My Favorite Famous People

In only a few short years, Maggie Gyllenhaal built a solid reputation as a talented, cerebral actress in independent films, her non-conformist flair and penchant for examining social issues offering a different voice to the young Hollywood of the early millennium. A Hollywood native, she had actually grown up with filmmaking parents – to say nothing of her actor brother Jake Gyllenhaal – but theirs was a household that valued education, intellect and liberal politics over plastic surgery. Subsequently, the self-possessed actress and her apple-cheeked, silent film star looks were a revelation to critics – enough to earn Golden Globe nominations for “Secretary” in 2002 and “Sherry Baby” in 2006.

Maggie Ruth Gyllenhaal was born on Nov. 19, 1977, in New York City. Her mother, Naomi Finer, was a PBS children’s television producer-turned-screenwriter (Oscar nominated for 1988’s “Running on Empty”), while her father, Stephen Gyllenhaal, was a published poet and Emmy-nominated director, whose films included “A Killing in a Small Town” (1990), “Losing Isaiah” (1995) and “Homegrown” (1998). When Gyllenhaal was a year old, her parents’ rising careers led the family to move to Los Angeles, where they gave birth to son Jake two years later. Despite the Gyllenhaal’s ascent in the filmmaking business, their home revolved more around intellectual pursuits than Hollywood indulgence; their circle of family friends including academics, artists, and activists. Brother and sister attended the prestigious Harvard-Wakeland prep school, where Gyllenhaal was an excellent student and active in the drama program. She was also a self-proclaimed rebel who tried to distance herself from the wealthy lifestyle of her classmates, despite appearances on the big screen in “Waterland” (1992), directed by her father and starring Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke, and “A Dangerous Woman” (1993), also directed by her father.
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Irina Lazareanu is a Canadian supermodel. A refugee from Romania, Lazareanu got her ‘big break’ through her acquaintance with supermodel Kate Moss.

Early life
Lazareanu grew up in Saint-Hubert with her Romanian parents. Sent off to London in her teens, to study ballet at the Royal Acadamy of Arts, she soon got introduced to it’s underground scene. Meeting people that will soon get her into literature, but the biggest influence being Pete Doherty (whom she calls Peter). Meeting at a club, they soon talked about people they admire, such as Oscar Wilde & Nina Simone. Soon she became the drumer of his future band “BabyShambles”

Modeling career
Moss personally handpicked Lazareanu to model for the December/January issue of Vogue: Paris, which she was a guest editor on. Lazareanu has since become an increasingly popular fashion model, breaking the record for most runway work in one season.
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If there’s one thing Ke$ha knows how to do, it’s tell stories. Here’s a pretty good one: Two years ago, the aspiring pop singer and songwriter decided she wanted Prince to produce her first album. So, she found out his address and drove to his Beverly Hills home, where she paid the gardener five dollars to let her squeeze herself under his front gate. Then she hiked up the driveway (which was lined in purple velvet), let herself in through an unlocked side door, and rode the mirrored elevator up to the third floor where the Purple One himself was jamming with his band. “It was kind of awkward,” she recalls, “but who cares, right? So I sat on one of the purple thrones in the room until he noticed me, which he finally did. He was like, ‘How the hell did you get in here?’” she says with a laugh. “His security kicked me out, but not before I left him my demo CD wrapped in a giant purple bow.”

Ke$ha never did hear from Prince, but the incident speaks volumes about this 22-year-old newcomer’s firecracker personality and determination. “I’ve always known I wanted to be a performer,” she says. “There’s video of me at age five, naked and covered in body paint, saying, ‘I’m going to be a rock star and there’s no way anyone is going to stop me!’ It’s my calling. If I don’t go for it, I’m going to feel like a tool when I’m 50.”
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THIS IS THE ONE
by
UTADA HIKARU
Buy It From AMAZON.COM

Album breakdown:

1. Come back to Me: 1st single, very mainstream, marketable and currently helping Utada claw up the charts, something out of nowhere. Well crafted, and has the distinct “Utada” touch of unusualness by slipping in a photoshop reference. She also features piano and electric guitar that people may recognize perhaps from her past works. Surprisingly Mariah Carey-like. Covers that type of territory

2. Me Muerto: Proof that her experiments in style are not extinguished. She’s never done a latin, bossa nova sound before and this is remarkably polished and her voice is very very strong at this range. Could hear this on the radio but not necessarily on the same stations as ‘Come Back To Me’, also interesting content-wise, touching on depression.

3. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence- FYI: This is the most “Utada” track on the album, it’s laced with the original song Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Sakamoto Ryuichi and also features lyrics that both touches on a movie with David Bowie of the same name and Buddhist chants. She also namedrops Captain Piccard. Production here is slick, it’s Asian, but also very American and also could be another successful single.
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Born in Stone, Staffordshire on Monday, 20th February, 1978 at 10.50 p.m.

From a very early age Jakki showed she had an artistic temperament and flair, began a dancing career at the age of 4, taking up ballet dancing.  At 11 went on to disco and rock and roll competition dancing.  Jakki reached Championship status in both categories at the age of 15.

Left school and went straight to college to train as a hairdresser.  By the age of 20 was managing her own salon in
Walsall.  (Still keeps her hand in cutting and styling her mother and sisters hair on her rare visits home)

Hitting the club scene at 17/18, it became apparent to her from the male attention she always received that she should seriously look at her career options and decided to take a ‘crack’ at modelling.

Tried beauty competitions, but not only were they ‘rigged’ big time, but everyone was so bitchey!!

Persuaded by her mother, Jakki entered the Max Power Live Babe competition at the N.E.C. in Birmingham in 1999.  She won and that is where her modelling career began.

1999 – 2001
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Hikaru Utada is one of the biggest pop stars in the universe. Over the last ten years, her accomplishments in Japan are simply staggering. Her 1999 debut First Love is the country’s biggest-selling album of all time, and three of her albums rank among the Top Ten best-sellers. She has had 12 Number One hits, including four songs in Japan’s all-time Top 100. 2001’s Distance had the largest first-week sales for any album in Japanese music history, selling an astonishing three million copies. In total, the young singer has sold more than 52 million albums.

But unlike most pop starlets around the world, Utada is also a songwriter and producer; indeed, she says that she thinks of herself as a composer more than as a performer. And on This Is The One, her new Island Def Jam album [featuring ten self-penned songs produced by the powerhouse producers Stargate (Ne-Yo, Rihanna, Beyonce) and Tricky (Britney Spears, Madonna, Mariah Carey)] 26-year-old Utada reveals the unique sense of songcraft that is poised to make her a force in the US and European music communities.

“I wanted to make something that’s accessible but not cheap—not low-class or stupid, but still appealing to a wide audience,” says Utada. “I like to make music that’s multi-layered. You might like a song and want to dance, but not really dive into the lyrics and analyze them. And then if you’re more bookish and you like words, you might notice the references I make, to Captain Picard or Freddie Mercury or Winona Ryder.

“Both things are just as important to me—to be catchy, so when you hear a song on the radio it sticks out, and also to have that depth.” [Read the rest of this entry...]