Pacific Palisades

Steven Allan Spielberg is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than... four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks movie studio. Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan . Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , and Jurassic Park —achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion. Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish family.
more

Lawrence Gene "Larry" David is an American actor, writer, comedian, and producer. He is best known as the co-creator , head writer, and executive... producer of the television series Seinfeld from 1989 to 1996, and for creating the 1999 HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, a partially improvised sitcom in which he stars as a semi-fictionalized version of himself. David's work won him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1993. Formerly a standup comedian, David went into television comedy, writing and starring in ABC's Fridays, as well as writing briefly for Saturday Night Live. He has won two Primetime Emmy Awards as well as being voted by fellow comedians and comedy insiders as number 23 of the greatest comedy stars ever in a British poll to select The Comedian's Comedian. Lawrence Gene David was born to a Jewish family in the neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Sheepshead Bay High School and then the University of Maryland, with a bachelor's degree in history , and then in business . After college, David enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve.
more

Cuba M. Gooding, Jr. is an American actor. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning portrayal of Rod Tidwell in Cameron Crowe's 1996 film... Jerry Maguire. Gooding was born in The Bronx, New York City on January 2, 1968, the son of Shirley Temple , a singer with the Sweethearts, and Cuba Gooding, Sr., a lead vocalist of soul group The Main Ingredient. He has three siblings: Tommy, Omar, and April. His paternal grandfather was a native of Barbados. His family moved to Los Angeles after his father's music group had a hit single with "Everybody Plays the Fool" in 1972; the elder Gooding abandoned his family two years later. During his appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Gooding revealed that after his father had left, his family lived in hotels throughout Los Angeles. Gooding was raised by his mother and attended four different high schools: North Hollywood High School, Tustin High School, Apple Valley High School, and John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills in Los Angeles. He served as class president in three of them. He became a born-again Christian at age 13.
more

John Stephen Goodman is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for his role as Dan Conner on the television series Roseanne... for which he won a Best Actor Golden Globe Award in 1993. Goodman was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His mother, Virginia Roos , was a store clerk and waitress who worked at Jack and Phil's Bar-B-Que, and his father, Leslie F. Goodman, was a postal worker who died of a heart attack in 1954. He has a sister, Elisabeth Horvath, and a brother, Leslie. Goodman went to Affton High School, where he played football and dabbled in theater. He then won a football scholarship to Southwest Missouri State University, now called Missouri State University. He pledged the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, but was not formally initiated until several years later. Later he discovered Southwest Missouri's drama program. He studied there with actors Kathleen Turner and Tess Harper. After a college injury ended his football career, he decided to become a professional actor, leaving Missouri for New York in 1975.
more

Matthew Steven "Matt" LeBlanc is an American actor, best known for his role as Joey Tribbiani on the NBC sitcoms Friends and its spin-off Joey. In... 2011, LeBlanc began starring as a fictional version of himself in Episodes, a BBC2/Showtime television series created by Friends co-creator David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik. LeBlanc won a Golden Globe award for his work on Episodes, after being nominated three times for his work as Joey Tribbiani on Friends. LeBlanc was born in Newton, Massachusetts. His mother, Patricia , was an office manager, and his father, Paul LeBlanc, was a mechanic. His mother was of Italian descent and his father was of French-Canadian ancestry. In 1988, he landed his first regular TV role on the drama TV 101 which ran for one season. In 1990 he starred in Jon Bon Jovi's music video "Miracle," from Young Guns II sound track. In 1991 he starred in the music video for the Alanis Morissette single "Walk Away". He also appeared in the last seconds of the music video for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Into the Great Wide Open." In 1991, he went on to star in a spin-off of Married with Children titled Top of the Heap.
more

Jeffrey Jacob "J. J." Abrams is an American film and television producer, screenwriter, director, actor, and composer. He is well known for his work... in the genres of action, drama, and science fiction. He wrote and produced feature films before co-creating the television series Felicity . He also created Alias and co-created Lost , Fringe , Undercovers and produced the television series Person of Interest and Alcatraz . Abrams directed the films Mission: Impossible III , Star Trek , and Super 8 , and produced the films Cloverfield , Morning Glory and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol . Many of the films he directed/produced are by Paramount, while many of his television series were co-produced by Warner Bros. Abrams was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, where he attended Palisades Charter High School. He is the son of television producer Gerald W. Abrams and executive producer Carol Abrams. Abrams is Jewish, and attended Sarah Lawrence College.
more

Melissa Hayden is an American actress. Prior to her acting career, she was a longtime member of the California based song and dance troupe The Young... Americans. She is best known to soap fans for playing the role of Bridget Reardon on Guiding Light from May 21, 1991 to June 18, 1997, in which she spawned some of the show's most-remembered storylines. After she left Guiding Light, Hayden dropped out of the public eye for many years, but in 2009, she reprised her role as Bridget for the ending of the series. In 1994, Hayden won a Daytime Emmy Award for her role as "Outstanding Younger Actress" on GL. She had also been nominated in the same category in 1993. She also won a Soap Opera Digest Award and a Young Artist Award in 1994 and 1993 respectively for her role as Bridget. Hayden also played the character of Mouse on General Hospital.
more