Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh (March 30, 1853 - July 29, 1890) was a Dutch painter, generally considered one of the greatest painters in European art history. He produced all of his work (some 900 paintings and 1100 drawings) during a period of only 10 years before he succumbed to mental illness (possibly bipolar disorder) and committed suicide. He had little success during his lifetime, but his posthumous fame grew rapidly, especially following a showing of 71 of van Gogh's paintings in Paris on March 17, 1901 (11 years after his death).

(Properly, in Dutch language pronunciation, the name Gogh rhymes with the English language loch, in other languages than Dutch it is also pronounced 'goph', 'go' and 'goe'.)
Vicent van Gogh - Self-portrait (1886)

Van Gogh's influence on expressionism, fauvism and early abstraction was enormous, and can be seen in many other aspects of 20th-century art. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is dedicated to Van Gogh's work and that of his contemporaries. The Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo (also in the Netherlands), has a considerable collection of Vincent van Gogh paintings as well.

Several paintings by Van Gogh rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. On March 30, 1987 Van Gogh's painting Irises was sold for a record $53.9 million at Sotheby's, New York. On May 15, 1990 his Portrait of Doctor Gachet was sold for $82.5 million at Christie's, thus establishing a new price record (see also List of most expensive paintings).

Life and work

Vincent was born in Zundert, Netherlands. Son of Anna Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh, a Protestant minister, a profession that Vincent found appealing and to which he would be drawn to a certain extent later in his life. His sister described him as a serious and introspective child.

At age 16 Vincent started to work for the art dealer Goupil & Co. in The Hague. His brother Theo, four years his junior and with whom Vincent cherished a lifelong friendship, would join the company later. This friendship is amply documented in the vast amount of letters they sent each other. These letters have been preserved and were published in 1914. They provide a lot of insight into the life of the painter, and show him to be a talented writer with a keen mind. Theo would support Vincent financially throughout his life.

In 1873, his firm transferred him to London, then to Paris. He became increasingly interested in religion; in 1876 Goupil dismissed him for lack of motivation. He became a teaching assistant in Ramsgate near London, then returned to Amsterdam to study theology in 1877.

After dropping out in 1878, he became a lay minister in Belgium in a poor mining region known as the Borinage. He even preached down in the mines and was extremely concerned with the lot of the workers. He was dismissed after 6 months and continued without pay. During this period he started to produce charcoal sketches.

In 1880, Vincent followed the suggestion of his brother Theo and took up painting in earnest. For a brief period Vincent took painting lessons from Anton Mauve at The Hague. Although Vincent and Anton soon split over a divergence of artistic views, influences of the Hague School of painting would remain in Vincent's work, notably in the way he played with light and in the looseness of his brush strokes. However his usage of colours, favouring dark tones, set him apart from his teacher.

In 1881 he declared his love to his widowed cousin Kee Vos, who rejected him. Later he would move in with the prostitute Sien Hoornik and her children and considered marrying her; his father was strictly against this relationship and even his brother Theo advised against it. They later separated.

Impressed and influenced by Jean-François Millet, van Gogh focused on painting peasants and rural scenes. He moved to the Dutch province Drenthe, later to Nuenen, North Brabant, also in The Netherlands. Here he painted in 1885 The Potato Eaters (Dutch Aardappeleters, now in The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam).

In the winter of 1885-1886 Van Gogh attended the art academy of Antwerp, Belgium. This proved a disappointment as he was dismissed after a few months by Professor Eugène Siberdt. Van Gogh did however get in touch with Japanese art during this period, which he started to collect eagerly. He admired its bright colours, use of canvas space and the role lines played in the picture. These impressions would influence him strongly. Van Gogh made some paintings in Japanese style. Also some of the portraits he painted are set against a background which shows Japanese art.

In spring 1886 Van Gogh went to Paris, where he moved in with his brother Theo; they shared a house on Montmartre. Here he met the painters Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Emile Bernard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Gauguin. He discovered impressionism and liked its use of light and colour, more than its lack of social engagement (as he saw it). Especially the technique known as pointillism (where many small dots are applied to the canvas that blend into rich colors only in the eye of the beholder, seeing it from a distance) made its mark on Van Goghs own style. It should be noted that Van Gogh is regarded as a post-impressionist, rather than an impressionist. Van Gogh also used complementary colors, especially blue and orange, in close proximity in order to enhance the brilliance of each (see color).
In 1888, when city life and living with his brother proved too much, Van Gogh left Paris and went to Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was impressed with the local landscape and hoped to found an art colony. He decorated a "yellow house" and created a celebrated series of yellow sunflower paintings for this purpose. Only Paul Gauguin, whose simplified colour schemes and forms (known as synthetism) attracted van Gogh, followed his invitation. The admiration was mutual, and Gauguin painted van Gogh painting sunflowers. However their encounter ended in a quarrel. Van Gogh suffered a mental breakdown and cut off part of his left ear, which he gave to a startled prostitute friend. Gauguin left in December 1888. Cafe Terrace at Night (1888)
One of Vincent's famous paintings, the Bedroom in Arles of 1888, uses bright yellow and unusual perspective effects in depicting the interior of his bedroom. The boldly vanishing lines are sometimes attributed to his changing mental condition. The only painting he sold during his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, was created in 1888. It is now on display in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Russia.

Van Gogh now exchanged painting dots for small stripes. He suffered from depression, and in 1889 on his own request Van Gogh was admitted to the psychiatric center at Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole in Saint Remy de Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. During his stay here the clinic and its garden became his main subject. Pencil strokes changed again, now into swirls.

In May 1890 Vincent left the clinic and went to the physician Paul Gachet, in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, where he was closer to his brother Theo, who had recently married. Gachet had been recommended to him by Pissarro; he had treated several artists before. Here van Gogh created his only etching: a portrait of the melancholic doctor Gachet. His depression aggravated, and on July 27 of the same year, at the age of 37, after a fit of painting activity, van Gogh shot himself in the chest. He died two days later, with Theo at his side, who reported his last words as "La tristesse durera toujours" (French: "The sadness will last forever"). He was buried at the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise; Theo, unable to come to terms with his brother's death, died 6 months later and, at his wife's request, was buried next to Vincent.

It would not take long before Vincent's fame grew higher and higher. Large exhibitions were organised soon: Paris 1901, Amsterdam 1905, Cologne 1912, New York 1913 and Berlin 1914.

Van Gogh's life forms the basis for Irving Stone's biographical novel Lust for Life.

Notable Works

(1885) The Potato Eaters
(1888) Bedroom in Arles
(1888) Cafe Terrace at Night
(1888) The Red Vinyard
(1889) The Starry Night
(1889) Irises †
(1889) Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers
(1889) Portrait de l'artiste sans barbe †
(1890) Portrait of Doctor Gachet †
† Denotes paintings which are recent recordholders for the highest price paid for a painting at an auction.

Influences on van Gogh
(see also above)

The Hague School.
Painter Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), who also focused on peasant life.
Writer Emile Zola (1840-1902) whose novels Van Gogh admired very much.
Japanese woodblock prints.
Impressionism, notably pointillists Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and Paul Signac (1836-1935).
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, formally Pablo Ruiz Picasso, (October 25, 1881 - April 8, 1973) was one of the recognized masters of 20th century art.

Overview

His name in full was Pablo (or Pablito) Diego José Santiago Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Blasco y Picasso López. His father was José Ruiz y Blasco; his mother, María Picasso y López. In his early years he signed his name Ruiz Blasco after his father but, from about 1901 on, switched to using his mother's name.

Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain, and is probably most famous as the founder, along with Georges Braque, of Cubism. However in a long life he produced a wide and varied body of work, the best-known being the Blue Period works which feature moving depictions of acrobats, harlequins, prostitutes, beggars and artists.

While Picasso was primarily a painter (in fact he believed that an artist must paint in order to be considered a true artist), he also worked with small ceramic and bronze sculptures, collage and even produced some poetry. "Je suis aussi un poète," as he quipped to his friends.

Several paintings by Picasso rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. On May 4, 2004 Picasso's painting Garcon à la Pipe was sold for USD $104 million at Sotheby's, thus establishing a new price record (see also List of most expensive paintings). Pablo Picasso
Picasso hated to be alone when he wasn't working. In Paris, in addition to having a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire, writer Gertrude Stein and others, he usually maintained a number of mistresses in addition to his wife or primary partner.

In the 1915 photograph seen here is friends (left to right): Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Henri-Pierre Roché (in uniform), Marie Vassilieff, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso.

Picasso's most famous work is probably his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica, Spain; the Guernica (painting). This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. The painting of the picture was captured in a series of photographs by Picasso's most famous lover, Dora Maar, a distinguished artist in her own right. A Nazi officer is supposed to have come to his door brandishing a postcard and demanding, "Did you do this?" "No," Picasso is supposed to have replied, "you did." The Guernica hung in New York's Museum of Modern Art for many years; Picasso stipulated that the painting should not return to Spain until democracy was restored in that country. In 1981 the Guernica was returned to Spain and exhibited at the Casón del Buen Retiro. In 1992 the painting became one of the main attractions in Madrid's Museo de La Reina Sofía (Queen Sofía's Museum) when it opened.

As certain works, for example the Cubist pieces, tend to be associated in the public mind with Picasso, it is important to realize how talented Picasso was as a painter and draughtsman. He was capable of working with oils, watercolours, pastels, charcoal, pencil, ink, or indeed any medium with equally high facility. With his most extreme cubist works he came close to deconstructing a complex scene into just a few geometric shapes while at the same time being capable of photo-realistic pen and ink sketches of his friends. Picasso had a massive talent for almost any artistic endeavor he turned his mind to, despite limited formal academic training (he finished only one year of his course of study at the Royal Academy in Madrid), and a ferocious work-ethic.

