FEMALE CELEBRITIES - Wiki Style
Zhang Ziyi
She was only 11 years old when she enrolled in the Beijing Dance Academy. Zhang Ziyi showed creativity even when she was still young. Her father was economist and her mother was teacher in kindergarten and she was raised in urban China along with her brother. She had been inclined to dance and gymnastics, as she eventually entered the Central Academy of Drama in China when she was 15. In her dancing course at the BDA, she won in the National Young Dancer competition. Zhang wasn’t trained for kick-ass martial arts, however, in her future films, her moves which she derived from her dance lessons, proved to be convincing for the film audience.
Now looking at acting as a newfound future career, Zhang auditioned for a shampoo commercial directed by Zhang Yimou, and got accepted. Her first ever role was in a film called ‘The Road Home,’ an award winning film (Silver Bear Award, 2000 Berlin Film Festival) directed by Zhang Yimou. She was only nineteen. She had been rumored to be having an affair with the renowned director, after an issue with Gong Li (an actress linked to Yimou). However, it wasn’t proven to be true.
She became internationally known for ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ a film directed by Ang Lee that brought limelight on her martial arts skills and graceful acting abilities. She won several awards hence: Best Supporting Actress Awards on the Independent Spirit and Toronto Film Critics festival. She played a role in ‘Hero’, a film nominated in Golden Globe and Oscar awards. She was also cast in the Purple Butterfly, a film that made it to the competitive Cannes Film Festival. Another film that brought her a nomination was ‘Flying Daggers’ (Best Actress in the BAFTA). Zhang still didn’t speak English when she was cast as the villain in Rush Hour 2. The film starred Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, with subtitles.
In Hongkong, she had been a star, since she had also received numerous awards in the Hongkong Film Critics and Film Academy for the film 2046. She won two Best Actress awards respectively, with the help of director Wong Kar-wai. She was also cast in Seijun Suzuki film Princess Raccoon in 2005. The legendary director was honored at the Cannes.
By the summer of 2005, Zhang was given the privilege to vote on AMPAS – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – in California. Her talent was fitfully remembered, as she was chosen to cast in the most recent 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha, along with Michelle Yeoh, another popular Chinese-American star who played a lead role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was an adaptation of a bestselling book by Sayuri. The film’s cast and crew also included Ken Watanabe and Gong Li. For her role in Memoirs, she received another nomination in the Golden Globe awards: Best Actress in the Drama genre. In the film the House of Flying Daggers, she recorded a song based on the old Chinese poem, a song which was featured in one of the film’s scenes.
Unknown to many, she is still learning English as a second language. She had been encouraged by the fact that she was using English in most of her international films, most notably in Memoirs of a Geisha and Hero. She was also receiving quite a lot of fan mails from the United States. She took crash courses before the Memoirs shoots, and required herself to listen to CDs and TV shows and commercials. She even listened to rapper Eminem’s songs, whose lyrics shocked her for being rude. Zhang was spokesmodel for several companies such as Tag Heuer, Maybelline cosmetics, Visa, Coke (Asia) and Pantene.
Naomi Watts
Fans of the horror genre flick series ‘The Ring’ and the fantastic adventures of ‘King Kong’(Peter Jackson) would surely recognize the woman who played Ann Darrow – no other than the beautiful British Australian star Naomi Watts. Naomi hailed from and was reared in Shoreham, England until she turned eight yeras old. She was born on the 28th of September, 1968.
She had been orphaned by her father when she was only seven, but prior to that her mother Myfanwy, and her father Peter had already been separated since she was four. Her family moved to Llangefni in Northern Wales with her grandparents, the Roberts (Hugh and Nikki). The settled in the Llanfawr Farm. Naomi stayed in Llangefni until early adolescence with her mother and grandparents. Her father worked as a sound engineer for Pink Floyd band and her mother had psychological tendencies who tried to convince Naomi’s grandparents to adopt them by threats of sending the children to foster care.
Naomi’s family relocated to Sydney in the early 80s. Nikki, Naomi’s grandmother, had facilitated their immigration documents.
