james carrey was born on January 17th, 1962 in New Market, Ontario, Canada, to his parents Percy (jazz musician, accountant) and Kathleen. Growing up was hard for Jim since his family was poor. And it was just these types of conditions that propelled this young star to get a job and start making money to help out. While in his teens, jim carrey had to take up work as a janitor when his father lost his job and jim carrey had to juggle both work and school. Eventually high school lost out and Jim dropped it. During these rough times, Jim used his stellar blend of humor to cope with life and to shield his anger from the world. jim carrey was a loner for most of his early life and jim carrey claims that jim carrey didn’t have any friends because jim carrey didn’t want any. But once jim carrey realized that this “gift” was marketable, and a good way to make some easy dough…jim carrey tried the comedy clubs.

At 15, jim carrey had enough free time to perform at Yuk Yuk’s, a famous Toronto comedy club where we began to perfect his “art.” After doing quite well there, jim carrey moved to L.A. and tried his hand at the comedy circuit there. It had paid off, and jim carrey gained a good amount of popularity. And once jim carrey was “discovered” by Rodney Dangerfield, jim carrey was put on tour.

Jim got his big break in 1990 when jim carrey got casted as the only white guy in the all African-American comedy show, “In Living Color.” On this show, Jim was able to display to the public his wide range of impressions and characters. Of his characters, “Fire Marshal Bill” gained the most controversy (critics claimed that it encouraged children to play with fire). Resulting from his popularity and television success, jim carrey was given the chance to make a real movie. It was 1994. The Year of Jim. First came Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, a surprise hit that showcased Carrey’s now signature wacky style. Then came what seemed to be a tailor-made role for Jim, in The Mask. Next, and my personal favorite, jim carrey starred with Jeff Danials in th wackiest of all comedies, Dumb and Dumber. There jim carrey met actress and now ex-wife, Lauren Holly. Since that formidable year, (might we say that)..Jim has slowed down a bit. His films have been coming out less often, however bringing with it the same if not larger caliber performances. Those that followed were Batman Returns (as the Riddler), The Cable Guy, Liar Liar, and his latest yet…The Truman Show (where we see that Jim is not only a funny face).

among the more improbable success stories in the history of Hollywood is the meteoric rise to fame of actor jim carrey, who transformed himself from B-grade wannabe to A-list leading man in the span of just one remarkable year. With only the spottiest of cinematic oeuvres and national name recognition equivalent to that of your average North Dakota congressperson, Carrey descended on the box office like a ton of bricks in February 1994 as the title character of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, a low-rent Miami snoop whose butt-soliloquizing shenanigans busted pre-adolescent guts to the unanticipated tune of $72 million. As the limber-limbed actor himself later put it, “Until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.” And how. By the end of the year, Carrey had logged two more smash hits, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber, each of which easily exceeded the $100 million mark in domestic grosses. His mind-blowing breakthrough was confirmed in 1995 when Sony coughed up $20 million — at the time the largest straight sum ever paid any actor for one movie — to secure his services for The Cable Guy.

Filmography
All In Good Taste
Copper Mountain
Rubberface
Club Med
The Sex and Violence Family Hour(TV)
“The Duck Factory″(TV Series)
Finders Keepers
Once Bitten
Peggy Sue got Married
The Dead Pool
Pink Caddilac
Earth Girls are Easy
Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All(TV)
“In Living Color”(TV Series)
High Strung (Uncredited)
Jim Carrey’s Unnatural Act (HBO special)
Doing Time on Maple Drive
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
The Mask
Dumb & Dumber
Batman Forever
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
The Cable Guy
Liar Liar
The Truman Show
Man on the Moon
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
The Incredible Mr. Limpet

