Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Kristanna Loken Biography
Birth date : December 19, 1979
Birth place : NorwayBirth
Name : Kristanna Sommer Loken
Height : 5' 11
Nationality : Norwegian
Occupation : Actress, model
A tall, attractive bl0nde who traded the catwalks for the klieg lights, Kristanna Loken honed her craft in a series of TV appearances before landing what undoubtedly would be her breakthrough, the futuristic female robot that takes on Arnold Schwarzenegger in the long-awaited sequel "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" (2003). Of Norwegian descent, this daughter of a farmer (who also writes) and a former model ended up following in her mother's stead when as a teenager she entered the Elite "Look of the Year" contest in Ibiza, Spain and placed third. Casting agents soon noticed her and she was hired to play the troubled teen Dani Andropolous on CBS' long-running "As the World Turns" in 1994. Although she did not catch on with viewers and was replaced by Ashley Williams in the part, Loken soon moved to primetime making guest appearances on hit shows like Fox's "New York Undercover", NBC's "Law & Order" and ABC's "Boy Meets World".
Keira Knightley Biography
Born: 22 March 1985
Where: London, England
Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar, 1 BAFTA and 1 Golden Globe
Height: 5' 7"
Few actresses enjoy the kind of success Keira Knightleysaw in 2003. First, her major picture starring debut, Pirates Of The Caribbean, entered the all-time Top 20 of box-office hits. Then, due to this success, her earlier low-budget effort, Bend It Like Beckham, already a cult smash, found its release widened dramatically, taking it into undreamed of profit. Following these with Love, Actually, the latest cute rom-com from Richard "Notting Hill" Curtis, her rise in a few short months would be nothing short of phenomenal. And still she was only 18.
Yet, despite her tender years, Knightley already had a fair amount of working experience. Like such American actresses as Kirsten Dunst and Julia Stiles, she had begun her career at an absurdly young age. Unlike them, though, she had not done so through the actions of "pushy" parents. Knightley's focus was all her own, and had first become apparent at the absurdly young age of 3.
She was born Kiera Knightley on the 22nd of March, 1985, in Teddington, south-west London. Her name would become Keira as her Hollywood career took off, the change shamelessly breaking the golden rule of "I before E except after C" but making the name more easily pronounceable on a worldwide basis. Her father was stage actor Will Knightley, who'd make the occasional foray into television, such as starring as Mr Glegg in the BBC's 1997 production of The Mill On The Floss. Her Ayrshire-born mother, Sharman MacDonald, had also been a stage and TV actress (she once appeared in Shoestring). Having joined the Drama Society at Edinburgh University in 1972, then worked as a go-go dancer to pay her Drama School fees, she'd battled against stage fright for 12 years. Eventually, pregnant with Keira and having borne son Caleb five years earlier (he'd go on to teach music to underprivileged kids), in 1984 she gave up acting and concentrated on her family.
She also took up a career in playwriting and, after debuting with When I Was A Girl I Used To Scream And Shout, she proceeded to deliver such notable efforts as After Juliet, All Things Nice, The Brave, Sea Urchins, Shades and The Winter Guest, the last being taken to the big screen by Alan Rickman. On top of this, she'd write Wild Flowers and The Music Practice for TV, and a BBC documentary would be made about her, called Mindscape and featuring the young Keira.
Most kids like to join in with whatever their parents are up to, and Keira was no exception. At the age of 3, noticing that both Will and Sharman were getting regular calls from their respective agents, the young girl demanded one of her own. She was, of course, politely refused, but was insistent in her requests for the next several years. By the time she was 6, her mother struck a bargain with her. As the child had recently been diagnosed as dyslexic, she said that if Keira came to her every day of the summer holidays and spent an hour working on her reading and maths, she would provide her with professional representation. This challenge was important. Up until this point Keira had been ridiculed by her schoolmates for her supposed stupidity. In fact, her dyslexia meant she couldn't read words and wrote numbers backwards. It got so bad that she'd get hold of book-tapes and memorise them so that no one would recognise her failings.
To Sharman's surprise, the child complied and then forced her mother to keep to the bargain. And, to mum's horror, the new agent did his work well. At age 7, Keira filmed her TV debut, Royal Celebration, concerning the complicated lives and loves in a London square at the time of Prince Charles' marriage to Diana Spencer and featuring the likes of Kenneth Cranham, Minnie Driver and Rupert Graves.
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