Biography | Artist Actors Biography

Malinda Gayle “Mindy” McCready (born November 30, 1975 in Fort Myers, Florida) is an American country music artist.

Mindy McCready Biography

McCready was born and raised in southern Florida. She began singing in church at age 3, and began seven years of formal opera training at age 9. She graduated from high school with honors in 1992 at the age of 16, with the intention of beginning an early musical career.

When she was 18, she moved to Nashville, where she was signed by BNA Records (a label of Sony BMG Music Entertainment). Her debut album, Ten Thousand Angels, was released on April 30, 1996, and was certified gold six months later. The album produced her two biggest hits, “Ten Thousand Angels” and “Guys Do It All The Time”. McCready also appears with Lorrie Morgan, Sara Evans, and Martina McBride on BNA’s Girl’s Night Out. McCready’s following two solo albums, If I Don’t Stay The Night and I’m Not So Tough, sold poorly and she was dropped by BNA.

In April of 2000, she was signed by Capitol Records. She released a self-titled album with Capitol in 2002 to disappointing sales, and was dropped by Capitol later that year.

McCready was once engaged to actor Dean Cain.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindy_McCready

Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981 in New York City) is an American celebrity known from her television shows and her partying ways. She is an American heiress of the Hilton Hotel fortune, a socialite, model, singer, and actress. She is commonly described as a “celebutante,” a portmanteau of “celebrity” and “debutante”; in other words, “famous for being famous”.

Celebrity

Hilton and her sister, Nicky, are known for their jet-set lifestyles, though Paris has more readily sought the spotlight as a celebrity, successfully building her persona into a marketable brand much like Donald Trump, a man she claims to regard as a role model.

She has been widely discussed by tabloids. In 2000, the National Enquirer reported a casual friendship with Leonardo DiCaprio as something far more intimate. She has, however, also been linked with several others, including actor Edward Furlong, boxer Oscar De La Hoya, model Jason Shaw, Chicago Bears football player Brian Urlacher, and singers Rob Mills, Deryck Whibley, and Backstreet Boy Nick Carter. While Hilton was dating Carter, she sported bruises, which caused rumors that Carter may have beat her. This rumor was neither confirmed nor denied by Hilton at the time. A few months later, she announced that those “bruises” were from a magazine photo shoot (just when the magazine was coming out.) She was also blamed by the media for breaking up the relationship between Australian tennis player Mark Philippoussis and singer Delta Goodrem.

Hilton has also received a lot of press for a variety of other incidents, mainly party antics. She has been said to have pushed in front of others in line for a public bathroom, saying she only wanted to look at herself in the mirror. She has reportedly danced on the top of bar banquettes, worn shirts reading “Got Blow?,” and other times worn no top at all. One of her more famous quotes is: “What’s a soup kitchen?” Her most famous quote, however, is “That’s hot,” which she has used in myriad situations.

In August 2004, Tinkerbell was reported lost and a US$5,000 reward was offered for her safe return. Tinkerbell was found a week later, having been left at the home of Hilton’s grandparents.

Hilton received an offer from the German version of the reality TV show “Big Brother” to participate in their show. Rumors said she has been offered more than US$1.8 million. If she will agree to be in the reality-show, “she will join a bizarre band of ex-strippers, beauty queens, a married couple and a virgin, who are living under 24 hour scrutiny on the set”.

Paris has also been featured in several television commercials including a T-Mobile commerical for which she was paid $250,000 and her Carl’s Jr. commercial (see more below) for which she was paid $400,000 according to Forbes Magazine.

Hilton is also a spokesmodel for various products, including in 2004, GUESS clothing. Photos of her have also been published in several magazines, including GQ, Vanity Fair and FHM.

In the fall of 2004, Hilton released a book, Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose, which brings full color photographs of her and gives her tips on the dos and don’ts of living as an heiress. Hilton was reportedly given a $100,000 advanced payment for this book. Some in the media panned the writing as amateurish, and the book was parodied by Robert Mundell on The Late Show with David Letterman. Still, it became a New York Times bestseller.

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripolli, born in Barranquilla, Colombia on February 2, 1977, known simply as Shakira (meaning “Woman of Grace” in Arabic), is a singer and songwrite

On February 2, 1977, in Barranquilla, Colombia, Shakira was born to an American father of Christian Lebanese descent and a Colombian mother. She moved to Bogotá at the age of thirteen, and released her first album, Magia (Magic) a year later on the Sony label. The album achieved moderate success in her native country.

