STARS WORLD: March 2011

Saturday, March 19, 2011

harrison ford film actor and producer

Harrison Ford born July 13, 1942 is an American film actor and producer. He is known for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. His four-decade career also includes roles in several other Hollywood blockbusters, including Presumed Innocent, The Fugitive, Air Force One, and What Lies Beneath. At one point, three of the top five box-office hits of all time included one of his roles. Five of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry.
In 1997, Ford was ranked # 1 in Empire's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. As of July 2008, the United States domestic box office grosses of Ford's films total almost $3.4 billion,with worldwide grosses surpassing $6 billion, making Ford the third highest grossing U.S. domestic box-office star. Ford is the husband of actress Calista Flockhart.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Early career
* 3 Milestone franchises
o 3.1 Star Wars
o 3.2 Indiana Jones
* 4 Other film work
o 4.1 Recent roles
o 4.2 Awards
* 5 Personal life
o 5.1 Environmental causes
o 5.2 Political views
o 5.3 Archaeology
o 5.4 Community work
o 5.5 Aviation
o 5.6 Aircraft owned
* 6 Filmography
* 7 See also
* 8 References
* 9 External links
Early life
Ford was born July 13, 1942 at Chicago, Illinois's Swedish Covenant Hospital, to Dorothy (née Dora Nidelman), a homemaker and former radio actress, and Christopher Ford (born John William Ford), an advertising executive and a former actor. A younger brother, Terence, was born in 1945. Ford's paternal grandparents, John Fitzgerald Ford and Florence Veronica Niehaus, were of Irish Catholic and German descent, respectively. Ford's maternal grandparents, Harry Nidelman and Anna Lifschutz, were Jewish immigrants from Minsk, Belarus (at that time a part of the Russian Empire).When asked in which religion he was raised, Ford has jokingly responded, "Democrat". has also said that he feels "Irish as a person, but I feel Jewish as an actor".
Ford was active in the Boy Scouts of America, and achieved its second-highest rank, Life Scout. He worked at a scout camp, Napowan Adventure Base, as a counselor for the Reptile Study merit badge. Because of this, he and Eagle Scout director Steven Spielberg later decided that the character of young Indiana Jones would be depicted as a Life Scout in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They also jokingly reversed Ford's knowledge of reptiles into Jones's fear of snakes.
In 1960, Ford graduated from Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. His was the first student voice broadcast on his high school's new radio station, WMTH, and he was its first sportscaster during his senior year (1959–1960). He attended Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He took a drama class in his junior year, chiefly as a way to meet women. Ford, a self-described "late bloomer", became fascinated with acting.

harrison ford

maria aragon filipino-Canadian singer

Maria Lourdes Aragon born July 17, 2000 is a Filipino-Canadian singer from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
On February 16, 2011, a video of Maria performing a cover of "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga was posted to her sister's YouTube channel to showcase Maria's talent to friends and family. The video caught Lady Gaga's attention and she was so impressed by Maria's performance that she retweeted a link to the video to her eight million followers, causing a sensation and launching Maria to instant international fame. The video garnered over 10 million views on YouTube in five days. In 6 days, her video, "Born This Way (Cover)" on Youtube had reached about 23 million views.
Toronto's Virgin Radio 99.9 was the among the first media outlets to reach out to Maria and attempted to fly Maria and her family to Toronto so that Maria could perform live on air. Those plans were cancelled due to the weather. During an interview on HOT 103 in Winnipeg, Lady Gaga called into the show to tell Maria how moved she had been by her performance. Lady Gaga then invited an already surprised Maria to perform "Born This Way" with her at The Monster Ball Tour concert in Toronto in March, an offer which Maria enthusiastically accepted. On March 3, 2011, Maria joined Lady Gaga on stage in front of a packed audience at the Air Canada Centre, where together they performed an acoustic duet of "Born this Way" with Maria sitting on Gaga's lap, playing piano and Lady Gaga working the pedals. At the end of the song, Gaga turned the microphone over to Maria who thanked the audience and Gaga for allowing her to perform. Italic text Maria later rejoined Lady Gaga and her team of back up dancers for an uptempo finale version of "Born this Way" culminating in a group hug and loud cheers from the audience.
American talk show host Ellen DeGeneres took notice of her from Lady Gaga's tweet and invited Maria to appear on her show on February 21, 2011, where Maria again performed "Born This Way" on the piano earning a standing ovation from the audience.
Aragon is a fifth-grade student at the Isaac Brock School. She lives with her parents, two sisters and a brother in Winnipeg.

maria aragon

maria brink beautiful Tragedy (2006-2008)

