Christina Aguilera

Birth name : Christina María Aguilera
Also known as : Christina Aguilera-Bratman, Xtina
Born : December 18, 1980 (1980-12-18) (age 28), Staten Island, New York, United States
Origin : Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Genre(s) : Pop, R&B
Occupation(s) : Singer-songwriter, philanthropist
Voice type(s) : Soprano
Years active : 1990–present
Label(s) : RCA Records
Website : Official site
Christina María Aguilera (born December 18, 1980) is an American pop/R&B singer and songwriter. Aguilera first appeared on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel's television series The New Mickey Mouse Club from 1993–1994. Aguilera signed to RCA Records after recording "Reflection"for the film Mulan. She came to prominence following her debut album Christina Aguilera (1999), which was a commercial success spawning three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. A Latin pop album, Mi Reflejo (2001), and several collaborations followed which garnered Aguilera worldwide success.
After parting from her management, Aguilera took creative control over her second studio album Stripped (2002), which received mixed reviews and produced substantial sales. The second single, "Beautiful", was a commercial success and sustained the album's sales amidst controversy over Aguilera's sexual image. Aguilera's third studio album Back to Basics (2006), included elements of soul, jazz, and blues music, and was released to positive critical reception. Her fourth studio album is tentatively set for release in Summer 2009.
Aside from being known for her vocal ability, music videos and ever-changing image, musically, she includes themes of dealing with public scrutiny, her childhood, and female empowerment in her music. Apart from her work in music, she has also dedicated much of her time as a philanthropist for charities, human rights and world issues. Aguilera's work has earned her numerous awards, including five Grammy Awards amongst eighteen nominations. She has become one of the most successful recording artists of the decade, selling more than 42 million records worldwide.
Early life and career
Aguilera was born in Staten Island, New York, to Fausto Wagner Xavier Aguilera, a Sergeant in the U.S. Army at the time and Shelly Loraine Fidler, a teacher of Spanish language. Aguilera's father was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, while her mother is of Irishdescent (Christina's maternal grandmother emigrated from County Clare.) Her father, Fausto, was stationed at Earnest Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville, Newfoundland, Canada and Japan. Aguilera lived with her father and mother until she was seven years old. When Aguilera's parents divorced, her mother took her, and her younger sister Rachel, to her grandmother's home in Rochester, Pennsylvania, a suburb outside of Pittsburgh. According to both Aguilera and Fidler, her father was very controlling, as well as physically and emotionally abusive. She later wrote about her difficult childhood in the songs "I'm OK" in Stripped, and "Oh Mother" in Back to Basics. Although her father has written to Aguilera, she has ruled out any chance to reunite with him. Since then, Fidler has married a paramedic named Jim Kearns, and changed her name.
As a child, Aguilera aspired to be a singer. She was known locally as "the little girl with the big voice", singing in local talent shows and competitions. According to VH1's Driven, whenever competitors learned they would be up against her in any given week, they would immediately withdraw, prompting insiders to claim it was "like sending a lamb to the slaughter." Her peers soon became jealous of her and would frequently subject her to ridicule, ostracism, and, in one gym class, attempted assault. Acts of vandalism around her house included the slashing of the tires on the family car. Eventually, the family relocated to another suburb in the Pittsburgh area (this time, Wexford) and took to secrecy about Aguilera's talent lest another backlash occur. She attended Marshall Middle School near Wexford and North Allegheny Senior High School until she was later home-schooled.
On March 15, 1990, she appeared on Star Search singing Etta James' "A Sunday Kind of Love", but lost the competition at number 2. Soon after losing on Star Search, she returned home and appeared on Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV's Wake Up with Larry Richert to perform the same song. People remarked that the then ten-year-old "sounded 20."
Throughout her youth in Pittsburgh, Aguilera sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before Pittsburgh Penguins hockey, Pittsburgh Steelers football and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games. Her first major role in entertainment came in 1993 when she joined the Disney Channel's variety show The New Mickey Mouse Club. Her co-stars included Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Ryan Gosling, and Keri Russell, the show lasted another year until its cancellation. According to the documentary Driven, Aguilera's co-stars called her "the Diva". One of her most notable performances was of Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing".
At the age of fourteen, Aguilera recorded her first song, "All I Wanna Do", a hit duet with Japanese singer Keizo Nakanishi. In 1997, she represented the United States at the "Golden Stag" International Festival with a two-song set.
Influences
One of Aguilera's major influences and idol is blues singer Etta James, whose classic song, "At Last" has been covered by Aguilera throughout her career. Aguilera says, "Etta is my all-time favorite singer. I've said it for the last seven years — since I had my first debut record out — in every interview. I mean, all of Etta's old songs, countless songs I could name, I grew up listening to." The majority of her album, Back to Basics, pays tribute to James and other pop standard singers who many originated from the 1950s. In her early years she listened to vintage jazz, blues, and soul music. The album included an unreleased song, "Slow Down Baby", which sampled a Gladys Knight & the Pips song. A review in The Guardian declared, "Practically everything recorded before Aguilera was born blurs into one amorphous genre, which she categorises, somewhat inadequately, as "fun music".Her other musical influences include Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Nina Simone, and Madonna.