When her next release Peligro (Danger) did not fare better than its predecessor, Shakira turned to acting and played a role in a Colombian telenovela (”El Oasis”), but failed as an actress. She was approached by her record company to write a song for a Rock en Español compilation album, and, during her cab ride to the meeting with the music executives, wrote the song “Dónde Estás Corazón” to present to them. She returned to the music business in 1995 with the album Pies Descalzos (Barefeet), which included this song and established her commercial success. The hit Estoy Aquí became known internationally. The Remixes was created and featured remixes from the songs on Pies Descalzos, with some songs redone in Portuguese.

Following this, Shakira met Emilio Estefan, Jr., who would become the executive producer of her next album. ¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones? (Where are the thieves?) was a huge production on which over US$3 million were spent. It was a huge success which gained wide critical acclaim and which many consider to be her best album ever. The most notable singles from the album were “Inevitable” and the worldwide mega-hit, “Ojos Así”. The album’s successful blend of rock and Latin soundscapes made it an immense success. Shakira also produced Shakira MTV Unplugged, a live album based on ¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones?.

Shakira then focussed on the English-speaking market, improving her English enough to begin writing Laundry Service. With a more rock-edged feel, the album was aimed at the international English-speaking market, although it contained some Spanish songs. Some people claimed that Shakira’s English skills were too weak for her to write in English, but Laundry Service was nevertheless a big success, best known for the infectious single “Whenever, Wherever” (English version of “Suerte”), and for being one of the top albums of 2002. Shakira is well known for intense, athletic live performances involving belly dancing, Arabic rhythms and other sensual movements. The single “Whenever, Wherever” for example, includes the now-famous lyric, “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble so you don’t confuse them with mountains.”

In 2002, Shakira also released the greatest hits volume Grandes éxitos. Shakira: Live & Off the Record, a DVD and a 10-song CD from her 2002-03 world tour (the “Tour of the Mongoose”), was released March 30 2004. The name of the tour was derived from the fact that mongoose can defeat a cobra without being killed by its poison. The concerts were interspersed with visuals of a mongoose fighting a cobra.

Shakira’s latest project has been split into two volumes. The first album, the Spanish-language Fijación Oral 1 was released in June 2005. The follow-up, the English-language Oral Fixation 2, is slated for a November 29 2005 release.

She co-writes and co-produces her songs with Luis Fernando Ochoa and Lester Méndez. Vocal co-compilation, as well as direction of background vocal sessions by Rita Quintero.

Shakira is considered by many to be a great talent. As Gabriel García Márquez once wrote of her, “Shakira’s music has a personal stamp that doesn’t look like anyone else’s and no one can sing or dance like her, at whatever age, with such an innocent sensuality, one that seems to be of her own invention.”

Since 2000, she has been engaged to Antonio de la Rúa, the son of the disgraced former president of Argentina Fernando de la Rúa. In light of the humanitarian and social crisis in Argentina, many members of the press lampooned the relationship as frivolous and arrogant. In response, Shakira gave a nonprofit concert in Buenos Aires and further promoted her humanitarian children’s foundation “Pies Descalzos” (Bare feet), named after her third album. This was decried by many as a simple celebrity public relations move, even though such foundation was started by the singer shortly after the success of the Pies Descalzos album (1995-1996). Shakira has since built three elementary schools in Colombia to aid children that were displaced due to the guerrilla wars in her country. In October 2003 UNICEF named Shakira a Global Goodwill Ambassador for the organization. She was 26 at the time, making her the youngest UNICEF Ambassador in its history.

Nickelback is a post-grunge rock band founded in western Canada in 1995. The name derived from the nickel in change Mike Kroeger frequently had to give customers back in his job at a Starbucks coffee shop.

The core of the band hails from Hanna, Alberta. They are now based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Nickelback’s climb to mainstream was helped by Cancon, the Canadian law that requires a certain percentage of music played on Canadian radio to be from Canadian bands. Their second album, The State, propelled them to mainstream status even before Silver Side Up.

Nickelback has achieved major success on rock radio, scoring ten Top 10 hits since 1999. They have also crossed over to mainstream radio, scoring multi-format smashes on their last two albums. Coincident with the release of the first Spiderman film’s soundtrack was the single “Hero,” sung by band leader Chad Kroeger and Saliva singer Josey Scott.

Nickelback released their Silver Side Up album on Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. On that morning, they were on their tour bus traveling across Pennsylvania less than 10 miles from where Flight 93 crashed. To some, the first single, “How You Remind Me”, became an anthem of sorts in memory of the fallen Americans on 9/11 and became one of the most played songs in the U.S in 2001 and much of 2002.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickelback