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Yesterday we celebrated the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birthday, but today we celebrate a legend who is actually still alive. John Williams, the Academy Award-winning conductor and composer of some of the most famous film scores in cinema history, celebrates his 80th birthday today. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Trae Patton/NBC No one parties quite like Betty White
Image Credit: Quantrell D. Colbert/The CW The Vampire Diaries
• A bottle of bourbon
• A new John Varvatos shirt
• A gift certificate to a dance school where he could learn any style he wants (the man loves to move)
• A large frame that can hold multiple pictures, with only one photo in the center. It tells him that he’s home, and that we want him here for awhile
• Shower gel, bubble bath, and hand soaps
Your turn. Keep it TV-14!
Read more:
Ian Somerhalder teases ‘TVD’ season 3
‘Vampire Diaries’ catch-up guide
‘Vampire Diaries’: A very naked Damon surprises Elena — VIDEO
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It’s a little hard to comprehend that Britney Spears is 30 years old today, isn’t it? Not just in the sense that, if Spears is getting older then that also means that the TRL-voting generation that grew up with her is as well, but the realization that she’s only 30 years old. That’s no slight at the pop superstar, who looks better than ever, nor is it disregarding that this is a milestone birthday for her. It’s just that at only 30, this is someone who’s already lived what seems like five lifetimes.
For better or worse, Spears became the unofficial poster girl for just how turbulent one’s 20s can be. By 25 alone, an age when most people are still steeped in college loans, starting a first job, or living an apartment with roughly six other city-dwelling hopefuls, she’d already been married (twice), had two kids with Kevin Federline, found Kabbalah, and remained one of the biggest musical acts in the world. You can say a lot about Spears, but to ever imply that her 20s were uneventful is absolutely not one of them.
In fact, here’s just some of the things Britney Spears went through in her 20s, in no particular order, from the highs to the lows and everything in between: READ FULL STORY »
If you’re wondering why Google is featuring Gumby on its homepage today, look no further. Today would have been the 90th birthday of Gumby creator Art Clokey. The interactive stop motion homepage doodle features the best-known characters from Clokey’s creation, which has lived in pop culture for more than five decades. “Art Clokey was an innovator in the field of animation and also a compassionate, inspiring artist,” said Google doodler Sophia Foster-Dimino. “We were excited to work with the incredibly talented animator Anthony Scott to produce this doodle, and we hope that it brightens your day!”
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As any woman in her mid-to-late twenties can attest, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, or JTT as he was known around the Teen Bop/Bop/Tiger Beat/Tiger Bop/Tiger Teens Beep Bop Ba Doop community, was a big deal growing up. You were either so entirely obsessed with the Home Improvement dreamboat that it was hard to tell where the JTT posters hanging in your bedroom ended and your actual wall paper began, or you had a best friend who did. (I was of the latter category. And as a true testament to how much I love my best friend, I actually accompanied her to see Wild America and Man of the House at the movies. After our parents dropped us off, of course.) READ FULL STORY »
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Marrying a prince is hardly the ultimate definition of success, but it’s hard to argue that the woman who landed the most eligible bachelor in the world hasn’t done well for herself. Yet I couldn’t help feel a little sad for Kate Middleton during her wedding. It wasn’t that her life as she knew it was officially over. It was the striking presence of her younger sister, Pippa. You may have noticed her in that sleek ivory Alexander McQueen gown. The tabloids certainly did.
So here you have this nice older sister, growing up in a nice upper-class British family. She does the right things, she goes to the right schools, she meets the right people. She’s responsible and loving towards her younger sister, who folks back home still argue was the prettier and the more outgoing of the two. Yet, the eldest perseveres, and lands a freakin’ prince. If there was any lingering sibling rivalry — and no matter how close they are, there’s bound to be some with sisters born just 20 months apart — you’d think landing the heir to the British throne would bury them once and for all. READ FULL STORY »
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Even though Courtney Stodden should be the one getting presents for this, her 17th birthday, the actress/model/fodder for The Soup got us all something instead: The gift of perpetually creeping us out! Yes, actor Doug Hutchsinon’s teen bride turned one year older today. And as she proved from her Twitter page is all the wiser: “Celebrating the last night of being sweet-n-sexy 16 by wearing NOTHING but my tasty bday-suit! Mmm; Yummy! ; -)” (If your reaction to reading that sounded something like this, you are correct.)
If that weren’t enough to prompt you to make bizarre, uncomfortable faces, read what Stodden’s mother Krista, who has been supportive of her daughter’s relationship to the Lost star who is now only 34 years her senior, told E! News about her little girl’s birthday plans. “Courtney and Doug were planning on going to Disneyland,” she said, adding, “It’s funny they call her the child bride, but she does love going to Disneyland.” Sure, let’s go with “funny” as the word you were looking for. READ FULL STORY »
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For those lucky few who had the opportunity to watch River Phoenix’s film career blossom right in front of their eyes, there’s no doubt it’s the sort of bragging rights they wish they didn’t have. Because for all those who had the chance to experience the young actor’s star-making turns in films like Running on Empty, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, My Own Private Idaho, and of course, Stand By Me, they also had to watch it all come to a sudden end when Phoenix, the eldest brother of Joaquin, passed away at the age of 23 from a drug overdose on October 31, 1993.
Today, August 23, marks what would have been Phoenix’s 41st birthday, and much like the tragic legacy of fallen stars like Heath Ledger and James Dean, he left us far too soon, with a looming, overwhelming sense of what could have been. READ FULL STORY »
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Lucille Ball would’ve turned 100 today, almost sixty years after I Love Lucy started cracking up TV viewers and never stopped. There isn’t much new to be said about Ball’s legacy: How she defined the modern sitcom, how she paved the way for every female comedy legend — from Mary Tyler Moore to Roseanne to Tina Fey — who came after her, how her show’s popularity has outlasted all its 1950s rivals (Gunsmoke, The Honeymooners) and is still a daytime TV staple around the world.
Instead, let’s let Lucy do the talking. READ FULL STORY »
