Jeffrey Donovan

Date of Birth

11 May 1968, Amesbury, Massachusetts, USA

Birth Name

Jeffrey T. Donovan

Nickname

Jeff

Height

6' (1.83 m)

Trivia

Graduated from New York University's Graduate Acting Program, where he received an MFA.

Currently lives in Los Angeles.

Attended UMass Amherst and Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts.

Enjoys gardening.

Likes to play golf.

Graduated from Amesbury High School in Amesbury, Massachusetts.

Personal Quotes

Asked about his martial arts training in a TV Guide interview (8 Aug 2008) he said: I have a black belt in karate and six years of aikido and about a year of Brazilian jujitsu."

Where Are They Now

(May 2009) In Amesbury, Massachusetts receiving an award at his former high school, Amesbury High.

Date of Birth

2 August 1932, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland

Birth Name

Peter Seamus O'Toole

Height

6' 2" (1.88 m)

Mini Biography

A leading man of prodigious talents, Irish-born Peter O'Toole was raised in Leeds, England, the son of a bookie. As a boy, he decided to become a journalist, beginning as a newspaper copy boy. Although he succeeded in becoming a reporter, he discovered the theater and made his stage debut at 17. He served as a radioman in the Royal Navy for two years, then attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, where his classmates included Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Richard Harris. He spent several years on-stage at the Bristol Old Vic, then made an inconspicuous film debut in 1960. In 1962, O'Toole was chosen by David Lean to play T.E. Lawrence in Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The part made O'Toole an international superstar. He continued successfully in artistically rich films as well as less artistic but commercially rewarding projects. He received Academy Award nominations (but no Oscar) for seven different films. However, medical problems (originally thought to have been brought on by his drinking but which turned out to be stomach cancer) threatened to destroy his career and life in the 1970s. He survived by giving up alcohol and, after serious medical treatment, returned to films with triumphant performances in The Stunt Man (1980) and My Favorite Year (1982). His youthful beauty lost to time and drink, O'Toole has found meaningful roles increasingly difficult to come by, though he remains one of the greatest actors of his generation. He has two daughters, Pat and Kate O'Toole (I), from his marriage to actress Siân Phillips. He also has a son, Lorcan O'Toole (I), by model Karen Brown. He partnered with Jules Buck in Keep Productions.

Matthew Fox

Date of Birth
14 July 1966, Abington, Pennsylvania, USA

Nickname
Foxy

Height
6' 2" (1.88 m)

Mini Biography
Matthew's parents raised longhorn cattle and horses and grew barley for Coors beer. He entered the Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts for a post-grad year after high school, and then matriculated at Columbia University where he played football and majored in Economics with the intent to end up on Wall Street. However, his girl friend's mother was a modeling agent who convinced him to try some modeling which led to a couple of TV commercials. Soon after he was sold on acting.

Adrien Brody

Date of Birth

14 April 1973, New York City, New York, USA

Height

6' 1" (1.85 m)

Mini Biography

The son of Hungarian-born photographer Sylvia Plachy and retired history professor Elliot Brody, Adrien Brody grew up an only child in the Woodhaven section of Queens, New York, where he accompanied his mother on assignments for the Village Voice. He credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the camera. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in New York.

Despite a strong performance in The Thin Red Line (1998), time constraints forced the director to edit out much of Adrien's part. In spite of his later work with Spike Lee and Barry Levinson, he never became the star many expected he would become until Roman Polanski called on him to play a celebrated Jewish pianist in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. He pulled off a brilliant performance in The Pianist (2002), drawing on the heritage and rare dialect of his Polish grandmother, as well as his father, who lost family members during the Holocaust, and his mother, who fled Communist Hungary as a child during the 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union.

Ryan Gosling

Date of Birth

12 November 1980, London, Ontario, Canada

Birth Name

Ryan Thomas Gosling

Nickname

Opie

Height

6' 1" (1.85 m)

Mini Biography

Ryan Gosling was born on November 12, 1980, in London, Ontario, to Thomas and Donna Gosling, and was the second of their two children. The Gosling family, who are Mormon, moved to Cornwall, Ontario, where Ryan grew up and was home-schooled by his mother. Ryan attended Cornwall Collegiate and Vocational High School in Cornwall, where he excelled in Drama and Fine Arts. The family then relocated to Burlington, Ontario, where Ryan attended Lester B. Pearson High School in Burlington, Ontario.