John Travolta Born on February 18, 1954, in Englewood, New Jersey, of Italian-Ir ish descent. Highly popular young star of American TV and movies of the late 70’s and later a likable lead of the 90’s. A high school dropout at 16, he began his acting career in summer stock in New Jersey. After a period of training in acting and dancing he began doing commercials and off-Broadway. He moved to Hollywood, where he got occasional small roles on TV, then joined the national touring company of “Grease”, eventually making the Broadway casts of “Grease” and the Andrews Sisters’ musical “Over Here!”. He got his big break in 1975 when he joined the cast of the TV series “Welcome Back, Kotter”, in the role of dimwitted but lovable Vinnie Barbarino. Although his role in the series was secondary, he immediately attracted an enthusiastic following and soon became one of television’s top stars. Film assignments quickly followed. An appealing young man with a dazzling grin, luminous blue eyes, and a characteristic cleft chin, he extended his popularity to the big screen with a convincing performance in the role of Tony Manero, king of the Brooklyn disco scene, in the film Saturday Night Fever (1977) and enjoyed another success with the screen version of Grease (1978), and with Urban Cowboy (1980), which helped popularize Western wear in the early 80’s. During this period, he also released a few hit records, having done all his own singing in Grease. Born the youngest of six children to tire salesman and former semiprofessional football player Salvatore Travolta and high school drama teacher Helen Travolta, John was a late-in-life baby, and therefore a miracle according to his Roman Catholic parents: his upbringing was appropriately pampered and permissive. Encouraged to yield to creative whims, the Travolta offspring staged nightly shows in the basement of their suburban New Jersey home, where their kindly father had constructed a theatre for their amusement. This nurturing childhood naturally led to thoughts of a life onstage, and by the age of twelve, little Johnny had already joined an actors workshop in his hometown of Englewood. Soon he was appearing in local musicals and dinner-theatre engagements and indulging his natural inclination to groove by taking tap lessons from Gene Kelly’s (lesser-known) brother Fred.

Travolta came away from the latter with something equally significant, his first major romantic relationship, with Diana Hyland, the older (by eighteen years) actress who played his mother in the movie. One year later, in 1977, Travolta held his lover in his arms as she died of cancer. (Travolta’s mother succumbed to the disease within two years of Hyland; it was in the wake of her death that he first turned to the Church of Scientology seeking solace.) The very bad year ended on a happy note, though, when the release of John Badham’s box-office smash Saturday Night Fever, in which Travolta played cocky Brooklynite disco king Tony Manero, birthed an honest-to-God John Travolta craze: before you could say “Stayin’ Alive,” three-piece polyester suits, gold chains, and duck-butt haircuts were making astonishing inroads into the fashion sensibility of an entire nation. (Tony’s original white get-up recently fetched a record-setting $145,500 at a Christie’s auction, to give you an idea of this guy’s cultural impact.)

The touchstone of an era, Saturday Night Fever grossed over $350 million and paved the way to the promised land for its disco-dancing star. Travolta followed up his Oscar-nominated performance in the movie with lead roles in the film version of the musical Grease (as a slick, singing greaser), and in Urban Cowboy (as a macho honky-tonk-patronizing Texan). He seemed destined to symbolize the pop-culture landscape, regardless of role: his Tony Manero ignited the disco fad of the late seventies; his Danny launched a revival of fifties music and fashion; his Buford “Bud” Davis made mechanical bull-riding a nationwide fad of embarrassing proportions. Iconic status aside, Travolta’s career was nonetheless headed for a major and inevitable derailment: the late seventies and most of the next decade dished up a seemingly endless string of box-office bummers (witness Moment to Moment, Two of a Kind, Perfect, and The Experts) and, for various reasons, he gave the thumbs-down to leads in Days of Heaven, American Gigolo, and An Officer and a Gentleman, plum roles greedily snatched up by Richard Gere. By the mid-eighties, Travolta was dodging the slings and arrows of outrageously bad fortune: if not persona non grata around Hollywood, he was certainly yesterday’s news, and as yesterday’s news he endured ugly tabloid rumors that he was gay, bisexual, fat, and hopelessly under the sway of a mind-controlling cult–the cult being the mysterious and misunderstood Church of Scientology.

Yet Travolta somehow preserved his innate cool through all his trials. Even during the darkest hours of his relegation to icon hell, his lavish lifestyle–complete with a twenty-bedroom waterfront Maine chateau, the French provincial in Florida, the pads in Carmel, Santa Barbara, and Hollywood, his stable of luxury automobiles, and the three jets he pilots himself–remained intact, for a number of reasons. Reason number one: Travolta had secured a percentage of the profits from the Saturday Night Fever and Grease soundtracks (which sold in excess of 19-million copies). Reason number two: not all of the doltish movies in which he starred during the dark years were flops (Look Who’s Talking, and to a lesser extent its two equally inane sequels, were considered box-office winners). Reason number three: Travolta always maintained a winning attitude about his losing streak: “I’ve always thought that as long as I did the right things and had the right intentions, everything would fall into place.”