Aguilera cites the musical The Sound of Music and its lead actress, Julie Andrews as an early inspiration for singing and performing. She mentioned the "Golden age of Hollywood" as another inspiration in which she says, "I'm referencing Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Carole Lombard, Greta Garbo, Veronica Lake".In her music video for "Ain't No Other Man" she plays her alter ego, "Baby Jane" in reference to the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? The film's stars included actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
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Cher

Birth name : Cherilyn Sarkisian
Also known as : Cherilyn LaPierre, Cleo, Cher Bono
Born : May 20, 1946 (1946-05-20) (age 62), El Centro, California, USA
Origin : Los Angeles, California, USA
Genre(s) : Pop, dance, disco, folk, pop rock, R&B
Instrument(s) : Vocals
Voice type(s) : Deep contralto
Years active : 1963- present
Website : www.cher.com
Cher (IPA: /ʃɛɹ/born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946) is an American pop singer-songwriter, actor, director and record producer. She has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Cher came to prominence in 1965 as one half of the pop/rock duo Sonny & Cher. She subsequently established herself as a solo recording artist, a television star in the 1970s, and a film actress in the 1980s, starring a string of hit filmsincluding The Witches of Eastwick, Silkwood, Mask and Moonstruck, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Her smash hit single "Believe" (1998) is the biggest-selling dance song, having sold over 10 million copies worldwide. She is the only female recording artist to have Top 10 hits in every decade beginning in the 1960s and the oldest female artist to reach number one. With a career lasting over 40 years, Cher is an enduring pop culture icon and one of the most popular and biggest-selling artists in music history, having sold over 100 million records worldwide (includes the ones with Sonny Bono). She is currently performing at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas with her show "Cher at the Colosseum". Cher is well known for her deep contralto vocal range.
Early life
Cher was born in El Centro, California, on May 20, 1946, at 7:25 a.m. Her father, John Sarkisian, was an Iranian-Armenian refugee who worked as a truck driver. Her mother, Georgia Holt (born Jackie Jean Crouch), born in Sharp County, Arkansas, June 20, 1927, an aspiring actress and occasional model, is of Cherokee, English and French descent. Cher's half sister is actress Georganne LaPiere. Cher's parents divorced when she was young and she was raised primarily by her mother, who at one time was married to Gilbert LaPierre, a banker who adopted Cher. Due to financial problems, Cher's mother placed her in foster care for a time as a child. Later, her mother provided money for acting lessons to help further her career. Due to severe, undiagnosed dyslexia, she left Fresno High School at the age of 16. In those years Cher had a brief relationship with Warren Beatty.
Personal life
Marriages and relationships
In the early 1960s Cher had a relationship with actor Warren Beatty. Sonny and Cher first met in 1962. Though they had claimed to be married as early as 1963, and had a wedding ceremony in Tijuana, Mexico on October 27, 1964, it is rumored that they weren’t legally married until an impromptu ceremony in 1968. Their only child is Chastity Bono, born on March 4, 1969. After 11 years, they divorced on June 27, 1975. The divorce resulted in the cancellation of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Later that year, Cher married her second husband, rock star Gregg Allman. Their son, Elijah Blue Allman of the band Deadsy, was born on July 10, 1976. They separated in 1977 and were officially divorced in January 1979. Between Bono and Allmann, Cher revealed that she had a fling with Elvis Presley while they were performing in Las Vegas, but rejected him when he asked her up to his room because she was too nervous of spending the night with him. In February 2008, Cher stated on Good Morning America that she deeply regrets turning him down. In the interview, she also claimed to being asked out by Marlon Brando on a plane ride. Cher was also involved with record executive David Geffen, KISS bassist Gene Simmons, and senior account manager Garreth Crawford.
In the 1980s, Cher dated several younger men that included actors Val Kilmer, Tom Cruise, and Rob Camilletti, the 22 year old bagel baker and bartender whom she met on her 40th birthday and lived with for three years. It was widely speculated in the tabloid press that the couple were planning to marry, but this never occurred. Cher was involved with Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora for two years in the early 1990s, and was also linked to musicians Eric Clapton and Mark Hudson. Rumors also circulated that Cher was romantically involved with a member of her band during her lengthy Farewell Tour.
Influence
In her early career Cher was a fashion trend-setter, popularizing long straight hair, bell-bottoms and an exposed midriff. She is noted by fashion designers and television historians as being the first female to ever expose her bellybutton on television. She stepped that up a notch in 1989 when she boarded the U.S. Navy's USS Missouri ship in thong and fishnets for the "If I Could Turn Back Time" music video, becoming one of the first video by a mainstream pop artist to be banned by MTV (after the video was banned, it grew to mass popularity, forcing MTV to play the video after 9 p.m.). Through her 1970s television shows she became a sex symbol and pushed the censors with her revealing outfits and creative ensembles, frequently designed by Bob Mackie. She has also inspired many celebrities who have noted her as being a major influence on them, such as Britney Spears , Beyonce Knowles, Tracy Chapman, Oprah Winfrey, Cindy Lauper, Gene Simmons, Meryl Streep, Anastacia, Rosie O'Donnell, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez, Elton John among others.
In July 1999 Cher ranked 43rd on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll poll and in September 2002 ranked 26th on VH1’s 100 Sexiest Artists. She has appeared on the cover of People magazine thirteen times. In a 2007 poll A&E's Biography magazine ranked her as the third favorite actress of all time behind two of her Hollywood idols, Katharine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn. To state this fact Cher has also been frequently mention in a large number of TV programs, songs, films and books.
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