Who is Caryn Elaine Johnson?

Who is Caryn Elaine Johnson? The world knows her as Whoopi Goldberg she is an American actress, comedienne, and television host.

She is one of only thirteen persons who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards. In 1990, she became the second African American female, after Hattie McDaniel, to win an Academy Award for acting for her performance in the film Ghost. She has also won two Golden Globe Awards and two Saturn Awards.


Goldberg was born November 13, 1955 Caryn Elaine Johnson in New York City and raised in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, the daughter of Emma (née Harris), a nurse and teacher, and Robert James Johnson, a clergyman. Goldberg's mother was a "stern, strong, and wise woman" who raised her as a single mother after Goldberg's father had left the family. Her stage name was taken from whoopee cushion, which she initially used as her stage name; she stated that "If you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from." She chose the surname "Goldberg" after Jewish ancestors of hers who bore the surname, having said that "Goldberg's a part of my family somewhere." In 1991, she referred to herself as a "Jewish-Catholic girl from New York"; she has also stated that her mother is Jewish and referred to herself as a "Jewish-American Princess". A DNA test, broadcast in the 2006 PBS documentary African American Lives, traced most of her ancestry to the Papel and Bayote people of modern-day Guinea-Bissau. Her racial admixture test revealed her genetic makeup to be 92 percent sub-Saharan African and 8 percent European.

In an anecdote told by Nichelle Nichols in the documentary film Trekkies, a young Goldberg was watching Star Trek, and upon seeing Nichols' character Uhura, exclaimed, "Momma! There's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!" This spawned life-long fandom of Star Trek for Goldberg, who would eventually achieve a recurring guest-starring role in 1987's Star Trek: The Next Generation.


At age 18, during her marriage to 26-year-old Alvin Martin, Goldberg gave birth to their first and only child Alexandrea c.1973. After Goldberg's divorce from Martin, she moved to California and helped found the San Diego Repertory Company, where she used the stage name Whoopi Cushion. Before succeeding as an actress, she worked as a bank teller, a bricklayer, and a mortuary cosmetologist. Goldberg later went on to marry David Claessen, but they divorced after two years, in 1988. Whoopi later married Lyle Trachtenberg, but their marriage lasted only one year. In 2000, Whoopi broke up with her boyfriend of five years, Frank Langella.

Goldberg has three grandchildren through her daughter, Alexandrea Martin. The eldest, named Amarah Skye, born on November 13, 1989, shares Goldberg's birthday.

In 1993, Goldberg was briefly involved with Ted Danson, her co-star in Made in America. Danson was married at the time and caring for his wife, who had survived a stroke while giving birth in 1979. There was controversy following a comedy routine at a Friars' Club roast in which Danson performed in blackface. Goldberg wrote the script.

Goldberg was involved in controversy in the summer of 2004 when, at a fundraiser for John Kerry at Radio City Music Hall in New York, Goldberg made a sexual joke about President George W. Bush, by waving a bottle of wine, pointing toward her crotch and saying: "We should keep Bush where he belongs, and not in the White House." Slim-Fast, the biggest company in US health shake market, took exception to these comments made by Goldberg and dropped her from their current ad campaign.

Goldberg has received two Academy Award nominations, for The Color Purple and Ghost, winning for Ghost. She has received five Daytime Emmy nominations, winning one. She has received five (non-daytime) Emmy nominations. She has received three Golden Globe nominations, winning two. She won a Grammy Award in 1985 and a Tony Award as a producer of the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. She has won three People's Choice Awards. In 1999, she received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award for her continued work in supporting the gay and lesbian community. She has been nominated for five American Comedy Awards with two wins. In 2001, she won the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center.
Goldberg is one of few to win an Oscar, a Grammy, a Tony, and an Emmy. She has starred in over 150 films, and during a period in the 1990s, Whoopi was the highest-paid actress of all time. Her humanitarian efforts include working for Comic Relief, recently reuniting with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams for the 20th Anniversary of Comic Relief.
In February 2002, Goldberg sent her Oscar statuette from Ghost to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be cleaned and replated. During this time, the statuette was taken from its shipping container, and later retrieved by the shipping company, UPS. She is currently working on creating the Stanton Award, awarded to best comedic performance. more

Who is Kate "Katie" Noelle Holmes?

