OPRAH GAIL WINFREY

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954), often referred to simply as Oprah, is an American television host, media mogul, and philantropist. Her internationally-syndicated talk shpw, The Oprah Winfrey Show, has earned her multiple and is the highest-rated talk show in the history of television. She is also an influential book critic, an highest-rated talk show in the history of television.She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award nominated and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest actress, African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and was once the world's only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments the most influential woman in the world.

Born in rural Mississipi to a poor teenaged single mother, and later raised in an inner city Milwaukee neighborhood, Winfrey was raped at the age of nine, and at fourteen, gave birth to a son who died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationallysyndicated.

Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication, she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue, which a Yale study claimed broke 20th century taboos and allowed gays, transsexuals, and transgender people to enter the mainstream. By the mid 1990s she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession culture and promoting controversial self-help fads, she is generally admired for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others.

PIERCE BROSNAN

Exit Bond, Enter ABBA.

Pierce Brosnan was once a man of mystery. Now all he wants to do is dance.

Moving to London with his family at an early age, Irish-born actor Pierce Brosnan made ends meet as a commercial illustrator and cab driver before turning to acting full-time. After training at the London Drama Centre, Brosnan made his West End stage bow in 1976, and appeared in his first film, The Long Good Friday four years later.

American audiences got their first glimpse of the charismatic, muscular young actor in the 1981 network miniseries The Manions of America. The following year, he was cast as the suave adventurer hero of the weekly TV series Remington Steele. Brosnan's casual panache and his gift for quippery led the producers of the James Bond movies to select him as the new Bond upon the departure of Roger Moore in 1986. However, at the last moment, the canceled Remington Steele was renewed, and Brosnan was contractually obligated to remain with the program, forcing him to relinquish the James Bond role to Timothy Dalton. Insult was later added to injury when it became evident that the renewal of Steele was something of a subterfuge by its producers to keep Brosnan on their leash. This professional setback was further compounded by personal tragedy seven years later when Brosnan's actress wife Cassandra Harris died after a long illness.

The actor began to regain his motion picture bankability when he was cast in a choice secondary role in the 1993 comedy megahit Mrs. Doubtfire. In 1995, he finally got his chance to play Agent 007 in GoldenEye, and proved that the producer's instincts were right on target. Brosnan not only provided a much-needed boost for the ailing series, but also cemented his status as a capable leading man in a variety of roles, ranging from the title character in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crosoe (1996) to a stuffy, love-struck professor who meets a ludicrous fate in Mars Attacks (1996) to a courageous vulcanologist trying to save a town threatened by a reawakened volcano in Dante's Peak (1997). Brosnan played Bond for the second time in Tomorrow Never Dies(1997), essaying the role with great success.

Following his turn as the titular thief in the stylish 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, the actor went on to his third Bond outing in The World is Not Enough again proving that saving the world was most convincingly done by those with convincing tans, straight teeth, and plenty of fun gadgets. And the world isn't the only thing Bond saved. While, the next half-decade found Brosnan stumbling with disappointments like The Tailor of Panama and The Laws of Attraction, his turns as the world's suavest spy never failed to strike gold at the box-office. After 2002's Die Another Day, Brosnan announced that 2005 would see him play the hero for the fifth and final time in 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide.

SCARLETT I. JOHANSSON

Scarlett I. Johansson born November 22, 1984 is an actress and singer, of dual American and Danish citizenship. Johansson rose to fame with her role in 1998's The Horse Whisperer and subsequently gained critical acclaim for her roles in Ghost World, Lost in Translation (for which she won a BAFTA), and Girl with a Pearl Earring, the latter two earning her Golden Globe Award nominations in 2003.

On May 20, 2008, Johansson debuted as a vocalist on her first album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, with cover versions of Tom Waits songs.

