Matt Damon Life's Journey

Matthew Paige Damon was born on October 8, 1970, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father, Kent, was a stockbroker, realtor and tax preparer. His mother, Nancy, was an early childhood education professor at Lesley University. Matt has one brother, Kyle, who is three years his senior. His parents divorced when Matt was two.

At 10, he met a guy from two blocks down the road: Ben Affleck. The pair did everything together. They played baseball (both are die-hard Boston Red Sox fans) and the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. They attended trashy movie double-features, and they both attended the pricey Rindge & Latin prep school. And it was here that Matt really took to acting.

Commercial Success

Damon studied English at Harvard but left early to pursue a career in acting. He went on to gain starring roles in the films The Rainmaker (1997), and Good Will Hunting (1997), for which he shared an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay with fellow co-star Ben Affleck.

Later films include Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), The Bourne IdentityThe Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). The $125 million Bourne Ultimatum had the largest August opening weekend in movie history, doing estimated $70.2 million of business in the United States and Canada. (2002), and its sequels

Personal Life

Damon married longtime girlfriend, Argentine-born Luciana Bozán Barroso, in December 2005 in New York City Hall. They had met while he was filming Stuck On You in Miami, where she was working as a bartender.

The couple has three daughters: Isabella, was born June 11, 2006, in Miami, where they live when he's not filming on location. Their second child, Gia Zavala Damon, was born August 20, 2008. The couple welcomed daughter Stella Zavala on October 20, 2010. He also has a stepdaughter, Alexa, from Barroso's prior marriage.

In 2007, Damon was named the "sexiest man alive" by People magazine. A surprised Damon said "all the campaigning" by pals George Clooney and Brad Pitt, who had each won the honor twice, had finally paid off. "You gave an aging suburban dad the ego boost of a lifetime," he said in a letter published in the magazine. "My 9-year-old stepdaughter now thinks I'm cool - well, cooler."

In January 2008, Damon got a lot of media attention because of a short music video he appeared on with comedian Sarah Silverman. The girlfriend of late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, she created a raunchy song about having a sexual relationship with Damon. Damon appeared in the song's video, which was shown on Kimmel's show and later became a popular clip on the Internet.

On the career front, Damon received an Academy Award nomination for his role as rugby great Francois Pienaar in the film, Invictus (2009). He starred in the 2010 thriller, Green Zone and the drama Hereafter,Clint Eastwood. directed by Clint Eastwood.

sumber : biography.com

Read More

John Barrymore Life's Story

(born Feb. 15, 1882, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—died May 29, 1942, Hollywood, Calif.) American actor, called “The Great Profile,” who is remembered both for his roles as a debonair leading man and for his interpretations of Shakespeare's Richard III and Hamlet. ( Barrymore reading from Henry VI, Part 3.)

The son of the stage actors Maurice and Georgiana Barrymore, he studied painting in Paris but returned to the United States to make his stage debut in 1903. He became a popular light comedian, but it was in serious roles that he scored his greatest stage triumphs. The most important of these were Justice (1916), Peter Ibbetson (1917), The Jest (1919), Richard III (1920), and Hamlet (New York, 1922; London, 1925).

Barrymore appeared in motion pictures from 1913 and gave notable performances in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Beloved Rogue (1927), Moby Dick (1930), Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Counsellor-at-Law (1933), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and The Great Profile (1940). Though his talents were prodigious and he was considered one of the greatest and handsomest actors of the age, he became better known for his flamboyant and often outrageous behaviour.

Of the second generation of Barrymore actors (he was the brother of Ethel and Lionel), only John had children, and both of them turned to the stage. Diana (1921–60) was an actress whose promising career was frequently interrupted by alcoholism; she committed suicide. Her autobiography, Too Much, Too SoonDrew Barrymore, was also a film actor and the father of actress Drew Barrymore (born 1975). (1957), was made into a motion picture in 1958. His son, John Blyth Barrymore, Jr. (1932–2004), known as John

Read More

Hugh Grant Life's Journey

Actor. Born Hugh John Mungo Grant on September 9, 1960 in London, England. Hugh Grant studied English at Oxford, before pursuing a career in theater. He worked in repertory and as an advertising copywriter before forming his own comedy troupe, the Jockeys of Norfolk.

Hugh Grant's early films include his 1982 screen debut in Privileged and 1992's Bitter Moon. Much of his early work went unnoticed except for the performance as a sexually conflicted Edwardian in Ismail Merchant and James Ivory's Maurice, which won him a Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival. It wasn't until the release of the hit comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994 that the handsome actor became internationally known. His charming performance as a fool in love earned Hugh Grant a Best Actor Golden Globe.