In This Moment is an American heavy metal band from North Hollywood (urban agglomeration of Los Angeles), California. Formed in 2005, the group has released three albums to date, all through Century Media Records.
Contents
* 1 History
o 1.1 Founding
o 1.2 Beautiful Tragedy (2006-2008)
o 1.3 The Dream (2008-2009)
o 1.4 A Star Crossed Wasteland (2010-present)
* 2 Members
* 3 Discography
o 3.1 Studio albums
o 3.2 Singles
* 4 References
* 5 External links
History
Founding
In August 2005, singer Maria Brink and guitarist Chris Howorth met through some common friends. After becoming acquainted, and finding that there was much in common between them, they began writing songs together. Soon thereafter they enlisted the help of Los Angeles drummer Jeff Fabb and formed the band Dying Star. Unhappy with where the band was headed, they decided to take on a new musical direction. By mid-2005, the lineup included Brink, Howorth, Fabb, guitarist Blake Bunzel, and bassist Josh Newell. The band recorded demos and posted them on MySpace, where they generated an internet following. The demos included rough versions of "Ashes", "The Legacy of Odio", "Next Life", "This Moment", and "Prayers", as well as a cover of Slayer's "Postmortem". During the winter of 2005, Newell departed from the band to focus on his other project, Ketaset, as well as his audio engineering work. Producer Pascual Romero (currently in Tinhorn) was then the bassist for a time before friend of the band Jesse Landry was eventually tapped to round out the band permanently. Rob "Blasko" Nicholson, the bassist for Ozzy Osbourne became the band's manager after discovering them through MySpace.
Beautiful Tragedy (2006-2008)
By the end of the 2005, In This Moment had generated a fanbase through internet marketing and do-it-yourself touring.[citation needed] This sparked an interest from Century Media Records, and a worldwide record deal followed. The band released their debut album Beautiful Tragedy on March 20, 2007, backed by the singles "Prayers", and title track "Beautiful Tragedy." The album was produced by Eric Rachel and combined sounds of metalcore and hard rock while the lyrics drew from Brink’s personal experiences about abandonment and tragedies. The vocals on the songs alternates between Brink’s singing and screaming.
The quick success of the album pushed In This Moment on a few high profile tours including The Hottest Chicks in Metal Tour 2007 with Lacuna Coil, Ozzfest in the summers of 2007 and 2008, Megadeth, and the Rob Zombie and Ozzy Osbourne tour.
The band also teamed up with Manntis for the cover of Lacuna Coil's Heaven's a Lie, part of "Century Media Records: Covering 20 Years of Extreme" cover album.

maria brink

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Dita Von Teese burlesque artist

Dita Von Teese born September 28, 1972 is an American burlesque artist, model and actress.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Career
o 2.1 Fetish and glamour modeling
o 2.2 Burlesque
o 2.3 Acting
o 2.4 Fashion and modeling
* 3 Personal life
o 3.1 Relationship with Marilyn Manson
* 4 Filmography
* 5 Further reading
* 6 References
* 7 External links
Early life
Dita Von Teese was born Heather Renée Sweet on September 28, 1972, in Rochester, Michigan, the middle of three daughters. Her mother was a manicurist and her father was a machinist[ needed]
Von Teese is well known for her fascination with 1940s cinema and classic retro style. This began at a young age and was fostered by her mother, who would buy clothes for her daughter to dress up in. Her mother was a fan of old, Golden-era Hollywood films, and it was from her that Von Teese developed a fascination with the actresses of that day, especially Betty Grable.
She was classically trained as a ballet dancer from an early age, and danced solo at age thirteen for a local ballet company. Though she originally wanted to be a ballerina, Von Teese states that "By 15 I was as good as I’d ever be." She was later to incorporate this element into her burlesque shows, where she frequently goes en pointe.
The family relocated from Michigan to Orange County, California, when her father's job moved.Von Teese attended University High School in Irvine.
As a teenager, Von Teese's mother took her to buy her first bra, made from plain white cotton, and gave her a plastic egg containing a pair of wrinkly, flesh-colored tights. Teese says she was disappointed as she had been hoping to receive beautiful lacy garments and stockings, of the type she had glimpsed in her father's Playboy magazines. This fueled her passion for lingerie. She worked in a lingerie store as a salesgirl when she was fifteen, eventually as a buyer. Von Teese has been fond of wearing elaborate lingerie such as corsets and basques with fully fashioned stockings ever since.
In college Von Teese studied historic costuming and aspired to work as a stylist for period films. She is a trained costume designer, often designing (and copyrighting) the photoshoots herself.

Dita Von Teese

Dita Von Teese