Julie Benz (born May 1, 1972) is an American actress. For her role as Rita Bennett on Dexter, Benz won the 2006 Satellite Award for Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. She is also well known for her role of Darla on Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Biography

Early life

Benz was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father is a Pittsburgh surgeon and, contrary to rumor, her mother was never an ice figure skater. The family settled in nearby Murrysville when Benz was two, and she started ice skating when she was three. She competed in the 1988 U.S. Championships in junior ice dancing with her partner David Schilling, coming in 13th. Her older brother and sister, Jeffrey and Jennifer, were the 1987 U.S. Junior Champions in ice dancing and competed internationally. When Benz was 14, she had a bad stress fracture and had to take time off. She grew up in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, graduating from Franklin Regional High School. She later graduated from New York University. (more…)

Julianne Moore (born December 3, 1960) is an Academy- and BAFTA-nominated and Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning American actress.

Biography

Early life

Moore was born Julie Anne Smith at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina, the daughter of Anne, a psychiatric social worker who emigrated from Dunoon, Scotland, and Peter Moore Smith, a military lawyer, judge, helicopter pilot and army colonel. She has a younger sister, Valerie, and younger brother, novelist Peter Moore Smith III. Growing up as an “army brat” she lived in several places across the United States and Germany. Moore attended Frankfurt American High School in Frankfurt, Germany, graduating in 1979. She received her Bachelor’s degree at the College of Fine Arts at Boston University. (more…)

Julia O’Hara Stiles (born March 28, 1981) is an American stage and screen actress.

After beginning her career in small parts in a New York City theatre troupe, she has moved on to leading roles in plays by writers as diverse as William Shakespeare and David Mamet. Her film career has included both commercial and critical successes, ranging from teen romantic comedies such as 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) to dark art house pictures such as The Business of Strangers (2001).

Early life

Stiles was born in New York City, the daughter of Judith Stiles, a potter, and John O’Hara, a teacher and businessman who owns and operates a pottery business. Her father is of Irish descent and her mother is of half Italian and half English ancestry.Stiles, who has two younger siblings, Jane and Johnny, and an older half sister Bridget, was raised in SoHo. She started acting at age eleven, performing with New York’s La MaMa Theatre Company. (more…)

Julia Fiona Roberts (born October 28, 1967) is an American - Academy Award winning film actress and former fashion model. She became well known during the early 1990s after starring in the romantic comedy Pretty Woman opposite Richard Gere, which grossed US $463 million worldwide. She won the Best Actress Academy Award in 2000 for her critically acclaimed turn as the title character in Erin Brockovich and earned Oscar nominations as Best Supporting Actress for Steel Magnolias (1989) and Best Actress for Pretty Womanromantic comedies such as (1990). Her films, which also include My Best Friend’s Wedding, Mystic Pizza, Notting Hill, Runaway Bride, and crime films such as The Pelican Brief and Ocean’s Eleven, have collectively earned box office receipts of over US$2 billion, making her the most successful actress in terms of box office receipts.

Roberts had become one of the highest-paid actresses in the world, topping the Hollywood Reporter’s annual “power list” of top-earning female stars from 2002 to 2005, until 2006, when Nicole Kidman won the top spot. Her fee for 1990’s Pretty Woman was $300,000; in 2003, she was paid an unprecedented $25 million for her role in Mona Lisa Smile. As of 2007, Roberts’s net worth was estimated to be US$140 million.

Roberts was the first actress to appear on the cover of Vogue and the first woman to land the cover of GQ. She has been named one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World” eleven times, tied with Halle Berry. In 2001 Ladies Home Journal ranked her as the 11th most powerful woman in America, beating out then national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and first lady Laura Bush. Roberts has a production company called Red Om Films (”Moder” spelled backwards; formerly Shoelace Productions).

(more…)