The Lowdown on: Neil Patrick Harris aka Doogie Howser
Any child of the nineties will remember that baby faced whizz-kid Dr Doogie Howser. At a mere 16 years old, NPH (as the hipper of us would call him) made Dr Doug Ross look like an inept, cranky old man.
While some of us might believe that NPH emerged fully grown in 1989 from the mighty brain of some sort of god, he was of course born normally like other people. The strangely comical sounding town of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was his birth place on June 15th 1973.
His first role came in fourth grade when he appeared as Toto in the school play. Critics and his parents hailed the performance as ‘brilliant’ and ‘the most astounding performance of Toto I have ever been blessed to see’.
It was in 1988 playing opposite Whoopi Goldberg in Clara’s Heart that he started making an impact, and after starring in children’s fantasy film Purple People Eater he was snapped up to play the lead role in Doogie Howser, MD. A show about a child genius who is also a doctor, but deals with all the pitfalls of teendom along the way. This precarious sounding premise ended up becoming a hit series that ran for four seasons and thrust NPH into the light of child stardom.
Whilst you might expect a long road of drink drugs and rehab, NPH seemed to survive the regular temptations of young fortune and actually disappeared for a number of years. He was quickly dismissed as yet another forgotten child star.
It wasn’t until Starship Troopers in 1998 that he popped back into popular consciousness again, as the geeky best friend of the heroic lead played by Casper Van Dien. The cult success of the film, and NPH’s comically straight-faced turn, was enough to earn a grudging respect from audiences.
However it wasn’t until a guest turn in another cult hit, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, in 2004 that mainstream audiences started to realise that Harris had some serious comic talent. In the role he sent himself up as a has-been star with a penchant for binges and bee-atches.
This in turn led to the role that really turned audiences’ heads as Barney in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. The slightly delusional, comically self centered character totally stole the show and there is no doubt that he carried the comedy in its rocky first season.
Today NPH is gaining a rep as a fierce comic talent who doesn’t mind experimenting with style. His most recent work was in Joss Whedon’s online web show Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog. His all-singing, all-dancing portrayal of Dr Horrible pulled together a show that, frankly, sounded REALLY dodgy on paper and turned into an affectionate, hilarious and strangely poignant show.
Oh and for those who care, he came out last year, much to the sadness of many women and the happiness of many men.
Mostly though, at the age of 35, Neil Patrick Harris has established that he’s got lasting talent.
by McGee Noble
The Lowdown on: Denise Richards
Sh*gging her best friend’s husband, a messy divorce and raunchy roles: what is Denise Richards all about?
Does anyone take Denise Richards seriously these days? It seems that every week there’s another story splashed across PerezHilton.com (who absolutely detests her) about her latest publicity stunt or the most recent machination in her divorce from Michael Sheen. But there has to be more to her than that, right?
‘The only girl on the baseball team…’
Denise was born in 1971 in small-town Illinois. Her mother owned a coffee shop and her father was a telephone engineer. Denise didn’t embrace her feminine side until later in life. As a kid she was a tomboy who shunned girly stuff, preferring sporty pursuits like baseball.
Model and actress
Denise decided to capitalise on her good looks by becoming a model. This led to her being cast in a string of low-budget films and shows during the 1990s like Saved By The Bell. In 1997 she got her big break starring in Starship Troopers, followed by cult hit Wild Things in 1998.
World’s worst Bond girl…
Denise must have thought all her Christmases had come at once when she was cast as – ahem – Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough in 1999. She felt that her character possessed great depth of character and was “brainy and athletic”. The viewing public wasn’t so sure. She was criticized for the skimpy tank top and shorts combo that Christmas wore throughout most of the film, and lost credibility as quickly as Bond loses bullets during a particularly vigorous shoot-out. Unfortunately for Denise, she was voted worst Bond girl of all time by Entertainment Weekly in 2008. Harsh – but fair?
Sex symbol
Most of the time in Hollywood the pretty girls don’t get the gritty roles that would allow them to prove their acting mettle. This was exactly what happened to Denise. In the early 2000s her film work consisted solely of roles which highlighted her sex symbol status, like Valentine, Undercover Brother and Scary Movie 3. She posed naked for Playboy in 2004 and was voted among the world’s sexiest women in various lads’ mags.