Early life

Picasso's father, José Ruiz y Blasco, was himself a painter and for most of his life was a professor of art at Spanish colleges. It is from Don José that Picasso learned the basics of formal academic art training – figure drawing, and painting in oil. Although Picasso attended art schools thoughout his childhood, often those his father taught at, he never finished his college level course of study at the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, leaving after less than a year.

The Picasso Museum in Barcelona features many of Picasso's early works, created while he was living in Spain, as well as the extensive collection of Jaime Sabartés, Picasso's close friend from his Barcelona days, and for many years, Picasso's personal secretary. There are many precise and detailed figure studies done in his youth under his father's tutelage that clearly demonstrate his firm grounding in classical techniques, as well as rarely seen works from his old age.

Picasso and pacifism

Picasso remained neutral during the Spanish Civil War, World War I and World War II, refusing to fight for any side or country. Picasso never commented on this but encouraged the idea that it was because he was a pacifist. Some of his contemporaries though (including Braque) felt that this neutrality had more to do with cowardice than principle.

As a Spanish citizen living in France, Picasso was under no compulsion to fight against the invading Germans in either world war. In the Spanish Civil War, service for Spaniards living abroad was optional and would have involved a voluntary return to the country to join either side. While Picasso expressed anger and condemnation of Franco and the Fascists through his art he did not take up arms against them.

He also remained aloof from the Catalan independence movement during his youth despite expressing general support and being friendly with activists within it. No political movement seemed to compel his support to any great degree.

After the Second World War, Picasso joined the French Communist party, and even attended an international peace conference in Poland. But party criticism of a portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic cooled Picasso's interest in Communist politics.

Personal life

Picasso had a long string of lovers, four children by three women, and two wives. In the early years of the 20th century, Picasso, still a struggling youth, began a long term relationship with Fernande Olivier. It is she who appears in many of the Blue and Rose period paintings. After garnering fame and some fortune, Picasso left Fernande for Marcelle Humbert, whom Picasso called Eva. When it became clear that Eva was dying, Picasso left her as well. Picasso frequented brothels throughout his life, and also had numerous affairs.

In 1918 Picasso married Olga Koklova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe. Olga introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant on the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo, who would grow up to be a sometime motorcycle racer, sometime chauffeur to his father, and dissolute.

Olga's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's bohemian tendencies, and the two lived in a state of near constant conflict. In 1927 Picasso met the then underage (17) Marie Thérèse Walter, and began a secret affair with her. Picasso's marriage to Olga soon ended in separation, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Olga to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Olga's death in 1955.

Picasso carried on a long standing affair with Marie Thérèse, and fathered a daughter, Maya, with her. Marie Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and eventually hanged herself after Picasso's death.

The photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of Picasso. The two were closest in the late 30s and early 40s, and it was Dora who documented the painting of Guernica. Like all the women in his life, Dora was cruelly abused emotionally by the narcissistic Picasso.

After the liberation of Paris in 1944, Picasso began to keep company with a young art student, Françoise Gilot. The two eventually became lovers, and had two children together, Claude, and Paloma. Uniquely among Picasso's women, Françoise eventually left Picasso in 1953 because of his abusive treatment, and infidelities. This came as a severe blow to Picasso, who was used to submissive women who lived for whatever scraps of affection or attention he deigned to give them.

He went through a difficult period after Françoise's departure, coming to terms with his advancing age, and his perception that he was an old man, now in his seventies, who was no longer attractive, but rather grotesque to young women. A number of ink drawings from this period explore this theme of the hideous old dwarf as buffoonish counterpoint to the beautiful young girl.

Picasso was not long in finding another lover, Jacqueline Roque. Jacqueline worked at the Madoura Pottery, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. The two remained together for the rest of Picasso's life, marrying in 1961. Their marriage was also the means of one last act of revenge against Françoise. Françoise had been seeking a legal means to legitimize her children with Picasso, Claude and Paloma. With Picasso's encouragement, she had arranged to divorce her then husband, Luc Simon, and marry Picasso to secure her children's rights. Picasso then secretly married Jacqueline after Françoise had filed for divorce in order to exact his revenge for her leaving him.

Later works

In his 80s and 90s, Picasso, no longer quite the energetic dynamo he had been in his youth, became more, and more reclusive. His second wife, Jacqueline Roque, screened all but the most important visitors, and closest friends, even excluding Picasso's two children, Claude and Paloma, both by his former partner, the painter Françoise Gilot.

This reclusive existence intensified after Picasso underwent surgery for a prostate condition in 1965. This surgery is rumored to have left Picasso largely impotent. To a man for whom sexual adventure was such an important part of life, this was a serious life change, and Picasso seems to have dealt with it by redoubling his already prolific artistic output.

Devoting his full energies to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colorful and expressive, and from 1968 through 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate engravings. At the time these works were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man, or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime. One long time admirer, Douglas Cooper called them "the incoherent scribblings of a frenetic old man in the antechamber of death". Only a decade later, after Picasso's death, when the rest of the art world had moved on from abstract expressionism, did the critical community come to see that Picasso had already discovered neo-expressionism, and was, as usual, ahead of his time.

Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973 at Mougins, France, and was interred at Castle Vauvenargues' park, in Vauvenargues, Bouches-du-Rhône. Jacqueline prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral.

At the time of his death, Picasso, by now a multi-millionaire, owned a vast quantity of his own work, consisting of personal favorites which he had kept off the art market, or which he had not needed to sell. In addition, Picasso had a considerable collection of the work of other famous artists, some his contemporaries, like Henri Matisse, with whom he had exchanged works. Since Picasso left no will, his death duties, or estate tax to the French state were paid in the form of his works, and others from his collection. These works form the core of the immense, and representative collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris. And recently in 2003, relatives of Picasso inaugurated a museum dedicated to him, in his hometown of Malaga, Spain, called the Museo Picasso Málaga.

In 1999, Picasso's Les Noces de Pierrette (The Marriage of Pierrette) sold for more than USD $51 million.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was a celebrated Italian Renaissance architect, musician, inventor, engineer, sculptor and painter.

He has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" and as a universal genius. Leonardo is well known for his masterly paintings, such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. He is also known for his many inventions that were conceived well before their time but of which few were constructed in his lifetime. In addition, he helped advance the study of anatomy, astronomy, and civil engineering.
Leonardo da Vinci

Life

His life was described in Giorgio Vasari's biography Vite.

Leonardo was born in Anchiano, near Vinci, Italy. He was an illegitimate child. His father Ser Piero da Vinci was a young lawyer and his mother, Caterina, was a peasant girl. It has been suggested that Caterina was a Middle Eastern slave owned by Piero, but the evidence is scant.

This was before modern naming conventions developed in Europe. Therefore, his full name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", which means "Leonardo, son of Piero, from Vinci". Leonardo himself simply signed his works "Leonardo" or "Io, Leonardo" ("I, Leonardo"). Most authorities therefore refer to his works as "Leonardos", not "da Vincis". Presumably he did not use his father's name because of his illegitimate status.

Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence. He was a vegetarian throughout his life. He became an apprentice to painter Andrea del Verrocchio about 1466. Later, he became an independent painter in Florence.

In 1476 he was anonymously accused of homosexual contact with a 17-year-old model, Jacopo Saltarelli, a notorious prostitute. He was charged, along with three other young men, with homosexual conduct. However, he was acquitted because of lack of evidence. For a time Leonardo and the others were under the watchful eye of Florence's "Officers of the Night" — a kind of Renaissance vice squad.

That Leonardo was homosexual is generally accepted. His longest-running relationship was with a beautiful delinquent Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, whom he nicknamed Salai (Little Devil), who entered his household at the age of 10. Leonardo supported Salai for twenty five years, and he left Salai half his vineyard in his will.

From 1478 to 1499 Leonardo worked for Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan and maintained his own workshop with apprentices there. Seventy tons of bronze that had been set aside for Leonardo's "Gran Cavallo" horse statue were cast into weapons for the Duke in an attempt save Milan from the French under Charles VIII in 1495 — see also Italian Wars.

When the French returned under Louis XII in 1498, Milan fell without a fight, overthrowing Sforza. Leonardo stayed in Milan for a time, until one morning he found French archers using his life-size clay model for the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. He left with his servant and assistant Salai (a.k.a. Gian Giacomo Caprotti) and his friend (and inventor of double-entry bookkeeping) Luca Pacioli for Mantua, moving on after 2 months for Venice, then moving again to Florence at the end of April 1500.

In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia (also called "Duca Valentino" and son of Pope Alexander VI) as a military architect and engineer. In 1506 he returned to Milan, now in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries drove out the French.

In 1507 Leonardo met a 15 year old aristocrat of great personal beauty, Count Francesco Melzi. Melzi became his pupil, life companion, and heir.

From 1513 to 1516 he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time; he did not have much contact with these artists, however.

In 1515 Francis I of France retook Milan, and Leonardo was commissioned to make a centrepiece (of a mechanical lion) for the peace talks in Bologna between the French king and Pope Leo X, where he must have first met the king. In 1516, he entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé next to the king's residence at the Royal Chateau at Amboise, and receiving a generous pension. The king became a close friend.

He died in Cloux, France in 1519. According to his wish, 60 beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise.

