Megumi: Japanese actress and gravure idol

Japanese actress, singer and gravure idol Megumi Furuya (Furuya Megumi), popular by her stage name MEGUMI was born on September 25, 1981 in Matsue, Shimane. She was raised in Kurashiki, Okayama, and was educated at the all-girls school Kurashiki Suisho Senior High School, from where she dropped out.

Megumi is affiliated with Suns Entertainment. She has appeared in a number of variety shows on Japanese TV, notably for Nippon TV, Setonaikai Broadcasting Corporation, Fuji TV, Kansai Telecasting Corporation, and TV Asahi. Her Radio performances were on FM-FUJI, and on Nippon Broadcasting System, in addition to being the much-sought-after star of commercials such as for Asahi Breweries (2007), Japan Racing Association (2006), Nestle Japan Nescafe Santa Marta, Okayama Prefecture police (Improvement of traffic manners campaign), Rohto Pharmaceutical Co, Sapporo Brewery. Her films include Hero (Sakurako Kōno) and SS (Girako). Besides she has produced numerous photo albums, which were all very popular.

Drew Barrymore and her mirror reflection

Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen spotted in Toronto

Rachel McAdams, originally uploaded by hithere4trouble.

Gossip is afloat over the internet that the Canadian actress Rachel McAdams, 31, who starred in the films Sherlock Holmes and Wedding Crashers, is being courted by Michael Sheen, 41, known for playing Tony Blair in several dramas by Peter Morgan.

Sheen has an 11-year-old daughter, Lily, by the British actress Kate Beckinsale, who deserted him for Len Wiseman, the director of Underworld.

The buzz is McAdams and Sheen were spotted in Toronto, where the pair apparently hoped would be a secret rendezvous. The Welshman Michael Sheen has been promoting his new film ‘Beautiful Boy’.

Israeli model and actress Esti Ginzburg

Israeli model and actress Esti Ginzburg, 20, (born Esther Ginzburg aka Esti Ginsberg or Esti Ginsborg) started modeling at the age of eight appearing in an advertisement for milk and at the age of 14 she joined the modeling agency Elite Models, Israel.

Currently residing in her hometown Tel Aviv in Israel, the 20-year-old Esti Ginzburg is naturally endowed for modeling with a height of 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 meter), blonde hair and hazel eyes with body measurements of 33-25-37 (83-64-94 in cm) and dress size 6. She is associated with modeling agencies Select Model Management, IMG Models (New York) and Elite Models (Israel).

In 2006 signing a two-year contact with the Israeli firm Fox, Esti Ginzburg replaced their cover model Yael Bar Zohar and was featured on the February/March 2007 cover of French ELLE.

Esti Ginzburg has also modeled for reputed international brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Burberry, FCUK, Pull and Bear, Castro, and she caught international attention by being featured in the 2009 and 2010 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues. Ginzburg is expected to make her debut as an actress in 2010 in Joel Schumacher’s film Twelve.

Spanish Actress Marta Torné

Spanish actress and presenter Marta Torné, born Torné Marta Gracia on 10 March 1978 in Barcelona, Spain, joined a media production company as a receptionist, after she finished C.O.U., and when her work was appreciated by everyone, she decoded to study a higher level training cycle of audiovisual production, radio shows and other related topics. Later she worked for various Radio stations such as D9R, Nou Barris, Molins de Rei Estel Radio, FlaixFM, etc.

She concentrated on the work for the small screen after she was chosen to star in one of the biggest hits on Spanish television, El Internado in Antena 3. She was also featured on the cover of FHM magazine in its Spanish edition of September 2004.

Keisha Castle-Hughes at TIFF

Keisha Castle-Hughes @ TIFF, originally uploaded by munzz.

Wendy Hiller as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion

Wendy Hiller in Pygmalion, originally uploaded by oscarnow2009.