Love troubles
In recent years it’s been Denise’s rocky personal life that has kept her in the headlines. Her split with Charlie Sheen (with whom she has two young daughters) is a favourite topic on gossip websites. She married Sheen in 2002 after meeting on the set of Scary Movie 3. The pair had two daughters together before Denise filed for divorce in 2005. It all got a bit messy when she took a restraining order out on him for his alleged death threats against her. She claimed that he was obsessed with prostitutes, addicted to gambling and drugs, and had a penchant for porn. This smear campaign didn’t endear Denise to her public…
My best friend’s husband
Nor did her affair with Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, which began soon after Sambora split from Denise’s best friend Heather Locklear. Word of advice for the future – best not to choose your close friend’s ex-hubby as your rebound fling… Suffice to say, Denise and Heather are no longer on speaking terms.
Airing her dirty laundry…
Violence
Despite relying on the paparazzi for her continuing slice of limelight, Denise directed her temper at a pair of snappers who dared to take her photo while she as filming in Canada. She flung their laptops over a balcony. One hit an 80-year-old wheelchair-bound woman, and the other hit a 91-year-old. Oops…
Reality bites
The saga of the Richards-Sheen divorce rumbled on when Denise signed up for her own reality show on E! called Denise Richards: It’s Complicated. She wanted to include her and Sheen’s two daughters, Sam and Lola, but Michael wasn’t too happy. He called her “greedy, vain and exploitative”, but his case against her wasn’t successful and the show went ahead featuring the girls.
Despite something of a renaissance after never quite making the A-list for her movies, Denise isn’t exactly Miss Popular in Celebville. But these days all publicity is good publicity, so we’re sure she’s perfectly happy with what she has. What’s life without a bit of scandal anyway?
by Susie Gordon
The Lowdown on: Michael C. Hall
Serial killers, a gay mortician and the lowdown on one of the U.S’s top telly actors: Meet Michael C. Hall
You may have come across him in the breathtakingly good Six Feet Under, a series which arguably changed the face of US television drama. Set in a family run funeral home, its constant morbid intimacy made death both an unrelenting presence and flippantly mundane. The constant ethical and dramatic challenges that the characters faced made it evocative and at times darkly comic in such a way that had not been captured so well in a TV drama before. Playing the role of the closeted homosexual mortician was Michael C Hall. By the end of the show Hall had been multiply nominated for Emmy’s for his role. Not a bad start considering that prior to the show his start was as an off Broadway actor with no television experience.
“My father’s death was a real marker…”
Michael C Hall was born in 1971 in Raleight, North Carolina and trained as an actor at the NYU Master of Fine Arts. He was an only child as his sister died in infancy and his father died of cancer when he was 11, leaving his mother to bring him up alone. In an interview with The Advocate in 2004 he said: “At that age, 11, my father’s death was a real marker. Certainly, for a young boy, there’s no good age, but I think I was on the cusp of a time in my life where I was starting to reach puberty, to relate to my father—or as a result, I was becoming more like him. To have him… Something gets frozen. As you revisit it for the rest of your life, it’s sort of this slow but hopefully sure crawling-out of that frozen moment.”
Leading the dance in Cabaret
After leaving NYU he starred off broadway in plays like Macbeth and Cymbeline at the New York Shakespeare Festival, and in Timon of Athens and Henry V at the New York Public Theater. It was through the theatre that he met director Sam Mendes and when Mendes did his feted revival of the dark, erotically charged ‘Cabaret’ he cast Hall in the role of the emcee after Alan Cumming. It was this that eventually led to his audition for the role of David in Six Feet Under.
Hall puts on his dancing shoes as David in SixFeet Under
Getting cast in Six Feet Under
Mendes and Six Feet Under creator and showrunner Alan Ball worked together on the film American Beauty and when Ball was looking to cast David, Mendes suggested Hall. At this point in time it was actually actor Peter Krause, who ended up playing Nate Fisher, was originally cast to play David Fisher. The producers struggled to cast the role of Nate and eventually decided to cast Krause in the role and Hall as David. This reversal ended in an award winning acting partnership that was the cornerstone of the impressive ensemble cast.
In an interview Hall said that “Everything I opened up for Cabaret,” Hall says, “I slammed shut for David.” The wariness of the character, his meticulous nature and deeply closeted homosexuality made him engrossing to watch, played with a precision and dark self loathing by Hall.