Who is Kate "Katie" Noelle Holmes ?is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Her movie roles have ranged from art house films such as The Ice Storm to thrillers such as Abandon to blockbusters such as Batman Begins.

In early 2005, Holmes began a highly publicized relationship with actor Tom Cruise, which drew attention due to the sixteen-year age difference between the two. In June, two months after they first met, Holmes and Cruise were engaged. Their relationship made Holmes the subject of international media attention, much of it negative, including speculation the relationship was a publicity stunt to promote the couple's films. Holmes, who was raised a Roman Catholic, joined the Church of Scientology shortly after the couple began dating. On April 18, 2006, Holmes gave birth to their daughter, Suri. On November 18, 2006, she and Cruise were married in Italy.



Holmes was born December 18, 1978 in Toledo, Ohio, the youngest in a family of five children (four daughters, one son) of Kathleen A. Stothers, a homemaker and a philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes, Sr. (born 1945), an attorney specializing in divorces. She lived in the Corey Woods section of Sylvania Township, Lucas County, in a brick 1862 Italianate-style home. Her siblings are Tamera (born c. 1968), Holly Ann (born c. 1970), Martin Joseph, Jr. (born 1970), who works as a lawyer in Ohio, and Nancy Kay (Blaylock), a teacher (born c. 1975).

Holmes, baptized a Roman Catholic, attended Christ the King Church and parochial schools in Toledo. Her high school was the all-female Notre Dame Academy, her mother's alma mater, where Katie was a 4.0 student. At St. John's Jesuit, a nearby all-male high school, she appeared in school musicals, playing a waiter in Hello, Dolly! and Lola in Damn Yankees. She scored 1310 out of 1600 on her SAT and was accepted to Columbia University (and attended for a summer session); her father wanted her to be a doctor. Holmes loved reading: "I never feel lonely in a bookstore", she said. A British writer profiling her in 2003 said "The way Holmes approached her unusual education was as American as apple pie: she went to cheerleading practice, got straight A grades, and made a pledge that she would remain a virgin until marriage." Holmes told her hometown paper The Blade that the three words best describing herself were "honest, determined, and imaginative."

At age fourteen she began classes at a modeling school in Toledo run by Margaret O'Brien, who took her to IMTA, the International Modeling and Talent Association Competition held in New York City in 1996. There she found an agent after performing a monologue from To Kill a Mockingbird. An audition tape was sent to the casting director for the 1997 film The Ice Storm, directed by Ang Lee. She was cast in the role of Libbets Casey, in the film which starred Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver. Ang Lee told The Blade, "Katie was cast because she had the perfect amount of innocence and worldliness that we needed for Libbets. I was really taken by her wide open eyes. She really is a beautiful girl but there is also a lot of intelligence there and it shows."


In January 1997, Holmes went to Los Angeles for pilot season, when producers cast and shoot new programs in the hopes of securing a spot on a network schedule. The Blade reported she was offered the lead in Buffy the Vampire Slayer but she turned it down. Columbia Tri-Star Television, producer of a new show created by screenwriter Kevin Williamson, asked her to come to Los Angeles to audition, but there was a conflict with her schedule. "I was doing my school play, Damn Yankees. And I was playing Lola. I even got to wear the feather boa. I thought, 'There is no way I'm not playing Lola to go audition for some network. I couldn't let my school down. We had already sold a lot of tickets. So I told Kevin and The WB, 'I'm sorry. I just can't meet with you this week. I've got other commitments.'"

The producers permitted her to audition on videotape. Holmes read for the part of Joey Potter, the tomboy best friend of the title character Dawson, on a videotape shot in her basement, her mother reading Dawson's lines. The Hollywood Reporter claimed the story of Holmes's audition "has become the stuff of legend" and "no one even thought that it was weird that one of the female leads would audition via Federal Express."