Naomi’s desire to be an actress had become a lifelong obsession. To follow her goals, she attended acting schools, where she met Nicole Kidman. A few years later, she decided to try her luck as a model in Japan, but it disillusioned her. Four months in the foreign country was a bad experience that pushed her even harder to reach her dream. She struggled as a department store employee and an assistant editor for a fashion magazine in Australia. Her passion for acting remained to be her guiding ambition, and the it sparked once more when she was invited to take a role in a play. She had eventually decided to take acting as a full-time career.
Naomi took acting on baby steps that began from TV commercials to drama series. . She was a teenager when she first appeared in the 1986 film ‘For Love Alone.’She appeared as Julie Gibson in Home and Away (1988). Together with another Australian hottie Nicole Kidman and Thandie Newton, she played a part in ‘Flirting’, a film directed by John Duigan in 1991. Another film from the same director in 1992, ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ gave Naomi another acting opportunity, but didn’t fare well.
Naomi was cast in her first Hollywood film ‘Matinee’ in 1992. ‘Gross Misconduct’ in 1993 became her next project, where she starred as the disturbed student of Jimmy Smits. She played as the Jet Girl in ‘Tank Girl’ movie, directed by Lori Petty in 1995. It wasn’t as successful as her previous films. In 1997, she made an appearance in the TV series ‘Sleepwalkers’. Prior to this, had a role in ‘Children of the Corn Part 4.’ Her genre seemed to veer towards fantasy and drama, as she appeared in Dangerous Beauty in 1998, and a 1999 TV show called Unicorn Killer.
By the year 2001, the highly-acclaimed Mulholland Drive was out (directed by David Lynch). Her baby steps turned to more mature and wide-reaching roles as she progressed from ‘Mulholland Drive’ to ‘The Ring.’ The latter film was a box-office hit both in the US and internationally. Then, in the movie 21 Grams in 2004, she received her first nomination in the Academy Awards as Best Actress.
Like many Hollywood actresses, Naomi became attracted to Buddhism and was converted while shooting ‘The Painted Veil’ movie in 2006. Her lifestyle was purportedly changed into the ancient religion that required her to meditate and have Buddhist malas tattoos on her wrist.
Heath Ledger was linked to Naomi for several years before before the actress started dating Daniel Kirby, a young director. Currently, she is often seen with Liev Schreiber.
BUSINESS PERSONALITIES - Magazine Style
Miyamoto is an admirable character himself for a lot of reasons. He held up production of certain games just because they aren't perfect enough for people to play. He split ways with Nintendo's competitors because he believed playing videogames should bring smiles to people's faces, and that everyone can play them. On the other hand, Microsoft and Sony focused on the more hardcore aspect of videogaming.
If you still have any doubts, here's a fact: the Nintendo Wii outsold the Xbox 360 and PS3 this year and is predicted to keep on selling like hotcakes even way past the holiday season.
Nintendo is an entirely different breed of game manufacturer. Like its celebrated gaming designer, it fires up interest not because of hype, but because it endears itself to people. And what could be more endearing than a Miyamoto quirk? The guy behind Nintendo's success rarely played video games and doesn't drive a BMW. Instead, he rides his bicycle to work.
The word "putt" originated from Scotland. It means to "nudge". Among golfers, putting is nudging the golf ball on the green to roll it into the hole. And when it comes to putting, perhaps no other brand is more popular than PING.
Karsten Solheim nudged his way towards success in the business of golf by creating putters in his garage as a General Electric engineer back in 1959. His inspiration? Frustration. He played golf and didn't like the putters of his time. This has led him to innovate various putters such as the PING 1A, and eventually the answer to his putting dilemma, the "Anser".
The Anser's success was brought about by the fact that it empowered all types of golfers. Solheim's product of mechanical design genius, like Enrico Fermi's calculations, was sketched on the back of record disc, instead of an envelope. It yielded the same mind-boggling results. Solheim's PING putters became so popular that now they are being used by famous golfers all over the world. Solheim eventually got out of the garage and into a factory of his own, the Karsten Manufacturing Company, in 1967.
PingGolf.com is PING's official ecommerce website. In it, you can find more golf products out of Solheim's ingenious beginnings. In it, you can also customize and buy a putter that fits you, just by ticking your options in the Putters category. Wow.