He took a few feature film roles between- both a far cry from David, a messy action thriller in which he played a bit role ‘paycheck’ and TV movie Bereft. However it was his role as a serial killer with a heart of gold and murder that has brought him back to serious character acting for television.
A promo for season 2 turns fountains around the world blood red
Playing a Serial Killer
Based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, it was adapted for television by Emmy award winning screenwriter James Manos Jr. You probably haven’t heard of him but knowing that he is an Emmy award screenwriter whose previous work includes the Sopranos gives you a sense of the quality of the adaptation. The challenging character of Dexter, who both charmed and horrified audiences, was an absorbing character and in the deft hands of Manos, the pilot was brilliantly morbid and creepily addictive watching.
Michael C. Hall talks about playing Dexter
Julie Benz, who plays Dexter’s brittle, damaged girlfriend talked about working with him in an interview “When we did the pilot, I was very nervous… I was beginning to work with my favourite actor. I had to do a lot of relaxation to be on set with Michael… I was such a huge fan of his and just couldn’t believe I was cast to play opposite him. I was really waiting for someone to come up to me and say it’s all a joke,”
Another fan is author of the books Jeff Lindsay. When asked about how he feels about the show’s adaptation he replied: “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred television will take your book and throw away what’s good and turn it into what they want, which is crappy television. Not here. Michael C. Hall is absolutely bloody marvellous.” It is a testament to Hall’s skill as an actor that when Lindsay first heard of the casting he thought that he wasn’t right for the part at all, “but then the first time I saw him on the set I was blown away.”
Privately, Hall married actress Amy Spanger in 2002 but they divorced in 2006 and Hall is now rumoured to be dating his co-star Jennifer Carpenter, who plays his sister Debra Morgan on Dexter.
Watch the Season 2 promo
With Season 2 of Dexter just stared on FX last week, now is a great time to tune into this series and see what all the fuss is about. Catch season 2 episode 2 tonight, Tuesday, on FX at 10pm.
The Lowdown on: Davina McCall
Love her or hate her, you can’t escape Davina McCall at the moment. The annual Big Brother circus is in town, with TV’s favourite motor-mouth heading up proceedings. Thanks to a long career in front of the camera Ms McCall is one of the most recognised faces on television. Here’s the lowdown on her life and career.
Early Life…
Davina Lucy Pascale McCall (try saying that after a couple of drinks…) was born on the 16th October 1967 in London. Her childhood wasn’t exactly idyllic. Her parents separated when she was three and she went to live with her grandparents in Surrey. Her French mother Florence was quite the free spirit, moving back to Paris after her divorce which meant that young Davina only saw her during holidays.
Making Waves…
At the age of 13 Davina moved in with her dad and started at posh Godolphin and Latymer Girls School. Her difficult family life led to her developing anorexia in her teens. It was also during this time that she started flexing her performance muscles, starting a professional band. She decided to go solo when she was 19 with the help of family friend Eric Clapton who she dated for a while. But pop stardom wasn’t to be for Davina. Frustrated by her lack of progress in the music industry she decided to pack it in and get a day job. But it wasn’t your run of the mill office drudgery. Davina landed a job as a booker for Model One’s male division – nice work if you can get it!
But the showbiz bug had bitten and it wasn’t long before Miss McCall was back on stage, this time in the Kylie Minogue video for ‘Word is Out’. A string of jobs and bit-parts followed (including a stint as a singing waitress in Paris, and two years running a restaurant) until she found herself back in London where she threw herself into the club scene. Drugs were rife and the temptation was too hard to resist. During her early 20s Davina was addicted to alcohol and cocaine.
First Taste of Stardom…
It was guardian angel and one-time lover Eric Clapton who helped Davina out of her misery. Thanks to him she conquered her addictions and got her first proper TV job presenting a show on MTV. Her next few jobs were on late-night and cult shows such as ITV game show God’s Gift and dating program Streetmate. But it was good old Big Bro who catapulted Davina into the limelight. A fixture since the very first show, her dedication to the BB cause was so great that she battled through three series while pregnant. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Davina caused controversy in series 6 when she interviewed evictee Sam Heuston while wearing a bikini, and came under fire in the press for her heavy-handed interview technique with Makosi Musambasi.
