PDA Entertainment Search Results

Name Description
Jeff Valdez Well known Latino comedian, Jeff Valdez has opened for such superstars as Lou Rawls, Kenny Loggins and The Pointer Sisters. He has made regular appearences on VH1, MTV, Showtime and HBO as well as The Improv, Caroline's in New York and The Comedy Shop at the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City.
Marilyn Van Derbur Motivational speaker and former Miss America who lectures on child abuse and domestic violence.
Jaqueline Van Maarsen-Sanders Anne Frank's best friend, Jacqueline Van Maarsen-Sanders survived the war when her Catholic-born mother, a convert to Judaism, convinced the Nazis that she and her family was falsely registered as Jews. She saved Anne's letters sent from her hiding place in the attic of an Amsterdam spice firm owned by her father. Jacqueline Van Maarsen-Sanders was one of the main consultants for ABC TV's mini-series "Anne Frank, The Whole Story" which was aired in May 2001
Mario Van Peebles Movie star, director and producer.
Melvin Van Peebles Pioneering filmmaker, actor and director.
Elizabeth Vargas Television journalist Elizabeth Vargas is the first woman of Puerto Rican heritage to be named co-anchor of ABC's nightly newscast World News Tonight and anchor of television newsmagazine 20/20. As an award-winning anchor and correspondent, Elizabeth Vargas has traveled the world covering breaking news stories, reporting in-depth investigations and conducting newsmaker interviews. Elizabeth Vargas recently anchored for both "World News Tonight" and "20/20" from the Gulf region, covering Hurricane Katrina's devastation; traveled to Beslan, Russia, to cover the terrorist attack and found stories of hope after rebels attacked a school and killed more than 300 people, more than half of them children; reported from the Middle East including on the standoff at Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah and for a special on the resurrection of Jesus; and reported from Cambodia on the plight of orphans for sale. Elizabeth Vargas anchored ABC News coverage of live, breaking news stories including the deaths of President Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy Jr. and the 2003 blackout. Vargas won an Emmy in 2000 for Outstanding Instant Coverage of a News Story for anchoring live coverage of the Elian Gonzales case. Her primetime reporting on the death of Matthew Shepard and an investigation examining the disappearances of several young women in northern California and why their stories failed to attract the significant media attention Laci Peterson won critical acclaim. Elizabeth Vargas was born in Patterson, New Jersey, where her parents spent about a year while her father studied for an MBA. English is her first language, though she now speaks fluent Spanish. In high school, she decided on journalism. At the University of Missouri, she settled on broadcasting after a stint as reporter/anchor for KOMU-TV. Elizabeth Vargas spent a year at KTVN-TV, the CBS affiliate in Reno, moved on to KTVK-TV, the ABC affiliate in Phoenix, then WBBM-TV, the CBS affiliate in Chicago, before moving on the NBC News.
Paul Varghese Born and raised in the South, Pauls humor starts at the randomness that is his everyday environment then detours into insecurity and sarcasm only to end up at a nice middle ground of twisted reality. Its said that most comedians were the class clowns in school. Paul was never the class clown. However, he was tormented on a daily basis by the class clowns. So he became a comedian, hoping that one day he might bump into his former class clowns at a comedy club somewhere and exact revenge. Come join him on his journey. He's been seen on Last Comic Standing 2 and Telemundo 2s Loco Comedy Jam.
Lenny Varnedoe Comedy based on "Black Folklore," Lenny Varnedow has appeared on BET and Def Comedy Jam. A very funny man.
Stuart Varney A legend in business journalism, this Peabody-award winning economist is one of the most respected names in financial reporting. Varney, now with Fox News, joined CNN upon its founding in 1980. His broad range of expertise offers an insider’s view of the latest economic trends and news headlines, unraveling the complexities of the business world, from Wall Street to Main Street. Varney’s talk will encompass the most pressing developments in domestic and international business and the advantages--and--dangers of the new global economy. He helps audiences benefit from the fluctuations in the financial markets and make better decisions regarding investments, real estate, retirement, taxes and family finance.