Leonardo had a great number of friends, some of whom were:

Fazio Cardano — mathematician, jurist
Giovanni Francesco Melzi — painter, pupil
Girolamo Melzi — Captain in Milanese militia
Giovanni Francesco Rustici
Cesare Borgia — warrior
Niccolo Machiavelli — writer
Andrea da Ferrara
Franchinus Gaffurius — music theorist, composer
Francesco Nani — Brother in the Franciscan Order in Brescia
Iacomo Andrea — architect and author
Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli — Franciscan father
Galeazzo da Sanseverino — Commanded ducal army of Milan, singer
Ginevra dei Benci
Atalante Miglioretti — singer, artist, actor
Tomasso Masini da Peretola a.k.a. Zoroastro — student of alchemy, occultist
Benedetto Dei — writer

Art

Leonardo is well known for the masterful paintings attributed to him, such as Last Supper (Ultima Cena or Cenacolo, in Milan), painted in 1498, and the Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda, now at the Louvre in Paris), painted in 1503–1506. There is significant debate however, whether da Vinci himself painted the Mona Lisa, or whether it was primarily the work of his students. Only seventeen of his paintings, and none of his statues survive. Of these paintings, only Ginevra de' Benci is in the Western Hemisphere.

Leonardo often planned grandiose paintings with many drawings and sketches, only to leave the projects unfinished.

In 1481 he was commissioned to paint the altarpiece "The Adoration of the Magi". After extensive, ambitious plans and many drawings, the painting was left unfinished and Leonardo left for Milan.

He there spent many years making plans and models for a monumental seven-metre (24-foot) high horse statue in bronze ("Gran Cavallo"), to be erected in Milan. Because of war with France, the project was never finished. Based on private initiative, a similar statue was completed according to some of his plans in 1999 in New York, given to Milan and erected there. The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland has a small bronze horse, thought to be the work of an apprentice from Leonardo's original design.

Back in Florence, he was commissioned for a large public mural, the "Battle of Anghiari"; his rival Michelangelo was to paint the opposite wall. After producing a fantastic variety of studies in preparation for the work, he left the city, with the mural unfinished due to technical difficulties.

List of paintings
Annunciation (1475-1480) Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Ginevra de' Benci (~1475) National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, U.S.
The Benois Madonna (1478-1480) Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
The Virgin with Flowers (1478-1481) Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
Adoration of the Magi (1481) Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Cecilia Gallerani with an Ermine (1488-90) Czartoryski Museum, Krakow, Poland
A Musician (~1490), Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy
Madonna Litta (1490-91) The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia
La Belle Ferronière (1495-1498) Louvre, Paris, France
Last Supper (1498) Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy
The Madonna of the Rocks (1483-86) Louvre, Paris, France
The Madonna of the Rocks aka The Virgin of the Rocks (1508) National Gallery, London, England
Leda and the Swan (1508) Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy
Mona Lisa or La Gioconda Louvre, Paris, France
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (~1510) Louvre, Paris, France
St. John the Baptist (~1514) Louvre, Paris, France
Bacchus (1515) Louvre, Paris, France

Science and engineering

Perhaps even more impressive than his artistic work are his studies in science and engineering, recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and science. He was left-handed and used mirror writing throughout his life. Explainable by fact that it is easier to pull a quill pen than to push it; by using mirror-writing, the left-handed writer is able to pull the pen from right to left.

His approach to science was an observatory one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail, and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanations. Throughout his life, he planned a grand encyclopedia based on detailed drawings of everything. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, Leonardo the scientist was mostly ignored by contemporary scholars.

He participated in autopsies and produced many extremely detailed anatomical drawings, planning a comprehensive work of human and comparative anatomy. Around the year 1490, he produced a study in his sketchbook of the Canon of Proportions as described in recently rediscovered writings of the Roman architect Vitruvius. The study, called the Vitruvian Man, is one of his most well-known works.

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse (December 31, 1869 - November 3, 1954) was a French artist.

He was born Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse in Le Cateau, Picardie, France, and grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois. In 1887 he went to Paris to study law. After gaining his qualification he worked as a court administrator in Cateau Cambresis. Following an attack of appendicitis he took up painting during his convalescence. After his recovery, he returned to Paris in 1891 to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau.

Influenced by the works of Edouard Manet, Paul Signac and Paul Cézanne, and also by traditional Japanese art, he painted in the Fauvist manner, becoming known as a leader of that movement. His first exhibition was in 1901 and his first solo exhibition in 1904.
Henri Matisse
His fondess for bright and expressive colour became more pronounced after he moved southwards in 1905 to work with André Derain and spent time on the French Riviera, his paintings marked by having the colours keyed up into a blaze of intense shades and characterized by flat shapes and controlled lines, with expression dominant over detail. The decline of the Fauvist movement after 1906 did nothing to affect the rise of Matisse; he had moved beyond them and many of his finest works were created between 1906 and 1917 when he was an active part of the great gathering of artistic talent in Montparnasse.

In 1941 he was diagnosed with cancer and, following surgery, he soon needed a wheelchair; this did not stop his work however, but as increased weakness made an easel impossible he created cut paper collages called papiers découpés, often of some size, which still demonstrated his eye for colour and geometry.

Matisse lived in Cimiez on the French Riviera, now a suburb of the city of Nice, from 1917 until his death in 1954. He is buried there in the Cimiez Monastery Cemetery.

Working in a number of modes, but principally as a painter, he is considered one of the most significant artists of the early 20th century. Unlike many artists, he achieved international fame and popularity during his own lifetime. From his early shows in Paris, he attracted collectors and critics.

Today, a Matisse painting can sell for as much as US$17 million. In 2002, a Matisse sculpture, "Reclining Nude I (Dawn)," sold for US$9.2 million, a record for a sculpture by the artist.

Partial list of works

Notre-Dame, une fin d'après-midi (1902),
Green Stripe (1905),
The Open Window (1905),
Le bonheur de vivre (1906),
Madras Rouge (1907),
The Dessert: Harmony in Red (1908),
The Conversation (1909),
Dance (1910),
L'Atelier Rose (1911),
Zorah on the Terrace (1912),
Le Rifain assis (1912),
La lecon de musique (1917),
The Painter and His Model (1917),
Interior At Nice (1920),
Odalisque with Raised Arms (1923),
Yellow Odalisque (1926),
Robe violette et Anemones (1937),
Le Reve de 1940 (1940),
Deux fillettes, fond jaune et rouge (1947),
Jazz (1947),
Chapelle du Saint-Marie du Rosaire (1948, completed in 1951),
Beasts of the Sea (1950),
L'Escargot (1953).

Claude Monet

Oscar-Claude Monet (November 14, 1840 - December 5, 1926), French impressionist painter.

Monet was born in Paris, France. His family moved to Le Havre in Normandy when he was six. His father wanted him to go into the family grocery store business, but Oscar Monet wanted to paint. Eugène Boudin, an artist who worked extensively on plein air paintings - quick sketches made in open air - at beaches in Normandy, taught him some painting techniques in 1856.

Monet had to serve in the army in Algeria. His aunt Lecadre agreed to get him out of the army if he took an art course at a university. He left the army, but he did not like the traditional painting styles the university taught.

In 1862 he studied art with Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir with whom he founded the Impressionist movement. They painted together and maintained a lifelong friendship.
Claude Monet

Monet could also use the studio and paint its models for a low cost. He painted Camille Doncieux, and later they were married. He painted Women in the Garden in the late 1860s. They moved to a house in Argenteuil, near the Seine River, after he and his wife had their first child. They lived there for six years until Camille died; he painted her on her death-bed. Monet then moved to a house in Giverny, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie Region where he planted a large garden.

In 1872 (or 1873) Monet painted Impression, soleil levant (French: Impression, sunrise - now in the Musée Marmottan, Paris), a landscape of Le Havre, which was hung in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. It is said that a hostile critic Louis Leroy used the name "Impressionists" from the title of this picture by commenting that their paints were indeed "impressions" rather than finished works of art. By the third exhibition in 1876 the painters we know as the Impressionists were using the term about themselves.

He married Alice Hoschede in 1892, whom he had an affair with while he was married to Camille.

In the 1880s and 1890s Monet painted a series of paintings of the Rouen Cathedral from different points of view and at different times of the day. Twenty views of the cathedral were exhibited at the Durand-Ruel gallery in 1895. He also made series-paintings of haystacks.

Monet was exceptionally fond of painting controlled nature - his own garden, his water lilies, his pond, and his bridge. His garden had a meadow with willows and a marsh. He also painted up and down the banks of the Seine. In 1914 Monet began a major new large series of the water lily scenes at the suggestion of his friend, the politician Georges Clemenceau.

He is interred in the Giverny Church Cemetery, Giverny, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie, Region of France.

Recent sales of a Monet painting exceeded US$22 million.

William Morris

William Morris (March 24, 1834 - October 3, 1896) was one of the principal founders of the British Arts and Crafts Movement and is best known as a designer of wallpaper and patterned fabrics, a writer of poetry and fiction, and an early founder of the socialist movement in Britain.

The tragic conflict in Morris's life was his unfulfilled desire to create affordable — or even free — beautiful things for common people, whereas the real-life result was always the creation of extremely expensive objects for the discerning few. (In his utopian novel News from Nowhere, everybody works for pleasure only, and beautifully handcrafted things are given away for free to those who simply appreciate.)
William Morris, socialist and innovator in the arts & crafts movement
Morris was born in Walthamstow near London. His family was wealthy, and he went to Oxford (Exeter College), where he became influenced by John Ruskin and met his life-long friends and collaborators, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, and Philip Webb. He also met his wife, Jane Burden, a working-class woman whose pale skin and coppery hair were considered by Morris and his friends the epitome of beauty.

The artistic movement Morris and the others made famous was the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They eschewed the tawdry industrial manufacture of decorative arts and architecture and favoured a return to hand-craftsmanship, raising craftsmen to the status of artists.

Morris left Oxford to join an architecture firm, but soon found himself drawn more and more to the decorative arts. He and Webb built Red House at Bexleyheath in Kent, Morris's wedding gift to Jane. It was here his design ideas began to take physical shape. The brick clocktower in Bexleyheath town centre had, in 1996, a bust of Morris added in an original niche.