Travolta’s home life finally fell into place when he wed actress Kelly Preston in 1992; their son Jett arrived the following year. With the life-ordering support of family and his galvanizing faith in Scientology in place, career lightning up and struck a second time, in the form of Pulp Fiction. Just like that, Travolta once again topped every director’s A-list. Not only did he resuscitate a basically flat-lined career with his winning portrayal of the paunchy, ponytailed Vincent, but he has thus far managed to keep hurtling forward at a dizzying pace, with roles as a loan shark-cum-film producer in Get Shorty, as a villainous bastard in director John Woo’s Broken Arrow, and as a mechanic turned genius in Phenomenon. After the success of Get Shorty, everyone’s favorite Comeback Kid landed a $17-million contract to headline Roman Polanski’s The Double, but “creative differences” led to Travolta’s swift exodus. Production ground to a halt (despite the fact that Travolta’s reins were handed over to the capable Steve Martin, co-star Isabelle Adjani apparently developed her own case of cold feet) and Travolta was subsequently slapped with a breach-of-contract suit he countersued for breach of contract, fraud, and interference. Not that Travolta doesn’t have plenty of work to fill the void: apart from starring roles in Michael, Face/Off, and the upcoming Mad City, he inherited (from Tom Hanks) the role of a U.S. president whose libido runs amok, in Universal’s adaptation of Primary Colors, the best-selling satire of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Johnny’s life began in Owensboro, Kentucky on June 9, 1963. His parents moved the family to Miramar, Florida when he was very young. When he was twelve, his mother bought him a guitar which became his obsession. Johnny decided to drop out of school at age 16 to concentrate on his music career. He played guitar for a group called The Kids who opened for several prominent acts including Iggy Pop. He and his band moved to Los Angeles with high hopes of making it big. He was married at age 20 to makeup artist, Lori Allison. His career as a musician failed to skyrocket and he resorted to selling pens over the phone to make ends meet. A divorce soon followed. But during those years Johnny got a lucky break, Lori had introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage. Although at first they did not like each other, they became good friends. Nicolas convinced him to try acting and he signed on with Cage’s agent. His first audition was for a part in Wes Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. Mr. Craven asked his daughter who she thought should get the part of Glen and she picked Johnny. Although not an illustrious beginning (being eaten by a bed in the movie), Johnny’s movie career was launched. After a couple of other movies and no more offers, Johnny was convinced by his agent to take a role on the TV show “21 Jump Street”. Since money and offers weren’t rolling in, and he felt the show would last only a short time, he accepted. The show became popular with teens and the Fox TV executives began to push Johnny as a teen idol. Much to his chagrin, he became the premiere male teen idol, the ultimate symbol of cool, and the TV show dragged on for four years. He spoofed his teen idol role in his next movie, called “Cry Baby”, and started to change his cutesy image for one of a serious actor. With a series of roles as odd characters, Johnny gained respect from Hollywood types and critics alike as an exceptional actor. In 1991, Johnny was awarded the Star of Tomorrow Award at the SHOWEST convention in Las Vegas. He has been nominated for three Gloden Globe Awards for his work in “Edward Scissorhands”, “Benny and Joon” and “Ed Wood”.

Johnny became a tabloid darling early in his career probably because of his off screen lifestyle. He developed a bad boy image conceived by the press after being involved in altercations and displaying an attitude which was conceived as devil-may-care. The tabloids became obsessed with his love life as he became involved with a number of female celebrities. The most high profile of which was his engagement to actress Winona Ryder and their on and off relationship which spanned four years amid much tabloid speculation. A year after their final break up, he met Kate Moss at the Cafe Tabac in New York City in 1994. Kate and Johnny had an on/off relationship until sometime in 1998 when Johnny began to date Vanessa Paradis. He has also had several brushes with the law including the infamous trashing of a room at the Hotel Mark in New York City. Amazingly, the press went into a frenzy over such an insignificant occurrence again demonstrating their fascination with him. The New York Post even put Johnny on their cover the next day instead of a photo from the invasion of Grenada. This episode, however, seems to have had no adverse effect on his career or his relationship with Ms. Moss who was present during this unfortunate episode.

