Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Halle Berry

Halle Berry was born on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA to African American father Jerome Berry, a former hospital attendant, and Caucasian mother Judith Berry, a retired psychiatric nurse. Halle also has an older sister named Heidi Berry. Halle first came into the spotlight at 17 years old when she won the Miss Teen All-American Pageant, representing the state of Ohio in 1985 and, a year later in 1986, when she was the first runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant. After participating in the pageant, Halle became a model. It eventually led to her first weekly TV series, 1989's "Living Dolls" (1989), where she soon gained a reputation for her on-set tenacity, preferring to "live" her roles and remaining in character even when the cameras stopped rolling. It paid off though when she reportedly refused to bathe for several days before starting work on her role as a crack addict in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever (1991) because the role provided her big screen breakthrough. The following year, she was cast as Eddie Murphy's love interest in Boomerang (1992), one of the few times that Murphy was evenly matched on screen. In 1994, Berry gained a youthful following for her performance as sexy secretary "Sharon Stone" in The Flintstones (1994). She next had a highly publicized costarring role with Jessica Lange in the adoption drama Losing Isaiah (1995). Though the movie received mixed reviews, Berry didn't let that slow her down, and continued down her path to super-stardom. In 1998, she received critical success when she starred as a street smart young woman who takes up with a struggling politician in Warren Beatty's Bulworth (1998). The following year, she won even greater acclaim for her role as actress Dorothy Dandridge in made-for-cable's Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999) (TV), for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Movie/Mini-Series. In 2000, she received box office success in X-Men (2000) in which she played "Storm", a mutant who has the ability to control the weather.



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Saturday, December 5, 2009

Prince Charles

LONDON - NOVEMBER 26: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Colonel-In-Chief of the Mercian Regiment talks to soldiers from the 4th Battalion during a medal ceremony at Clarence House on November 26, 2009 in London.
(Photo by Suzanne Plunkett/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

http://www.independent.co.uk/


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Jennifer Aniston

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO - NOVEMBER 26: Actress Jennifer Aniston attends the Mamounia hotel inauguration on November 26, 2009 in Marrakech, Morocco.
(Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

http://www.independent.co.uk/


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Leona Lewis

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 03: Leona Lewis performs live for BBC Radio 2 held at broadcasting House on December 3, 2009 in London, England.
(Photo by Getty Images)

http://www.independent.co.uk/


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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Sofia Vergara

Colombia-born actress Sofia Vergara arrives for the 2009 American Music Awards in Los Angeles.
Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/


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Actor Thomas Kretschmann and model Shermine Shahrivar

Actor Thomas Kretschmann and model Shermine Shahrivar pose on the red carpet at the 61st Bambi media awards ceremony in Potsdam, Germany.
Photo: Ahmad Masood/Reuters

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/


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Kristen Stewart



As one of the preeminent young stars in Hollywood, Kristen Stewart embodies a casual grace that is reflected in the characters she portrays. Her remarkable talent has led to successful roles in feature films such as “Panic Room” (2002), “Cold Creek Manor” (2003), “Into the Wild” (2007), “Jumper” (2008), and – perhaps most famously – “Twilight” (2008). On this site, you can learn more about Kristen and her film repertoire, including details about upcoming films and news about Kristen. KristenStewart.com provides a professional, modern environment for celebrating Kristen’s work and, as she has said, the “storytelling” that is acting.

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Friday, September 25, 2009

Monica Birladeanu

Romanian actress Monica Birladeanu disembarks from a boat as she arrives at the Venice Film Festival.

Photo: Filippo Monteforte

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/


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Aissa Maiga

Born of a Malian father and a mother of half Senegalese and half Gambian descent, she arrived in France at the age of 4.

Jury member French actress Aissa Maiga arrives for the screening of Me and Orson Welles at the American Film Festival in Deauville, France.

Photo: Francois Guillot



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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Yasmine

Yasmine

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Karla Henry and Miriam Odemba

Miss Philippines Karla Henry (left), 22, reacts after winning the Miss Earth 2008 beauty pageant in Pampanga, north of Manila. At right is Miriam Odemba, 25, of Tanzania, who won as Miss Earth Air / Reuters

http://www.news.com.au/


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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Mariana Bridi da Costa

One month ago, 20-year-old beauty queen Mariana Bridi was living the dream of many young Brazilian women, trading her striking good looks for a modeling career that promised to lift her family out of poverty.

Then she contracted a seemingly ordinary urinary tract infection. The bacteria spread quickly and inexorably through her body, proving to be extremely drug resistant. In a desperate bid to save her life, doctors amputated her hands and feet. But by Saturday she was dead.

"God is comforting our hearts because he wanted her to be with him now," her father Agnaldo Costa told reporters outside the hospital where his daughter died. "I can't accept that my daughter left us so soon."

Bridi's Web site says she began modeling at age 14 with the hope of giving "a dignified life to her parents."

Her father is a taxi driver and her mother a house cleaner.

By the age of 18, she was well on her way: In 2007 and 2008, she was a finalist in the Brazilian stage of the Miss World pageant.

Her Web site said next month she was to participate in the second stage of a modeling competition held in Sao Paulo by Dilson Stein, the Brazilian model scout who discovered supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

Last year, she took fourth in the Face of the Universe competition in South Africa and she had won bikini competitions across the globe.

The Miss World Brazil organization said she was an example of someone "who knew how to intensely live her life."

Half a dozen memorial groups on Facebook had already sprung up just hours after her death. On Bridi's own page on Orkut _ the most popular Web social networking site in Brazil _ dozens of memorial messages were left.

The course of her illness was swift

In late December, she fell ill and doctors in her native state of Espirito Santo _ northeast of Rio de Janeiro _ initially diagnosed as having kidney stones.

She returned to a hospital on Jan. 3 in septic shock _ life-threatening low blood pressure _ from the infection that would force doctors to amputate first her feet, then her hands. Doctors said there was little they could do but pump drugs into her and hope for the best.

It was a nightmare scenario for anyone with an infection: Her body did not react to the latest and most potent drugs while the bacteria in her veins spread from head to toe.

In Bridi's case, the culprit was the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is known to be drug resistant.

According to the January 2008 book "Pseudomonas: Genomics and Molecular Biology," edited by Pierre Cornelis, a researcher at the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology in Brussels, the bacteria has the "worrisome characteristic" of "low antibiotic susceptibility." It also easily mutates to develop resistance to new drugs.

Death from infections caused by the bacteria are relatively rare, but not unheard of: In late 2006, an outbreak of the bacteria at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles sickened five infants _ leading to the deaths of two of them.

The bacteria causes about 10 percent of the roughly two million hospital-acquired infections each year in the U.S., according to health officials.

A short statement from the Espirito Santo State Health Secretariat announced her death on Saturday "despite all the commitment of the hospital team."

Her aunt said the hundreds of messages left on her Web site had lifted Bridi's spirit in the past weeks.

"I believe that the serenity on her face came from this spiritual comfort," Oriendina Pereira Wasen said outside the hospital.

Bridi's funeral was planned for Saturday afternoon in the town of Marechal Floriano.

On the Net:

http://www.marianabridi.com.br/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/



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Friday, January 23, 2009

Victoria Silvstedt

Singer Victoria Silvstedt



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Lil Kim

Lil Kim



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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Samantha Cole

Singer Samantha Cole


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Monday, January 19, 2009

Nicole Kidman

Breathtaking actress Nicole Kidman lights up the red carpet at the 2008 CMT Music Awards



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Sunday, January 18, 2009

Scarlett Johansson

Actress Scarlett Johansson arrives at the premiere of DreamWorks' 'Match Point' at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.


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