Phil Varone Phil Varone is an accomplished drummer, music producer and songwriter best known for his work with the bands Saigon Kick and Skid Row. Varone was born on Long Island, New York and began his fascination with the entertainment business at a very young age. Phil began playing percussion in grade school at the age of 7 and continued into the beginning years of junior high. As a teen, he learned how to play drums. Self taught, he credits listening to his favorite bands and drummers to develop his skills. Although music was an important part of his life, it was just one of his childhood dreams which included acting and stand up comedy. Listening to music, comedy records and watching movies became Phil's favorite past time. After moving to Fort Lauderdale in 1980, he began playing in various local bands. In 1988, he joined together with some of his friends and formed Saigon Kick. The band signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records in just two short years. They earned a Gold Record for the album, “The Lizard” as well as a Billboard top 10 single for the song, “Love is On the Way”. In 1996, Saigon Kick disbanded and Varone stayed busy producing and doing studio work for a variety of artists. In 2000, Varone joined multi-platinum recording artists Skid Row. Together they toured the world with Kiss, Poison, Def Leppard and Tesla and along the way recorded a new record, “Thick Skin”. Additionally, the band produced “Under the Skin: The Making of Thick Skin” which was internationally distributed on DVD. In 2004, Phil left Skid Row and the music business to pursue acting and stand up comedy. After moving to Los Angeles, he spent the first two years producing and starring In the feature length documentary, “Waking Up Dead ” which was released on DVD June, 2007. Currently he is writing and developing tv shows around his passion for cooking, comedy and music. Phil’s other passion for acting and has lead to roles on Californication (showtime), a commercial for Nokia Cellular and an appearance on NBC's Identity, E TV and various short films. Phil also lectures in colleges throughout the United States and is the creator and host of the popular "Sex Stand Up And Rock And Roll Show".
Dr. Carmen Vasquez Leading Hispanic psychologist, Carmen Vazquez is senior psychologist at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital and Director of the Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program at NYU-Bellevue Hospital Center. Dr. Vazquez writes a column for Latina magazine and is co-author of The Maria paradox: How Latinas Can Merge Old World Tradition with New World Self-Esteem.
Baron Vaughn Baron Vaughn, actor, comedian and writer Actor, Comedian, Writer. Baron Vaughn. He appeared in Manhattan Theatre Club's "Drowning Crow" on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre. He started doing Stand-Up in Boston and made the move to New York where he can be seen at various comedy clubs and alternative comedy venues. He's also appeared in numerous national commercials, performed at the 2007 DC Comedy Festival, and the 2006 HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, CO.
Milo Ventimiglia Milo Ventimiglia plays Peter Petrelli on the hit show "Heroes". A heartthrob who came to prominence on the small screen, Ventimiglia made viewers swoon as Alexis Bledel's brooding, on-again, off-again love interest on Gilmore Girls. His seductive charms also worked on his costar as they became a couple for a time off screen as well. In 2003 he signed on to star in his own spin-off, but when that project fell through he jumped networks (and many decades) with a recurring role as a '60s radical on the period saga American Dreams. While his next series, the tepid college drama The Bedford Diaries, came and went, Ventimiglia and his fabulously unruly hair and moody attitude were quickly snatched up for the smash fantasy drama Heroes in 2006. That same year, the actor — a veteran of low-rent horror flicks — made a bid for mainstream big-screen stardom playing Sylvester Stallone's son in the umpteenth Rocky sequel.
Dick Vermeil Head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs and former head coach of the Super Bowl Champion St. Louis Rams.
Nick Verreos Nick Verreos is a fashion designer and contestant on the second season of the reality television program Project Runway. He is openly gay[ and is currently the contributing fashion editor of Frontiers magazine.
Shirley Verrett Singing star of stage, screen and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Shirley Verrett is always in marvelous voice! She has received rave reviews for her role in the Broadway revival of "Carousel" and tours around the world doing operatic roles.