In 1995, just before the actor's U.S. film debut, Nine Months with Julianne Moore, Hugh Grant was arrested for engaging in a lewd act in a parked car with Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown. The scandal and his mug shot instantly circulated through media outlets. It was followed by a contrite apology on The Tonight Show to then-girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley.

The public disgrace did little to derail Hugh Grant's career. He appeared in several successful films shortly thereafter, including the Ang Lee-helmed Sense and Sensibility in 1995 and another period piece, Restoration. He was firmly reinstated as one of Hollywood's most charming leading men when he returned to romantic comedy with1999's Notting Hill opposite Julia Roberts.

Subsequent box office hits such as 2001's Bridget Jones's Diary with Renee Zellweger, 2002's About a Boy based on the book by Nick Hornby, and 2003's Love Actually also played to his comedic strengths. His film, 2007's Music and Lyrics with Drew Barrymore, received mixed reviews.

A consummate bachelor, Hugh Grant has been in a few long-term relationships but never married. He dated model Elizabeth Hurley from 1986 to 2000 (the couple founded Simian Films together) and was recently coupled with socialite heiress Jemima Khan.

Read More

Leonardo DiCaprio Life's Journey

Actor. Born Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio on November 11, 1974, in Los Angeles, California, to parents Irmelin and George DiCaprio. The couple's only child, DiCaprio was just a year-old when his parents separated, leaving the young boy to largely be raised by his mother, a legal secretary born in Germany.

Despite his parents' early divorce, DiCaprio remained close to his father, a comic book artist and distributor. With his parents urging Leonardo explored his creative side. Acting caught his attention early and at the age of five he landed a spot on the children's television show, Romper Room. Commercial work soon followed.

"I knew I didn't want to be one of the set things they said I should be at school," DiCaprio told The New York Times in 1993. "Doctor, lawyer, blah blah blah." He signed with an agent who recommended DiCaprio change his name to Lenny Williams. But in an early sign that the actor would push to do things his own way, Leonardo didn't bite.

His stubbornness paid off. By the early 1990s, DiCaprio began landing regular television work. The credits included programs like The New Lassie, Roseanne, and the short-lived Parenthood.

In 1991, DiCaprio took a leap forward when he was cast as a semi-regular on the ABC comedy, Growing Pains. That same year, he made his film debut in the low-budget horror flick, Critters 3.

Two years later, DiCaprio proved to the critics that he was more than a good looking teenager, when he played opposite Robert De Niro in This Boy's Life, a role he'd secured after beating out 400 other actors. That same year he turned heads again and earned an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor for his role as a mentally disabled child in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?.

His performance solidified DiCaprio's reputation as a serious actor and a heartthrob. Other movies followed, including a pair of 1995 releases, The Basketball Diaries and Total Eclipse.

Then came 1997 and the mammoth movie (Titanic) about a mammoth boat that turned DiCaprio into a mammoth star. Co-starring Kate Winslet, Titanic smashed box office records on its way toward raking in more than $600 million in ticket sales. The film also pushed its male lead toward a level of celebrity that few actors could be ready for.

"I got to be wild and nuts," DiCaprio told Rolling Stone in 2010. He added: "I didn't care what anyone thought."

Still, DiCaprio was levelheaded enough to know there were certain pitfalls to avoid. Enough of that had been drilled into him a few years before with the death of River Phoenix, an actor DiCaprio greatly admired.

"It was also about avoiding the tornado of chaos, of potential downfall," he told Rolling Stone. "It was, 'Wow, how lucky are we to not have hung out with that crowd or done those things?' My two main competitors in the beginning, the blond-haired kids I went to audition with, one hung himself and the other died of a heroin overdose... . I was never into drugs at all. There aren't stories of me in a pool of my own vomit in a hotel room on the Hollywood Strip."

Notoriety such as being named one of PEOPLE's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1997 and again in 1998, did little for him. "You want to be remembered for your work rather than being sort of the hunk of the month," he said at the time. "There's always a new pretty face."

DiCaprio backed up his words, becoming increasingly selective about the movies he was willing to attach his name to. Over the next few years his films included The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

and the disappointing, The Beach (2000), which nabbed just $40 million at the box office, despite paying its leading star some$20 million to be in it.

In 2002, DiCaprio again demonstrated his range as an actor in two noteworthy films, Catch Me if You CanGangs of New York, the latter serving as the first of several films he'd go on to do with director Martin Scorsese. Two years later, and

he took on the difficult task of playing Howard Hughes in The Aviator.

