Rock singer, born Paul Hewson, on May 10, 1960, in Dublin, Ireland, to Iris and Bobby Hewson. Hewson was considered an outsider as a child, partially because his parents had a mixed (Protestant and Catholic) marriage. However, he did very well in school and was an excellent chess player. Hewson was hit hard by his mother’s death in 1974. A high school friend, Larry Mullen, got Hewson to join his local rock band in 1977. He was dubbed Bonovox (which referred to a hearing aid store) by neighborhood friends and thereafter became known simply as
“ I beseech you to take interest in these sacred domains so expressively called laboratories. Ask that there be more and that they be adorned for these are temples of the future, wealth and well-being. It is here that humanity will grow, strengthen and improve. Here, humanity will learn to read progress and individual harmony in the work of nature, while humanity’s own works are all to often those of barbarism, fanaticism and destruction.” Louis Pasteur. Louis Pasteur, the founder of microbiology was born in a poor family. But he s
Actress, singer, director. Born Cherilyn LaPiere Sarkisian on May 20, 1946, in El Centro, California. Cher met Sonny Bono, a recorder producer, in a coffee shop when she was sixteen. The two began performing together as a musical act, at one point billing themselves as “Caesar and Cleo.” They married when Cher was eighteen and by 1965, Sonny and Cher were a popular act on the West Coast, renowned for their outrageous outfits. Their first big hit was “I Got You, Babe,” (1965) which sold over four million copies. The couple had a daughter
Actor. Born December 28, 1954, in Mount Vernon, New York. After graduating from Fordham University in 1977, Washington won a scholarship to the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. He left after only one year in order to seriously pursue his career. He worked with the Shakespeare in the Park ensemble and appeared in a number of off-Broadway productions and television movies before making his feature-film debut in the comedy A Carbon Copy (1981). From 1982 to 1988, he starred as Dr. Phillip Chandler in the television medical drama St
Actor, writer, director, producer. Born August 17, 1960, in Burbank, California. Penn grew up in Los Angeles and attended Santa Monica High School, along with fellow students and future actors Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, and Rob Lowe. An early interest in filmmaking, specifically directing, led to a passion for acting, and Penn moved to New York City when he was 19 to pursue a career as an actor. He soon landed a part in a Broadway play, Heartland. In 1981, he made his film debut, in the military school drama Taps, alongside star Timothy Hut
Actor, producer. Born February 18, 1954, in Englewood, New Jersey, to Salvatore and Helen Travolta. His family encouraged creative expression; his older sister, Ellen, was a television actress. Travolta’s first public performance was at eight years old, when he danced “The Twist” for a local theater crowd. Immediately after high school, he pursued an acting career full time. He appeared in over forty commercials and many stage shows, including an early road show of Grease. tTravolta’s first major role came in 1975 as Vinnie Barba
Born Nicholas Coppola on January 7, 1964, in Long Beach, California, to choreographer Joy Vogelsang and literature professor August Coppola. Cage has two older brothers, Marc and Christopher. He is the nephew of film director Francis Ford Coppola and, as a youth, visited his uncle often at his San Francisco home. At age 15, Cage fell in love with acting during a summer class at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. He dropped out of Beverly Hills High School to pursue an acting career, making his debut on television in 1981. He ch
Actress. Born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra, on November 19, 1961, in Fairfield, Connecticut. Her mother, Susan, left the family when Ryan was 15 to become an actress; her father, Harry, a high school teacher, was left to raise the couple’s four children. After graduating from high school, she attended New York University, where she studied journalism and supported herself by appearing in commercials. She obtained a Screen Actor’s Guild card under her mother’s maiden name—Ryan—and made a successful film debut in Rich and Famous, direc
Actor. Born August 23, 1970 in Madras, Oregon. River Phoenix was one of the most promising young actors in Hollywood at the time of his death in 1993, at the age of 23. A member of a "second wave" of so-called Brat Packers, Phoenix's name was often mentioned alongside those of Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, and Martha Plimpton, a group that had been very successful as teenagers and held promise for even better work. River Phoenix is remembered as much for his small but impressive body of work as for his tragic death. Br
Actor. Born September 2, 1964, in Beirut, Lebanon. Reeves’ British mother, Patricia, reportedly met his father, Samuel Reeves, a geologist of Hawaiian-Chinese descent (the name Keanu means “cool breeze over the mountains” in Hawaiian), while working in a Beirut nightclub as a performer. After their brief marriage ended, Patricia moved with Keanu and his younger sister, Kim, to New York City, where she married Paul Aaron, a stage and film producer and director. The family relocated to Toronto, Canada, around 1970. A somewhat lackadaisical