In 1861, he founded the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. with Gabriel Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Madox Brown, and Philip Webb. Throughout his life, he continued to work in his own firm, although the firm changed names. Its most famous incarnation was as Morris and Company. His designs are still sold today under licences given to Sanderson and Sons and Liberty of London.

In 1877 he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. His preservation work resulted indirectly in the founding of the National Trust.

Morris and his daughter May were amongst Britain's first socialists, working directly with Eleanor Marx and Engels to begin the socialist movement. In 1883 he joined the Social Democratic Federation, and in 1884 he organised the Socialist League. One of his best known works, News from Nowhere, is a utopian novel describing a socialist society. This side of Morris's work is well-discussed in the biography (subtitled 'Romantic to Revolutionary') by E. P. Thompson.

Morris and Rossetti rented a country house, Kelmscott Manor near Lechlade, Gloucestershire, as a summer retreat, but it soon became a retreat for Rossetti and Jane Morris to have a long-lasting affair. To escape the discomfort, Morris often travelled to Iceland, where he researched Icelandic legends that later became the basis of poems and novels.

Morris's book, The Wood Between the Worlds, is considered to have heavily influenced C. S. Lewis's Narnia series, while J. R. R. Tolkien was inspired by Morris's reconstructions of early Germanic life in 'The House of the Wolfings' and 'The Roots of the Mountains'.

After the death of Tennyson in 1892, Morris was offered the Poet Laureateship, but declined.

William Morris died in 1896 and was interred in the churchyard at Kelmscott village in Oxfordshire.

The Kelmscott Press

In January 1891 Morris founded the Kelmscott Press at Hammersmith, London, in order to produce examples of improved printing and book design. He designed clear typefaces, such as his roman 'golden' type, which was inspired by that of the early Venetian printer Nicolaus Jenson, and medievalizing decorative borders for books that drew their inspiration from the incunabula of the 15th century and their woodcut illustrations. Selection of paper and ink, and concerns for the overall integration of type and decorations on the page made the Kelmscott Press the most famous of the private presses of the Arts and Crafts movement. It operated until 1898, producing 53 volumes, and inspiring other private presses. Amongst book lovers, his edition of The Canterbury Tales is considered one of the most beautiful books ever produced.

Literary Works

The Defence of Guinevere, and other Poems (1858)
The Life and Death of Jason (1867)
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Nibelungs (1876)
Love is Enough, or The Freeing of Pharamond (1872)
A Dream of John Ball (1886)
The House of the Wolfings (1888)
The Roots of the Mountains (1889)
News from Nowhere (1890)
The Story of the Glittering Plain (1890)
The Well at the World's End (1892)
The Wood Beyond the World (1892)
Morris also translated large numbers of mediaeval and classical works, including collections of Icelandic sagas such as Three Northern Love Stories (1875), Virgil's Aeneid (1875), and Homer's Odyssey (1887)

The Morris Societies in both Britain and the US are active in preserving Morris's work and ideas.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was a celebrated Italian Renaissance architect, musician, inventor, engineer, sculptor and painter.

He has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" and as a universal genius. Leonardo is well known for his masterly paintings, such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. He is also known for his many inventions that were conceived well before their time but of which few were constructed in his lifetime. In addition, he helped advance the study of anatomy, astronomy, and civil engineering.
Leonardo da Vinci

Life

His life was described in Giorgio Vasari's biography Vite.

Leonardo was born in Anchiano, near Vinci, Italy. He was an illegitimate child. His father Ser Piero da Vinci was a young lawyer and his mother, Caterina, was a peasant girl. It has been suggested that Caterina was a Middle Eastern slave owned by Piero, but the evidence is scant.

This was before modern naming conventions developed in Europe. Therefore, his full name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", which means "Leonardo, son of Piero, from Vinci". Leonardo himself simply signed his works "Leonardo" or "Io, Leonardo" ("I, Leonardo"). Most authorities therefore refer to his works as "Leonardos", not "da Vincis". Presumably he did not use his father's name because of his illegitimate status.

Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence. He was a vegetarian throughout his life. He became an apprentice to painter Andrea del Verrocchio about 1466. Later, he became an independent painter in Florence.

In 1476 he was anonymously accused of homosexual contact with a 17-year-old model, Jacopo Saltarelli, a notorious prostitute. He was charged, along with three other young men, with homosexual conduct. However, he was acquitted because of lack of evidence. For a time Leonardo and the others were under the watchful eye of Florence's "Officers of the Night" — a kind of Renaissance vice squad.

That Leonardo was homosexual is generally accepted. His longest-running relationship was with a beautiful delinquent Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, whom he nicknamed Salai (Little Devil), who entered his household at the age of 10. Leonardo supported Salai for twenty five years, and he left Salai half his vineyard in his will.

From 1478 to 1499 Leonardo worked for Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan and maintained his own workshop with apprentices there. Seventy tons of bronze that had been set aside for Leonardo's "Gran Cavallo" horse statue were cast into weapons for the Duke in an attempt save Milan from the French under Charles VIII in 1495 — see also Italian Wars.

When the French returned under Louis XII in 1498, Milan fell without a fight, overthrowing Sforza. Leonardo stayed in Milan for a time, until one morning he found French archers using his life-size clay model for the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. He left with his servant and assistant Salai (a.k.a. Gian Giacomo Caprotti) and his friend (and inventor of double-entry bookkeeping) Luca Pacioli for Mantua, moving on after 2 months for Venice, then moving again to Florence at the end of April 1500.

In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia (also called "Duca Valentino" and son of Pope Alexander VI) as a military architect and engineer. In 1506 he returned to Milan, now in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries drove out the French.

In 1507 Leonardo met a 15 year old aristocrat of great personal beauty, Count Francesco Melzi. Melzi became his pupil, life companion, and heir.

From 1513 to 1516 he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time; he did not have much contact with these artists, however.

In 1515 Francis I of France retook Milan, and Leonardo was commissioned to make a centrepiece (of a mechanical lion) for the peace talks in Bologna between the French king and Pope Leo X, where he must have first met the king. In 1516, he entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé next to the king's residence at the Royal Chateau at Amboise, and receiving a generous pension. The king became a close friend.

He died in Cloux, France in 1519. According to his wish, 60 beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise.

Leonardo had a great number of friends, some of whom were:

Fazio Cardano — mathematician, jurist
Giovanni Francesco Melzi — painter, pupil
Girolamo Melzi — Captain in Milanese militia
Giovanni Francesco Rustici
Cesare Borgia — warrior
Niccolo Machiavelli — writer
Andrea da Ferrara
Franchinus Gaffurius — music theorist, composer
Francesco Nani — Brother in the Franciscan Order in Brescia
Iacomo Andrea — architect and author
Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli — Franciscan father
Galeazzo da Sanseverino — Commanded ducal army of Milan, singer
Ginevra dei Benci
Atalante Miglioretti — singer, artist, actor
Tomasso Masini da Peretola a.k.a. Zoroastro — student of alchemy, occultist
Benedetto Dei — writer

Art

Leonardo is well known for the masterful paintings attributed to him, such as Last Supper (Ultima Cena or Cenacolo, in Milan), painted in 1498, and the Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda, now at the Louvre in Paris), painted in 1503–1506. There is significant debate however, whether da Vinci himself painted the Mona Lisa, or whether it was primarily the work of his students. Only seventeen of his paintings, and none of his statues survive. Of these paintings, only Ginevra de' Benci is in the Western Hemisphere.

Leonardo often planned grandiose paintings with many drawings and sketches, only to leave the projects unfinished.

In 1481 he was commissioned to paint the altarpiece "The Adoration of the Magi". After extensive, ambitious plans and many drawings, the painting was left unfinished and Leonardo left for Milan.

He there spent many years making plans and models for a monumental seven-metre (24-foot) high horse statue in bronze ("Gran Cavallo"), to be erected in Milan. Because of war with France, the project was never finished. Based on private initiative, a similar statue was completed according to some of his plans in 1999 in New York, given to Milan and erected there. The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland has a small bronze horse, thought to be the work of an apprentice from Leonardo's original design.

Back in Florence, he was commissioned for a large public mural, the "Battle of Anghiari"; his rival Michelangelo was to paint the opposite wall. After producing a fantastic variety of studies in preparation for the work, he left the city, with the mural unfinished due to technical difficulties.

List of paintings
Annunciation (1475-1480) Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Ginevra de' Benci (~1475) National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, U.S.
The Benois Madonna (1478-1480) Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
The Virgin with Flowers (1478-1481) Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
Adoration of the Magi (1481) Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Cecilia Gallerani with an Ermine (1488-90) Czartoryski Museum, Krakow, Poland
A Musician (~1490), Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy
Madonna Litta (1490-91) The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia
La Belle Ferronière (1495-1498) Louvre, Paris, France
Last Supper (1498) Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy
The Madonna of the Rocks (1483-86) Louvre, Paris, France
The Madonna of the Rocks aka The Virgin of the Rocks (1508) National Gallery, London, England
Leda and the Swan (1508) Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy
Mona Lisa or La Gioconda Louvre, Paris, France
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (~1510) Louvre, Paris, France
St. John the Baptist (~1514) Louvre, Paris, France
Bacchus (1515) Louvre, Paris, France

Science and engineering

Perhaps even more impressive than his artistic work are his studies in science and engineering, recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and science. He was left-handed and used mirror writing throughout his life. Explainable by fact that it is easier to pull a quill pen than to push it; by using mirror-writing, the left-handed writer is able to pull the pen from right to left.

His approach to science was an observatory one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail, and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanations. Throughout his life, he planned a grand encyclopedia based on detailed drawings of everything. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, Leonardo the scientist was mostly ignored by contemporary scholars.