Household Name…
Despite a steady salary from Big Brother Davina works between summer stints. Her CV is peppered with televisual hits like Popstars: The Rivals and Love on a Saturday Night as well as presenting gigs on the BAFTAs, Sport Relief and the BRIT Awards. She was given her own chat show on BBC1 in 2006 which never quite took off. Ratings never quite pipped 3 million and the show was axed after just one series.
Drama…
Not satisfied with simply presenting, Davina decided to give acting a go. She appeared in the sitcom Sam’s Game in 2001 but didn’t exactly set the thespian world on fire… She had more success alongside Leigh Francis on Bo’ Selecta and A Bear’s Tail, but has wisely realised that her true skill lies in presenting.
Personal Happiness…
After her rocky childhood, it seems that Davina has found happiness in her personal life. She divorced her first husband Andrew Leggett in the late 90s and married Pet Rescue presenter Matthew Robertson in 2000. The pair have three children – Holly, Tilly and Chester. Little Holly has already taken her first showbiz steps. Chris Moyles uses a sound clip of the tot saying “International Radio 1” on his breakfast show from time to time. You never know - maybe we’ll see her presenting Big Brother twenty years from now!
Future…
So what does the future hold for Davina? With Big Brother’s success on the wane she may lose her main meal ticket, but her popularity means that she’ll be in a good position to carry on presenting. A successful prime-time career, loyal hubby and three kids… It looks like Miss McCall has finally found peace and happiness after a rocky start. Long may she reign!
by Susie Gordon
The Lowdown on: Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Cole first stepped into the limelight on popular talent search Popstars: The Rivals in 2002. After six years at the top of the charts the former Miss Tweedy is returning to our screens as a judge on this year’s X Factor, replacing original battleaxe Sharon Osbourne. So what’s the lowdown on the feisty Geordie lass?
Cheryl Ann Tweedy was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 30th June 1983 into a family of five children. She was a natural performer from an early age, dancing in local recitals and television. The versatile youngster cut her showbiz teeth in ballroom dancing, ballet and modelling. Her good looks were recognised early. Her list of accolades include Boots bonniest baby, Mothercare Happy Faces Portrait competition, Best Looking Girl of Newcastle, The Evening Chronicle ‘Little Miss & Mister’ and Most Attractive Girl at the MetroCentre. This led to an appearance in several television commercials.
Tweedy was working as a waitress when she auditioned for the girl group in Popstars: The Rivals.
After storming her way through the live knock-out shows, Tweedy was eventually voted into Girls Aloud along with Nicola Roberts, Kimberley Walsh, Sarah Harding and Nadine Coyle.
Shortly after Girls Aloud’s launch Cheryl was involved in a disagreement with nightclub toilet attendant Sophie Amogbokpa in a Guildford nightclub. She was charged with racially aggravated assault and actual bodily harm. Despite claiming that she had acted in self defence, Cheryl was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and was sentenced to 120 hours of community service. She had to pay Amogbokpa £500 in compensation, as well as £3000 court costs. She has always denied that the attack was racial.
The controversy didn’t stop Girls Aloud from scoring eighteen consecutive Top 10 hits and releasing four studio albums after their first single ‘Sound of the Underground’ stormed the charts.
When Cheryl got together with footballer Ashley Cole, it was a match made in tabloid heaven. The pair married at Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire on 15th July 2006. Cheryl wore a dress especially designed for her by Roberto Cavalli, reportedly worth £110,000. OK! Magazine paid £1 million to cover the wedding.
However, the fairytale wasn’t to last. Cheryl’s personal life was thrust into the public eye once again in January 2008 when allegations surfaced in the tabloid press that Ashley had been unfaithful. Two girls, including hairdresser Aimee Walton, claimed to have slept with the footballer. Aimee told the press that Ashley’s management had even offered to pay for her to have an abortion. Imaginably, Cheryl was devastated. She was pictured without her wedding ring on holiday with her band mates in Thailand, and Britain was poised for news of a divorce. But Cheryl decided to give her husband another chance. The pair reunited, with rumours of a sex ban imposed by Cheryl until wayward Ashley learned his lesson.
