Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and is currently North America's ...

Al Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is well known for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy and Tony Montana in Scarface, and often appeared on the other side of the law—as a police officer, a detective and lawyer. Pacino won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 65th Academy Awards in 1992 for his performance as Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman. Prior to his win he had received seven Oscar nominations, including one that ...

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, military-engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely considered to be one of the greatest...

Johnny Depp is an American actor, film producer, and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. He rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol.Depp has been nominated for major acting awards, including three nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor. Depp won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and the S...

Céline Dion is a Canadian singer. Born into a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, she emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record. During the 1990s, with the help of Angélil, she achieved worldwide fame after signing with Epic Records and releasing several English albums along with additional French albums, becoming one of the most successful artists in pop music history.&n...

Whoopi Goldberg (/ˈhwʊpi/, born Caryn Elaine Johnson; November 13, 1955) is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host. Although Goldberg made her film debut in the avant-garde ensemble film Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away (1982), her breakthrough role was playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South in the period drama film The Color Purple (1985). Goldberg was born in Manhattan and raised in the...

The Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, M.C., commonly known as Mother Teresa, was a Roman Catholic Religious Sister and missionary of Albanian origin who lived most of her life in India of which, since 1948, she was a citizen. A controversial figure both during her life and after her death, Mother Teresa was widely admired by many for her charitable works, but also widely criticised, particularly for her campaigns against contraception and for substandard conditions in the hospices for which...

Bob Hoskins was an English actor, director, and comedian, best known for playing Cockneys and gangsters. He appeared in films, such as The Long Good Friday (1980), Mona Lisa (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Mermaids (1990), Hook (1991), Super Mario Bros. (1993), Nixon (1995), A Christmas Carol (2009), Neverland (2011), and in his final role in Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). Hoskins was the recipient of the prestigious Prix d'interprétation masculine, as well as winnin...

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was South Africa's first black chief executive, and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid through tackling institutionalised racism, poverty and inequality, and fostering racial reconciliation. Politically an African nationalist and dem...

Sir Ian McKellen, is an English actor. He is the recipient of six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BIF Award, two Saturn Awards, four Drama Desk Awards and two Critics' Choice Awards. He has also received two Academy Award nominations, eight BAFTA film and TV nominations and five Emmy Award nominations. McKellen's work spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. His notabl...

Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognized as a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywood's Golden Age. She was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third greatest female screen legend in the history of American cinema and has been placed in the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. She is also regarded by some to be the most naturally beautiful woman of all time. After appearing in several British films and starring in the 19...

Bill Gates is an American business magnate, philanthropist, investor, computer programmer, and inventor. Gates is the former chief executive and chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen.During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has also authored and co-authored several b...