Biography | Artist Actors Biography

Hilary Duff Carerr: She was born in Houston, Texas, the second child of Robert Erhard Duff, owner of a chain of convenience stores, and Susan Colleen Cobb, a homemaker. After Duff’s mother encouraged her to take an acting class alongside her older sister, Haylie Katherine Duff, both girls won parts in various local theatre productions. At the age of six, the Duff sisters participated in the ballet The Nutcracker Suite with Columbus Ballet Met in San Antonio. The siblings became more enthusiastic about the idea of acting professionally, and eventually relocated to California with their mother. Robert Erhard Duff stayed at the family home in Houston to maintain their business. After several years of auditions and meetings, the Duff sisters were cast in several television commercials
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Joni Mitchell, CC (born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta), is a legendary Canadian musician and painter. Initially working in Toronto and western Canada, she was associated with the burgeoning folk music scene of the mid-1960s in New York City. Through the 1970s she expanded her horizons, predominantly to rock music and jazz, to become one of the most highly respected singer-songwriters of the late 20th century. Mitchell is also an accomplished artist; she has, through photography or painting, created the artwork for each of her albums, and she often describes herself as a “painter derailed by circumstance.”

Early life
A painter who had also dabbled in piano, guitar and ukulele since childhood, Mitchell took her surname from a brief marriage to folksinger Chuck Mitchell in 1965. She performed frequently in coffee houses and folk clubs and became well known for her unique style of song writing and her innovative guitar style. Personal and often self-consciously poetic, her songs were strengthened by her extraordinarily wide-ranging voice (with a range in pitch at one time covering over four octaves) and unique guitar playing, tuning the instrument in unorthodox manners to produce a distinctive rhythmic, driving sound. She has been a cigarette smoker since the age of nine, which may explain the unique texture to her voice, which was especially prominent in her later albums. She claims to have fallen in love with smoking directly upon taking her first puffs, stating that other children in her proximity who were also smoking, broke out in fits of coughing. She says it felt right to her from the very beginning.

Around the time when she left her home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan she became pregnant and lost her virginity at the same time. Unable to raise a child so young in her life, and with no other alternatives, she was forced to give her daughter up for adoption. This remained a private part of her life during the bulk of her early/progressing career. While playing one night in a New York establishment, a young David Crosby witnessed her perform and was immediately stricken by her ability and her draw as an artist. He took her under his wing and as cited by Crosby himself, when making someone unaware aware of Mitchell’s allure, he would simply “roll them a joint”, and ask that they enjoy the experience.

Much of her initial acclaim was as a result of other artists covering her songs; her first songwriting credit to hit the charts, “Urge for Going”, was a success for country singer George Hamilton IV and for folk singer Tom Rush then many years later by the alternative Glassgow native band Travis - Mitchell’s own 1967 recording of the song was not released until the Hits compilation in 1996. Judy Collins had a top-ten hit in early 1968 with “Both Sides Now”, and British folk rock group Fairport Convention included “Chelsea Morning” and “I Don’t Know Where I Stand” on their debut album, recorded in late 1967, and the otherwise unreleased “Eastern Rain” on their second album the following year. The songs on her first two solo albums Joni Mitchell (Song to a Seagull) (1968) and Clouds (1969) were archetypes of the nascent singer-songwriter movement of the time.

By her third album, Ladies of the Canyon (1970), maturity brought a record infused with the spirit of California life (the canyon of the title is perhaps both Topanga Canyon and Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles) as well as containing her first major hit single, the environmental “Big Yellow Taxi” (about paving paradise to put up a parking lot), and her song “Woodstock”, about the music festival, which was later a hit for both Crosby, Stills and Nash and Matthews Southern Comfort. (Ironically, Mitchell did not even go to Woodstock, having cancelled her appearance at the festival on the advice of her manager for fear that she would miss a scheduled appearance on The Dick Cavett Show.) “For Free” is the first of Mitchell’s many songs that underscore the dichotomy between the benefits of her stardom and its costs, both in terms of its pressure and of the loss of privacy and freedom it entails.

Bijou Lily Phillips (b. April 1, 1980, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA) is an American actress, former model, and one-time pop-singer. She is the daughter of John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas and his then-wife Genevieve Waite, a South African model. The name “Bijou”, which is French for “jewel,” was taken from the song “My Petit Bijou” by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.

Phillips had a tumultuous childhood, and began modelling at an early age. She appeared on the cover of Interview when she was 13 and soon became the youngest Vogue cover model when she appeared on the Italian edition. By the age of 15 she was leading an adult life, living in her own apartment in Manhattan and subsisting on her modeling salary. During this time, she became a “wild child” of the New York City party scene, frequenting nightclubs such as Limelight and Spy Bar. Her older sister, Mackenzie, was sometimes seen accompanying Bijou to various fashion shows, playing the role of surrogate parent.

At the age of 17, she was granted a record deal with Almos Records and ended her modelling career; her debut album was titled I’d Rather Eat Glass, a sentiment that expressed her feelings about her former profession. Around the same time as the release of her album in 1999, she began acting in independent films. The following year, she posed nude for Playboy and appeared on the cover of the April, 2000 issue. As of 2005, Phillips continues to act while she records tracks for her second album.

In June 2004, Phillips assaulted Playboy Playmate Nicole Marie Lenz in a Los Angeles nightclub. The fight was broken up by actor Matthew Perry, who later testified on Lenz’ behalf. Phillips pleaded no contest to the criminal charges and Lenz has filed a civil suit. She dated actor Elijah Wood, singer Sean Lennon, and is currently involved with actor Danny Masterson from That 70’s Show.

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.