Ryan first performed as a singer at talent contests with his older sister Mandi. He attended an open audition in Montreal for the TV series "The Mickey Mouse Club" ("MMC" (1989)) in January 1993 and beat out 17,000 other aspiring actors for a a spot on the show. While appearing on "MMC" for two years, he lived with co-star Justin Timberlake's family.

Though he received no formal acting training, after "MMC," Gosling segued into an acting career, appearing on the TV series "Young Hercules" (1998) and "Breaker High" (1997), as well as the films The Slaughter Rule (2002), Murder by Numbers (2002), and Remember the Titans (2000). He first attracted serious critical attention with his performance as the Jewish neo-Nazi in the controversial film The Believer (2001), which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. He was cast in the part by writer-director Henry Bean, who believed that Gosling's strict Mormon upbringing gave him the insight to understand the character Danny, whose obsessiveness with the Judaism he was born into turns to hatred. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award as Best Male Lead in 2002 for the role and won the Golden Aries award from the Russian Guild of Film Critics.

After appearing in the sleeper The Notebook (2004) in 2004, Gosling won the dubious honor of being named one of the 50 Hottest Bachelors by People Magazine. More significantly, he was named the Male Star of Tomorrow at the 2004 Show West convention of movie exhibitors.

Gosling reached the summit of his profession with his performance in Half Nelson (2006), which garnered him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. In a short time, he has established himself as one of the finest actors of his generation

Owen Wilson

Birth Name

Owen Cunningham Wilson

Nickname

O

Height

5' 10½" (1.79 m)

Mini Biography

Self-proclaimed troublemaker Owen Wilson grew up in Texas with his mother, Laura, a photographer; his father, an ad exec; and his brothers, Andrew Wilson (the eldest) and Luke Wilson (the youngest). Expelled from St. Mark's Academy in Dallas Texas in the tenth grade, Wilson finished his sophomore year at Thomas Jefferson School and then headed to a military academy in New Mexico. He then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he met his future mentor and friend, Wes Anderson. They wrote a screenplay, Bottle Rocket (1996), and sent it to their family friend, screenwriter L.M. Kit Carson, who sent it to producer Polly Platt, who gave it to James L. Brooks, who gave the Texans $5 million dollars to make it into a feature film. Despite critical praise, Bottle Rocket (1996) only grossed one million dollars. After making the film, Wilson moved to Hollywood, setting up house with his two brothers and Anderson. Fairly quickly, Owen found himself acting in a series of big budget films that scraped the bottom of the critical barrel, such as the dreadful The Cable Guy (1996), The Haunting (1999), Anaconda (1997) and Breakfast of Champions (1999). This led to more work in slightly better fare, such as Shanghai Noon (2000), Meet the Parents (2000) and Behind Enemy Lines (2001). He's known not only for his nose, which has been broken several times, but also for his 'free wheeling ways' with a script. He co-wrote the film The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) with his oft partner Wes Anderson. He has been romantically linked with singer Sheryl Crow.

Salman Khan

Birth Name

Abdul Rashid Salim Salman Khan

Nickname

Sallu
Controversal Khan
The Official Badshah Of Bollywood

Height

5' 8" (1.73 m)

Trade Mark

His dancing style

His Smile

Personal Quotes

The only person I have hurt is myself.

For me acting, comes straight from the heart. In that sense I don't act at all. I think that to feel the character's pain I have to be myself. Somewhere audiences see that.

On his childhood problems and his father's second marriage to Helen: It was very difficult in the beginning, when everybody was talking about it. My mother just couldn't take it. It hurt her terribly. She used to worry all the time, go in to depression frequently. When she cried, we children used to cry with her.

In life go straight and turn right.

(From a TV-interview) I can get caught in many things but there is one thing I will never get caught in, and that is acting - because I don't act. On screen I am like I am in real life.

Controversies

Legal troubles

On 28 September 2002, Salman was arrested for rash and negligent driving. His car had run into a bakery in Mumbai; one person who was sleeping on the pavement outside the bakery died and three others were injured in the mishap Charges of culpable homicide were laid against him, but later dropped, and he was found not guilty. However, he will still have to stand trial for a series of lesser charges pertaining to the incident.

On 17 February 2006, Khan was sentenced to one year in prison for hunting an endangered species, the CHINKARA The sentence was stayed by a higher court during appeal. On 10 April 2006, Salman was handed a five year jailterm for hunting the endangered Chinkara. He was remanded to jodhpur jail, and remained there until 13 April when he was granted bail On 24 August 2007, the Jodhpur sessions court, upheld the 5 year jail term for Khan in the Chinkara poaching case by turning down his appeal against the 2006 judgement. At the time of the hearing, he was busy with a shooting elsewhere, while his sister attended the proceedings. Day after, he was placed under police arrest in Jodhpur after a rajastan court upheld a prison sentence passed upon him for poaching. On 31 August 2007, Khan was released on bail from the Jodhpur Central jail where he has spent six days.

Aamir Khan

Nickname

A.K.
AK

Height

5' 5" (1.65 m)

Mini Biography

Aamir khan was born on March 14 1965 in Holy Family Hospital in Bandra, Mumbai in India in a conservative Muslim family which has been part of Hindi Film Industry for a long time. Aamir first came on screen as a child artist in his Uncle Nasir Hussain's production Yaadon Ki Baaraat(1973), it was not a real part just a blink and miss appearance in the title song of the film. He again appeared as a child artist in the film Madhosh(1974.Much later he appeared in the art film Holi(1984)along with his friend and later his director Ashutosh Gowariker, the film also starred Naseeruddin Shah. Subsequently he went on to become the state tennis champion of Maharashtra. Sometime before his dubut film Aamir fell in love with a girl in his neighborhood Reena. Since she belonged to a Hindu family and he from devout Muslim family, they faced opposition and therefore they married secretly, later they revealed it to the world after his dubut movie Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak(QSQT) as a leading man was released in 1988, the film was a run away success and he achieved instant stardom (the film is now considered a classic of Hindi Cinema)and not only that the film was successful in turning the tide away from action centric violent films to family oriented romantic musical dramas in Hindi Cinema, the luminous example of which are MPK(1989),HAHK(1994) and DDLJ(1995). In his second film Raakh (a small, art film) he did a complete opposite role from the lover boy of his first film, his breakthrough performance in this film bagged him the National Film awardof Special Jury. Afterwards he signed a few not so good films which failed at the box office. In the year 1990 he delivered the biggest grosser of the year in the form of Dil and since then he has not looked back giving several commercial and critical hits, his superlative performances include films like Dil(1990), Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin(1991), Daulat Ki Jung(1992), Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander(1992), Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke(1993), Parampara(1993), Andaz Apna Apna(1994), Baazi(1995), Rangeela(1995), Akele Hum Akele Tum(1995) ,Raja Hindustani(1996), Ishq(1997), Earth(1998), Ghulam (1998), Sarfarosh(1999), Dil Chahta Hai(2001), Lagaan(2001), Mangal Panday(2005), Fanaa(2006) and Rang De Basanti(2006).

In 2007 he turned director with the film Taare Zameen Par which not only brought him immense critical acclaim but was a huge box office success. Many of his films are considered as cult classics like QSQT,Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai, Range De Basanti, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander and Andaz Apna Apna. He divorced his first wife in December 2001 and married Kiran Rao in December 2005.

In 2008 his first all out commercial action film Ghajini went on to become the highest grossing film of its time in Indian Cinema and 4th highest inflation adjusted, grossing a total of Rs.226 on the worldwide box office and the first film to cross 100 crores on the domestic Indian box office, making a total of Rs.115 crores. This record didn't last long though when his next release 3 Idiots went on to shatter not only the highest grosser record but many more. It not only made the highest opening first day, first weekend and first week records but subsequently continued to shatters many record on the following weekends and weeks, making many circuits records on the way. It made a total of Rs.202 crore domestically and Rs.400 crores on worldwide box becoming the highest overseas grosser till date, a staggering feat given that no other film has even come close to making Rs.100 crore domestically till date, except his own Ghajini last year.

Aamir is said to be the actor who first started the trend of actor's working in one film at a time, when the others worked in four or five at the same time. He is also known to shun popular film trade magazine awards like Filmfare,Star Screen etc as he doesn't have trust in their credibility and transparency. Recently he was awarded the third highest civilian honour Padama Bhushan by the government of India.

Aamir Khan, a method actor, his range of characterizations remains unparalleled and because of this diversity and his ability to portray different characters believably on screen, today he is regarded as not only one of the biggest Superstars but also one of the finest actors of Indian Cinema.

Shahrukh Khan

Nickname

King Khan
SRK
The Badshah of Bollywood
The Tom Cruise of India
Shahrukh
The King Of Romance
The King of Bollywood

Height

5' 8" (1.73 m)

Mini Biography

Shahrukh started his career on a TV serial called Fauji (1988), that won him instant recognition. He also acted in another TV soap called (Circus) (1989). He was born and raised in Delhi, and he was equally brilliant in studies and sports. Fell in love with a girl called Gauri Chibba who was then studying in Loreto Delhi. He later married her before he got his break in Bollywood. Currently, he is the most sought after actor in India. Has a son called Aryan Khan and a daughter named Suhana Khan.

Trade Mark

His Dimples

His Smile

Akshay Kumar

Birth Name:

Rajiv Hari Om-Bhatia

Nickname

Akki
Mac

Height

6' 1" (1.85 m)

Mini Biography

This handsome man out of nowhere suddenly entered Bollywood's film industry. He studied martial arts in Hong Kong. It was a student that suggested that he try modelling. Because of his success as model, he was offered films. Along with his good looks and excellent martial art skills, he was always the first choice to do adventurous movies. He did his own death defying stunts.

A long road traveled; from a waiter in Bangkok, to one of the most successful actors in Bollywood, Akshay Kumar has come a long way. As an instructor in martial artist, Rajiv Bhatia always dreamt of making it big in that field but when a student suggested that with his good looks and a good built, he should take up modelling, the anonymous Rajiv Bhatia began his journey as Akshay Kumar who then slowly but surely worked his way up to becoming one of the most talented stars of the industry. Stunned at the pay package and his success as a model, Akshay took the next obvious step, and entered into films. However unlike most of the other stars in his time, Akshay neither had star parents, nor a godfather to launch him. Although his first few films were unsuccessful at the box office, they helped Akshay get noticed for his dancing abilities and his dare-devilish stunts. His first true hit film was 'Khiladi' and although it was a success, the top banners continued to be elusive until 'Yeh Dillagi' which not only got him recognition but marked his position as a top league actor. Though 'Jai Kishen' and 'Main Khiladi Tu Anari' were quite successful at the box office, it was 'Mohra' and 'Sabse Bada Khiladi' that it catapulted Akshay to fame and established his position as one of the top most heroes of the industry. With a series of 'Khiladi' movies including the "Khiladiyon Ke Khiladi', Akshay became the quintessential "action hero'. But with 'Mr. & Mrs. Khiladi', 'Dil To Pagal Hai' and 'Aflatoon', he attempted new genres in order to change his stereotypical image, and he was quite successful at it. Another attempt at a new role with 'Ajnabee', where he played the villain, was again well portrayed and well received by audiences and critics alike. 'Dhadkan', where he starred opposite Shilpa Shetty reaffirmed the fact that aside from being an action hero, Akshay Kumar was also the perfect romantic lead. In the same year came another memorable performance with the film "Hera Pheri' which brought to the forefront his strength in comedy and superb timing as he held his ground with the seasoned Paresh Rawal and Suniel Shetty. Akshay Kumar continued to improve with every film, from "Khakee, Mujhse Shaadi Karogi', "Aitraaz, Waqt', 'Awara Pagaal Deewana', "Garam Masala' to the recently released "Phir Hera Phiri' proved that Akshay was a sure-fire hit at the box-office as well. Today he is one of the most sought after actors who commands a strong box-office opening. His forthcoming films include Jaaneman, Saamna, London Namaste and Welcome.