Sunday, January 1, 2012

Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan

    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 1

    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 1Lindsay Lohan - Born July 2, 1986 in New York City, Lindsay Morgan Lohan was the oldest child of four born to mother Dina Lohan, a former Radio City Rockette, and Michael Lohan, a long-time Wall Street trader. Their daughter began modeling at age three and was purported to be the first red-haired child signed by the Ford Modeling Agency. Television commercials for various products followed, including a Jell-O spot with pitchman Bill Cosby. Lohan also had recurring roles on two daytime dramas - "Guiding Light" (CBS, 1952-2009) and as Ali Fowler on "Another World" (NBC, 1964-1999) - before she landed the first movie role for which she ever auditioned. Playing twins separated at birth - one American and one British - for "The Parent Trap" (1998) remake, she turned in a delightful and skilled performance which led to numerous offers for the youngster. Lohan next filmed the TV movie "Life-Size" (2000) opposite Tyra Banks as a Barbie-style doll come-to-life; part of Lohan's three-picture deal with Disney who was suitably impressed with the young girl's acting chops and effervescent onscreen appeal. Lohan was next cast as Bette Midler's teen daughter on the short-lived CBS sitcom, "Bette" (2000). After shooting the pilot episode, the show's producers decided to movie production to Los Angeles so Lohan gave up the role to stay in New York. Finding consistent work, she next played Lexy Gold in the Disney Channel telepic, "Get a Clue" (2002). The multitalented performer also got the chance to pursue a musical career when Emilio Estefan, Jr. took her under his professional wing in 2002, offering up a five-album production deal to sell her popular style "with a rock edge" to a major record label. The busy youngster also worked as a model for Abercrombie & Fitch Kids (A&F Kids) and Calvin Klein Kids.

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    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 2Lindsay Lohan - Even as she began to branch out professionally into other ventures, movie stardom remained the most important and rewarding aspect for Lohan, who was becoming recognized as an emerging big screen talent. Finally making the move to L.A. - where she roomed with child and future tween superstar Raven-Symoné - Lohan's potential was confirmed when she starred in another highly successful remake, "Freaky Friday" (2003) opposite Jamie Lee Curtis. As the mother-and-daughter team who wake up one day in each other's bodies, both Curtis and Lohan received raves from critics as well as sparking over $100 million at the box office. Showered with excellent reviews and attention, Lohan soon found her actions under increased scrutiny. The press eagerly reported on her public feud with fellow Disney teen queen Hilary Duff after the two briefly shared a boyfriend, singer Aaron Carter. Like Duff, Lohan also sought to blend an acting and singing career, and contributed her debut single, "Ultimate" to the "Freaky Friday" soundtrack. Her follow-up comedy, "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" (2004), gave Lohan the blessing and curse of opening a movie all by herself. In the film, Lohan plays an egocentric teen who has renamed herself Lola and competes with classmates for attention. Although not a smash, the film did moderately well and Lohan proved she was a strong lead. She also continued to expand her music career, singing four songs from the film's soundtrack, including "Drama Queen (That Girl)," "What Are You Waiting For," "A Day in the Life," and a medley that incorporated the original song "Don't Move On" with her take on Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City" and David Bowie's "Changes."

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    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 3Lindsay Lohan - Lohan broke through to superstardom with her next role, making her an international star and changing the course of both her career and her life. Taking the lead in the edgy "Mean Girls" (2004), a dark comedy penned by "Saturday Night Live" head writer-performer, Tina Fey, Lohan played Cady Heron, a teenager who has grown up in Africa with her zoologist parents. Unprepared for the complex, dangerous system of cliques and power struggles that go on among high school girls, Cady enrolls in an American high school and quickly finds herself a pawn, then a queen, in the game of popularity. With a strong cast of exceptional actresses - including Amanda Seyfried, Rachel McAdams, Amy Poehler and Lizzy Caplan - the film's exploration of female competition and its ultimately uplifting message of self-reliance and sisterhood won powerful champions across the board. Crossing over from the core teen and tween audiences, "Mean Girls" drew people of all ages and was quickly crowned an important and lasting film. At the epicenter of the film and its impact, Lohan saw her star power cemented, hosting several awards shows as well as "SNL" (NBC, 1975- ). Under the wing of new mentor Tommy Mottola, the famed head of Sony Music, Lohan released her first full album, Speak, which went platinum and featured the lead single "Rumors," in which she decried the increasing gossipy buzz that surrounded her every move.