He participated in autopsies and produced many extremely detailed anatomical drawings, planning a comprehensive work of human and comparative anatomy. Around the year 1490, he produced a study in his sketchbook of the Canon of Proportions as described in recently rediscovered writings of the Roman architect Vitruvius. The study, called the Vitruvian Man, is one of his most well-known works.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867–April 9, 1959) was one of the most prominent architects of the first half of the 20th century.

He was born in the agricultural town of Richland Center, Wisconsin and brought up with strong Unitarian and transcendental principles. As a child he used to spend a lot of time playing with the Kindergarten educational blocks by Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel (popularly known as Froebel's blocks) given by his mother. These consisted of various geometrically shaped blocks that could be assembled in various combinations to form three dimensional compostions.

Wright in his autobiography talks about the influence of these exercises on his approach to design. Many of his buildings are notable for the geometrical clarity they exhibit. Frank Lloyd Wright

Wright commenced his formal education in 1885 at the University of Wisconsin School for Engineering, where he was a member of a fraternity, Phi Delta Theta. He took classes part time for two years while apprenticing under Allen Conover, a local builder and professor of civil engineering. In 1887, Wright left the university without taking a degree (although he was granted an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the university in 1955) and moved to Chicago, where he joined the architectural firm of Joseph Lyman Silsbee. Within the year, he had left Silsbee to work for the firm of Adler and Sullivan. Beginning in 1890, he was assigned all residential design work for the firm. In 1893, after a falling out that probably concerned the work he had taken on outside the office, Wright left Adler and Sullivan to establish his own practice in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, IL. He had completed around fifty projects by 1901.

Between 1901 and 1911, his residential designs were "Prairie Houses" (extended low buildings with shallow sloping roofs, clean sky lines, suppressed chimneys, overhangs and terraces, using unadorned natural materials), so called because the design is considered to complement the land around Chicago. Wright also played a significant role in "open plan" ideas for residential interiors and he came to regard interior space as a more significant part of his designs. He believed that humanity should be central to all design.

He designed his own home-studio complex, called Taliesin (after the 6th century Welsh poet, whose name means literally 'shining brow'), which was built near Spring Green, Wisconsin in 1911. The complex was a distinctive low one-storey L-shaped structure with views over a lake on one side and Wright's studio on the opposite side. Taliesin was twice destroyed by fire; the current building there is called Taliesin III. The first time it burned, seven people were killed, including Wright's mistress, Mamah Borthwick, and her two children (by her husband Edwin Cheney).

He visited Japan, first in 1905, and Europe (1909), opening a Tokyo office in 1915. In the 1930s Wright designed his winter retreat in Arizona, called Taliesin West; the retreat, like much of Wright's architecture, blends organically with the surrounding landscape.

Wright is responsible for a concept or a series of extremely original concepts of suburban development united under the term Broadacre City. He proposed the idea in his book The Disappearing City in 1932, and unveiled a very large (about 12 by 12 feet) model of this community of the future, showing it in several venues in the following years. He went on developing the idea until his death.

It was also in the 1930s that Wright designed many of his "Usonian" houses—essentially designs for working-class people that were based on a simple geometry, yet elegantly done and practical. He would later use such designs in his First Unitarian Meeting House built in Madison, Wisconsin between 1947-1950.

His most famous house was constructed from 1935 to 1939—Fallingwater for E.J. Kaufmann at Bear Run, Pennsylvania, which was designed according to Wright's desire to place the occupants close to the natural surroundings, with a stream running under part of the building. The construction is a series of cantilevered balconies and terraces, using stone for all verticals and concrete for the horizontals. The house cost $155,000, including the architect's fee of $80,000. Kaufmann's own engineers argued that the design was not sound. They were overruled, but they were later proven to be correct—the cantilevered floors began to sag shortly afterwards. In the late 1990s, steel supports were added under the lowest cantilever, until a detailed structural analysis could be done. In March of 2002, post-tensioning of the lowest terrace was completed.

Wright practiced what is known as organic architecture, an architecture that evolves naturally out of the context, most importantly for him the relationship between the site and the building.

One of his projects, Monona Terrace in Madison, Wisconsin, was completed in 1997 on the original proposed site, using Wright's original design for the exterior with an interior design by his apprentice Tony Puttnam. Monona Terrace was accompanied by controversy reminiscent of Wright's own life, partly involving the authenticity of the combined interior and exterior designs, and partly due to the covering-up of a locally-venerated roadside mural.

Wright's personal life was a colorful one that frequently made news headlines. He married three times. His third (and last) wife was Olgivanna Hinzenberg (née Olgivanna Ivanovna Lazovich), who had been a student of G. I. Gurdjieff who came to visit the couple at Taliesin. The meeting of Gurdjieff and Wright is explored in Robert Lepage's The Geometry Of Miracles.

Wright died on April 9, 1959, having designed an enormous number of significant projects including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, a building which occupied him for 16 years (1943–1959) and is probably his most recognized masterpiece. The building rises as a white spiral from its site on Fifth Avenue. Its unique central geometry allows visitors to experience temporary exhibits on the slowly-descending central spiral ramp.

Many speculate that the character of Howard Roark, an architect in Ayn Rand's book The Fountainhead, is based, at least in part, on Frank Lloyd Wright. Rand herself, however, denied this.

His son Frank Lloyd Wright Jr., known as Lloyd Wright, was also a notable architect.

Other works

Winslow House, near River Forest, IL, 1894
Ward W. Willits House, Highland Park, IL, 1901
Susan Lawrence Dana House, The Dana-Thomas House Springfield, IL, 1902 - 1904
The Dana-Thomas House, Springfield, Illinois
Dwight D. Martin House, Buffalo NY, 1904
Unity Temple, Oak Park, IL, 1906
Avery Coonley House, Riverside, IL, 1907
Frederick C. Robie House, Chicago, IL, 1909
Imperial Hotel (mostly demolished), originally Tokyo, Japan, 1915, lobby and pool reconstructed in 1976 in at Meji Village, near Nagoya, Japan
Aline Barnsdall House Hollyhock House, Los Angeles, CA, 1917
Charles Ennis House, Los Angeles, CA, 1923
Johnson Wax Headquarters, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936
Paul R. Hanna House, (Honeycomb House), Stanford, CA, begun 1936
Herbert F. Johnson House (Wingspread), Wind Point, WI, 1937
V.C. Morris Gift Shop, San Francisco, CA, 1948
Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1952
Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, CA, 1957-1966, (featured in the movie Gattaca)

Pamela Anderson

Pamela Denise Anderson (born July 1, 1967) is an international television actress, model, and producer known as much for her tumultuous personal life as for her professional accomplishments.

Anderson was born in Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada on July 1, 1967. As the first baby born on Canada's Centennial Day, the newborn Anderson won fame as the nation's "Centennial Baby".

She was subsequently "discovered" in 1989 when she was wearing a Labatt's beer t-shirt at a football game. She was hired by Labatt's to promote their product, and soon after, she appeared in Playboy magazine.

Anderson's first major television role was on the United States hit television sitcom Home Improvement (1991-1993). But her rise to stardom came primarily from her role as C J Parker (1992-1997) on Baywatch. In 1996, she appeared in a feature film, Barb Wire, which failed to achieve commercial success; and in 1998 she appeared in her own television series, V.I.P., which ran for four seasons. Pamela Anderson
In addition to her fame from modelling and acting, Anderson has gotten a great deal of press attention for her flamboyant personal life. She married rock star Tommy Lee of the band Mötley Crüe after knowing him for only 96 hours. Anderson filed for divorce twice and reconciled twice, before finally breaking her relationship with Lee. Since, she has become engaged to model Marcus Schenkenberg, broken up with him, and became engaged to rock musician Kid Rock.

A pornographic home video of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee was stolen from their home, and made a huge stir on the Internet. Anderson sued an Internet company which was distributing the video, and some media sources reported that she settled the case for $10 million.

In March 2001, Christine Evelyn Roth pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of trespassing and was deported to her home country, France. The woman had been arrested while sleeping in a guest room of Anderson's home, but she was only charged with trespassing and not the more serious crime of stalking.

In March 2002, Anderson publicly stated that she had contracted the Hepatitis C virus from Lee (supposedly from sharing tattoo needles), and began writing a regular column for Jane magazine. Anderson became the celebrity spokesperson for the American Liver Foundation, and served as the Grand Marshall of the SOS motorcycle ride fundraiser in October. In October 2003, Ms. Anderson jokingly said on Howard Stern's radio show that she does not expect to live more than ten or fifteen years, but this was misconstrued and taken seriously by many Internet sites and tabloids.

Lee denies having the disease and claims this is part of a ploy to take custody of their children.

Anderson became a naturalized citizen of the United States on May 12, 2004, while retaining her Canadian citizenship. She has lived in California since 1989. She is currently a columnist for the Canadian Elle magazine and voices the title character on the animated series Stripperella.

Writing

In 2004, Pamela Anderson released the book Star, in which she describes a young teenager doing different things in order to reach fame. After this, she began touring across the States, signing autographs to fans at Wal-Mart stores nationwide.

Animal rights

In 1999, Anderson received the Linda McCartney Award for animal rights protectors.

In 2003, Anderson released a letter in support of PETA's boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken; stating, "What KFC does to 750 million chickens, each year, is not civilized or acceptable."