Linda Villarosa Linda Villarosa is a freelance writer, an Essence Magazine editor-at-large and contributing writer to the New York Times. Formerly, she edited the health pages for the Times, where she redesigned and expanded health coverage for Science Times and for the newspaper at large. Linda was also the executive editor of Essence Magazine, where she wrote or edited a number of award-winning articles. Twenty years ago, Linda wrote what may be the first article to cover the topic of AIDS in an African-American publication when she wrote about women and children battling the disease for Essence. This year, two of her articles on African-Americans and HIV/AIDS appeared on the front page of the NY Times. In 1981, with her mother, Clara, Linda wrote Essence’s ground-breaking article, “Coming Out,” which received more mail than any other in the magazine’s history. Due to the overwhelming response, the two women followed up with an additional story several months later. Linda is the author of Body & Soul: The Black Women’s Guide to Physical Health and Emotional Well-Being. A Blackboard Bestseller, there are more than 200,000 copies in print. She is the coauthor of both Finding Our Way: The Teen Girls’ Survival Guide and The Black Parenting Book. As a lecturer, Linda has spoken to groups from Harvard, Wellesley, Dartmouth, Indian University, the University of California at Davis and Swarthmore, to name several. Shehas also provided testimony to the U.S. Congress and the National Institutes of Health and offered workshops for the Radcliffe Publishing Course, the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Press Association. This year she traveled to the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok to help train journalists from around the world to cover HIV.
Norah Vincent Norah Vincent is a journalist and author, known for being a conservative lesbian. Vincent was a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies from its 2001 inception to 2003. She has also had columns at Salon.com, The Advocate, the Los Angeles Times, and the Village Voice. Vincent's most recent book, Self-Made Man, retells an eighteen-month experiment in which she disguised herself as a male. She talked about it in HARDtalk extra on BBC on April 21, 2006 and described her experiences in male-male and male-female relationships. She joined an all-male bowling club, and visited Catholic monks in a cloister. She dated women and describes how inferior she felt, when judged by women during flirting.
Black Violin To most people, jazz, hip-hop, funk, and classical are musical genres. But to revolutionary music group Black Violin, theyre nothing but ingredients. Combining a daunting array of musical styles and influences to produce a signature sound that is not quite maestro, not quite emcee, this group of two classically trained violinists and their DJ is redefining the music world-one string at a time. With influences ranging from Shostakovich and Bach to Nas and Jay-Z, Black Violin breaks all the rules, blending the classical with the modern to create something rare-a sound that nobody has ever heard, but that everybody wants to feel. When the members of Black Violin first learned to play their signature instruments-Wil B at the viola 14 years old and Kev Marcus the violin at the tender age of 9-neither could have foreseen that it would become their livelihood, though it was already becoming their passion. The two Florida natives first met while attending the Dillard High School of Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, a school whose exceptional music programs served to nurture their already budding talents. But it was not until the two were exposed to the work of legendary violinist Stuff Smith that the seeds that would one day become Black Violin were truly planted. Smith, born in Portsmouth, Ohio in 1909, was one of preeminent jazz violinists of the swing era, who went onto perform with names like Alphonse Trent, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Sun Ra throughout a long and storied career. His final album and most soulful, entitled "Black Violin," so inspired and influenced the young Kev Marcus and Wil B that they would eventually name their band in honor of the man who had shown them that there were no limits to what the violin could do. After graduating from high school, both Wil and Kev were granted full music scholarships to college, Florida State and Florida International University respectively. It was at FIU that Kev first encountered the group's future manager, Sam G, with whom he and Wil soon formed a production company: DKNEX. Now they had a platform for their dream, and the talent and inspiration to back it up. Black Violin was born. Once formed, the group wasted no time in making a name for itself, starting with the rigorous touring that would become a trademark of the group. Black Violin was making ripples in the music industry, but it wasn't long before these ripples became waves. In 2004, the group joined superstar Alicia Keys on stage at the Billboard Music awards, delivering a performance that made the tastemakers and music enthusiasts of America sit up and take notice. Not long after, in 2005, the group was awarded the coveted title of Apollo Legend by the esteemed Apollo theatre in Harlem, effectively confirming what many were beginning to suspect-Black Violin was on its way to the top. The next step in BV's journey came in the form of Mike Shinoda, lead singer of legendary rock act Linkin Park, who had had his eye on the two virtuosos for a while. Impressed by their imaginative composition and finely tuned musicianship, he invited them along on a world tour with his hip-hop side project, Fort Minor. Finally granted the worldwide platform their talents deserved, the members of Black Violin now introduced their own brand of genius to audiences across the globe. In addition to Shinoda, BV has worked with musicians as diverse as P.Diddy, Kanye West, Fifty Cent, Aerosmith, Tom Petty, Aretha Franklin and the Eagles-among many others. But Black Violin is only getting started. The group recently released its eponymous debut album-a record whose top notch production and musical cohesion make it feel like the work of seasoned veterans rather than industry upstarts, as many patrons of the iTunes store and Amazon.com are discovering for themselves. The group continues to tour far and wide, opening for hip hop mainstays like Fat Joe, Akon, and the Wu-Tang Clan in locations as diverse, as Prague, Dubai, and South Africa. The group's rising fame has also made it a highly desired act for celebrity events-Black Violin just recently provided the music at both Minister Lois Farrakhan's 75th birthday and at NFL star Santana Moss's wedding. But beyond all the glitz and glamour, the members of Black Violin just want to give children the same opportunities that they had. With school music programs being culled all across the country, Kev and Wil are concerned that urban youth will not have the benefit of music as a positive alternative to other, more destructive pursuits. With this in mind, they have embarked upon a campaign of social change-using youth orchestras and reinvigorated music programs to show children and teens that they are capable of expressing themselves in ways they have never dreamed. In an age where music is coming to be more and more defined by the labels given to it, Black Violin shows that music does not exist within a box, but rather exists in another space-one as open and unrestrained as the minds that produce it.
