharapova held match points in the third set of her semifinal match before losing to eventual champion Serena Williams. In February, Sharapova won back-to-back tournaments, the Toray Pan Pacific Open and the Qatar Total Open, allowing her to reach the top three on the world rankings for the first time.

In the semifinals of the Tier I Pacific Life Open, Sharapova was defeated by Davenport 6–0, 6–0, the first time she had failed to win a game in a match.The following fortnight, she defeated former World No. 1 players Justine Henin and Venus Williams to reach the final at the Tier I NASDAQ-100 Open, where she lost to Kim Clijsters.

Sharapova made the semifinals of a clay-court tournament for the first time at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, where she lost to Patty Schnyder.Sharapova would have become the World No. 1 for the first time had she won the tournament. Sharapova then reached the quarterfinals of the French Open for the second consecutive year, before losing to eventual champion Henin.On grass, Sharapova won her third title of the year when she successfully defended her title at the DFS Classic, defeating Jelena Janković in the final. As the defending champion at Wimbledon, Sharapova reached the semifinals without dropping a set and losing a service game just once, extending her winning streak on grass to 24 matches. However, she was then beaten by eventual champion Venus Williams.

A back injury sustained by World No. 1 Davenport at Wimbledon prevented her from playing tournaments during the summer hardcourt season, which meant she could not earn new ranking points to replace those that were expiring from the previous year. Sharapova, although also injured for much of this time, had far fewer points to defend, and so she became the first Russian woman to hold the World No. 1 ranking on August 22, 2005. Her reign lasted only one week, however, as Davenport reclaimed the top ranking after winning the Pilot Pen Tennis tournament.

As the top seed at the US Open, Sharapova lost in the semifinals to Kim Clijsters, meaning she had lost to the eventual champion in every Grand Slam of the season. However, she once again leapfrogged Davenport to take the World No. 1 ranking on September 12, 2005. She retained it for six weeks, but after playing few tournaments while injured, she again relinquished the ranking to Davenport.To conclude the year, Sharapova failed to defend her title at the year-ending Sony Ericsson Championships, defeating Davenport in one of her round-robin matches but ultimately losing in the semifinals to eventual champion Amélie Mauresmo.

Sharapova started 2006 by losing in the semifinals of the Australian Open in three sets to Henin, also losing a rematch several weeks later at the Dubai Tennis Championships, having defeated former World No. 1 Martina Hingis and World No. 3 Lindsay Davenport in earlier rounds of the tournament. Sharapova claimed her first title in nine months at the Tier I tournament in Indian Wells, defeating Hingis in the semifinals and Elena Dementieva in the final. The following fortnight, she reached the final in Miami before losing to Kuznetsova.


Sharapova is an aggressive baseliner, with power, depth, and angles on her forehand and backhand. Instead of using a traditional volley or overhead smash, she often prefers to hit a powerful "swinging" volley when approaching the net or attacking lobs. Sharapova is thought to have good speed around the court, especially considering her height. At the beginning of 2008, some observers noted that Sharapova had developed her game, showing improved movement and footwork and the addition of a drop shot and sliced backhand to her repertoire of shots. Despite her powerful game, Sharapova's greatest asset is considered to be her mental toughness and competitive spirit, with Nick Bollettieri stating that she is "tough as nails". At the 2010 French Open, Hall-of-famer Martina Navratilova said of Sharapova, "with her, it's not over until she's shaking hands." Sharapova is known for on-court "grunting", which reached a recorded 101 decibels during a match at Wimbledon in 2005. Monica Seles suggested that grunting is involuntary and a part of tennis. When questioned by the media about her grunting, Sharapova urged the media to "just watch the match."


Towards the beginning of her career, Sharapova's first and second serves were regarded as powerful, and she was believed to possess one of the best deliveries on the Tour. Since the beginning of 2007, however, problems with her shoulder have reduced the effectiveness of her serve. She has regularly gone through spells where she has routinely produced high numbers of double faults in many of her matches. Two-time US Open singles champion Tracy Austin believes that Sharapova often loses confidence in the rest of her game when she experiences problems with her serve and consequently produces more unforced errors and generally plays more tentatively, while tennis writer Joel Drucker remarked that her serve was the "catalyst for her entire game", and that her struggles with it left her "unmasked." In her return from layoff she used an abbreviated motion, which was somewhat less powerful, and though producing aces but also very high number of double faults. After her early loss at the 2009 US Open, Sharapova returned to a more elongated motion, similar to her pre-surgery serve. She has since been able to produce speeds greater than before, including a 121 mph serve hit at the Birmingham tournament in 2010—the fastest serve of her career.


Surfaces

Because she predicates her game on power, Sharapova's preferred surfaces are the fast-playing hard and grass courts, and she is not as well-suited to the slower clay courts. Sharapova has admitted that she is not as comfortable with her movement on clay compared with other court surfaces and once described herself as like a "cow on ice" after a match on clay.Her limitations on this surface are reflected in her career results. The French Open is the only Grand Slam singles title she has not yet won, though she reached the semifinals there in 2007. She won her first Women's Tennis Association tour title on clay during her eighth year as a touring professional, after previously winning 18 titles on other surfaces.
[edit] Ground strokes and Net-Play

She is also known for her phenomenally accurate and powerful groundstrokes. She has a powerful forehand which tends to set up points and create successful winners. Her favorite and most powerful shot is the crosscourt forehand, but it becomes a liability when overused. The backhand, although not as dominant in setting points up, is her more reliable shot—many[who?] consider this to be her best asset, and one of tennis' great shots. Her net play is good when on the attack, often she will choose to drive the volley instead of slice volleys, but this is not seen as a strength—this seems to be continually worked on.


Outside tennis

Sharapova has lived in the United States since moving there at the age of six. She has a home in Manhattan Beach, California.Sharapova lists fashion, movies, music and reading the Sherlock Holmes and Pippi Longstocking series as among her off-court interests, while she has also talked in the past about how she takes hip-hop dance classes.Sharapova has a Pomeranian named Dolce, which means "sweet" in Italian.

At the 2004 US Open, Sharapova, along with several other Russian female tennis players, wore a black ribbon in observance of the tragedy after the Beslan school hostage crisis, which took place only days before.In 2005, she donated around US$50,000 to those affected by the crisis. On February 14, 2007, Sharapova was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and donated US$210,000 to UNDP Chernobyl-recovery projects. She stated at the time that she was planning to travel back to the area after Wimbledon in 2008,though it is unknown whether this happened. With Haynes, Kirilenko, Vaidišová, Stubbs, Governor Bush and Capriati, Sharapova participated in an exhibition in Tampa in December 2004, raising money for the Florida Hurricane Relief Fund.

In July 2008, Sharapova sent a message on DVD to the memorial service of Emily Bailes, who had performed the coin toss ahead of the 2004 Wimbledon final that Sharapova had gone on to win.

Sharapova helped promote the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Sharapova has often implied that she desires an early retirement. Following the retirement of 25-year-old Justine Henin, Sharapova said, "If I was 25 and I'd won so many Grand Slams, I'd quit too." In an interview after the 2008 Australian Open, she balked at the idea of playing for another ten years, saying that she hoped to have a "nice husband and a few kids" by then.

Reportedly since 2009, Sharapova has been dating Slovenian born, professional basketball player Sasha Vujačić, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.


In July 2008, as a result of her success both on and off court, she was the world's highest-paid female athlete, earning US $26 million.

In January, 2010, she signed an eight-year Nike contract, worth $70 million.
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