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    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 4Lindsay Lohan - Indeed, the young actress's rapidly maturing body and youthful sex appeal - combined with reports that she enjoyed the Hollywood nightlife, despite being underage - suddenly made her a hot topic for celebrity gossip. Media outlets of every sort covered Lohan's friendships with a fast crowd that included Paris Hilton, her supposed plastic surgeries, her string of famous boyfriends and alleged hard-partying - reports that Lohan herself denied. The actress also had to deal with press reports regarding her parents, portraying Dina as an enabler and hanger-on, and estranged father Michael Lohan as a menace to his own family. Dina and Michael Lohan's marriage had indeed been a turbulent one, and Michael did have several brushes with the law, including a legal restraining order preventing him from contact with his family as well as jail time for a litany of legal offenses. In a move that further estranged his famous daughter, Michael also sought to claim a percentage of his offspring's earnings. At this point, Lohan began a long stint living in hotels, most famously a lengthy stay at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont.

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    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 5Lindsay Lohan - Publicly, Lohan shook off the lurid press and Disney cast her in further family fare, this time in the remake of the studio's famous "Love Bug" franchise, "Herbie: Fully Loaded" (2005) as a young girl who inherits the magical Volkswagen Beetle and takes it to the NASCAR race circuit. Unfortunately, Lohan was now considered too voluptuous by Disney for the kids' movie and the company spent considerable sums to digitally decrease her bust size. As whispers increased on gossip blogs and outlets, Lohan's personal life drew official condemnation from the Mouse House. According to Vanity Fair, Lohan's behavior after a painful breakup with "That '70s Show" star (FOX 1998-2006) Wilmer Valderrama was one of the reasons she was dropped from the promotional tour and de-emphasized on the film's poster. The pressures of such intense global fame, coupled with personal turmoil finally took its toll on Lohan, who was hospitalized in October 2004, reportedly suffering from exhaustion and asthma.

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    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 6Lindsay Lohan - This would not be the last time Lohan would be hospitalized for a variety of ailments. She was in her second auto accident of the year, again blaming pursuing paparazzi. The actress, who had risen to fame as a healthy, natural redhead, lost a large amount of weight and dyed her hair blonde, fueling more reports that her new appearance reflected an unhealthy lifestyle. Her private life made headlines yet again when she confessed to Vanity Fair that she had struggled with bulimia, accounting for her significant weight loss, and that she was shocked back to healthier ways after being confronted by "SNL" producer Lorne Michaels and Fey while hosting their show. She also admitted to experimenting with drugs. The cover story was released just as Lohan was hospitalized for a reported asthma attack in Miami in early 2006. Within a week, Lohan denied having made the statements to the magazine, saying her words were "misconstrued." Lohan's second album only added fuel to the fire: A Little More Personal (Raw) came out at the very end of 2005, with a controversial lead single. "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)" was an aching power ballad from the perspective of an abused, neglected child to an absentee father. In the video, actors portraying the Lohan family live in a series of glass cases on display to a crowd. While the father hits the mother and trashes the living room, Lohan and her real-life sister, Ali, cower and cry. As a co-writer on the song as well as the video's director, Lohan could not have been unaware of the explicit, painful parallels between her music and real life. The song was Lohan's only charting single, but the album sank after moderate sales with no follow-up singles.