Ingrid Bergman in Anastasia

Ingrid Bergman in Anastasia, originally uploaded by oscarnow2009.

Teresa Wright in 'The Pride of the Yankees'

Teresa Wright in The Pride of the Yankees, originally uploaded by oscarnow2009.

Teresa Wright has a unique distinction of receiving an Oscar nomination for each of her first three films, a feat no other actor has ever duplicated. Wright was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her debut in The Little Foxes (1941), followed by the Best Actress nomination for The Pride of the Yankees, in which she played opposite Gary Cooper, and the same year she won Best Supporting Actress as the daughter-in-law of Greer Garson's character in Mrs. Miniver.

According to The Guardian (UK), the New York-born Teresa Wright's arrival in Hollywood caused a stir, not because of her star power but because of an unprecedented clause Samuel Goldwyn agreed to write into her contract. The particular clause in the acting contract read, “The aforementioned Teresa Wright shall not be required to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in the water. Neither may she be photographed running on the beach with her hair flying in the wind. Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: In shorts, playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal; attired in firecrackers and holding skyrockets for the Fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving; wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf; assuming an athletic stance while pretending to hit something with a bow and arrow.”

Irene Dunne in the film 'I Remember Mama'

Irene Dunne in I Remember Mama, originally uploaded by oscarnow2009.

The film ‘I Remember Mama’ (1948) won American film actress and singer of the 1930s and 1940s Irene Dunne (1898-1990) a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, the other for films being Cimarron (1931), Theodora Goes Wild (1936), The Awful Truth (1937) and Love Affair (1939).

Hope Lange in the film 'Peyton Place'

Hope Lange in Peyton Place, originally uploaded by oscarnow2009.

Hope Lange (1933-2003), the American stage, film and television actress of years began working in television in the 1950s with appearances on Kraft Television Theatre, which drew the attention of a Hollywood producer. She came to prominence with her first film “Bus Stop” along with Marilyn Monroe and Don Murray, whom she married on April 14, 1956.

Hope Lange received favorable reviews for her role in the Bus Stop and she could sign up a major role in the then-risqué 1957 film Peyton Place, for which she received a nomination for a Golden Globe Award and another for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Peyton Place was the second-highest grossing film of 1958, despite poor initial box office receipts. But a real-life tragedy boosted its fortunes. On April 4, 1958, actress Lana Turner's daughter Cheryl killed her mother's abusive lover and mobster Johnny Stompanato, and she was placed in the juvenile prison. The press coverage of investigations boosted the ticket sales helping the film gross $25,600,000 in USA. A coroner's inquest ruled the murder justifiable homicide, and the district attorney chose not to charge Cheryl with the crime, although he declared her a ward of the state and placed her in the custody of her grandmother.

Lila Kedrova and Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek

Lila Kedrova & Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, originally uploaded by oscarnow2009.

Lila Kedrova (1918-2000), the Russian-born French actress mostly acted in French films and her first English film appearance was in 1964 as Mme Hortense in the film ‘Zorba the Greek’, for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. On February 16, 2000), at the age of 81 Lila Kedrova died of pneumonia, after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, at her summer home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.

British actress Audrey Hepburn

British actress and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929 - 20 January 1993), born in Ixelles, Belgium, spent her childhood mainly in the Netherlands. She moved to London in 1948, where worked as a photographer's model.

Before starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi, Hepburn acted in a few European films. Then Hepburn played the lead female role in 'Roman Holiday' (1953) winning an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. Also she won BAFTA Awards for her performances in The Nun's Story (1959) and Charade (1963), and received Academy Award nominations for Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Wait Until Dark (1967).

She starred as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964), becoming only the third actor to receive $1,000,000 for acting in a film. In 1989 she made her last film appearance in Steven Spielberg's ‘Always’. She died of cancer at her home in Switzerland at the age of 63.

Before death, Hepburn became one of the most successful film actresses in the world, and in 1999 she was ranked as the third greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.

