Julia Roberts

Born Julie Fiona Roberts in Smyrna, Georgia, on October 28, 1967, the actress emerged as everyone's favourite pretty woman aged 21. With two Oscar nominations to her name (a supporting nod for the 1989 tearjerker Steel Magnolias and a leading lady bid for Pretty Woman), she was forced to mature in public under the Hollywood spotlight. High profile engagements to actors Dylan McDermott and Kiefer Sutherland became tabloid fodder, and her reported antics on the set of Steven Spielberg's Hook earned her the moniker "Tinkerhell".

She pulled a Greta Garbo-esque disappearing act in 1991 surfacing briefly as herself in Robert Altman's 1992 film The Player - and emerged focused and triumphant with the 1993 blockbuster The Pelican Brief. But despite well-reviewed performances in Michael Collins, alongside one-time boyfriend Liam Neeson, and Something To Talk About, it was 1997's quirky My Best Friend's Wedding that reminded audiences why they first fell in love with the Georgia Peach. Then, in 2000, came the ultimate accolade, a Best Actress statuette for her portrayal of unstoppable legal secretary Erin Brockovich in the eponymously titled flick.

Julia grew up around actors. Her father Walter (who died of cancer when the actress was ten) and mother Betty, both professional local actors, divorced when Julia was three, and though she lived with her mother and three siblings, she remained close to her father. The Notting Hill star has a well-publicised, long-running feud with her older brother, Academy Award-nominee Eric Roberts (Runaway Train).

Since coming to audiences' attention in 1988's Mystic Pizza, Julia has become something of a runaway bride. In 1993, following her failed engagements, Julia shocked the world by marrying lanky country singer Lyle Lovett. The unlikely pair divorced in June of 1995. Friends' Matthew Perry, Daniel Day-Lewis and fitness trainer Pat Manocchia also feature in the ranks of Julia's former lovers.

Her tempestuous past seemed to have calmed, however, when she took up with Law & Order's Benjamin Bratt in 1997, but in the summer of 2001, after three-and-a-half years together, the two called it quits.

Then, while working on The Mexican, in which she co-starred with Brad Pitt, Julia met Californian cameraman Danny Moder. At the time Danny was married to make-up artist Vera, but was soon spotted squiring his new love around town. He and Julia were married in an ultra-secret midnight ceremony at the actress' New Mexican ranch just outside Taos in the early hours of Independence Day 2002. The happy couple became proud parents to a boy and a girl on November 28, 2004 when Hazel Patricia and Phinnaeus Walter made their grand entrance at a Los Angeles hospital. Julia and Danny announced in early 2007 that she was expecting their third child, and Henry Daniel Moder was born on June 1

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Gwyneth Paltrow

Born in LA on September 28, 1972, to actress Blythe Danner and the late TV producer Bruce Paltrow, Gwyneth was just five when she first trod the boards alongside her mother in a production in Massachusetts. At the beginning of the Nineties she started to bag small movie roles and, bitten by the acting bug, gave up her Art History studies at the University of California to devote herself to her mother's profession. One of her first roles was in Steven Spielberg's Hook, where she played the part of Wendy to Robin Williams' Peter Pan.

The first role that really made the world aware of her existence was the 1995 thriller Se7en more importantly for Gwyneth, it brought her to the attention of Brad Pitt. Cast as the actor's young wife she fell in love on the set. After a two-year romance Brad popped the question, but by 1997 the couple had split, reportedly because the Joe Black actor found his intended too emotionally needy, an accusation her next boyfriend, Ben Affleck, was also to level at her.

After meeting at the tail end of '97, the couple were together for about a year and ended up starring together in Shakespeare In Love and later Bounce.

In the end, however, it was to be an Englishman who captured the self-confessed anglophile's heart. Gwyneth fell for Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and the pair wed in December 2003. Their daughter, Apple Blythe Alison Martin, arrived on May 14, 2004. Baby boy Moses followed in April 2006.

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Matt Damon

Then came Good Will Hunting, the film he and best mate Ben Affleck wrote and starred in. "The suits were going: 'Boys, we were thinking half a mil'. And Ben and I, who weren't sure if we could afford McDonald's that night, were sitting there going, 'Half a mil? Hmmm'," he says.

Suddenly, Matt was 'It'. But with all his success why does the golden boy sometimes seem decidedly less than upbeat?

Matthew Paige Damon was born on October 8, 1970, in suburban Massachusetts to Nancy Paige, an author and educator, and Kent Damon, an investment banker. His parents split when he was two years old, and his mum raised him and his brother in an area of Cambridge similar to that portrayed in Good Will Hunting.

Matt dropped out of Harvard University just shy of graduation after scoring a pivotal role in Geronimo: An American Legend and relocating to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, it would be a few years before Tinseltown took notice. So rather than wait for the prize roles, Matt and Ben sold Good Will Hunting, a script the two completed from a short piece Damon had begun at university, and cast themselves in the lead roles. The film was nominated for a string of Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and the pair walked off with a pair of Best Screenplay Oscars. Then the floodgates opened.

High-profile roles with acclaimed directors including Steven Spielberg, Anthony Minghella and Steven Spielberg, Anthony Minghella and Robert Redford followed, and Matt just couldn't seem to say no. "You don't want to feel like you're taking anything for granted, especially when you know how hard it is to get a job in the first place," he says. "So it's really this kind of sense of owing it to another actor, owing it to the actor I was five years ago."