Actor, producer, director. Born Alfredo James Pacino, on April 25, 1940, in New York City. Pacino’s father left the family when Alfredo was an infant, and the young boy was raised by his mother and Sicilian grandparents in Manhattan’s notoriously tough area of East Harlem. An avid moviegoer, Pacino was known around the neighborhood for his dead-on impersonations of film legends. As a teenager he held various odd jobs, including theater usher and building superintendent. However, Pacino aspired for more creative pursuits and soon enrolled in
Actor, director, composer. Born December 31, 1937, in Port Talbot, South Wales. Born in the same town in Wales as Richard Burton, Hopkins was the only child of two bakers. A dedicated pianist, he studied at the Cardiff College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, Wales, after his graduation from high school. He then spent two years in the Army before getting a job as an actor and assistant stage manager at the Library Theater in Manchester. In 1961, Hopkins won a scholarship to the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Hopkins
Actor, comedian. Born April 3, 1961, in Brooklyn, New York. Murphy spent his early years in the projects of Bushwick with his father, Charles Murphy, a New York City police officer and amateur comedian, his mother, Lillian Murphy, a telephone operator, and his brother Charles. His parents divorced when he was three; five years later, his father died and his mother went into the hospital for an extended period. When Murphy was nine, his mother married Vernon Lynch, a foreman at a Breyer’s ice cream factory, and the family moved to the primaril
Actress. Born August 30, 1972, in San Diego, California. The daughter of Emilio Diaz, a second-generation Cuban-American oil company foreman, and his wife Billie, who is of Native American, Italian, and German descent, Diaz began modeling when she was 16 years old. Her successful modeling career took her to Japan, Australia, Morocco, and Paris, among other locales, landed her in such magazines as Mademoiselle and Seventeen, and in advertising campaigns for such companies as Calvin Klein, Coca-Cola, and Levi’s. In 1994, Diaz won her fir
Actor. Born April 7, 1964, in Wellington, New Zealand. His family moved to Sydney, Australia, when Crowe was four years old. He spent a good deal of time on the sets of various film and television productions, where his parents worked as caterers; at age six, Crowe was cast as an orphan in the TV series Spyforce, the first of his many small parts as a child actor. His family returned to New Zealand in 1978, and Crowe began performing as a rock singer, billing himself as Rus le Roc and recording the prophetically titled 1980 single “I Want to
Actor. Born Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio, on November 11, 1974, in Hollywood, California, to George, a comic book creator and distributor, and Irmelin (née Idenbirkin), a legal secretary. His parents separated when he was still an infant, and his father later remarried. Leonardo attended John Marshall High School in Los Feliz, California, although his education there was cut short after he began acting full time. He eventually received a high school diploma after being taught at home. Banking on his babyface and wholesome, all-American goo
Singer. Born March 30, 1968, in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada. The youngest of 14 children of Adhemar and Therese Dion, she grew up in a close-knit musical family. Her parents formed a singing group, Dion’s Family, which toured Canada when Celine was still an infant. They later opened a piano bar, where the five-year-old Celine would perform to the delight of customers. At the age of 12, Dion recorded a demo tape of a song she had written with her mother. They sent the tape to the manager and producer Rene Angelil, who handled the career
Singer. Born Gloria Fajardo on January 9, 1958, in Havana, Cuba. As a toddler Estefan fled Cuba with her family when Communist dictator Fidel Castro rose to power. Her father, José Manuel Fajardo, had been a Cuban soldier and bodyguard of President Fulgencio Batista. After coming to the United States, Fajardo was recruited into the 2506 Brigade, a Central Intelligence Agency-funded band of Cuban refugees that was involved in the unsuccessful 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. After President John F. Kennedy negotiated the release of the captured soldi
Biography: Ivana Trump chronicles the life of a woman born behind the Iron Curtain in 1949 who grew up to become one of the most celebrated women in America. She was raised and educated in Czechoslovakia, becoming a competitive skier and successful model. After Russian tanks repressed "The Prague Spring" in her homeland, Ivana wanted to leave the country. She arranged to marry a member of the Austrian ski team so she could more easily get a visa to move to Canada. Once there, she was granted a divorce from her "Cold War" mar
ORIGINS Scientists believe that about 4.7 billion years ago, a swirling interstellar cloud of gas and dust began to fragment and form clusters that eventually became the Sun, Earth, and the other planets of our Solar System. On Earth, gravity, collisions with other bodies, and the radioactivity of some of the heavier elements caused the planet to begin melting. Lighter compounds floated outwards to form the Earth’s mantle and crust, while the heavier elements, mainly iron and nickel, sank in towards the centre to form the core. The res