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    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 7Lindsay Lohan - One thing detractors and fans agreed on, however, was Lohan's acting talent. Even in the atrocious bomb "Just My Luck" (2006), where Lohan played the world's luckiest woman who trades places with the world's unluckiest man, critics saw a career worth saving. In an attempt to get her fortunes back on track, Lohan left behind her teen image with more adult parts. She joined the impressive cast of Emilio Estevez's independent film "Bobby" (2006) - which included Anthony Hopkins and Sharon Stone - about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and co-starred opposite Meryl Streep in Robert Altman's last film, "A Prairie Home Companion" (2006). She co-starred with her reported off-screen love interest, Jared Leto, in "Chapter 27" (2007), an indie film about a woman who befriends Mark David Chapman during the weekend in 1980 that he assassinates John Lennon in New York City. Little seen as these movies may have been, Lohan's willingness to tackle interesting parts in challenging movies was applauded. Still, the open secret of her increasingly wild lifestyle off set threatened to end her career. At first, Lohan's casting in "Georgia Rule" (2007) seemed like an ideal project to redeem the young actress and position her as a future great, worthy of a place alongside co-stars Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman. While the final result was lambasted by critics and a box office failure, the most damning aspect of it all came during production.

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    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 8Lindsay Lohan - Frustrated by Lohan's erratic attendance, producers took the unprecedented step of releasing to the media the contents of a scathing letter to Lohan, calling her various illnesses "bogus excuses" and accusing her of partying all night. James Robinson went on to write: "To date, your actions on Georgia Rule have been discourteous, irresponsible and unprofessional. You have acted like a spoiled child and in so doing have alienated many of your co-workers and endangered the quality of this picture. Moreover, your actions have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. We will not tolerate these actions any further." At the same time online blogs and tabloid websites zoomed in on this now seemingly wayward actress, photographing her several times without underwear while wearing a short skirt. Lohan and fellow party girls Paris Hilton and Britney Spears seemed almost to enjoy the media frenzy they would cause. By the end of the 2006, GQ named Lohan its "Obsession of the Year." Days later, the press reported - and Lohan later confirmed but downplayed - that a doctor was called to the Chateau Marmont for a rumored overdose. This shocking announcement was followed in quick succession by her mother Dina admitting on Ryan Seacrest's radio program that her daughter had begun attending Alcoholics Anonymous.

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    Hollywood Actress - Lindsay Lohan 9Lindsay Lohan - It came as a shock to some; not to others, when less than a month after being released on probation from UCLA and during the publication of a mea culpa Vanity Fair cover story in which she stated she was determined to get her life and career back on track, Lohan failed two drug tests for cocaine and amphetamines. On September 19, Lohan's probation was revoked and another bench warrant issued for her arrest. This time, she Tweeted, she was "ready to face the consequences of her actions." Only days later, the judge denied bail and reprimanded her into custody immediately. It was believed the actress would spend significantly more time behind bars this time, due to denial of bail. However, only hours after her arrival back at Lynwood, Lohan was released after her lawyer appealed that the actress was legally entitled to bail, as it was misdemeanor charges and not felony. Lohan wasted little time before checking herself into the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs, CA where she remained before her next court appearance. On October 22, Lohan dodged a bullet by being ordered back to rehab till the new year. She would serve no jail time. While in rehab, she welcomed her father, Michael Lohan, back into her life. On a darker note, she was accused of assaulting a Betty Ford employee, but charges were not filed against her. When she was released from rehab in January 2011, it did not take long for the actress - who appeared to be committed to her sobriety this time - to make headlines yet again when she was accused of stealing a necklace worth over $2,000 from a Venice, CA jewelry store. On February 8, Lohan entered a plea of not guilty in the felony grand theft charge. Before remanding her into custody, Judge Keith Schwartz set her bail at $20,000 and warned, "If you violate the law, I will remand you and there will be no bail." The judge also revoked Lohan's probation in the previous DUI case and set this bail at $20,000, totaling $40,000. During her February 23rd hearing, Lohan refused to cop a plea and do jail time, instead choosing to go to trial. On April 22, she was sentenced to 120 days in jail for violating her probation, though the charge was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor, and it was made clear to her she would stand trial for the theft.