Johnny Depp Biography and Pictures 2012

Johnny Depp Bio 2012

Johnny Depp...Actor, director, musician. Born John Christopher Depp, Jr. in Owensboro, Kentucky, on June 9, 1963, to parents John and Betty Sue Depp. Johnny's father worked as a civil engineer, and his mother came from full-blooded Cherokee stock, and worked as a waitress and homemaker. The youngest of four children, Depp was withdrawn and a self-admitted oddball. "I made odd noises as a child," he later revealed in an interview. "Just did weird things, like turn off light switches twice. I think my parents thought I had Tourette's syndrome." Depp fell into acting when his wife introduced him to her ex-boyfriend, actor Nicolas Cage. Cage saw potential in Depp, and introduced the hopeful musician to a Hollywood agent. After several small roles as a film extra, Depp landed his first legitimate movie role in the horror film Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). By 1985, the Kids had broken up—and so had Depp's marriage. After his split with Allison, Depp met actress Sherilyn Fenn, whom he met on the set of the short film, Dummies (1985). The couple dated, and were briefly engaged, but split shortly after. After their break-up, Depp then met and proposed to actress Jennifer Grey; their romance was also short-lived.

Depp started to study acting in earnest, first in classes at the Loft Studio in Los Angeles and then with a private coach. The lessons paid off in 1987, when he replaced actor Jeff Yagher in the role of undercover cop Tommy Hanson in the popular Canadian-filmed TV series 21 Jump Street. The role thrust Depp into almost immediate stardom. Johnny Depp became a teen idol overnight; a title that he greatly resented. When his contract on Jump Street expired in 1989, he leapt at the opportunity to pursue weightier roles.

John Travolta Biography 2012

John Travolta Biography 

John Joseph Travolta was born on the 18th of February, 1954, in Englewood, New Jersey. His father, Salvatore, was a semi-pro footballer turned tyre salesman. His mother, Helen, was the entertainer in the family. She had played in a radio vocal group called The Sunshine Sisters, and had acted and directed before becoming a high school drama teacher. John also had five brothers and sisters - Joey and Sam, and Ellen, Ann and Margaret. All of them have worked in TV, film or music. This clearly had much to do with Helen's influence, but also Salvatore's who encouraged his children by assembling a small theatre in the family's basement. When John Travolta stepped up to play the Bill Clinton character in the supposedly true-to-life political drama Primary Colours, the coincidence was not lost on America's journalists. Clinton was known across the nation as The Comeback Kid and Travolta, in the previous four years, had achieved a return to prominence rarely paralleled in cinema's history. Having in the late Seventies been the biggest star on the planet, he'd spent the Eighties in a deep hole beneath the gutter. Now, suddenly, by an outrageous fluke of timing, he was a $20 million man, capable of carrying mediocre movies over the $100 million mark - a producer's dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. Irish-Italian ones clearly have three at least.Young John was very quick to make his career choice. His great loves all pointed him towards a life onstage. He loved The Beatles, and learned to play guitar. He loved to dance, winning a Twist competition at a very young age. And he loved James Cagney. So enamoured was he of acting that little Bone (so called because he was so skinny) actually joined an Actor's Workshop at age 12. Employing all his talents, he played in local musicals and worked in dinner theatre. He took tap lessons from Gene Kelly's brother, Fred, and picked up all the new steps from the groundbreaking TV show Soul Train. It wasn't all work. He rough-housed with the rest - that famous nose of his was originally broken while larking about in the pool. But, as said, his childhood hobbies were a preparation for what was to come.

John Rambo Biography 2012

John Rambo Biography

John Rambo, was born on July 6, 1947 in Bowie, Arizona, to a Native American (Navajo) father (R. Rambo according to the last film) and an Italian American mother (Marie Drago). However, in Rambo: First Blood Part II, Marshall Murdock states that Rambo is of Native American Italian/German descent. Rambo enlisted in the United States Army  at the age of 17 on August 6, 1964. After graduating from Rangeford High School in 1965, his military service began in January 1966. Rambo was deployed to South Vietnam in September 1966. He returned to the U.S. in 1967 and began training in the Special Forces (Green Berets) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In late 1969, Rambo was re-deployed to Vietnam. In November 1971, he was captured by North Vietnamese forces near the Chinese-Vietnamese border and held at a POW camp, where he and other American POWs were repeatedly tortured. Rambo escaped captivity in May 1972, but was then re-deployed. At some point in his military career he also apparently received training in flying helicopters. Rambo received his military discharge on September 17, 1974.

Upon his return to the U.S., Rambo discovered that many American civilians hated the returning soldiers from Vietnam, and he himself along with other returning soldiers were subject to humiliation and embarrassment by anti-war "hippies" who throw garbage at them, call them "baby killers", and exclude them from society. His experiences in Vietnam and back home resulted in an extreme case of post-traumatic stress disorder of a sort that does not seem to have ever manifested in reality. At the same time, inner questions of self identity and reflectiveness cause Rambo to lash out at society rather than handling difficult situations in a "civilized" manner. This is where First Blood picks up from.

Films

    * First Blood (1982), directed by Ted Kotcheff

    * Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), directed by George Pan Cosmatos

    * Rambo III (1988), directed by Peter MacDonald

    * Rambo (2008), directed by Sylvester Stallone

Awards

In First Blood is mentioned:

    * 1 - Medal of Honor

Per dialogue in Rambo: First Blood Part II, during his Vietnam era service, Rambo was awarded:

    * 2 - Silver Star

    * 4 - Bronze Stars for Valor

    * 4 - Purple Heart

    * 1 - Distinguished Service Cross

    * 1 - Medal of Honor

In "Rambo Prepares Knife" deleted scene from Rambo III, Rambo's "Class A" uniform can clearly be seen (although his rank can not be seen) in his footlocker with the following 13 ribbons:

    * Medal of Honor - Awarded one and refused another

    * Army Distinguished Service Medal

    * Distinguished Flying Cross

    * Soldier's Medal

    * Bronze Star

    * Purple Heart

    * Air Medal

    * Combat Action Ribbon - This award is actually for US Navy, Coast Guard and Marine personnel, so this could be either an error on part of the film makers or Rambo could have possibly been awarded one for a joint-service operation.

    * Vietnam Service Medal

    * Prisoner of War Medal

    * Army Service Ribbon

    * Vietnam Wound Medal - This award is actually a South Vietnamese (ARVN) forces medal and was seldom awarded to US forces, even if it was awarded to a US serviceman, he would not be permitted to wear it on his dress uniform because it is basically a foreign nations variation of the Purple Heart.

    * Vietnam Campaign Medal

In a measure of discontinuity within the storyline, Rambo's Silver Stars and Distinguished Service Cross were missing from his ribbon rack as well as the National Defense Medal and the Good Conduct Medal, both of which he would have been awarded.

Various special duty badges can also be seen on Rambo's "Class A" uniform, including:

    * Combat Infantryman Badge

    * Aircraft Crewman Badge

    * Senior Combat Parachutist Badge

    * Expert Weapons Qualification Badge

Additionally, in this same scene, Rambo's Social Security Number is revealed: 936-01-1758. However, the Social Security Administration does not issue a SSN with the prefix 936. Citizens in Arizona, Rambo's home state, are issued SSNs with the prefixes 526-527, 600-601, and 764-765. This was probably done to avoid the chances that Rambo's fictional SSN would match that of a real living person.