Karen Gillan, Doctor Who's companion

Karen Gillan new DW companion, originally uploaded by tonto_1965.

The Scottish actress Karen Gillan, 22, best known for her portrayal of Amy Pond in the British science fiction series Doctor Who, was born and raised in Inverness, Scotland. At aged 16, she decided to pursue her acting career further, studying acting at Edinburgh's Telford College and later at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts drama school in London on the BA (Hons) Acting degree course. Gillan has taken part in numerous modelling events including 2007's London Fashion Week for designer Allegra Hicks' autumn/winter fashion show.

She was cast for the role of the Eleventh Doctor's first companion, Amy Pond, on the British sci-fi series Doctor Who in early 2009. She had previously appeared in the episode ‘The Fires of Pompeii’ in a minor role.

Freida Pinto on ELLE Magazine Cover

Sophia Loren plays her own mother on TV

n1111042287_286983_278, originally uploaded by VintageBelle2.

The 75-yeaer-old Italian film star, who made it big in Hollywood and who got the title ‘the timeless beauty’ in the references to her by most film journalists, Sophia Loren is now playing her own mother in a television biopic about her life.

According to news reports, over six million Italians constituting about 26 per cent audience share viewed the first installment of the biopic ‘La Mia Casa E Piena di Specchi’ (My House Is Full of Mirrors), in which Loren plays her mother who is a tough taskmaster mum bent upon ensuring stardom for the daughter. The series based on a book by Loren's sister Maria Scicolone covers Loren's career beginning with her role as an extra in ‘Quo Vadis’ (1950). Margareth Made, 28, plays the young Loren. The biopic also tells the story of Loren's meeting with producer Carlo Ponti, who directed her Italian film 'Two Women'. In 1966 she married Ponti, who died in 2007.

She presented the biopic at a news conference and was saying, "Things stay inside you, you never forget and you can't help it…My life was a wonderful fairytale (but also) a story of war, hunger and begging, because that's what my mother did for us: she fought to give her daughters a name and a future that would not be poor."

In her career spanning over five decades Loren played roles opposite such great actors as Clark Gable, Peter Sellers, John Wayne and Frank Sinatra and won the Best Actress Academy Award Oscar for her performance in La Ciociara (Running Away) in 1962.

Greta Garbo, the most beautiful woman ever lived

Greta Garbo, (18 September 1905 - 15 April 1990), a Swedish actress during Hollywood's silent film period and part of its Golden Age, is regarded as one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Hollywood studios. Garbo received a 1954 Honorary Academy Award ‘for her unforgettable screen performances. In 1999 she was ranked as the fifth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.

Garbo was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress for Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930), Camille (1937) and Ninotchka (1939). According to Bette Davis, “Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft. I cannot analyse this woman's acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera.”

Garbo was frequently caricatured in the animated cartoons of her times, including Warner Brothers' Porky's Road Race, Speaking of the Weather and Hollywood Steps Out, and was caricatured in Disney's Mickey's Gala Premiere.

She was voted Best Silent Actress of the Century in 1950, and was once designated as the most beautiful woman who ever lived by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Swedish Actress Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo ~ 1928, originally uploaded by A.Gimli.

BAFTA 2010: Jaime Winstone

2010_02-bafta-524, originally uploaded by 601TV.

British actress Jaime Winstone is best known for playing Becky in Kidulthood (2006), Kelly in the E4 horror series Dead Set, Bullet Boy (2004), Kidulthood (2006) and Donkey Punch (2008).

Actress Anna Kendrick

13_anna_kendrick, originally uploaded by EdwardAnthonyMasenCullen.

The 24-year-old American film and stage actress Anna Kendrick is an best known for the roles of Natalie Keener in the 2009 film Up in the Air, and Jessica Stanley in the Twilight Saga film series. She is also known for her other work in the films Camp and Rocket Science and the Broadway musical High Society. Kendrick was nominated for Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.