Hilary Duff

Hilary Duff Gallery

Hilary Erhard Duff is an American actress, pop singer, songwriter and entrepreneur. After gaining fame for playing the title role in the television show Lizzie McGuire, Duff went on to have a film career; her most commercially successful movies include Cheaper by the Dozen, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, and A Cinderella Story.

Duff has expanded her repertoire into pop music, with four RIAA certified-platinum albums and over thirteen million albums sold worldwide.Her first studio album, Metamorphosis , was certified triple platinum and she followed it up with two more platinum albums, Hilary Duff and Most Wanted. Duff's last studio album, Dignity, was released in April 2007 and was certified Gold in August 2007.

She has also launched a clothing line, "Stuff by Hilary Duff", and two exclusive perfume collections with Elizabeth Arden. Duff and her mother were listed as producers for the movie Material Girls,As of April 2008, her upcoming films include the action thriller War, Inc., animated comedy Foodfight! and independent films Greta and Safety Glass.

Duff was born in Houston, Texas on September 28, 1987.She is the second child of Susan Colleen, a homemaker and film producer, and husband Robert Erhard Duff, a partner in a chain of convenience stores, who resides at the family home in Houston to maintain the family's convenience store business. She has an elder sister, Haylie Duff, who is also an actress/singer. Duff's mother encouraged Hilary to take up acting classes alongside her elder sister, Haylie, which resulted in both girls winning roles in various local theater productions. At the ages of eight and six, respectively, the Duff sisters participated in the ballet, The Nutcracker Suite with Columbus BalletMet in San Antonio.The siblings became more enthusiastic about the idea of choosing acting as a profession, and eventually relocated to California with their mother. Duff's father stayed at the family home in Houston to take care of their business.After several years of auditions and meetings, the Duff sisters were cast in various television commercials.

Duff's early career was marked by playing minor roles, starting off with an uncredited appearance in Hallmark Entertainment's western miniseries True Women in 1997. She also served as an uncredited extra, in writer-director Willard Carroll's ensemble dramedy Playing by Heart in 1998. Her first major role was as a star of the 1998 film Casper Meets Wendy, a direct-to-video sequel to Casper in which she plays the young witch Wendy, who encounters the animated character Casper. The film was released to mostly unenthusiastic reviews.

In 1999, Duff appeared in a supporting role in the television film The Soul Collector, which was, based on a Kathleen Kane novel and starred Bruce Greenwood and Melissa Gilbert. Duff won a Young Artist Award for "Best Performance in a TV Movie or Pilot (Supporting Young Actress)" for her role in the movie.


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Britney Spears

Britney Spears

Britney Jean Spears is an American pop singer. Spears has sold over 85 million albums worldwide. She released her debut album ...Baby One More Time in 1999, resulting in an international success.It spawned the Billboard magazine-topping single "…Baby One More Time".She released her second studio album Oops!... I Did It Again in 2000 with continued success.A third album, Britney, was released in 2001, followed by the release of her fourth album, In the Zone, in 2003. The album's single "Toxic" won Spears her first Grammy Award.After the release of a greatest hits collection, EP, and a remix album, she released her fifth album Blackout in 2007 which gave her her biggest U.S. hit since ...Baby One More Time, Gimme More.

Spears's personal life began to gain more media attention after her marriage to Kevin Federline in 2004. Their marriage ended just two years later resulting in an ongoing custody battle. She gave birth to her first child in 2005 and to her second child in 2006.

Britney Spears was born in McComb, Mississippi,and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana as a Southern Baptist. Her parents are Lynne Irene , a former elementary school teacher, and Jamie Parnell Spears, a building contractor. Spears's brother Bryan works as a manager for the Spears family interests and her sister Jamie Lynn is an actress and singer. Her maternal grandmother Lillian Woolmore was an English war-bride,born in Tottenham, Londonwho met Spears's grandfather Barnett O'Field Bridges in England during World War II. Her paternal grandparents were June Austin Spears and Emma Jean Forbes.

Spears was an accomplished gymnast, attending gymnastics classes until age nine and competing in state-level competitions.She performed in local dance revues and sang in her local Baptist church choir. At age eight she auditioned for the Disney Channel series The New Mickey Mouse Club. Although she was considered too young to join the series at the time, a producer on the show introduced her to a New York City agent.[13] Spears subsequently spent three summers at NYC's Professional Performing Arts School and also appeared in a number of off-Broadway productions, including 1991's Ruthless!. In 1992, she landed a spot on the popular television show Star Search. She won the first round of competition, but ultimately lost. At age eleven, Spears returned to the Disney Channel for a spot on the The New Mickey Mouse Club in Lakeland, Florida.She was featured on the show from 1993 to 1994, until she was 13.After the show ended, Spears returned to Kentwood and attended high school for a year.

In 1997, Spears briefly joined the all-female pop group Innosense.Later that same year, she recorded a demo solo and was signed by Jive Records.She began a U.S. concert tour sponsored by American teen magazines, and eventually became an opening act for 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys.

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