Johnny has remained very interested in music and purchased a club, The Viper Room, in Los Angeles as a haven for playing his music. He has numerous friends in the music business and has a band called “P” which occasionally plays at the Viper Room. “P” released their first album in November, 1995. In November of 1996, Johnny reach another milestone in his career. He finished filming his directorial debut, “The Brave″. The movie is about a man who sells himself for a snuff film in order to earn money for his destitute family. Johnny’s friend, Marlon Brando, agreed to do a small part for the film. The film was selected for competition at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. Johnny became the co-owner in January 1999, with Mick Hucknall and Sean Penn, of a French restaurant/bar called the Man Ray which is a roomy, double-decker bar and restaurant on the Rue Marbeuf, halfway down the Champs Elysées.

Johnny Depp’s parents divorced when he was 15. “I don’t even have a mental picture of the houses we lived in because there were so many,” he told Cosmopolitan. “I was bored with high school, so I dropped out,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Puberty was very vague. I literally locked myself in a room and played guitar,” he related to Cosmopolitan. He fell so much under the spell of Edward Scissorhands co-star Winona Ryder that they were engaged from 1990 to 1993. In 1994, he trashed a $1,200-a-night hotel room in New York City and was arrested on a criminal mischief charge. “I know that I have demons ,” he told Vanity Fair. “He’s the kind of guy that would be really sweet to a girl and bring her flowers,” says actress and buddy Traci Lords, “but still take a pee in the alley .” According to People Magazine, Johnny regularly cuts his own arms to mark important events in his life. “I’m sounding like John Denver or something,” he told Vanity Fair, “but I look forward to having a kind of peace of mind. I know that we all get there eventually.”

Young actor, Jake Gyllenhaal has already been recognized for his talent in the early stages of his career (“October Sky”) and will continue to impress audiences with several powerful performances in the year to come. This summer, Jake stars in the Walt Disney romantic comedy, “The Bubble Boy.” In the film, he plays a young man who was born without an immune system and is forced to live in a bubble to ensure his survival. The film is the story of his adventure outside the confines of his bubble as he goes after the woman he loves before she marries the wrong man. “The Bubble Boy.” also stars Swoosie Kurtz and Marley Shelton and is directed by Blair Hayes. The Touchstone film is slated for an August 24th release. The promotional posters are expected to start showing up around the weekend of July 4th.

Also upcoming, Jake stars as the title character in the fantasy thriller “Donnie Darko.” This unique project combines elements of mystical fantasy and science fiction with teenage romance. The film, directed by first-time director Richard Kelly, co-stars Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone, and Noah Wyle. The independent film is being produced by Pandora and Barrymore’s Flower Films and was screened in competition at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Jake will play the lead in″The Good Girl” opposite Jennifer Aniston. It is the story of a married woman in a small Texas town who has an affair with a troubled young man who thinks he is Holden Caulfield. The film will be directed by Miguel Areta, and John C. Reilly, Zooey Deschanel, and Catherine O′ Hara will also star in the film.

Jake will also appear in another Disney film, “Baby′s In Black.” The film is the story of a family dealing with the death of a child. Jake will portray the fiancé of the daughter that was lost. The touching film also stars Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon. Brad Silberling will direct. Jake’s additional upcoming projects include a small yet memorable role in Good Machines′ “Untitled Nicole Hollofcener” project, a comedy starring Catherine Keener and Brenda Blethyn.

He will also be seen in “Highway,” a story of self-discovery in which he stars opposite Jared Leto and Selma Blair as a pair of best friends who travel to Seattle after Kurt Cobain′s death to escape their dreary lives in Las Vegas. Jake is best known for his heartwarming performance in the Universal film, “October Sky” directed by Joe Johnston. The film tells the triumphant story of Homer Hickman, Jr. (Jake), a gifted high school student in rural West Virginia, who seemed destined to repeat his father’s harsh life in the coal mines until he turned his attention upward to the skies. The film also starred Chris Owen, William Lee Scott, Chad Lindberg and Laura Dern. Jake’s previous credits include the films “Josh and S.A.M.” and “Dangerous Woman″ with Debra Winger. He also played Billy Crystal’s son in the hit film “City Slickers″ and a Robin Williams′ son in the highly acclaimed “Bop Gun″ episode of the television series “Homicide.” During his high school career at Harvard Westlake School, he was an active participant in both the theater and choral programs. Jake’s currently resides in Los Angeles.

