Portsmouth

Wanda Sykes is an American writer, stand-up comedian, actress, and voice artist. She earned the 1999 Emmy Award for her writing on The Chris Rock... Show. In 2004 Entertainment Weekly named Sykes as one of the 25 funniest people in America. She is well known for her role as Barbara Baran on The New Adventures of Old Christine and for her appearances on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. In November 2009, The Wanda Sykes Show, her own late-night talkshow, premiered on Fox, airing Saturday nights, until it was cancelled in April 2010. Sykes has also had a successful career in film, appearing in Monster-in-Law, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Evan Almighty, and License to Wed, and voiced characters in Over the Hedge, Barnyard, Brother Bear 2, Rio, and Ice Age: Continental Drift. Sykes was born in Portsmouth, Virginia and raised in the Washington, D.C., area. Her mother, Marion Louise , worked as a banker, and her father, Harry Ellsworth Sykes, was a US Army colonel employed at the Pentagon. Sykes attended Arundel High School in Gambrills, Maryland, and went on to graduate from Hampton University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing.
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Beverle Lorence "Bebe" Buell is an American fashion model and singer, and Playboy magazine's November 1974 Playmate of the Month. She is also known... for dating rock musicians, and her social relationships with musical and cultural icons across four decades. She is actress Liv Tyler's mother from a brief relationship with Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler. In 2001, she wrote an autobiography titled Rebel Heart: An American Rock and Roll Journey. The book was a New York Times bestseller. The paperback was issued in 2002. Filmmaker Cameron Crowe stated in interviews about his 2000 movie Almost Famous that he based the film's Penny Lane character on two women he met during the early 1970s — Bebe Buell and Geraldine Edwards. He said he created some of Penny's dialogue from statements Buell had made in interviews over the years, such as the famous "band aid" comment. The majority of the character was based on Geraldine Edwards, however. Buell was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, the daughter of Dorothea Johnson, who founded the Protocol School of Washington, and Harold Lloyd Buell.
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William Russ is an American actor and television director. He is perhaps best known for his role as Alan Matthews on the sitcom Boy Meets World .... Russ is also notable for his roles in the television series Wiseguy, the soap operas Another World and The Young and the Restless and the feature films Pastime and American History X . Russ was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and is the son of a naval officer. He attended the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the Michigan Cheer team, which was all male at the time. He was also a diver at U of M. Russ' acting first began on the New York stage before he embarked onto a television and film career. In 1977, he had his first supporting role in Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. This film would not be officially released until 2003. During the 1980s, Russ found work in more supporting roles such as Crisis at Central High , a television film also starring Academy Award winning actress Joanne Woodward, The Border , The Right Stuff as Slick Goodlin, St. Elsewhere and Crime Story . He continued finding work in both television and film.
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Patton Oswalt is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor and voice actor. He is best known for portraying Spencer Olchin in the popular sitcom... The King of Queens, and voicing Remy from the film Ratatouille and Thrasher from the Cartoon Network original series Robotomy. Oswalt was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, to Carla and Larry J. Oswalt, a career United States Marine Corps officer. He was named after George S. Patton. While a military brat, he later lived in Ohio and Tustin, California, before settling in Sterling, Virginia. He is a 1987 graduate of Broad Run High School in Ashburn, Virginia and later attended the College of William and Mary, where he majored in English and was initiated into the Alpha Theta Chapter of the Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity. Oswalt first began performing standup comedy in the late 1980s or early 1990s, by his own reckoning. After writing for MADtv and starring in his own 1996 comedy special for HBO, he went on to garner notable roles in films and television shows. His most prominent and long-running role was as Spence Olchin on The King of Queens.
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Charles Edward Hugo is an American musician and record producer. He is best known as one half of the music production and writing duo The Neptunes... and as a member of the funk/rock band N.E.R.D. He is a saxophonist, pianist and guitarist. Along with his production partner Pharrell Williams, he has produced numerous number-one hit tracks. Hugo was born in the South Hampton Roads city of Portsmouth, Virginia. He grew up in Virginia Beach; his father is a retired Filipino-American Navy officer while his mother is Filipina. Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo met at the ages of 12 at a summer camp for musicians, which they both disliked. The two began working together, mixing beats and playing in various live bands. In 1992, while the two were attending different high schools in Virginia Beach , Williams was paid to write a verse to the 1992 single "Rump Shaker", by Wreckx-n-Effect. After several years of occasional productions for artists often associated with founder Teddy Riley, such as BLACKstreet and SWV, they scored songwriting and production assignments with artists such as N.O.R.E.
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Nicole Monique Wray , also known as simply Nicole, is an American R&B and hip hop singer. Her 1998 debut single "Make It Hot" was certified gold.... Wray was born in Salinas, California on May 2, 1981, and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia. After being introduced to Missy Elliott, Wray was featured on Missy's platinum certified debut Supa Dupa Fly. When Elliott started her own label, The Goldmind, the then 17-year-old Wray was the first artist signed. In 1998, her debut album Make It Hot was released. Heavily criticized for Elliott's heavy-handed involvement the first single, "Make It Hot", peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was certified gold. Her second single, "I Can't See", reached #36 on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart. Make It Hot peaked at number nineteen on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and dropped off by the end of the year. The third single, "Eyes Better Not Wander", peaked at #71 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
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Michael David Watt is an American bassist, singer and songwriter. He is best known for co-founding the rock bands Minutemen, dos, and fIREHOSE; as... of 2003, he is also the bassist for the reunited Stooges and a member of the art rock/jazz/punk/improv group Banyan as well as many other post-Minutemen projects. CMJ New Music called Watt a "seminal post-punk bass player." In November 2008, Watt received the Bass Player Magazine lifetime achievement award, presented by Flea. When he was young, Watt's family moved to San Pedro, California, where he became good friends with D. Boon. Watt and Boon picked up bass and guitar, respectively. Watt was a fan of T Rex and Blue Öyster Cult, while Boon's exposure to rock music was limited to Creedence Clearwater Revival, another Watt favorite. By the mid-1970s, Watt and Boon formed a band called The Reactionaries with drummer George Hurley and vocalist Martin Tamburovich.