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Sarah Michelle Gellar (born April 14, 1977) was the leading actress in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was born in New York City and has been acting since the age of 4, when she did a commercial for Burger King. Her best friend as a child was Melissa Joan Hart who later played Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Gellar's major break was in 1992, in the teen soap opera Swan's Crossing. From there, she moved on to another soap opera, All My Children, where she played the conniving character Kendall Hart Lang, long-lost daughter of principal character Erica Kane (played by Susan Lucci).
Sarah Michelle Gellar on The Zone, on YTV

In 1995, at the age of eighteen, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Leading Actress in a Drama Series. She left the series later that year after highly-publicized fights with Lucci, who was, by many accounts (reported by, among others, soap columnist Michael Logan), jealous of Sarah Michelle's Emmy win; this is due to Lucci receiving over a dozen nominations and never winning.

Gellar left All My Children in 1995, and landed the lead in the highly successful Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The role made her a cult icon in the United States and elsewhere.

Though many regarded her character as a feminist icon, Gellar told Detour magazine: "I hate the word 'feminist.' It has a bad connotation of women who don't shave their legs or under their arms."

Sarah Michelle Gellar, prominently featured on a Soap Opera Digest cover, dated September 24, 2002.While continuing in that role, she attempted to capitalize on her television fame in order to create a career for herself in motion pictures. She has had only intermittent success. After small roles in the popular thrillers I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 2, Gellar starred in the disastrous flop Simply Irresistible. This film, rumored to be the last film ever watched by critic Gene Siskel, featured a magical crab and borrowed heavily from Like Water for Chocolate. Gellar's next film was the steamy Cruel Intentions, a modern-day retelling of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. She then went on to play a lead role in Harvard Man, a critical disaster that went straight-to-video.

Gellar finally found major box office success playing Daphne in Scooby-Doo, a live-action adaption of the cartoon series. The film was popular with audiences but panned by critics. Gellar also appears in the movie's sequel.

During the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Once More, With Feeling", which spawned an original cast album, Gellar sang on several of the songs: "Going Through the Motions", "I've Got a Theory", "Walk Through the Fire", "Something to Sing About", and "Where Do We Go From Here?".

On September 1, 2002, Gellar and actor Freddie Prinze Jr. were married in Mexico.

Sarah Michelle Gellar recently starred in The Grudge, a 2004 remake of the Japanese horror film Ju-on which has so far made $40 million as of Sunday, October 24th, 2004.

Her next film project will be Southland Tales, a film by Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly.

Filmography

Romantic Comedy (2004) (pre-production)... Kate Willous
The Grudge (October 22, 2004) (in theaters)... Karen
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004)... Daphne Blake
Happily N'Ever After (2004)... (voice) Cinderella
Scooby-Doo (movie) (2002)... Daphne Blake
Harvard Man (2001)... Cindy Bandolini
The It Girl (2001)
Cruel Intentions (1999)... Kathryn Merteuil
Simply Irresistible (1999)... Amanda Shelton
She's All That (1999)... (uncredited) Girl in Cafeteria
Hercules: Zero to Hero (1998)
Small Soldiers (1998)... (voice) Gwendy Doll
Scream 2 (1997)... Casey "Cici" Cooper
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)... Helen Shivers
High Stakes (1989)... (as Sarah Gellar) Karen Rose
Funny Farm (1988)... (uncredited) Elizabeth's student
Over the Brooklyn Bridge (1984)... (uncredited) Phil's daughter
An Invasion of Privacy (1983)

Television

Hercules (1998)... (voice) Andromeda
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)
Beverly Hills Family Robinson (1997)... Jane Robinson
All About Erika (1994)... (archive footage) Kendall Hart
All My Children (1993-1995)... Kendall Hart #1
Swan's Crossing (1992)... Sydney Orion Rutledge
A Woman Named Jackie (1991)... teenage Jacqueline Bouvier
Girl Talk (1989)
Spenser: For Hire, episode: "Company Man" (#3.17) (1988)... Emily
The Guiding Light (1986)... Flower Girl at Kurt and Mindy's Wedding
An Invasion of Privacy (1983)... Jennifer Bianchi

Julie Andrews

Dame Julie Andrews is a British actress, singer, and author, best known for her starring roles in the musical films Mary Poppins (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965).

She was born Julia Elizabeth Wells in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey on October 1, 1935. Her earliest public performances were during World War II, entertaining troops throughout the UK with fellow child star Petula Clark.

She made her stage debut at an early age, appearing in London's West End in 1947. She graduated through radio (on the show Educating Archie) and theatre to starring in stage productions of musicals such as The Boyfriend, My Fair Lady and Camelot. Julie Andrews With Dick van Dyke in a scene from the film Mary Poppins
When she lost the starring role in the film of My Fair Lady to Audrey Hepburn, she received the consolation of the starring role in Walt Disney's musical version of Mary Poppins (1964), winning a Best Actress Academy Award as a result (notably, Hepburn wasn't even in the running). She was nominated again, the following year, for her role as Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965), and thus became, briefly, one of the most sought-after stars in Hollywood. As a result, she appeared in the three-hour epic Hawaii, co-starring with Max von Sydow, and Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain with Paul Newman (both in 1966), and Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), with Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Channing.

Star!, a 1968 biography of Gertrude Lawrence, and Darling Lili, with Rock Hudson (1970), are often cited by critics as major contributors to the decline of the movie musical. Both were damaging to Andrews' subsequent career and, despite several starring roles in musical and non-musical films - including some directed by her husband, Blake Edwards, such as 10, Victor/Victoria, and S.O.B., she was seen very rarely on screen during the 1980s and '90s. She starred in Julie on Sesame Street, an ABC television special, in 1973, but the greatest critical acclaim accorded her TV work was for her variety specials with Carol Burnett. Her film career was revived by director Garry Marshall, who cast her in The Princess Diaries and its sequel, both of which proved to be major box office hits. She has also starred in two made-for-television movies based on the character of Eloise, the moppet who lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

In the 2000 New Year's Honours she was made a Dame of the British Empire (DBE), becoming Dame Julie Andrews. Since then she has been struggling to recover her singing voice, following a throat operation, but had a short tour of the USA at the end of 2002 with Christopher Plummer, Charlotte Church, Max Howard and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Dame Julie's career is said to have suffered from typecasting, as her two most famous roles in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music cemented her image as a "sugary sweet" personality best known for working with children. Her roles in Blake Edwards's films could be seen as an attempt to break away from this image: in 10 her character is a no-nonsense career woman; in Victor/Victoria she plays a woman pretending to be a male transvestite, and, perhaps most notoriously, in S.O.B. she plays a character very similar to herself, who agrees (with some pharmaceutical persuasion) to "show my boobies" in a scene in the film-within-the-film. For this last performance, late night television comedian Johnny Carson thanked Andrews for "showing us that the hills were still alive", alluding to her most famous line from the Sound of Music.

Julie received Kennedy Center Honors in 2001. She also appears in the 2002 List of "100 Great Britons" sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public.

Julie has written several children's books, under the name Julie Andrews Edwards. Perhaps the most well-known is The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles (ISBN 0064403149).

Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts (born October 28, 1967) is an American actress. She was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing the title role in the movie Erin Brockovich.

Born Julie Fiona Roberts in Smyrna, Georgia, Roberts first caught the attention of moviegoers with her performance in the film Mystic Pizza in 1988. The following year she was featured in Steel Magnolias as a young bride battling diabetes, garnering her first Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) for her performance. She catapulted to worldwide fame co-starring with Richard Gere in the Cinderella-story Pretty Woman in 1990, which also earned her a second Oscar nod, this time as Best Actress.

Her next huge box-office success was the thriller Sleeping With the Enemy, in which she portrayed a battered wife who escapes from her husband and starts a new life. She played Tinkerbelle in Steven Spielberg's Hook in 1991, which was followed by a two- year period in which she had no acting roles other than a cameo appearance in Robert Altman's The Player (1992). In early 1993, she was the subject of a People magazine cover story asking, "What Happened to Julia Roberts?" Julie Roberts

Later that year, she co-starred with Denzel Washington in the highly successful The Pelican Brief, based on the John Grisham novel. Grisham wrote the lead female character, Darby Shaw, specifically for Roberts to play. For the next few years, she starred in a series of films that were critical and commercial failures, primarily because she was cast in off-beat roles that strayed too far from her persona. She broke her losing streak with the hit comedy My Best Friend's Wedding in (1997), and eventually earned a reputation as an actress who could guarantee a huge box office draw. She won critical acclaim and finally nabbed an Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of Erin Brockovich - a woman who had helped wage a successful lawsuit against energy giant Pacific Gas & Electric - in the 2001 movie of the same name.

Roberts' personal life has often been in the spotlight, a fact that served as the basis of her (1998) movie Notting Hill - a romantic comedy about a famous actress falling for an "ordinary" guy played by Hugh Grant. Her character, actress Anna Scott, was said to be closely so modelled on Roberts herself that when asked in one scene how much she was paid to appear in a movie, Scott replied "fifteen million dollars" . . . precisely the amount Roberts had received to appear in the film.

Roberts was engaged to actor Kiefer Sutherland in 1991 but ended the relationship just days before the wedding. She later eloped with country and western singer Lyle Lovett shortly after meeting him; they divorced in 1995.

Roberts met her husband, cameraman Danny Moder, on the set of her movie The Mexican in 2000. The couple were married July 4, 2002 in Taos, New Mexico, and welcomed twins - Hazel Patricia and Phinnaeus Walter - to the family on November 28, 2004.

For years, Roberts has been estranged from her brother, actor Eric Roberts.

