Top Celebrities and Sports Talent

Bette Midler began her career as an extra in Hawaii, which prompted a move from her Honolulu hometown to New York in 1965. Within months, she debuted on stage in Miss Nefertiti Regrets, and went on to take over the role of Tzeitel in the hit Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof.

Following singing engagements at New York cabarets, Midler opened a record-breaking run at the Continental Baths, which led to a recording contract, and in 1973 she won a Grammy for her platinum-selling debut album, The Divine Miss M. She later earned additional Grammys for the title song from The Rose, Blueberry Pie and the Beaches soundtrack album, featuring Wind Beneath My Wings. Many of her albums have achieved platinum status, and her concerts and stage shows opened to sold-out houses. Her appearance at Broadway’s Palace Theatre earned a Tony Award and her 1993 tour Experience the Divine broke all box office records for a concert by an individual.

Among Midler’s feature credits are 1979’s The Rose, which earned her an Oscar nomination and two Golden Globe Awards, followed by the film adaptation of her Broadway show Divine Madness, and starring roles in Jinxed, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune, Big Business, Beaches, Stella, Scenes From a Mall and For the Boys, for which she won a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She also starred in Hocus Pocus, Get Shorty, The First Wives Club, That Old Feeling and Isn’t She Great, and hosted Disney’s Fantasia 2000.

On television, Midler recently won a People’s Choice and a TV Guide Award for her debut series role in the comedy Bette. She headlined the HBO specials The Fabulous Bette Midler Show and De Tour, the Emmy Award-winning CBS special Ol Red Hair is Back and HBO’s concert film Diva Las Vegas, which brought an Emmy Award for her performance and received a record 10 nominations for the year. She won an Emmy for her moving appearance on Johnny Carson’s final Tonight Show episode, as well as a Golden Globe and a National Board of Review award for her performance in the 1992 television adaptation of the musical Gypsy.

Midler is currently filming The Stepford Wives opposite Nicole Kidman, Glenn Close and Matthew Broderick. Columbia Records will release her next album, Bette Midler Sings The Rosemary Clooney Songbook, on September 30th, 2003.

Bette Midler is the Founder, and very active guiding light, of the New York Restoration Project, which she established in 1997. The organization works to uncover, reclaim and clean neglected public spaces, in part through partnerships with government but fundamentally by nurturing community empowerment and fostering civic pride in local communities. The NYRP brings these spaces back to life, gives them back to the public and secures the resources to make all that happen.

Hawke was born in Austin, Texas to James Steven Hawke and Leslie Carole Green, who were students at the University of Texas at the time of his birth, and separated three years later; Hawke’s great-grandfather was the brother of Cornelius Williams, who was the father of well-known playwright Tennessee Williams. At an early age, Hawke moved to Princeton, New Jersey with his single mother, where he took acting classes at the McCarter Theatre and attended the West Windsor-Plainsboro High School (now West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South) and the Hun School of Princeton. He first appeared in various high school performances, including George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan.

At the age of fourteen Ethan Hawke made his feature film debut in Explorers (1985). Hawke studied acting at the British Theatre Association in England and at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He has twice enrolled in New York University’s English program and is one of the founding fathers and artistic director of Malaparte, a former New York City theatre company. Malaparte productions included A Joke!; Wild Dogs; Good Evening; Sons and Fathers; It Changes Every Year; Veins and Thumbtacks; Hesh; and The Great Unwashed. He also attended the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn.

In 1988, Hawke was cast in a role in director Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society; the film’s success was considered Hawke’s breakthrough. He left school and appeared in A Midnight Clear, Alive, Reality Bites, Before Sunrise, Gattaca, The Newton Boys, Great Expectations and many other movies. In 2001, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Training Day.

Hawke directed Chelsea Walls and has written two novels, The Hottest State (in 1996) and Ash Wednesday (in 2002). In 2005, he received his first screenwriting Oscar nomination for co-writing the 2004 film, Before Sunset (a sequel to Before Sunrise).

On March 26, 2006 Hawke’s personal business office in New York City was destroyed by a fast-moving fire. He was in the middle of directing and starring in a movie version of his first novel, The Hottest State. The fire broke out in a newly renovated office on the second floor of the office building and the blaze quickly spread to the fifth floor. It destroyed Hawke’s fourth-floor office and his post-production studio. Master tapes and negatives from Hawke’s film were being stored off-site and were reportedly not destroyed by the fire.

On May 1, 1998, Hawke married actress Uma Thurman. The couple had two children, daughter Maya Ray (born July 8, 1998) and son Levon Roan (born January 15, 2002). They separated in July 2004 and divorced in 2005. Hawke began dating Canadian model Jen Perzow before separation, but said the affair wasn’t the cause of the split.