Holmes won the part. Paul Stupin, executive producer of the show, said his first reaction on seeing her audition tape was "That's Joey Potter!" Creator and executive producer Kevin Williamson said Holmes has a "unique combination of talent, beauty and skill that makes Hollywood come calling. But that's just the beginning. To meet her is to instantly fall under her spell." Williamson thought she had exactly the right look for Joey Potter. "She had those eyes, those eyes just stained with loneliness."


Weeks after her relationship with Chris Klein ended, Holmes began dating actor Tom Cruise. Their first public appearance together was on April 29, 2005, in Rome, Italy, at the David di Donatello Awards, the Italian equivalent of the Oscars. Her family expressed support, with her father stating, "We're very excited for Katie", and saying his daughter was "a very mature young lady with a good head on her shoulders. From all we have read and heard about [Cruise], he's a humanitarian and a real class act. From the perspective of a parent, we're very excited for both of them". Holmes's sister Tamara said, "They're both wonderful people."

On May 23, 2005, Cruise appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, jumping on Winfrey's couch and vociferously declaring his love for Holmes. He went backstage and pulled the embarrassed actress onto the program. Cruise proposed to Holmes in the early morning of June 17, 2005, atop Paris's Eiffel Tower; she accepted. At the press conference, attended by Holmes's mother, Cruise announced the news, declaring, "Today is a magnificent day for me. I'm engaged to a magnificent woman."

Back in Toledo, the news was greeted with skepticism. Even before Holmes' engagement, her hometown paper was already speculating about "what happens if our very own 'good ole Katie' morphs into 'Katie Holmes, the former actress now better known as Tom Cruise's third wife.'" Following the engagement, the Chicago Tribune sent a reporter to Toledo who found the citizens felt the biggest star from their city was not Holmes, but Jamie Farr, who played Corporal Maxwell Klinger on M*A*S*H. "I think he's bigger than Katie. He's so humble and he's so proud of his hometown—he name-drops it all the time. If it wasn't for Jamie, I don't think people would really know about Toledo", said a Toledo waitress. Others quoted by the newspaper were puzzled by her interest in Scientology. Farr subsequently wrote a letter to the newspaper declaring "I admire Katie Holmes. She is a wonderful, beautiful actress" and "I do not feel that Katie and I are in any form of competition in the city of Toledo."





On April 18, 2006, Holmes gave birth to a baby girl named Suri. It was said in the Vanity Fair article that Suri arrived exactly one year after Cruise and Holmes met, April 18, 2005. The Los Angeles Times summarized the written statement Cruise released on the birth as saying the name "is a word with origins in both Hebrew and Persian. In Hebrew, it means 'princess' and in Persian, 'red rose,' it was claimed in the release." Although some Hebrew linguists had never seen the word for "princess" spelled this way and its meaning, others said it was a Jewish, not Hebrew, derivation of "Sarah".

Until September 2006, Suri had not been seen in public, which led to tabloid stories questioning the existence of the child, contrasting Holmes and Cruise to other celebrity couples with newborns such as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Typical was the US Weekly cover story "BABY MYSTERY: Best friends' visits denied, baby photos cancelled, a wedding delayed, and Katie in seclusion."

The first photographs of the child appeared in the October 2006 issue of Vanity Fair, shot by Annie Leibovitz. In the accompanying story, Holmes said "we weren't trying to hide anything" and said she was bothered by the press coverage. "I do know what is being said in the press. This is my future. This is my family and I care so much about them. The stories are not okay. It eats away at me because it's just not okay." This issue of Vanity Fair became the publications second best selling issue of all time, selling more than 700,000 copies.

In an April 2006 interview with ABC News's Diane Sawyer, Cruise said he and Holmes were "just Scientologists" and that Suri would not be baptized Catholic.