Filmography

Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Closer (2004)
Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
Full Frontal (2002)
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
America's Sweethearts (2001)
The Mexican (2001)
Erin Brockovich (2000)
Runaway Bride (1999)
Notting Hill (1999)
Stepmom (1998)
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
Michael Collins (1996)
Mary Reilly (1996)
Something to Talk About (1995)
Prêt-à-Porter aka Ready to Wear (1994)
I Love Trouble (1994)
The Pelican Brief (1993)
The Player (1992)
Hook (1991)
Dying Young (1991)
Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
Flatliners (1990)
Pretty Woman (1990)
Steel Magnolias (1989)
Blood Red (1988)
Mystic Pizza (1988)
Satisfaction (aka Girls of Summer) (1988)
Firehouse (1987)

Jessie Wallace

Jessie Wallace (born 25 September 1971) is a British actress who plays the part of Kathleen (Kat) Moon in the popular BBC1 soap opera Eastenders. Her on-screen husband Alfie Moon is played by Shane Ritchie. Together they run the soap's pub, The Queen Victoria.

Jessie was well known for her excessive drinking, excessive orange glow and was convicted of drunk driving. She is now set to marry one of the police officers who gave her a lift home from a drunk driving-related court case. She gave birth to her first child, Tallulah Lilac on November 2nd 2004.

Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston (born February 11, 1969 as Jennifer Linn Anastassakis in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California) is an American actress best known for playing Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends. She married actor Brad Pitt on July 29, 2000.

Early life

Her Greek parents, both actors, perhaps hoped that she would follow in their footsteps and made Telly Savalas (TV's "Kojak") her godfather and also changed her, and their, names from their original greek surname Anastassakis to the more american sounding Aniston. After spending a year living in Greece, the family returned to the States, settling in New York where her father John Aniston (Yannis) won a part on the US soap opera Love of Life and later Search for Tomorrow. In 1985, the family moved to Los Angeles when John Aniston started on Days of Our Lives.

Acting career

Attending New York's High School of Performing Arts during 1987, Aniston was a member of the drama club. Her desire to become an actress grew as she worked in off-Broadway productions such as For Dear Life and Dancing on Checker's Grave. She moved to Hollywood and appeared on her first television role in 1989, starring as a regular on the tv show Molloy.

In 1994, the producers a new NBC show called Friends originally wanted Aniston to audition for the role of Monica Geller, but she persuaded them that the role of Rachel Green was more suited to her character. She played the character until the popular show ended in 2004.

Aniston has also appeared in many Hollywood films including Picture Perfect, The Object of My Affection, Office Space, Rock Star, The Good Girl, Bruce Almighty and Along Came Polly.

Awards

1995: Screen Actors Guild Award: Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Comedy Series, Friends
2002: Emmy Award: Best Actress in a Comedy Series, Friends
2003: Golden Globe Award: Best Actress in a Comedy Series, Friends

Goldie Hawn

Goldie Hawn (born November 21, 1945) is a Washington, D.C. born actress who began her career as one of the regular cast members on the 1960s sketch comedy show Laugh-In. Noted equally for her chipper attitude and her bikini and painted body, she personified a 60s "it-girl." On the show she would often break out into high-pitched giggles in the middle of a joke, yet in the next moment deliver a very polished performance.

She embodied both the concept of the free-loving hippie girl and the determined feminist. Hawn won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the 1969 film Cactus Flower. Goldie Hawn in the 1972 movie Butterflies Are Free
Into the 1970s and 1980s Hawn remained a popular figure in entertainment, appearing in various films (generally comedies.) She gathered great respect as a comedic actress, outspoken on her liberal political views. Her career died down a bit until 1992 when she revitalized it opposite Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep in the film Death Becomes Her. She eventually came full circle playing an aging actress in the late 90s film The First Wives Club opposite Bette Midler and Diane Keaton. Through the late '90s into the year 2002 she has remained popular (in partial thanks to the success of her now adult daughter, actress Kate Hudson). She appeared in The Banger Sisters opposite Susan Sarandon in 2002. Her son Oliver Hudson is also an actor, appearing on the US (WB) TV series The Mountain.

She has been in a relationship with Kurt Russell since 1983 and they have a son together, Wyatt.

Select filmography

Cactus Flower (1969)
There's a Girl in My Soup (1970)
Butterflies Are Free (1972)
Shampoo (1975)
Private Benjamin (1980)
Overboard (1987)
Housesitter (1992)
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
The First Wives Club (1996)
The Banger Sisters (2002)

Hawn has proved her singing talent with a cover version of the Beatles' song "A Hard Day's Night" on George Martin's CD In My Life (1998).

Gillian Anderson

Gillian Leigh Anderson (born August 9, 1968) is an American actress, best known for her role as FBI Agent Dana Scully in the American TV series The X-Files.

She was born in Chicago, but lived in London until she was 11 years old. Her family then moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she attended City Middle/High School, a program for gifted students. With her English accent and background, she felt alienated in the surroundings of the American Midwest, and developed a reputation as a strong-willed and rebellious teenager. She had her nose pierced in the early 1980s, dyed her hair various colors, and was arrested for gluing the locks of the school closed.

She found an outlet for her creativity when she started acting in high school and community theatre productions. She attended Goodman Theater School of Drama at DePaul University in Chicago, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1990.

Following some professional stage work, she auditioned in 1993 for the role of Dana Scully on the fledgling Fox Network's new series The X-Files. There she met assistant art director Clyde Klotz, whom she married and with whom she had a daughter, Piper Maru, in 1994. (An alien-abduction storyline explained her brief absence from the series for delivery.) Anderson and Klotz later divorced. She had roles in a handful of films during the run of The X-Files, including the starring role in The House of Mirth, an adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel of the same name. Since the end of production on the The X-Files, she has performed in several stage productions, in addition to working on various film projects.

Filmography

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
The Mighty Celt (2005)
The House of Mirth (2000)
Playing by Heart (1998)
The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)
The Mighty (1998)
Chicago Cab (aka Hellcab) (1998)
Mononoke Hime (aka Princess Mononoke) (voice: English language version) (1999)
The Turning (1992)

List of Stage Appearances
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
The Sweetest Swing in Baseball (2004). World premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, London.
What The Night Is For (2002-11-07 to 2003-02-09). This play ran at the Comedy Theatre in London, and was Anderson's West End debut.
Arsenic and Old Lace (1983). City High School, Grand Rapids, Michigan, two performances, as "Officer Brophy".

Trivia

There exist over 180 fake nude and pornographic images of her; only one of which (a nipple-slip at an awards ceremony) has been proven genuine. She has been quoted as saying she doesn't mind; "It's just people getting their rocks off."
Performed nude alongside co-star David Duchovny in the X-Files episode "One Son".
The only X-Files episode she did not appear in is "3", in Season 2. She was giving birth when it was filmed.
The X-Files episode "Piper Maru" is named after her child, Piper.
X-Files director, creator, writer and actor Chris Carter is godfather to her child.
Her favourite X-Files episode is "Triangle".

Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron (born August 7, 1975) is an Academy Award winning actress. Born in Benoni, South Africa, she resides in Los Angeles, California.

She is reputed to speak at least parts of 28 languages, but her first language is Afrikaans, and her second is English.

Theron trained as a ballet dancer and danced in both Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. She travelled to Europe and then the United States where she was accepted at the Joffrey Ballet in New York, but a knee injury ended her dancing career. She also worked as a photo model.

Soon after Charlize won a modelling contest, she was encouraged by her mother to leave South Africa. At 18 she moved to Los Angeles without knowing anyone in the city but after two weeks when she was standing in line on Hollywood Boulevard an agent gave her his card. After eight months in the city she got her first part.


In his December 7, 2003 review of the film Monster, respected film critic Roger Ebert said Theron's performance in the film's lead role was one of the greatest performances in the history of film. Ebert added that if she did not win the Oscar for best actress, then the award should be cancelled. She duly won Best Actress at the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, as well as the SAG Award and the Golden Globe Award. She is the first South African to win the Best Actress Academy Award.

Theron is currently the spokeswoman for Dior perfume.

Acting filmography

The Ice at the Bottom of the World (2006)- (announced)
Class Action (2005)- (announced)
Æon Flux (2005)- (filming)
Head in the Clouds (2004)
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)
Monster (2003)
The Italian Job (2003)
Waking Up in Reno (2002)
Trapped (2002)
When I Was a Girl (TV Series) (2001)
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
15 Minutes (2001)
Sweet November (2001)
The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)
Men of Honor (2000)
The Yards (2000)
Reindeer Games (2000)
The Cider House Rules (1999)
The Astronaut's Wife (1999)
Mighty Joe Young (1998)
Celebrity (1998)
The Devil's Advocate (1997)
Trial and Error (1997)
Hollywood Confidential (TV) (1997)
That Thing You Do! (1996)
2 Days in the Valley (1996)
Children of the Corn III (1995)

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Catherine Zeta-Jones as seen in the 2004 film
The Terminal


Catherine Zeta-Jones (born September 25, 1969) is an Academy Award-winning Welsh actress।

She was born Catherine Jones and hails from Mumbles, Wales. Her name stems from two different grandmothers; one grandmother is named Catherine, while the other is "Zeta," named after a ship that Catherine's great-grandfather sailed on.
Catherine Zeta-Jones as seen in the 2004 film
The Terminal
She was born to a Welsh father and a mother of Irish Catholic extraction, besides English she speaks Welsh fluently. She has 2 brothers. As a child she had a tracheotomy leaving a scar.

Her stage career began in childhood. She sang and danced her way to local stardom as a part of a catholic congregation's performing troupe before she was ten years of age, and by 1987 she was appearing in Forty-Second Street in the West End. Once the show closed, Catherine travelled to France, where she received the lead role in French director Phillippe De Broca's 1001 Nights (a.k.a. Sheherazade), her feature film debut.

Her exotic good looks, teamed with her singing and dancing ability, ensured her a bright future, but it was in a straight acting role, as Mariette in the successful television adaptation of H. E. Bates' The Darling Buds of May (1991), that she made her name.