Hawke lives on a small peninsula located in Tracadie, Nova Scotia. This land was purchased before his divorce from Thurman as a family retreat. He is currently in the process of buying a large nearby farm and converting it into a celebrity resort.

He is a Democrat.

His family includes father James Hawke, half-brothers Matt and Sam, and stepmother Gay. James is a high ranking official at Conseco. Matt recently graduated from Indiana Weslyan University. Sam is currently attending a private school in Indiana.

Mary-Kate Olsen is one of the most recognized names in Hollywood.  She is a fraternal twin to her sister, Ashley.  The two are best known for their role in the television series, "Full House." 

You will not see Mary-Kate without her sister.  As a rule, they appear everywhere together.  Whether it is movies or TV shows, they are both side by side.  The "Hollywood Reporter" named Mary-Kate as one of the "Most Powerful Young Women in Hollywood." 

After their role on "Full House" ended, Mary-Kate did not stop her acting career.  Along with her sister, she starred in the video series "The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley" and the ABC show "Two of a Kind."  Today, Mary-Kate is a popular figure among teenage girls. 

It is reported that Mary-Kate’s worth is around $50 million.  You will find a star of Mary-Kate and Ashley along the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California.  Mary-Kate currently resides in California. 

Maria Sharapova is best known for her former #1 world ranking in women’s tennis as well as her stunning beauty.  In 2004, Maria became the 3rd youngest Wimbledon female champion. Currently, she is the defending champion of the U.S. Open and has won the Grand Slam singles title two times in her brief career. 

Originally from Russia, Sharapova currently trains in Bradenton, Florida at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy.  Since arriving in the United States, Sharapova has been nothing but a success.

She is reportedly the highest paid female athlete currently with sponsorships coming from Honda, Motorola, Land Rover, Canon and Gatorade to name a few. Off the tennis court, Maria can be seen in commercials with ESPN, and magazines such as People, Maxim, FHM and Sports Illustrated.  She has been Maxim Magazine’s Hottest Female Athlete of the Year the past 4 years. 

Sharapova is 19 years old and currently resides in Manhattan Beach, California as well as Longboat Key, Florida.

With a flamboyant, larger than life stage presence and a party-hearty surfer dude persona (not to mention his acrobatic leaps, long mane of blond hair, and skintight spandex outfits), Roth was an integral part of Van Halen’s meteoric rise to global dominance from 1978 through 1984.

Born on October 10, 1955, in Bloomington, IN, Roth was introduced to music at an early age, via his father’s affinity for Al Jolson, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Prima. By the dawn of his teenage years, his family had relocated to California, and by the early ’70s, Roth had become a major rock fan (Led Zeppelin, Black Oak Arkansas, Grand Funk, ZZ Top, Alice Cooper, etc.). Roth was soon singing in local bands, including the Red Ball Jets, who would play shows along with another up-and-coming rock band from Pasadena, CA — Mammoth.
The members of Mammoth, including brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen on guitar and drums, respectively, would often borrow Roth’s PA system for their gigs, and a friendship was struck up. Soon after, Roth was asked to join forces with the Van Halen brothers, who had enlisted a new bassist as well, Michael Anthony. The new quartet decided on a name change by the mid-’70s as they played the Sunset Strip — Van Halen (reportedly Roth’s idea).

By 1977, the quartet was signed to Warner Bros., and 1978 saw the release of their landmark self-titled debut, one of rock’s all-time great recordings. Mixing heavy metal riffs with punk’s fury, Van Halen were onto a whole new sound, which resulted in the band taking the world by storm. The band issued a string of classic mega-selling albums (1979’s Van Halen II, 1980’s Women and Children First, 1981’s Fair Warning, 1982’s Diver Down, and two years later, 1984), while becoming a major arena-headlining concert draw in the process.

Just as Van Halen had hit their peak and appeared they could do no wrong, David Lee Roth issued a four-track solo EP in 1985, Crazy from the Heat, with rumors swirling that the bandmembers were bickering behind the scenes and that the singer was going to make a major motion picture. Still, it was a shock to rock fans everywhere when Roth left Van Halen later that year (Van Halen would soldier on with Sammy Hagar filling Roth’s spot) — leading to a war of words in the press. When his plans for the movie proved to be a bust, Roth immediately formed a top-notch solo band, consisting of ex-Talas bassist Billy Sheehan (often called "the Eddie Van Halen of bass"), ex-Frank Zappa guitarist Steve Vai, and ex-Maynard Ferguson drummer Gregg Bissonette. In 1986, Roth issued his first full-length solo effort, Eat ‘Em and Smile, which was another hit and gave way to another sold-out tour.