Zhang Ziyi
She was only 11 years old when she enrolled in the Beijing Dance Academy. Zhang Ziyi showed creativity even when she was still young. Her father was economist and her mother was teacher in kindergarten and she was raised in urban China along with her brother. She had been inclined to dance and gymnastics, as she eventually entered the Central Academy of Drama in China when she was 15. In her dancing course at the BDA, she won in the National Young Dancer competition. Zhang wasn’t trained for kick-ass martial arts, however, in her future films, her moves which she derived from her dance lessons, proved to be convincing for the film audience.
Now looking at acting as a newfound future career, Zhang auditioned for a shampoo commercial directed by Zhang Yimou, and got accepted. Her first ever role was in a film called ‘The Road Home,’ an award winning film (Silver Bear Award, 2000 Berlin Film Festival) directed by Zhang Yimou. She was only nineteen. She had been rumored to be having an affair with the renowned director, after an issue with Gong Li (an actress linked to Yimou). However, it wasn’t proven to be true.
She became internationally known for ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ a film directed by Ang Lee that brought limelight on her martial arts skills and graceful acting abilities. She won several awards hence: Best Supporting Actress Awards on the Independent Spirit and Toronto Film Critics festival. She played a role in ‘Hero’, a film nominated in Golden Globe and Oscar awards. She was also cast in the Purple Butterfly, a film that made it to the competitive Cannes Film Festival. Another film that brought her a nomination was ‘Flying Daggers’ (Best Actress in the BAFTA). Zhang still didn’t speak English when she was cast as the villain in Rush Hour 2. The film starred Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, with subtitles.
In Hongkong, she had been a star, since she had also received numerous awards in the Hongkong Film Critics and Film Academy for the film 2046. She won two Best Actress awards respectively, with the help of director Wong Kar-wai. She was also cast in Seijun Suzuki film Princess Raccoon in 2005. The legendary director was honored at the Cannes.
By the summer of 2005, Zhang was given the privilege to vote on AMPAS – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – in California. Her talent was fitfully remembered, as she was chosen to cast in the most recent 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha, along with Michelle Yeoh, another popular Chinese-American star who played a lead role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was an adaptation of a bestselling book by Sayuri. The film’s cast and crew also included Ken Watanabe and Gong Li. For her role in Memoirs, she received another nomination in the Golden Globe awards: Best Actress in the Drama genre. In the film the House of Flying Daggers, she recorded a song based on the old Chinese poem, a song which was featured in one of the film’s scenes.
Unknown to many, she is still learning English as a second language. She had been encouraged by the fact that she was using English in most of her international films, most notably in Memoirs of a Geisha and Hero. She was also receiving quite a lot of fan mails from the United States. She took crash courses before the Memoirs shoots, and required herself to listen to CDs and TV shows and commercials. She even listened to rapper Eminem’s songs, whose lyrics shocked her for being rude. Zhang was spokesmodel for several companies such as Tag Heuer, Maybelline cosmetics, Visa, Coke (Asia) and Pantene.
Naomi Watts
Fans of the horror genre flick series ‘The Ring’ and the fantastic adventures of ‘King Kong’(Peter Jackson) would surely recognize the woman who played Ann Darrow – no other than the beautiful British Australian star Naomi Watts. Naomi hailed from and was reared in Shoreham, England until she turned eight yeras old. She was born on the 28th of September, 1968.
She had been orphaned by her father when she was only seven, but prior to that her mother Myfanwy, and her father Peter had already been separated since she was four. Her family moved to Llangefni in Northern Wales with her grandparents, the Roberts (Hugh and Nikki). The settled in the Llanfawr Farm. Naomi stayed in Llangefni until early adolescence with her mother and grandparents. Her father worked as a sound engineer for Pink Floyd band and her mother had psychological tendencies who tried to convince Naomi’s grandparents to adopt them by threats of sending the children to foster care.
Naomi’s family relocated to Sydney in the early 80s. Nikki, Naomi’s grandmother, had facilitated their immigration documents.
Naomi’s desire to be an actress had become a lifelong obsession. To follow her goals, she attended acting schools, where she met Nicole Kidman. A few years later, she decided to try her luck as a model in Japan, but it disillusioned her. Four months in the foreign country was a bad experience that pushed her even harder to reach her dream. She struggled as a department store employee and an assistant editor for a fashion magazine in Australia. Her passion for acting remained to be her guiding ambition, and the it sparked once more when she was invited to take a role in a play. She had eventually decided to take acting as a full-time career.
