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.