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Melissa Arnette "Missy" Elliott , is an American recording artist, producer, singer-songwriter, dancer, actress and clothing line designer. A... five-time Grammy Award winner, Elliott, with record sales of over seven million in the United States, is the only female rapper to have six albums certified platinum by the RIAA, including one double platinum for her 2002 album Under Construction. Elliott is known for a series of hits and diverse music videos, including "The Rain ", "Hot Boyz", "Get Ur Freak On", "One Minute Man", "Work It", "Pass That Dutch", and "Lose Control". In addition, she has worked extensively as a songwriter and producer for other artists, both alone and with her fellow producer and childhood friend Timbaland, with whom And Cordell Francis Put Her On A Song Call Wild Moments That Is Coming Out In 2012. she received her first production credit on R&B; singer Ginuwine's 1996's album Ginuwinethe Bachelor. Elliott was born on July 1, 1971, in Portsmouth, Virginia. She is the only child of mother Patricia, a power...
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Wanda Sykes is an American writer, stand-up comedian, actress, and voice artist. She earned the 1999 Emmy Award for her writing on The Chris Rock... Show. In 2004 Entertainment Weekly named Sykes as one of the 25 funniest people in America. She is well known for her role as Barbara Baran on The New Adventures of Old Christine and for her appearances on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. In November 2009, The Wanda Sykes Show, her own late-night talkshow, premiered on Fox, airing Saturday nights, until it was cancelled in April 2010. Sykes has also had a successful career in film, appearing in Monster-in-Law, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Evan Almighty, and License to Wed, and voiced characters in Over the Hedge, Barnyard, Brother Bear 2, Rio, and Ice Age: Continental Drift. Sykes was born in Portsmouth, Virginia and raised in the Washington, D.C., area. Her mother, Marion Louise , worked as a banker, and her father, Harry Ellsworth Sykes, was a US Army colonel employed at the Pentagon. Sykes attended Arundel High School in Gambrills, Maryland, and went on to graduate from Hampton University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing.
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Beverle Lorence "Bebe" Buell is an American fashion model and singer, and Playboy magazine's November 1974 Playmate of the Month. She is also known... for dating rock musicians, and her social relationships with musical and cultural icons across four decades. She is actress Liv Tyler's mother from a brief relationship with Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler. In 2001, she wrote an autobiography titled Rebel Heart: An American Rock and Roll Journey. The book was a New York Times bestseller. The paperback was issued in 2002. Filmmaker Cameron Crowe stated in interviews about his 2000 movie Almost Famous that he based the film's Penny Lane character on two women he met during the early 1970s — Bebe Buell and Geraldine Edwards. He said he created some of Penny's dialogue from statements Buell had made in interviews over the years, such as the famous "band aid" comment. The majority of the character was based on Geraldine Edwards, however. Buell was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, the daughter of Dorothea Johnson, who founded the Protocol School of Washington, and Harold Lloyd Buell.
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William Russ is an American actor and television director. He is perhaps best known for his role as Alan Matthews on the sitcom Boy Meets World .... Russ is also notable for his roles in the television series Wiseguy, the soap operas Another World and The Young and the Restless and the feature films Pastime and American History X . Russ was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and is the son of a naval officer. He attended the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the Michigan Cheer team, which was all male at the time. He was also a diver at U of M. Russ' acting first began on the New York stage before he embarked onto a television and film career. In 1977, he had his first supporting role in Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. This film would not be officially released until 2003. During the 1980s, Russ found work in more supporting roles such as Crisis at Central High , a television film also starring Academy Award winning actress Joanne Woodward, The Border , The Right Stuff as Slick Goodlin, St. Elsewhere and Crime Story . He continued finding work in both television and film.
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Ralph Eugene Reed, Jr., is a conservative American political activist, best known as the first executive director of the Christian Coalition during... the early 1990s. He sought the Republican nomination for the office of Lieutenant Governor of Georgia but lost the primary election on July 18, 2006, to State Senator Casey Cagle. Reed started the Faith and Freedom Coalition in June 2009. Reed and his wife JoAnne Young were married in 1987 and have four children. Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, to Navy ophthalmologist Ralph Reed and mother Marcy Read, young Ralph moved often as a child, but spent the majority of his childhood in Miami, Florida. He moved with his family to Toccoa, Georgia in 1976, graduating from Stephens County High School in 1979. He attended the University of Georgia where he earned an A.B. in history in 1985. After failing to properly cite an article in his role as editor of the college newspaper, Reed was discharged from his duties for plagiarism. Reed was a member of the Demosthenian Literary Society, the Jasper Dorsey Intercollegiate Debate Society, and College Republicans. He was also a columnist for The Red & Black student newspaper.
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