Johansson was born in New York City. Her father, Karsten Johansson, is a Danish-born architect, and her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was a screenwriter and director (Scarlett Johansson holds Danish citizenship). Her mother, Melanie Sloan, a producer, comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from the Bronx. Johansson's parents met in Denmark, where her mother lived with Johansson's maternal grandmother, Dorothy, a former bookkeeper and schoolteacher. Johansson has an older sister, Vanessa, who is also an actress; an older brother, Adrian; a twin brother, Hunter, also an actor; and a half-brother, Christian, from her father's re-marriage.

Johansson grew up in a household with "little money" with a mother who was a "film buff". Johansson began her theater training by attending and graduating from Professional Children's School in Manhattan in 2002. She attended P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village for elementary school.

Johansson began acting during childhood, after her mother began taking her to auditions. She made her film debut in 1994's North. After appearing in several films during the late 1990s, including a very brief appearance in the Mandy Moore video for her single "Candy", Johansson garnered praise and widespread attention for her performance in 1998's The Horse Whisperer and 2001's Ghost World.

She won the "Upstream Prize" for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her performance in 2003's Lost in Translation. The same year, she was nominated for two Best Actress awards at the Golden Globes, one for drama (Girl with a Pearl Earring) and one for comedy (Lost in Translation). She was also nominated for Best Actress for both films at the BAFTA, and won Best Actress for Lost in Translation.

Johansson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2004. In the same year, she starred in the films The Perfect Score, In Good Company and A Love Song for Bobby Long, the last of which earned her a third Golden Globe Award nomination. Johansson was involved for a short time with the film Mission: Impossible III, but was not officially cast because of scheduling conflicts, although a falling out with the film's star, Tom Cruise, had been both widely reported and publicly denied. She was replaced by Keri Russell.

BRITNEY

Britney Spears didn't just become a star -- she was a bona fide pop phenomenon. Not only did she sell millions of records, she was a media fixture regardless of what she was (or wasn't) doing; among female singers of the era (many of whom followed in her footsteps), her celebrity star power was rivaled only by Jennifer Lopez. From the outset, Spears' sex appeal was an important part of her image; the video for her debut single, "...Baby One More Time," outfitted her in full Catholic-school regalia, and sent her well on the way to becoming an international sex symbol. Yet Spears' handlers seemed to be trying to have it both ways -- there was a definite tension between the wholesome innocence Spears tried to project for her female audience, and the titillating sexuality that enticed so many male fans. Those marketing tactics made Spears a somewhat controversial figure, the subject of endless debates concerning appropriate role models for teenage girls. Early on, Spears tried to defuse the controversy by preaching abstinence until marriage, and even denied that she was consciously cultivating such a sexualized image. Of course, the more provocative and revealing her on-stage wardrobe became, the less plausible that claim seemed. But apart from her ability to tiptoe the line between virginal coquette and brazen tart, Spears had a secret weapon in Swedish pop mastermind Max Martin, who had a hand in the vast majority of her hits as a writer and/or producer. With Martin crafting the sort of contemporary dance-pop and sentimental ballads that made stars of the Backstreet Boys, Spears kept on delivering the goods commercially, as her first three albums all topped the charts.

Britney Jean Spears was born December 2, 1981, in the small town of Kentwood, LA, and began performing as a singer and dancer at a young age. With a nationally televised appearance on Star Search already under her belt, Spears auditioned for the Disney Channel's The New Mickey Mouse Club at age eight. The producers turned her down as too young, but one of them took an interest and introduced her to an agent in New York. Spears spent the next three years studying at the Professional Performing Arts School, and also appeared in several television commercials and off-Broadway plays. At 11, she returned to The New Mickey Mouse Club for a second audition, and this time made the cut. Although her fellow Mouseketeers included an impressive array of future stars -- *NSYNC's Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez, Christina Aguilera, and Felicity actress Keri Russell -- the show was canceled after Spears' second season. She returned to New York at age 15 and set about auditioning for pop bands and recording demo tapes, one of which eventually landed her a deal with Jive Records.

