Top Celebrities and Sports Talent

Harrelson was born in Midland, Texas to Charles Voyde Harrelson and Diane Lou Oswald, who divorced in 1964; he has two brothers, Jordan and Brett, who is a professional motorcycle racer. His father, a professional hitman, was twice convicted for murder for hire, and was jailed for most of Harrelson’s childhood for performing a hired killing. Harrelson grew up in Lebanon, Ohio with his deeply religious mother, and has frequently said that his father’s past has colored his own present.

Harrelson attended Lebanon High School and later Hanover College in Indiana, where he studied drama and received a Bachelor of Arts in Theater Arts and English in 1983.

After graduation, Harrelson moved to New York City, and became an understudy in Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues. In 1985, he was cast as the naive but genial Midwestern bartender Woody Boyd on the television series Cheers, and won the "Funniest Newcomer" American Comedy Award and an Emmy for the role. His first film was 1986’s Wildcats with Goldie Hawn. He appeared in mostly minor roles until he played Michael J. Fox’s romantic rival in 1991’s Doc Hollywood. Subsequently, Harrelson has appeared in such films as Money Train, White Men Can’t Jump, The Cowboy Way, Indecent Proposal, The Hi-Lo Country, Natural Born Killers and Kingpin. In 1996, he starred in the title role of the controversial film The People vs. Larry Flynt, for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. More recently, he had a fairly long run on the NBC sitcom Will and Grace as Grace’s love interest Nathan. He also played a transvestite prostitute in Anger Management, and FBI agent Stan in 2004’s After the Sunset. His most recent film is A Prairie Home Companion, which was released in June of 2006.

In 1985, Harrelson married Nancy Simon, daughter of playwright Neil Simon, in Tijuana. The two intended to divorce the following day, but the storefront marriage/divorce parlor was closed when they had returned to it, and the two remained married for ten months. On January 11, 1998, Harrelson married Laura Louie, his former assistant and a co-founder of Yoganics, an organic food delivery service. The couple, who have been together since 1990, have three daughters, Deni Montana (born March 5, 1993), Zoe Giordano (born September 22, 1996), and Makani Ravello (born June 3, 2006). When announcing Makani’s birth, the couple referred to the three as their "goddess trilogy."

Harrelson is an outspoken supporter for the legalization of marijuana and hemp in the USA. On June 1, 1996, he was intentionally arrested in Kentucky after symbolically planting four hemp seeds to challenge state law that failed to distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana; he won the case. An environmental activist, he once climbed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to unfurl a banner that said, "Hurwitz. Aren’t ancient redwoods more precious than gold?" in protest of MAXXAM/Pacific Lumber CEO Charles Hurwitz, who once stated, "He who has the gold, rules". Harrelson, an ethical vegan and raw foodist, has also denounced animal experiments in the cosmetics industry. He has travelled the American West Coast on a bike in caravan with a hemp oil-fueled biodiesel bus (the subject of the independent documentary, Go Further) and has narrated the documentary Grass (1999). He is also an antiwar activist and has often spoken publicly against the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

SANTA FE, N.M. - Kevin Costner and his rockabilly band drew a crowd of more than 1,000 at a free concert for a scene in his upcoming film "Swing Vote."

Born in Appleton, Wisconsin, the seventh of eight children, he acquired the nickname "Willem" in childhood. After graduating from Appleton East High School, he studied drama at UW-Milwaukee, but left before graduation in order to join the newly formed avant-garde group Theatre X. After touring with Theatre X for four years in the United States and Europe, he moved to New York City and joined the Performance Group, where he met director Elizabeth LeCompte. LeCompte and Dafoe left the Performance Group together became professional collaborators, and began a relationship. Their son, Jack, was born in 1982. Dafoe married Italian actress Giada Colagrande on March 25, 2005.

Dafoe’s film career began in 1981, when he was cast in Heaven’s Gate, but his role was removed from the film during editing. A year later he starred as the leader of a motorcycle gang in The Loveless, but his first breakthrough film role was as the compassionate Sergeant Elias in Platoon (1986). He has since become a popular character actor; due to his harsh facial features, he is often typecast as unstable or villainous characters, most recently the Green Goblin in the Spider-Man movies. Before that, he was briefly considered for the role of The Joker by Tim Burton and Sam Hamm for the Batman film in 1989. Hamm recalls "We thought, ‘Well, Willem Dafoe looks just like The Joker.’" The role ended up going to Jack Nicholson [1] He also played Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), which moved Sergio Leone to exclaim, "This is the face of a murderer, not of Our Lord!" He once remarked "To this day, I can’t believe I was so brazen to think I could pull off the Jesus role," though Dafoe received acclaim despite the controversy surrounding the film.

Twice he has played peculiar detectives, once in The Boondock Saints (1999), and again in American Psycho (2000). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1986 for Platoon and 2000 for Shadow of the Vampire. After Spider-Man, Dafoe had a rare opportunity to play a heroic film role when he provided the voice of Gill in the animated movie Finding Nemo.

He worked briefly as a model in a 1990 Prada campaign.

In 2004, Dafoe lent his likeness and voice for the highly successful James Bond video game Everything or Nothing as villain Nikolai Diavolo.

By KEN RITTER

LAS VEGAS - O.J. Simpson was released from jail Wednesday after posting $125,000 bail in connection with the armed robbery of sports memorabilia collectors at a Las Vegas hotel.

Simpson, wearing a light blue sport coat and dark blue pants, carried a black bag as he strolled to a gray sedan with his lawyer and drove away from the Clark County Detention Center.

He did not speak to reporters or to at least one bystander who cheered.

Another spectator shouted, "Justice for Nichole, justice for Ron," as Simpson walked to the car.