On November 18, 2006, Holmes and Cruise were married at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, Italy, in a Scientology ceremony attended by many Hollywood stars. The actors' publicist said the couple had "officialized" their marriage in Los Angeles the day before the Italian ceremony.The day after the ceremony, the couple left for a honeymoon in the Maldives.

more

Who is Elizabeth Stamatina Fey

Who is Elizabeth Stamatina Fey? The world knows her as Tina Fey. She is an American writer, comedian, actress, and producer. She has won five Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a SAG Award. Fey is best known for her work on Mean Girls, Saturday Night Live (SNL), her impersonation of Alaskan Governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as well as her work on 30 Rock, a situation comedy loosely based on her experiences at Saturday Night Live.[1] On December 1, 2008, TV Guide reported that Fey was selected by Barbara Walters as one of America's top ten most fascinating people of 2008. Barbara Walters's special aired on ABC on December 4, 2008.


Fey became a writer on SNL in 1997. She was promoted to the position of head writer in 1999. She was added to the cast of SNL in 2000. After leaving SNL in 2006, Fey created her own television series called 30 Rock. In the series, she portrays Liz Lemon, the head writer of TGS with Tracy Jordan, a fictional sketch comedy series. In early 2008, she starred in the movie Baby Mama, alongside Amy Poehler.


Fey was born May 18, 1970 in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, the daughter of Zenobia "Jeanne" (née Xenakes), a brokerage employee, and Donald Fey, a university grant proposal-writer.[ Fey's father is of German and Scottish ancestry and her mother of Greek ancestry.

Fey was exposed to comedy early. She recalls:

“ I remember my parents sneaking me in to see Young Frankenstein. We would also watch Saturday Night Live, or Monty Python, or old Marx Brothers movies. My dad would let us stay up late to watch The Honeymooners. We were not allowed to watch The Flintstones though: my dad hated it because it ripped off The Honeymooners.

I actually have a very low level of Flintstones knowledge for someone my age. ”

She also grew up watching SCTV and includes Catherine O'Hara among her role models.

Fey attended Cardington Elementary School and Beverly Hills Middle School in Upper Darby. By middle school, she knew she was interested in comedy, even doing an independent-study project on the subject in eighth grade. She graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1988.



Fey is married to Jeff Richmond, a composer on Saturday Night Live. They met at Chicago's Second City and dated for seven years before marrying in a Greek Orthodox ceremony on June 3, 2001. They have a daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond, who was born on September 10, 2005, in New York City, where they reside.

Fey has a scar a few inches long on the left side of her chin and cheek. Responding to questions about its origin, Fey was quoted in the November 25, 2001, New York Times as saying: "It's a childhood injury that was kind of grim. And it kind of bums my parents out for me to talk about it". But in an interview with Fey and Richmond in the January 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, Richmond revealed the scar resulted from a slashing incident, which happened when she was five. Richmond said: "It was in, like, the front yard of her house, and somebody just came up, and she just thought somebody marked her with a pen." She has said she was reluctant to discuss the incident in part because "It's impossible to talk about it without somehow seemingly exploiting it."




After Fey graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in drama in 1992, she moved to Chicago, Illinois in order to take night classes at The Second City Once her Second City training began, she immersed herself in the "cult of improvisation," becoming, as she described it a decade later, "one of those athletes trying to get into the Olympics. It was all about blind focus. I was so sure that I was doing exactly what I’d been put on this Earth to do, and I would have done anything to make it onto that stage. Not because of SNL, but because I wanted to devote my life to improv. I would have been perfectly happy to stay at Second City forever."