Filmography
Title Year Character Name
Baby′s in Black 2002 Joe Nast
The Good Girl 2002
Bubble Boy 2001 Jimmy Livingston
Donnie Darko 2001 Donnie Darko
High Way 2000 Pilot Kelson
October Sky 1999 Homer Hickam
Homegrown 1998 Blue Kahan
“Homicide: Life on the Street” 1993 Matt Ellison
Josh and S.A.M. 1993 Leon
A Dangerous Woman 1993 Edward
City Slickers 1991 Danny Robbins

With a talent as large as his girth, John Goodman proved himself both a distinguished character actor and engaging leading man. A native of St. Louis, MO, Goodman went to Southwestern Missouri State University on a football scholarship, but an injury compelled him to seek out a less strenuous major. He chose the university Drama Department, attending classes with such stars-to-be as Tess Harper and Kathleen Turner. Moving to New York in 1975, he supported himself by performing in children’s and dinner theater, appearing in television commercials, and working as a bouncer.

Goodman made his off-Broadway debut in a 1978 staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and, a year later, graduated to Broadway in Loose Ends. His best Broadway showing was as the drunken, brutish Pap in Big River, Roger Miller’s 1985 musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn. Goodman has occasionally played out and out villains or louts (The Big Easy, Barton Fink), but his essential likeability endeared him to audiences even when his onscreen behavior was at its least sympathetic. He contributed topnotch supporting appearances to such films as Everybody’s All-American (1988), Sea of Love (1989), Stella (1989), and Arachnophobia (1990), and starred in such films as King Ralph (1991), The Babe (1992, as Babe Ruth), Born Yesterday (1993), and The Flintstones (1994, as Fred Flintstone). Goodman did some of his best work in Matinee (1992), in which he starred as William Castle-esque horror flick entrepreneur Lawrence Woolsey, and topped himself in The Big Lebowski (1998), playing a quirky security-store owner. He was seen the following year with Nicolas Cage and Ving Rhames in Martin Scorsese’s Bringing out the Dead as an ambulance driver.

Between 1988 and 1996, Goodman appeared as blue-collar patriarch Dan Conner on the hit TV sitcom Roseanne, a role that earned him four Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe award; his additional TV credits included two 1995 made-for-cable movies: the title role in Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long and Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire, for which he earned another Emmy nomination. Announcing that the 1996-1997 season of Roseanne would be his last, Goodman limited himself to infrequent appearances on the series, his absences explained away as a by-product of a heart attack suffered by his character at the end of the previous season.

After making his 10th appearance on Saturday Night Live (2000), Goodman could be seen playing a red-faced bible salesman in director Joel Coen’s award winning O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), and participated in Garry Shandling’s film debut What Planet Are You From? (2000). He could be spotted playing an Oklahoma cop in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000), while Coyote Ugly (2000) and Storytelling (2001) found Goodman stepping back into the role of over-protective father. Interestingly enough, he donned hippie-gear to play a goth-chick’s Leelee Sobieski dad in 2001’s My First Mister.

Though Goodman’s status as an amiable big guy was well established by the early 2000’s, he didn’t actually appear on-screen for two of his most beloved roles. In The Emperor’s New Groove (2000), Goodman lent his vocal talents for the part of Pacha, a poor farmer who taught a spoiled prince (David Spade) some valuable lessons about life, love, and the meaning of societal standing. Any film-going youngster will recognize Goodman’s voice as Monsters, Inc.’s kind-hearted Sully, the furry blue monster who risked life and limb to return a little girl to her home; and who other than Goodman would have been appropriate to voice the part of Baloo, The Jungle Book 2’s (2003) freewheeling bear?

2001’s ill received One Night at McCool’s features Goodman as one of three men lusting after Liv Tyler’s character, while 2002’s Dirty Deeds took John to Australia, where he played an American mafia-goon thoroughly ill suited to the intricacies of culture down under. Though 2003’s Masked and Anonymous was skewered by fans and critics alike, it did give Goodman the chance to work with industry bigwigs Jessica Lange, Jeff Bridges, Penélope Cruz, and legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. In 2004, Goodman is slated to star along with Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth in Beyond the Sea.