Despite this knock to her confidence Cheryl’s career went from strength to strength. She trained as a street dancer in ITV’s four part series The Passions of Girls Aloud which led to a part in Black Eyed Peas’ singer Will.i.am’s single ‘Heartbreaker’, and has recently accepted Sharon Osbourne’s job on the judging panel of this year’s X Factor.
A string of Top 10 records, a place in one of the UK’s most successful girl bands, and a blossoming TV career - life is looking good for the Newcastle lass.
The Lowdown on: Sarah Jessica Parker
With the Sex and the City movie grossing big-time in cinemas across the world, we’ve decided to take a look at the life and career of the show’s biggest star and style icon, Sarah Jessica Parker.
The adventures of New York sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw catapulted Sarah Jessica Parker into the limelight and earned her four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Emmy Awards. However, the actress had a long career before she donned her Manolos in the adaptation of Candace Bushnell’s novel.
She was born in Nelsonville, Ohio, in 1965 to a nursery school teacher and a Jewish journalist. Of her background Sarah says “I always just considered myself a Jew” and now classes herself as culturally Jewish along with her husband Matthew Broderick who also has one Jewish parent.
Sarah’s parents divorced when she was very young and her mother remarried, resulting in a family of seven siblings. Sarah’s love of performing was evident at an early age. The youngster took singing and ballet lessons and was being cast in the Broadway production of The Innocents. As her career developed, the family moved to Cincinnati then to Dobbs Ferry in New York State. In 1977 they moved to Manhattan proper, but travelled between New Jersey, New York and Los Angeles to support Sarah’s burgeoning talent.
It seemed that Sarah’s future lay in musical theatre. She and four of her siblings appeared in a revival of The Sound of Music, and Sarah joined the cast of Annie on Broadway in 1977 playing a small role. In 1979 she was promoted to the lead role which she held for a year.
But television work beckoned. Sarah was cast as the co-lead in sitcom Square Pegs in 1982. The show was cancelled after just one season but Sarah’s talent had been noticed. This led to her being cast in Footloose in 1984 and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun in 1985, followed by Disney’s science fiction Flight of the Navigator in 1986.
The 1990s saw Sarah’s star rise further. Her 1991 appearance in rom-com L.A. Story was critically acclaimed, leading to what was probably her breakthrough role in Honeymoon in Vegas alongside Nicolas Cage. Her 1993 role in the film Hocus Pocus was a higher grosser at the box office but received negative reviews. The following year, she appeared opposite Johnny Depp in the critically acclaimed movie Ed Wood.
The rest of the early 90s brought a raft of romantic comedy roles to Sarah’s portfolio, and it looked as if she would follow the path of many actresses who never quite hit the big-time – safe, middle of the road roles. All this changed when Sarah received a script for an HBO drama comedy series called Sex and the City. Initially unwilling to commit to a long-term series, Sarah was eventually won over by the character of Carrie – a glamorous New York journalist with a penchant for designer shoes – and took the role.
This was probably the most important decision in Sarah’s career. The show was an instant success and ran for six seasons, the final three of which Sarah co-produced. Fans were devastated when the series ended in 2004 but rumours of a film started to spring up almost immediately. It took four years for the initial idea to evolve into a feature, despite murmurs from the four lead actresses that it would never happen. The film was on May 30th 2008 and a sequel is planned for 2009.
Her role in Sex and the City made SJP into a style icon and won her contracts with high profile companies like Gap and Garnier. In 2005 she released her perfume, ‘Lovely’, followed by ‘Covet’ two years later, and launched her fashion line Bitten in 2007.
Sarah dated Robert Downey Jr. from 1984 until 1991 after meeting on the set of Firstborn. The relationship floundered because of Downey’s drug problem, and Sarah was linked to John Kennedy Jr. and singer-songwriter Joshua Kadison in the early 1990s. She married actor Matthew Broderick on May 19th 1997 and their son James was born in 2002. The Parker-Brodericks lives in New York City.
The Lowdown on: Jason Bateman
Jason Bateman
Golden Globe-winning actor, Jason Bateman, has been in the news recently for his new deal with Twentieth Century Fox TV. Having just graced us with his pilot directing debut, “Do not Disturb”, he is now gearing up to start a year long contract with the studio to develop a series of projects through his company, F+A Productions, in the role of producer/director. But where the exactly did the actor turned director start out? What path has led him to where he is today?
Born in 1969, the son of
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