By 1994, she was invited to join the cast of The Second City, where she performed in the Jeff Award-winning revue Paradigm Lost. Improvisation became an important influence on her initial understanding of what it means to be an actress, as she noted in an interview for The Believer in November 2003:

“ When I started, improv had the biggest impact on my acting. I studied the usual acting methods at college—Stanislavsky and whatnot. But none of it really clicked for me. My problem with the traditional acting method was that I never understood what you were supposed to be thinking about when you’re onstage. But at Second City, I learned that your focus should be entirely on your partner. You take what they’re giving you and use it to build a scene. That opened it up for me. Suddenly it all made sense. It’s about your partner. Not what you’re going to say, not finding the perfect mannerisms or tics for your character, not what you’re going to eat later. Improv helped to distract me from my usual stage bullshit and put my focus somewhere else so that I could stop acting. I guess that’s what method acting is supposed to accomplish anyway. It distracts you so that your body and emotions can work freely. Improv is just a version of method acting that works for me. ”

While in Chicago, she also made what she later described as an "amateurish" attempt at stand-up comedy. Fey is also a veteran of The ImprovOlympic.

Governor of Alaska and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is considered by some people to have a striking resemblance to Tina Fey, and in the immediate aftermath of John McCain's announcement of Palin as his running mate, speculation rose as to whether Fey might portray Palin in sketches on SNL. On the 34th season premiere episode, aired September 13, 2008, Fey returned to SNL in the role of Palin, alongside Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton. Their repartee included Clinton needling Palin about her "Tina Fey glasses." It quickly became NBC.com's most-watched viral video ever, with 5.7 million views by the following Wednesday. In an interview, SNL creator Lorne Michaels said "The whole world cast her in that role." Michaels said that she was unlikely to remain in the role for long. Palin's campaign said that Palin was amused, particularly because she had once dressed up as Tina Fey for Halloween, though Palin later said she had seen the sketch without hearing the audio. John McCain's top economic advisor Carly Fiorina called the sketch sexist. During the 2008 Emmy Awards, Fey said of the vice-presidential candidate, "I want to be done playing this lady November 5. So if anyone could help me be done playing this lady November 5, that would be good for me." In an interview with TV Guide, Fey reiterated her desire that her role as Palin will be temporary. "If she wins, I'm done," said Fey. "I can't do that for four years. And by 'I'm done,' I mean I'm leaving Earth."
On September 27, she reprised her role as Palin, parodying the CBS News interview with Katie Couric, who was played by Poehler. Portions of the sketch were direct quotes and gestures from interviews with Couric on September 24. On October 4, she played the role of Palin at the 2008 vice-presidential debate, with Jason Sudeikis playing Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden and Queen Latifah as moderator Gwen Ifill. SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels, referring to the 50% audience increase in the 34th season, told the New York Times, “I think the gods smiled on us with the Palin thing.” On October 18, 2008, Fey came face-to-face with Palin herself, when impersonating the vice presidential candidate in a fake news conference on SNL. Later on Late Night with Conan O'Brien she told of how Palin actually offerred the services of her daughter Bristol to babysit her daughter Alice if she could not find one.
New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley wrote that the McCain campaign apparently believes that Fey's comedy sketches have "undermined Palin's plausibility" as a candidate qualified to be Vice President, and Stanley speculated that the candidate's appearance on SNL was calculated to "disarm" Fey.
On the Thursday, October 23 episode of Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday, Fey as Palin appeared alongside John McCain (played by Darrell Hammond), as President George W. Bush (played by Will Ferrell) gave his endorsement to the pair.
On Saturday, November 1, Fey appeared with Senator McCain himself in a skit that mocked the McCain campaign's lack of funds. The skit featured McCain and Fey on the set of QVC, just a few days after Barack Obama bought time on the major television networks. Items advertised during the skit included an "Ayers Freshener," which Fey thought would remind people of Bill Ayers, a set of McCain-brand pork knives, a set of 10 white "Town Hall Debate plates," commemorating the 10 town hall meetings that never happened, McCain "Fine Gold Jewelry" (alluding to the McCain-Feingold Act on Campaign Finance Reform) presented by Cindy McCain, as part of the Washington Outsider Jewelery Extravaganza, "Palin in 2012" t-shirts, and "limited-edition Joe Action Figures," including Joe the Plumber, Joe Six Pack, and a talking Joe Biden.[citation needed]
On November 5, 2008, Fey told reporters she was retiring her impersonation of Sarah Palin, in order to focus on 30 Rock.
more