Spears entered the studio with top writer/producers like Eric Foster White (Boyzone, Whitney Houston, Backstreet Boys) and Max Martin (Ace of Base, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC). In late 1998, Jive released her debut single, the Martin-penned "...Baby One More Time." Powered by its video, in which Spears and a troupe of dancers were dressed as Catholic-school jailbait, the single shot to the top of the Billboard charts. When Spears' debut album of the same title was released in early 1999, it entered the charts at number one and stayed there for six weeks. Once the ubiquitous lead single died down, the album kept spinning off hits: the Top Ten "(You Drive Me) Crazy," the near-Top 20 ballad "Sometimes," and the Top 20 "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart." By the end of 1999, ...Baby One More Time had sold ten million copies, and went on to sell a good three million more on top of that. Its success touched off a wave of young pop divas that

included Christina Aguilera, Pink, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore. Spears was a superstar, drooled over in countless magazines, including a Rolling Stone cover that prompted immediate speculation about the still-17 year old having gotten breast implants.

By the time ...Baby One More Time finally started to lose steam on the singles and album charts, Spears was ready to release her follow-up. Oops!...I Did It Again appeared in the spring of 2000, and the title track was an instant smash, racing into the Top Ten. The album entered the charts at number one and sold over a million copies in its first week of release, setting a new record for single-week sales by a female artist. Follow-up singles included "Lucky," the gold-selling "Stronger," and "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know," which was co-written by country diva Shania Twain and her producer Mutt Lange. A year after its release, Oops!...I Did It Again had sold over nine million copies. Rumors that Spears was dating *N Sync heartthrob (and fellow ex-Mouseketeer) Justin Timberlake were eventually confirmed, which only added to the media attention lavished on her.

For her next album, Spears looked ahead to a not-so-distant future when both she and much of her audience would be growing up. Released in late 2001, Britney tried to present the singer as a more mature young woman, and was accompanied by mild hints that her personal life wasn't always completely puritanical. It became her third straight album to debut at number one, although this time around the singles weren't as successful; "I'm a Slave 4 U," "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman," and "Overprotected" all missed the Top Ten. In early 2002, Spears' feature-film debut, Crossroads, hit theaters, but its commercial performance was somewhat disappointing; moreover, her romance with Timberlake fizzled not long after. Spears next made a cameo appearance in Mike Myers' Austin Powers: Goldmember, and contributed a remix of "Boys" to the soundtrack. Meanwhile, sales of Britney stalled at four million copies, perhaps in part because a new breed of teenage female singer/songwriters, like Michelle Branch and Avril Lavigne, was emerging as an alternative to the highly packaged teen queens. Spears took a break from recording and performing for several months, and began work on a new album in early 2003. The results, In the Zone, reflected a wish to be taken seriously as a mature (though still highly sexualized) adult. Predictably, it topped the charts and launched several singles into orbit, including the musically adventurous "Toxic," "Everytime," and "Me Against the Music."

In the Zone hit number one on the Billboard 200, and "Toxic" snagged a Grammy for Best Dance Recording. But by 2004 there were no longer any illusions of Britney's personal life being all wholesome candy canes and kisses. First there was the star's bizarre two-day marriage to childhood friend Jason Alexander, followed by the controversial, highly sexualized Onyx Hotel tour, which was eventually canceled (allegedly because of a knee injury) despite positive financial numbers. Starbucks and cigarettes were Britney's constant accessories in the endless paparazzi photos, and the revelation of her relationship with former backup dancer Kevin Federline made the tabloids even more ravenous. Spears and Federline married in September and were tabloid regulars in the months after the ceremony. (A photo of a barefoot Britney leaving a dingy gas station bathroom made the Internet rounds.) The couple also starred in Chaotic, a UPN reality show consisting mostly of their own home videos that was met with howls from the critics and blogs.