Simpson’s lawyer has said he expected the former football star to return to his Florida home.

Simpson, who spent three nights in the Las Vegas jail, was freed about two hours after appearing in court, where he told a justice of the peace that he understood the charges against him, including first-degree kidnapping, which carries the possibility of life in prison with parole.

Simpson did not enter a plea but answered quietly in a hoarse voice and nodded as Justice of the Peace Joe Bonaventure Jr. laid out restrictions for his release, including surrendering his passport to his attorney and having no contact with co-defendants or potential witnesses.

Unlike his arraignment over a decade ago in the 1994 killings of his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman, when Simpson declared he was "absolutely 100 percent not guilty," he was subdued throughout the proceeding Wednesday.

"Mr. Simpson do you understand the charges against you?" the judge asked.

"Yes, sir," said Simpson, wearing a blue jail uniform and handcuffs.

Attorney Yale Galanter said Simpson would plead not guilty.

Security at the courthouse was tight for the arraignment hearing. People entering the courtroom were screened by security officers and Las Vegas police with bomb-sniffing dogs.

The case has attracted a swarm of media, including Marcia Clark, who unsuccessfully prosecuted Simpson for the 1994 murders and was reporting for "Entertainment Tonight."

Simpson, 60, was arrested Sunday after a collector reported a group of armed men charged into his hotel room at the Palace Station casino and took several items that Simpson claimed belonged to him. He has been held since then in protective custody in a 7-foot-by-14-foot cell.

The Heisman Trophy winner was charged with kidnapping, robbery with use of a deadly weapon, burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon, coercion with use of a deadly weapon, assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit a crime.

"These are very serious charges," Galanter said. "He is taking it very seriously."

Authorities allege that the men went to the room on the pretext of brokering a deal with two longtime collectors, Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong. According to police reports, the collectors were ordered at gunpoint to hand over several items valued at as much as $100,000.

Beardsley told police that one of the men with Simpson brandished a pistol, frisked him and impersonated a police officer, and that another man pointed a gun at Fromong.

"I’m a cop and you’re lucky this ain’t LA or you’d be dead," the man said, according to the report.

"One of the thugs — that’s the best thing I can call them — somebody blurted out ‘police!’ and they came in military style," Beardsley said Wednesday on NBC’s "Today" show. "I thought it might have been law enforcement or the FBI or something because I was ordered to stand up, and I was frisked for weapons."

"At no time did Mr. Simpson hold any type of firearm at all," he said.

Beardsley also cast doubt on the authenticity of a recording of the confrontation made by Tom Riccio, the man who arranged the meeting between Simpson and the two collectors. Riccio reportedly sold that tape to celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com.

"I do not believe that these tapes are accurate," Beardsley said. He said information was missing and the recordings should be professionally analyzed.

"Simpson confronted me, saying ‘Man what’s wrong with you, you have a turn-over order, you have a turn-over order for this stuff, man,’" Beardsley said, but he said that part wasn’t on the tapes.

The Los Angeles Times reported that court records show Riccio has an extensive criminal history from the 1980s and ’90s, including grand larceny in Florida, possession of stolen goods in Connecticut and receiving stolen property in California. According to the newspaper, Riccio acknowledged his past in a telephone interview late Tuesday.

Riccio said he was not concerned with how his past might affect his credibility "because everything’s on tape. That’s why it’s on tape."

He also said he had been promised some form of immunity by prosecutors.

The memorabilia taken from the hotel room included football game balls signed by Simpson, Joe Montana lithographs, baseballs autographed by Pete Rose and Duke Snider and framed awards and plaques, together valued at as much as $100,000.

Although Simpson was acquitted of murder charges in the deaths of his ex-wife and Goldman, a jury later held him liable for the killings in a wrongful death lawsuit and ordered him to pay a $33.5 million judgment. On Tuesday, a California judge gave a lawyer for Goldman’s father a week to deliver a list of items Simpson was accused of taking from the hotel room, raising the possibility that they could be sold to pay off the judgment.

"He’s ordered to pay us millions of dollars," Goldman’s sister, Kim Goldman, said Wednesday on NBC. "If he went to Vegas to go collect on those things so we wouldn’t, there’s some irony in that."

She also said she felt some satisfaction with Simpson’s arrest.

"I’m not going to lie to you, I do feel a little bit of elation to see him in handcuffs," she said. "I hope that in some way the pressure that we put on him for the last 13 years drove him to this."

Two other defendants, Walter Alexander, 46, and Clarence Stewart, 53, were arrested and released pending court appearances. Stewart turned in some of the missing goods and Alexander agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, authorities said. A fourth suspect, Michael McClinton, 49, of Las Vegas, surrendered to police Tuesday.

Police were seeking two other suspects, whom they had not identified.

Jay Leno began his comedy career appearing in nightclubs and on tour.  He tried his luck at acting on a few films; however after several repeat appearances on late-night TV, he had found his niche. 

Jay, who was an occasional replacement for Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show", soon became the show’s permanent guest host in 1988.  In 1992, he was chosen to be Carson’s successor.

On Jay Leno’s few days off he usually performs stand up in clubs and concert halls.  He also appeared as himself in many feature films over the years.  These films include the popular blockbuster hits, "Dave", "Mad City", "Space Cowboys", "Juwanna Man" and "Mr. 3000".

Jay also put his well recognized voice to work in a few animated movies.  He had a small voice role in "Robots" and also gave voice to Fast Tony, a con artist armadillo, in "Ice Age: The Meltdown".  Also appearing in this film, giving their voices to animated characters, were John Leguizamo, Ray Romano, Denis Leary and Chris Wedge.

Jay plans to retire from the "The Tonight Show" and pass down his hosting duties to NBC late night host Conan O’Brien in 2009.