As the new decade took shape, so did DiCaprio's willingness to take on increasingly daring roles. In 2006 he starred in a pair of well-received films, Blood Diamond, and the Martin Scorsese directed, The Departed.

In 2008 DiCaprio reunited with Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road, a tense film about a 1950s suburban couple that struggles to weather a myriad of personal problems.

As the actor's star power has glowed, so has the glare on his personal life. For several bumpy years his relationship with supermodel Gisele Bundchen was fodder for celebrity magazines and Web sites.

Off-screen and away from the attention of the paparazzi DiCaprio has demonstrated his passion for environmental issues. In 2000 he hosted an Earth Day celebration as well interviewed President Bill Clinton for a television segment about global warming. He's also served on the boards of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Global Green USA. In 2007 a documentary about the environment, which DiCaprio wrote and narrated, debuted. In addition, the actor is one of the founders of The Leonardo DiCaprio Fund at California Community Foundation, a non-profit that supports environmental causes.

None of this, however, has slowed his filmmaking career. He's on tap to play a real-life killer in the film adaptation of the best-selling novel, The Devil in the White City. In addition, he's slated to star as well produce Legacy of Secrecy, a feature that delves deep into the assassination of President Kennedy.

Read More

Mark Wahlberg Life's Story

Actor, former rapper. Born June 5, 1971, in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Wahlberg grew up the youngest of nine children in a working class Irish Catholic family in the Boston district of Dorchester. Mark Wahlberg's parents divorced when he was 11; his mother has since blamed her own emotional neglect for her youngest son's descent into juvenile delinquency during the next several years. At 14, Wahlberg dropped out of school and began making his living on the streets—hustling, stealing, and selling drugs. Two years later, he hit rock bottom when he was jailed for his role in the savage beating of a Vietnamese man. Although the crime was believed by many to be racially motivated, Wahlberg has continually denied that race played a part in the attack. His 45-day stint in prison was a self-proclaimed turning point in the 16-year-old Wahlberg's life. Vowing to give himself some direction in his life, he also began body building seriously, chiseling his body into impressive form.

By the time Wahlberg emerged from prison, his older brother Donnie had rocketed to stardom as one of five fresh-faced members of the pop band New Kids on the Block. Donnie decided to help his younger brother find his own niche in the music business. What Wahlberg lacked in singing ability, he made up for in charisma and good looks—with Donnie's hip-hop arrangements and producing help, Marky Mark (his rap name) and his back-up deejay and dancers (dubbed "the Funky Bunch") recorded a debut album, Music for the People (1991). Driven by the success of the hit dance singles "Good Vibrations" and "Wildside" (and by Marky Mark's readiness to discard his shirt and drop his pants onstage and in his videos), the album went platinum, selling over a million copies.
One of pop music's hottest new commodities, Wahlberg (and his rock-hard physique) became even more ubiquitous when he signed a two-year contract with the designer Calvin Klein to model underwear. His raucous public persona, he once became involved in a much-talked-about brawl with Madonna and her entourage at a Los Angeles nightclubonly served to increase his popular appeal, until news began surfacing about his criminal past and his possibly racist and homophobic tendencies.
In 1993, this part of Wahlberg's personal life was seriously questioned when he was accused of condoning blatantly homophobic remarks made on a British talk show by his fellow guest, the reggae singer Shabba Ranks. Combined with the disappointing sales of the Funky Bunch's second album, You Gotta Believe (1992), the public criticism of Wahlberg's career seemed to be steering his career towards certain death. The 22-year-old's survival instincts kicked in, however, and he soon made a move into another realm of the entertainment world—acting.