2005 was no less eventful for Spears. She released Greatest Hits: My Prerogative that January, but it was the announcement of her pregnancy that really garnered the headlines. Sean Preston Federline was born in September, and a bidding war ensued for first rights to the baby photos. As the hubbub surrounding Sean's birth continued, Britney released a remix album just in time for the holiday season. In 2006,Spears discovered she was pregnant again; shortly after the birth of her second son, Jayden James Federline, she divorced Federline. Early in 2007, Spears went to Malibu, CA's Promises Treatment Center; when she left, she began working on her comeback album and performed a few small shows at House of Blues locations in Los Angeles, San Diego, Anaheim, and Las Vegas that May. Later that summer, however, plans to release an album were pushed back to 2008. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

SHARON STONE

SHARON STONE’S real upturn came in 1992 with a great movie Basic Instinct. Her role of sexually vacious crime writer made from her one of the biggest star in Hollywood and established her as a sexual symbol. In Basic Instinct Sharon revealed to the world one more thing: there was nothing between her and her tight dress. In a more conventionally sympathetic role, Stone followed up with another sizzling sex melodrama, Sliver (1993), which did middling business stateside but proved a solid success overseas. On the set of this movie (Sliver) Sharon met a producer Bill McDonald. They were engaged to be married for some time.

She again flexed her international box-office clout paired with Sylvester Stallone in the explosive actioner The Specialist (1994) but fared much less well commercially with her next project, The Quick and the Dead (1995), which marked her producing debut. Stone looked terrific in Western duds playing something of a distaff version of a Clint Eastwood-like gunfighter. Her directorial choice, Sam Raimi, helmed the smartly derivative tale with style to spare but the critical reception was uneven and the domestic take pathetic. In 1995 she got part in Scorsese's Casino. For this role she was awarded by Golden Globe and was nominated for Oscar. Her next character part was in Last Dance, where Sharon played a woman in prison waiting for the execution. In Sphere she played beside Dustin Hoffman. Her newest movies are Gloria, The Mighty and The Muse.

Sphere was released on Valentine's weekend, coincided with Sharon's marriage to San Francisco newspaper editor Phil Bronstein. They are together still happy and in Spring 2000 they adopted a child. Their son is called Roan Joseph Bronstein and was born to Texas teenagers on May 22 2000. Sharon isn't only blonde beauty, but she is also very clever with IQ 154. And what can we wish to Sharon in her future life? Just only the greatest movies and happy marriage.

LINDSAY LOHAN

Praised by Meryl Streep and compared to screen legend Diane Keaton, Lindsay Lohan declared, at 20, that she wanted to win an Oscar by 30. Instead, by 21, she completed two stints in rehab and was arrested for driving under the influence twice.

As a freckled-faced youngster, Lohan delighted Disney audiences in The Parent Trap, and shot to fame in the 2004 teen hit Mean Girls. But she ditched her PG-persona, partying with Hollywood "It" girls. The actress' high-quality turns in Bobby and Garry Marshall's Georgia Rule were overshadowed by her fast-track lifestyle. Less than two weeks after spending her 21st birthday in rehab, the troubled star got busted for DUI, possession of cocaine and driving on a suspended license. She has since completed another stint in rehab and is picking up the pieces while returning to work on film, TV and music projects.

THE OLSENS': THE FAMOUS TWIN SINGING SENSATION

Singing Sensations

The 6-year-old twins record their first album, Brother for Sale, the release of which launches the Olsen phenomenon. ''I like the song called 'I Want to Trade My Brother,''' Mary-Kate tells PEOPLE. ''Yeah,'' Ashley agrees with a giggle. ''When we were rehearsing it, our brother Trent said, 'I hate that song!'''

ASHLEY AND MARY KATE OLSEN

Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen\ are known for their individual style, but the twins were first famous as Michelle Tanner on Full House. Before turning 10, they had already earned millions, and at 18, took charge of their billion-dollar brand, Dualstar.

While Mary-Kate struggled with anorexia and took a leave of absence from college in 2005, Ashley continued her studies at New York University. Today, her influence as a fashion trendsetter garnered her spreads in Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Teen Vogue, and with Mary-Kate, she has launched the fashion line, The Row, and its lower-priced counterpart, Elizabeth and James.