She is married to the actor Michael Douglas, with whom she has 2 children. Her son, Dylan Michael Douglas was born August 8, 2000. (Her American admirers like to think that he is named after Bob Dylan - a favourite of Michael - while her British admirers like to think that Dylan Thomas, also born in Swansea, was the inspiration). Her daughter, Carys Zeta Douglas was born April 20, 2003.

Catherine has not forgotten her roots and has built a seaside dream home in her hometown of Swansea, determined that her children grow up aware of their Welsh heritage.

Apart from her acting career, Catherine is also an advertising spokesperson for the mobile phone company T-Mobile. She is currently the global spokeswoman for cosmetics giant, Elizabeth Arden. She has also starred on the Lifetime Television event of Titanic, also starring Tim Curry and Peter Gallagher.

She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the movie Chicago in 2003.

Filmography

Les Mille et une nuits (1990)
Out of the Blue (1991)
The Darling Buds of May (1991) (TV)
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones (1992) (voice)
Splitting Heirs (1993)
The Return of the Native (1994) (TV)
The Cinder Path (1994) (TV)
Blue Juice (1995)
Katharina die Große (1995) (TV)
The Phantom (1996)
Titanic (1996) (TV)
The Mask of Zorro (1998)
Entrapment (1999)
The Haunting (1999)
High Fidelity (2000)
Traffic (2000)
America's Sweethearts (2001)
Chicago (2002)
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) (voice)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
The Terminal (2004)

Betty Grable

Ruth Elizabeth "Betty" Grable (December 18, 1916 - July 3, 1973) was an American actress, singer and pin-up girl, whose famous bathing suit poster was an icon of the World War II era. Born in Saint Louis, Missouri, she was propelled into acting by her mother, who insisted that one of her daughters become a star. For her first role, as a chorus girl in the film Let's Go Places (1930) Grable was legally under the age to act, but because the chorus line performed in blackface, it was impossible to tell how old she was. For her next film, her mother tried to get her to sign a contract using false I.D., but when this was discovered, she was fired. It was at this time that she was photographed in the pin-up poster that was so popular among American GIs ten years later.

Grable finally obtained a role in Whoopee!, starring Eddie Cantor and eventually played in some twenty films by 1939, including the Academy Award-nominated The Gay Divorcee, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

In 1937, she married another famous child actor, Jackie Coogan, but Coogan was under considerable stress due to his lawsuit against his parents over his earnings, and they divorced in 1940.

In 1943, she married jazz trumpeter and big band leader Harry James. They divorced in 1965.

Grable's later career was marked by feuds with studio heads, who worked her to exhaustion. At one point, in the middle of a fight with Darryl F. Zanuck, she tore up her contract with him and stormed out of his office. Gradually leaving movies entirely, she made the transition to television, and starred in Las Vegas.

Betty Grable died of lung cancer in 1973 at the age of only 56 and was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.

Will Smith

Willard Christopher Smith, Jr. (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor and rapper. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second of four children.

Partial biography

Will Smith started his career as part of the pop-rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, performing humorous, radio-friendly songs, most notably "Parents Just Don't Understand". Smith was a charismatic and energetic performer, and in 1990 the NBC television network signed him up and built a sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, around him. Smith began a successful movie career near the show's end with Bad Boys (1995).
Will Smith

After Fresh Prince came to an end in 1996, Smith began a successful solo career in music and starred in several movies, including Men in Black, Independence Day, Enemy of the State, Wild Wild West, and Ali. Smith released a string of hit singles, often associated with his most recent movie, throughout the late 1990s.

Will Smith is married to actress Jada Pinkett Smith. Along with his brother Harry Smith, he owns Treyball Development Inc., a Beverly Hills, California-based company named for his son, Willard Christopher "Trey" Smith, III.

Partial discography

as DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
And in this Corner...
Rock the House (1987)
He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper (1988)
Homebase (1991)

as Will Smith
Big Willie Style (1997)
Willenium (1999)
Born to reign (2002)
Greatest Hits (including material from DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's 2002)

Partial filmography

Shark Tale (2004, voice)
Jersey Girl (2004, playing himself)
I, Robot (2004)
Bad Boys II (2003)
Men in Black II (2002)
Ali (2001)
Wild Wild West (1999)
Enemy of the State (1998)
Men in Black (1997)
Independence Day (1996)
Bad Boys (1995)
Six Degrees of Separation (1993)
Made in America (1993)
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990)

Walter Matthau

Walter Matthau (October 1, 1920 in New York City - July 1, 2000 in Santa Monica, California) was an American comedy actor possibly best known for his role as the gruff and less tidy member of The Odd Couple.

Matthau was born in New York and served with the Army Air Corps during World War II. He attained the rank of Staff Sergeant and became interested in acting. He often joked that his best early review came in a play he did where he posed as a derelict. Matthau and Sophia Loren in Grumpier Old Men

One reviewer said "The others just looked like actors in make-up, Walter Matthau really looks like a skid row bum!" Matthau was a respected stage actor for years in such fare as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and A Shot In The Dark. In 1955, he made his film debut as a whip-wielding bad guy in The Kentuckian opposite Kirk Douglas. He appeared in many films after this as a villain such as the 1958 King Creole (where he is beaten up by Elvis Presley!). That same year he made a Western called Ride A Crooked Trail with Audie Murphy, the most decorated hero of World War II. Mister Matthau also directed a low budget 1960 film called The Gangster Story. In 1962, Matthau won acclaim as a sympathetic sheriff in Lonely Are The Brave. In addition to his busy movie and stage schedule, Mister Matthau made many television appearances in live tv plays. Although he was constantly working, it seemed the fact he was not handsome in the traditional sense would keep him from being a top star.

The sweet smell of success came late for Matthau. He was 45 when in 1965 Neil Simon cast him in the hit play The Odd Couple. It was also during this time that Matthau nearly died of a heart attack. In 1966, he again achieved glory as a shady lawyer opposite Jack Lemmon in The Fortune Cookie. He won an Academy Award as best supporting actor. Matthau and Lemmon became lifelong friends afterwards and in an amazing act of teamwork made a total of ten films together, including the popular 1993 hit Grumpy Old Men.

Matthau had two children, Jennifer and David, by his first wife, Grace Geraldine Johnson, and a son, Charles, by his second wife and widow, Carol Marcus. Charles directed his father in the movie The Grass Harp (1995).

Matthau died of a massive heart attack at the age of 79, and is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. About one year later, Lemmon, his old pal and frequent co-star, was also buried at the cemetery.

Filmography (selected)

King Creole
Charade
The Fortune Cookie
The Odd Couple
Bad News Bears
Hopscotch
Grumpy Old Men
Grumpier Old Men
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, USA) is an American film actor and producer who has starred in a number of top-grossing movies. His first leading role in a Blockbuster movie was in Top Gun, as Maverick. He is considered a sex symbol.

Biography

Cruise's parents moved frequently when he was a child, residing in a number of locations throughout the United States and Canada, including Ottawa, Ontario, Louisville, Kentucky and Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Before going into acting, Cruise attended a Franciscan seminary and aspired to become a Catholic priest.

He received Academy Award nominations for Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Jerry Maguire (1996), both as Best Actor; and for Magnolia (1999), as Best Supporting Actor. In 1996, he became the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed $100 million in domestic release. The films were A Few Good Men (1992), The Firm (1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996).

Cruise teamed with producer Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions, which has co-produced several of Cruise's films such as Mission: Impossible and its sequels, Vanilla Sky (2001), and The Last Samurai (2003). The company also co-produced The Others (2001).

In 1990, 1991 and 1997, People magazine rated him among the 50 most beautiful people in the world. In 1995, Empire magazine ranked him among the 100 sexiest stars in film history. Two years later, it ranked him among the top 5 movie stars of all time. In 2002 and 2003, he was rated by Premiere among the top 20 in its annual Power 100 list.

A number of Cruise's more well-known and popular movies have cast him in a similar role, one which has been half-jokingly referred to by movie fans (and some critics) as the "Generic Tom Cruise Character." In a role of this type, Cruise has portrayed a character who, as the film begins, is seen as a cocky, stuck-up, self-centered egoist who cares for little other than himself. As the events of the movie unfold, his character learns to become more open-minded and altruistic, until by the time the climax has been reached, he has undergone a radical change and been transformed into a better human being. Examples of the "Generic Tom Cruise Character" can be seen in Top Gun, Rain Man, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire, Cocktail, The Last Samurai, and others.

As a sex symbol, Cruise's physique has been subject to close scrutiny of the media. While many fans contend that his smile is one of his most notable features, one of his upper front incisors is off-color, and he started wearing braces in 2002. (He removes them during filming.)

He has been married twice, to Mimi Rogers (May 9, 1987 - February 4, 1990) and later Nicole Kidman (December 24, 1990). Cruise divorced Kidman on August 8, 2001, and for a time he was romantically linked with Penelope Cruz, the lead actress in his film Vanilla Sky. In March 2004, he announced that his relationship with Penelope Cruz had ended in January.

Cruise is a well-known member of the Church of Scientology (as of 1990). This has occasionally led to protests at openings of his movies in Europe.

Cruise has been chosen to co-host this year's Nobel Peace Price Concert in Oslo on December 11.

Selected Filmography

Endless Love (1981)
Taps (1981)
The Outsiders (1983)
Risky Business (1983)
Legend (1985)
Top Gun (1986)
The Color of Money (1986)
Cocktail (1988)
Rain Man (1988)
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Days of Thunder (1990)
Far and Away (1992)
A Few Good Men (1992)
The Firm (1993)
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Mission: Impossible (1996)
Jerry Maguire (1996)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Magnolia (1999)
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Minority Report (2002)
The Last Samurai (2003)
Collateral (2004)
The War of the Worlds (Pre-production) (2005)
Mission: Impossible III (Pre-production) (2006)
The Few (Scripting) (2006)