After appearing in a 1993 television movie, The Substitute, Wahlberg made his big screen debut in Penny Marshall's lightweight Renaissance Man (1994), in which he played one of a group of Army recruits taught by an ex-advertising salesman (Danny DeVito). His innate brand of screen presence led to his casting in his breakthrough role, that of the drug-addled best friend of Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Basketball Diaries (1995), a small-scale but acclaimed film based on poet-musician Jim Carroll's dark autobiography of his own adolescent struggles with heroin addiction. After two more attention-getting performances in Fear (1996) and Traveller (1997), Wahlberg cemented his artistic and commercial reputation (and left "Marky Mark" far behind) with a starring role as dishwasher turned porn star Eddie Adams (aka Dirk Diggler) in writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's buzzworthy Boogie Nights (1997), costarring Burt Reynolds. Though his next two films—The Big Hit (1998) and The Corruptor (1999), costarring Chinese action superstar Chow Yun-Fat—were less than successful, Wahlberg returned with a bang in the acclaimed Three Kings (1999). The film costarred Wahlberg, George Clooney, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze as renegade U.S. servicemen in the Persian Gulf during the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War conflict.
In 2000, Wahlberg reteamed with Clooney (and Diane Lane) in The Perfect Storm, Wolfgang Petersen's highly-touted film version of Sebastian Junger's bestselling account of a boat full of swordfishermen caught in a killer storm in the North Atlantic. In late 2000, Wahlberg costarred with Joaquin Phoenix and James Caan in the little-seen crime drama The Yards. The following year, he starred as a heavy metal rock musician in Rock Star, costarring Jennifer Aniston, and in the title role in a remake of the classic Planet of the Apes, costarring Charlton Heston and Helena Bonham Carter.
In 2003, Wahlberg costarred with Charlize Theron in the heist thriller The Italian Job. Other projects include joining Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Dustin Hoffman for an existential comedy titled I Love Huckabee's. He also signed on for The Jacket in which he stars as a falsely imprisoned man with psychic visions and The Adventures of Wyatt McHenry as an adventuresome tour guide.
Wahlberg and model Rhea Durham celebrated the birth of their daughter, Ella Rae, in September 2003.

Read More

Martin Sheen Life's Journey

Actor, activist. Born Ramon Estevez on August 3, 1940, in Dayton, Ohio. During his impressive acting career, Martin Sheen has played all types of characters from killers to world leaders. He discovered his love of acting while in high school. Never formally trained, he learned from experience while performing on the New York stage. Sheen earned a Tony Award nomination in 1965 for his work in The Subject Was Roses (he reprised his role for the 1968 film adaptation). After appearing in such television shows as Route 66, The Outer Limits, My Three Sons, and The Nurses, he made his film debut in 1967??s The Incident, playing a teenager thug who takes over a subway car.

In the 1970s, Sheen gave several great performances in such films as the adaptation of Joseph Heller??s best-selling novel Catch-22 (1970), the spree killer Charles Starkweather-inspired Badlands (1973), and Francis Ford Coppola??s Vietnam War masterpiece Apocalypse Now (1979). He went to give strong performances in Gandhi (1982), Wall Street (1987), The American President (1995), and Catch Me if You Can (2002).

Along with his career in film, Sheen found success on the small screen with the political drama The West Wing, which debuted in 1999. He took on the leading role of President Josiah Bartlet in the critically acclaimed television series, for which he received a Best Actor Golden Globe Award in 2001. Sheen was nominated for an Emmy Award six times for his work on the show, including for the show??s final 2005-2006 season. He picked up another nomination that year for a guest appearance on his son Charlie Sheen??s hit comedy Two and a Half Men.

Also in 2006, Sheen appeared in the Academy Award-winning film directed by Martin Scorsese with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg. Also that year, he had a role in his son Emilio Estevez??s film about the Robert F. Kennedy assassination, Bobby. Along with his acting career, Sheen told People magazine in April 2006 that he intended to further his education by attending the National University of Ireland.

In addition to his acting, Sheen is known for his social and political activism. He has campaigned against nuclear weapons and for workers?? rights as well as many other causes. Sheen has been arrested numerous times during political demonstrations and protests.

Sheen and his wife, Janet, live in Los Angeles. The couple has four children, all of whom have followed in their father's footsteps from time to time.

Read More

Robert De Niro Life's Journey

Robert De Niro, born August 17, 1943, left school at age 16 to study acting with Stella Adler. He then worked with many acclaimed film directors like Brian DePalma, Elia Kazan, and, most importantly, Martin Scorsese. His roles in The Godfather, Part II

The son of two Greenwich Village artists, De Niro dropped out of school at age 16 to study at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting. After working in a few Off-Off-Broadway plays, he appeared in his first film, Brian De Palma's The Wedding Party (1963, released 1969). During the next four years he appeared in several minor films, the most notable being The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971). It was not until his performance in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) that he was widely recognized as an excellent actor. Mean Streets (1973) marked De Niro's first association with director Martin Scorsese, with whom he would do some of his most celebrated work. Director Francis Ford Coppola, whose massively popular The Godfather (1972) had won the best picture Oscar, was so impressed by De Niro in Mean Streets that he offered the actor the part of young Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Part II (1974), forgoing even a screen test. De Niro's brilliant take on the part that was created by Marlon Brando in the first Godfather film earned him a best supporting actor Oscar and made him an international star.

Read More