Helena Maria Viramontes Helena Maria Viramontes, a well-known writer and activist, has written extensively on the experiences of Chicano and Chicana farm workers in the U.S. She grew up in East Los Angeles, one of eleven children born to parents who met when they were working as farm laborers, and spent many childhood summers picking fruit in northern California. A professor of English at Cornell University, she has published two novels Under the Feet of Jesus (1995) and Their Dogs Came With Them (2007)as well as several collections of short stories. She won the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature in 1995.
Baya Voce Baya Voce was born on May 14th, 1987 and raised in Salt Lake City Utah but now lives in New York City. Baya Voce is the energetic free spirit in The Real World Brooklyn season. Baya was 2nd in line for The Real World casting call at the nightclub Area 51 in Salt Lake City In front of her in the line was fellow cast member Chet Cannon. She aspires to be a hip-hop DJ and dancer. Baya is currently a DJ of all genres under Izzy Gold Records. College Lecture Topics Diversity, Relationships, Environmentalism
Anna Vogelzang Like all good teenagers, Anna started writing a notebook full of songs when she turned fifteen on her super-glued-together guitar, most of which sounded like Jewel. Anna knew about five chords. A year or two later she joined a funk band, put some growl into her voice, and started writing with three boys, which made sure that nothing sounded like Jewel. When the time came she decided that she should do the only thing she knew how & attend Carnegie Mellon University for vocal performance. After exploring very different facets of music and creating her own major in college, Anna wrote & produced her first studio album, Some Kind of Parade in 2005, publishing it with the help of a village of classical, jazz, and non-musician friends. With it she mish-mashed all of the music that had influenced her into a sound which still waits to fit one particular genre, thus far being accurately described as, "unavoidably soulful". While expanding her own work and collaborating with others, Anna began spending summers in different cities and sharing bills with the talented friends she made there. She also got to perform as a vocalist with some friends from home, The Dresden Dolls, all around the country, notably at Lollapalooza 2006 & on NPR"s World Cafe with David Dye. In 2007, she wrote and produced her sophomore album, The Things That Airplanes Do, mastered at Capitol Records by Ron McMaster (Diana Krall, The Beach Boys, Gwen Stefani) and had it printed up like a real person. The album served as a capstone for her majors requirements and with it Anna earned a BFA in Creative Music Production in May, 2007. Currently, she's "living the dream" in Chicago, looking for bandmates & writing sad (but sometimes happy) songs in her bedroom - pretty much back at where it all started. Unfortunately, every time she uses the word ironic she still gets the Alanis Morissette song stuck in her head.
Theo Vonkurnatowski THEO from MTV Road Rules Theo has been a cast member for the following MTV Television Reality Series ? Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Gauntlet ? Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons ? Road Rules Season 9: The Maximum Velocity Tour Originally featured as a cast member on the ninth season of MTV?s Road Rules: Maximum Velocity, Theo has since become a fixture on MTV. Known on his season to be a strong competitor with a charming southern drawl, since his stint with MTV Theo has acted as the tour manager for singer Josh Kelly and began ?The American Variety Show? featuring former co-Road Ruler Timmy. Their act includes stand-up comedy, music, and more. Theo also is an excellent speaker and host for any event on your campus.
Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. prolific and genre-bending American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973).