Robert De Niro

Posted by WIko Setyonegoro, S.Si | 11:21 PM

Robert De Niro, born in 1943, American motion-picture actor, often hailed as one of the most brilliant of his generation. The son of two artists, De Niro was born in New York City and trained at two of the city's acting studios, the Stella Adler Conservatory and the American Workshop.

De Niro's initial film roles were in movies by American director Brian De Palma. De Niro first won acclaim in Hollywood for his role as a slow-witted, dying baseball player in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), but his reputation has thrived on volatile roles such as his riveting portrayal of a dangerous hoodlum in Mean Streets (1973), the film that marked the beginning of his sustained collaboration with director Martin Scorsese.

De Niro earned an Academy Award for best supporting actor in The Godfather II (1974) and Oscar nominations for best actor for his roles in Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Cape Fear (1991). He won the 1974 Oscar for best supporting actor for an almost entirely Italian-speaking role as Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Part II. He won the Academy Award for best actor in Raging Bull (1980). De Niro's other films include New York, New York (1977), The King of Comedy (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Brazil (1985), The Untouchables (1987), Midnight Run (1988), The Mission (1989), GoodFellas (1990), Guilty by Suspicion (1991), Night and the City (1992), Mad Dog and Glory (1993), This Boy's Life (1993), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Heat (1995), and Casino (1995). De Niro heads a production company, Tribeca Film Center, and he made his directorial debut with A Bronx Tale (1993).

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Tom Cruise

Posted by WIko Setyonegoro, S.Si | 11:17 PM

Tom Cruise, born in 1962, American motion-picture actor, who became a celebrity in the 1980s after his performance in Risky Business (1983), a satire of suburban adolescence. In the 1990s Cruise became one of the world’s most popular film stars.

Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in Syracuse, New York, he appeared in a succession of motion pictures in the early 1980s that focused on adolescent characters, such as The Outsiders (1983). He then moved on to roles in major productions such as Legend (1985); The Color of Money (1986), directed by Martin Scorsese; and Top Gun (1986), about United States Navy fighter pilots.

Cruise received praise for his performance in Rain Man (1988), in which he played the brother of an autistic man (see Autism). In Born on the Fourth of July (1989), he portrayed a paraplegic veteran of the Vietnam War (1959-1975) who becomes an antiwar activist. For his performance Cruise won the Golden Globe Award as best actor in a drama. His other films of the late 1980s and early 1990s include Cocktail (1988), about a bartender; Days of Thunder (1990), which he cowrote, about a race car driver; Far and Away (1992), about Irish immigrants to the United States in the late 19th century; A Few Good Men (1992), which concerns the murder trial of two marines; and The Firm (1993), about corruption in a prestigious law firm. Although his works during this period earned a mixed reception from critics, Cruise’s popularity with motion-picture audiences grew dramatically.

In 1993 Cruise made his directing debut with “The Fabulous Frammis,” an episode of the cable-television miniseries Fallen Angels. In 1994 he appeared in Interview with the Vampire, and in 1996 he starred as agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible, which he also produced. In 1997 Cruise won the Golden Globe Award for best actor in a drama for his starring role in Jerry Maguire (1996), which concerns the conflicts a sports agent feels between his personal and professional life.

In 1999 Cruise and his then-wife, Nicole Kidman, costarred in the psychological thriller Eyes Wide Shut. In 2000 Cruise won the Golden Globe Award as best supporting actor for his role in Magnolia (1999), which tells the interlocking stories of several characters in the San Fernando Valley in southern California. In Mission Impossible 2 (2000), Cruise reprised his role as Ethan Hunt.

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Personal life of Sandra Bullock

Posted by WIko Setyonegoro, S.Si | 10:41 PM

Bullock at Cannes in 2002
Bullock was once engaged to actor Tate Donovan whom she met while filming Love Potion No. 9. Their relationship lasted four years. She had previously dated football player Troy Aikman, blues guitarist Guy Forsythe,[citation needed] Austin musician Bob Schneider (for two years) and film co-stars, Ryan Gosling and Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey and Bullock met each other while filming A Time to Kill and became friends, dating for a while. Some notable celebrity friends include Heather Burns and Hugh Grant.

Bullock married motorcycle builder and Monster Garage host Jesse James on July 16, 2005. They met when Bullock arranged for her ten-year-old godson to meet James as a Christmas present. On her husband and her marriage, Bullock has commented:

So basically through a courtship of letters..I learned about a human being. It was not something I wanted, needed, or looked for, but because he was a stronger person than I was, spiritually and on a tolerance level, I was lucky enough that he educated me... I always thought of marriage as a death sentence, that there'd be a ball and chain, and you'd be told, "You need to stop doing these things and become a good little wife." Now people say "Oh my God you're going to have sex with one person the rest of your life!" I hope I have sex with him for the rest of my life - because I like it!

On December 20, 2000, Bullock survived the crash of a chartered business jet at Jackson Hole Airport. The aircraft hit a snowbank instead of the runway, resulting in both the nose gear and nose cone being ripped off, the right wing partially separated from the aircraft and the left wing bent back. When the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred, Bullock was staying at the Soho Grand hotel, twelve blocks from the World Trade Center. She saw the attacks from her hotel bedroom window and went to a nearby hospital to offer help. As all phone lines in New York City were down, she spent the rest of the day using her Palm Pilot to send e-mails on behalf of patients wanting to contact their families.

Bullock has twice donated $1 million to the American Red Cross, first to its Liberty Disaster Relief Fund and four years later in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis.

In October 2004, Bullock won a multimillion dollar judgment against Benny Daneshjou, the builder of her Lake Austin Texas mansion; the jury ruled the house was uninhabitable. It has since been torn down and rebuilt, and her Porsche 911 Turbo replaced by a Toyota Prius. Bullock also owns a house on Tybee Island, Georgia, which is a few miles from Savannah, Georgia. After four years of preparation, Bullock's first restaurant, Bess, opened in November 2006 in Austin, Texas.

She has a scar in the corner of her left eye which she received as a child when she fell into a lake and cut her head on a rock.

On April 22, 2007, a woman was lying outside James and Bullock's Southern California home in Orange County. When James confronted the woman, she ran inside her 2004 silver Mercedes and tried to run him over 3 to 4 times. The woman is said to be an obsessed fan of Sandra Bullock. The woman, Marcia Diana Valentine, was arrested on investigation of assault with a deadly weapon. In May, Bullock won a three-year restraining order against the woman. Valentine pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated assault and stalking.

On April 18, 2008, while Bullock was in Massachusetts shooting the film The Proposal, she and her husband were in an SUV that was hit head on by a drunken driver. There were no injuries.

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