Roth had also become a master of creating hilarious and highly original music videos (featuring a wide assortment of wacky characters), especially Van Halen’s "Hot for Teacher" and Roth’s solo clips "California Girls," "Just a Gigolo," "Yankee Rose," and "Goin’ Crazy." But while Roth’s new solo band seemed to be on the way to a very promising future, the lineup began to splinter with each subsequent release (1988’s Skyscraper, 1991’s A Little Ain’t Enough), until Roth was the only remaining member. With interest waning, Roth attempted to branch out musically on his experimental 1994 release, Your Filthy Little Mouth (produced by Nile Rodgers), but it was met with a cool reception, as was his attempt to break into the Vegas circuit around the same time.

By 1996, Van Halen had parted ways with Hagar, leading to an onslaught of rumors that a Roth/Van Halen reunion was in the works. The rumor appeared to become reality on September 4, 1996, when Van Halen and Roth appeared together at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York to present an award. Despite the fact that they had recorded several new songs the previous summer (two of which would appear on their forthcoming Best Of: Vol. 1 collection), the reunion was short-lived — Eddie and Roth got into a near fistfight backstage on the night of the awards show, as relations soured once again when it became known that Van Halen tricked Roth into thinking that he was back in the band (meanwhile, they had secretly hired ex-Extreme singer Gary Cherone a few months prior).

Undeterred, Roth penned a tell-all biography, 1997’s Crazy from the Heat, and issued his best solo album in years, 1998’s back-to-basics DLR Band. When Cherone was dismissed from Van Halen in 1999 after only a single album (the horrific Van Halen III), rumors began swirling once again about a possible Roth/Van Halen reunion. With both camps keeping things very hush-hush, Roth finally broke the silence in April of 2001, issuing a statement on his website that he and his former Van Halen bandmates had indeed regrouped the previous year in the recording studio, but that he hadn’t heard back from them in months. Barely a week later, Eddie Van Halen went public with the fact that he was diagnosed with cancer; in May of 2002 he reported on his website that his cancer treatments had been successful and he had "just gotten a 100 percent clean bill of health — from head to toe."

Meanwhile, the good news from Eddie Van Halen did not apparently coincide with a return of Roth to the Van Halen fold, as the singer’s Diamond Dave, a 14-track collection of mostly covers that echoed the 1982 Van Halen classic Diver Down, was released in 2003. In 2005, Roth took over FM "Shock Jock" duties for the satellite radio-bound Howard Stern, and the following year he gathered friends for the tongue-in-cheek Strummin with the Devil: The Southern Side of Van Halen.

Gwenyth Paltrow’s first movie role was in the film "Shout," with the well loved actor, John Travolta.  However, her big break came when she was offered the role of Wendy in Steven Speildberg’s wonderland hit "Hook".

The promising actress flourished with roles in films such as "Malice," "Flesh and Bone," "Moonlight and Valentino," "Seven" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley," and "A Perfect Murder".  In 1999, Paltrow was honored with an Academy Award for her role in the romantic comedy, "Shakespeare in Love."

She has been the love interest both on film and off film of famous leading actors such as Brad Pitt, Jude Law and Ben Affleck.

It can definitely be said that stardom is in Gwyneth Paltrow’s blood.  She is the daughter of film legends Blythe Danner and Bruce Paltrow.  Her youth was spent watching her father direct popular television series in Los Angeles and watching her Tony award-winning mother perform in New York.

After her debut starring role in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," Paltrow knew that acting was precisely what she was destined to do.
 

LOS ANGELES - She may be playing a villain in two summer movies, but Michelle Pfeiffer was all smiles and grace when she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Monday. ADVERTISEMENT The Academy Award nominated star of "The Fabulous Baker Boys" and "Dangerous Liaisons" thanked her mother and father for supporting her decision to become an actress. "She taught me that I could do anything and that I should have a career before I get married," she said. Her father, she said, "taught me that you can make something of yourself if you work hard." Pfeiffer is currently on the screen playing the nasty Velma Von Tussle in "Hairspray" and will soon be seen as the evil witch Laima in the fairy tale "Stardust," set for release Aug. 10. Actors Paul Rudd, her co-star in the upcoming romantic comedy "I Could Never Be Your Woman" and Baker Boy Jeff Bridges both attended Monday’s ceremony. "You are two of the nicest men on the planet," she told them.