Naomi took acting on baby steps that began from TV commercials to drama series. . She was a teenager when she first appeared in the 1986 film ‘For Love Alone.’She appeared as Julie Gibson in Home and Away (1988). Together with another Australian hottie Nicole Kidman and Thandie Newton, she played a part in ‘Flirting’, a film directed by John Duigan in 1991. Another film from the same director in 1992, ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ gave Naomi another acting opportunity, but didn’t fare well.
Naomi was cast in her first Hollywood film ‘Matinee’ in 1992. ‘Gross Misconduct’ in 1993 became her next project, where she starred as the disturbed student of Jimmy Smits. She played as the Jet Girl in ‘Tank Girl’ movie, directed by Lori Petty in 1995. It wasn’t as successful as her previous films. In 1997, she made an appearance in the TV series ‘Sleepwalkers’. Prior to this, had a role in ‘Children of the Corn Part 4.’ Her genre seemed to veer towards fantasy and drama, as she appeared in Dangerous Beauty in 1998, and a 1999 TV show called Unicorn Killer.
By the year 2001, the highly-acclaimed Mulholland Drive was out (directed by David Lynch). Her baby steps turned to more mature and wide-reaching roles as she progressed from ‘Mulholland Drive’ to ‘The Ring.’ The latter film was a box-office hit both in the US and internationally. Then, in the movie 21 Grams in 2004, she received her first nomination in the Academy Awards as Best Actress.
Like many Hollywood actresses, Naomi became attracted to Buddhism and was converted while shooting ‘The Painted Veil’ movie in 2006. Her lifestyle was purportedly changed into the ancient religion that required her to meditate and have Buddhist malas tattoos on her wrist.
Heath Ledger was linked to Naomi for several years before before the actress started dating Daniel Kirby, a young director. Currently, she is often seen with Liev Schreiber.
BUSINESS PERSONALITIES - Magazine Style
Shigeru Miyamoto is Nintendo's Wii-nning Secret
To succeed in the videogaming industry, you need only one thing: a desire to create fun. At least, in Shigeru Miyamoto's world, this guiding principle works. Miyamoto has been responsible for Nintendo's universal fame and fortune when he conceptualized the Jump Man in Donkey Kong back in the 1980s. The Jump Man is the character we now love so well -- Mario.Miyamoto is an admirable character himself for a lot of reasons. He held up production of certain games just because they aren't perfect enough for people to play. He split ways with Nintendo's competitors because he believed playing videogames should bring smiles to people's faces, and that everyone can play them. On the other hand, Microsoft and Sony focused on the more hardcore aspect of videogaming.
If you still have any doubts, here's a fact: the Nintendo Wii outsold the Xbox 360 and PS3 this year and is predicted to keep on selling like hotcakes even way past the holiday season.
Nintendo is an entirely different breed of game manufacturer. Like its celebrated gaming designer, it fires up interest not because of hype, but because it endears itself to people. And what could be more endearing than a Miyamoto quirk? The guy behind Nintendo's success rarely played video games and doesn't drive a BMW. Instead, he rides his bicycle to work.
PING: The "Anser" to Your Putting Problems
Karsten Solheim nudged his way towards success in the business of golf by creating putters in his garage as a General Electric engineer back in 1959. His inspiration? Frustration. He played golf and didn't like the putters of his time. This has led him to innovate various putters such as the PING 1A, and eventually the answer to his putting dilemma, the "Anser".
The Anser's success was brought about by the fact that it empowered all types of golfers. Solheim's product of mechanical design genius, like Enrico Fermi's calculations, was sketched on the back of record disc, instead of an envelope. It yielded the same mind-boggling results. Solheim's PING putters became so popular that now they are being used by famous golfers all over the world. Solheim eventually got out of the garage and into a factory of his own, the Karsten Manufacturing Company, in 1967.
PingGolf.com is PING's official ecommerce website. In it, you can find more golf products out of Solheim's ingenious beginnings. In it, you can also customize and buy a putter that fits you, just by ticking your options in the Putters category. Wow.