Some of the films were successful – Saving Private Ryan and The Talented Mr Ripley among them – while others, like All The Pretty Horses, tanked. But Matt saw a challenge in each role and earned a reputation for his uncompromising work ethic. He cracked a rib learning to play golf for The Legend Of Bagger Vance, he dropped three stone for a supporting role in Courage Under Fire, and he learned to play cards with Las Vegas aficionados for Rounders. "I like that mentality when you have to go to great lengths as an actor to make sure the show really does go on," he says.

He is perhaps most famous for his role as Jason Bourne in the films The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, all three of which enjoyed huge global success and established the actor as a fully-fledged action star.

The success he found in Hollywood, however, did not extend to his love life. For a long time he was unlucky in matters of the heart, famously splitting with Minnie Driver live on The Oprah Winfrey Show, before stepping out with Minnie Driver live on The Oprah Winfrey Show, before stepping out with Winona Ryder and, reportedly, Penelope Cruz. A nearly three-year relationship with pal Ben's former personal assistant, Odessa Whitmire, sparked rumours of marriage. However, the two split in 2003.

His luck seems to have changed since meeting Luciana Bozan, a former bartender who now works as an interior designer. The two tied the knot in New York City in December 2005 and daughter Isabella was born on June 11, 2006, with Matt relishing his new role as father.

"[Fatherhood] defies description, actually. I don't really know how to talk about it because I don't really know – I feel like I got made a member of a club that I didn't know existed," he said. Second child Gia Zavala came along in August 2008.

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Javier Bardem

Acting has always been in the Bardem family's blood. Born on the Canary Islands March 1, 1969, Javier was raised the youngest of three children in Madrid by his mother, Pilar who separated from his father Carlos when he was a baby. Pilar was one of the most talented actresses of her generation, while his grandparents were also actors. His uncle, Juan Antonio Bardem, was a director.

At first Javier resisted following in the family footsteps, despite appearing in the film El Picaro (The Scoundrel) at the age of six and acting in several TV series as a youngster. Before he took up acting seriously like brother Carlos and sister Monica, he trained as an artist. A talented sportsman, he also became a member of the Spanish national rugby team. It was not rugby, which he played from the age of nine until 24, which resulted in his Roman profile, however his nose was broken in a nightclub attack by a stranger who asked for his name and then punched him.

He took odd jobs to pay for art college - including one day working as a stripper and a stint as an extra on film sets. Javier was 20 fate when intervened in the form of a speaking part offer from director Bigas Luna for the film Las Edades De Lulu (The Ages Of Lulu). Encouraged by his mother he went on to enroll in acting school.

The 1992 flick Jamon, Jamon, in which he starred alongside a 17-year-old Penelope Cruz, was the handsome youngster's first international hit. While in his native Spain he quickly built a reputation, based on a couple of dozen films made with acclaimed directors such as Pedro Almodovar and Milos Foreman.

Javier's first English-speaking part was in 2000 movie Before Night Falls, portraying the persecuted gay Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. The role made him an overnight sensation in Hollywood, and he became the first Spanish actor to be nominated for an Oscar. In 2002 John Malkovich cast him in his directorial debut The Dancer Upstairs and described him at the time as "the best young actor in Europe, maybe anywhere". "He has the strength and power of a bull… but with a very masculine fragility underneath," said Malkovich. "His talent is off the radar."

Javier cemented his credentials with 2005's Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside), playing a quadriplegic man who challenged the Spanish legal system for the right to die. The movie won the Academy Award for best foreign film, sparked a debate about euthanasia in Spain, and earned him the best actor gong at the Venice Film Festival.

Despite his physically imposing 6ft 3in frame, Javier has a reputation as a gentle giant. His dislike for violence led him to think twice about accepting the role of a psychopathic killer in the bloody Western No Country For Old Men (2007) alongside Tommy Lee Jones. Having accepted the part he stole the film as chilling killer Anton Chigurh and in 2008 was named best supporting actor at the 80th Academy Awards, making history as the first Spanish actor to take home one of the coveted trophies.

Two weeks after wrapping filming on the film, the versatile star began lensing Mike Newell's adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel Love In The Time Of Cholera, playing the polar opposite to Chigurgh as Columbian lover Florentino Ariza. He also signed up for the lead in Woody Allen's 2008 flick Vicky Cristina Barcelona, in which he teamed up again with Penelope Cruz - whom he began dating at the end of 2007.

Two and a half years later, the couple made their union official by tying the knot in a secret ceremony in the Bahamas, with just a handful of friends and family present. Two months later they announced that they were expecting their first child together, due in early 2011.

Despite his success in Hollywood, for now Javier has no plans to leave his Madrid hometown, where he owns a pair of restaurants. His work, however, is likely to keep him in Tinseltown for many years to come. Neither the silver screen nor his legions of fans can get enough of him it seems. As director Joel Coen said when asked why he chose the actor for No Country For Old Men, "Javier is somebody you can't take your eyes off".

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New love, new lease of life for radiant Kate Winslet as she hits red carpet with Louis

When it comes to her private life, Kate Winslet is usually quite reticent.

But this week the British actress was not shy in showing how smitten she is with her new man Louis Dowler.

Stepping into the spotlight together at the San Sebastian Film Festival, the couple couldn’t keep their hands off each other as they attended the first red carpet event of their relationship.

Kate, 34, sizzled in a super-sexy LBD-and-heels-combination and with a mega-watt smile as she went public with model Louis, spending much of the night gazing into his eyes.

The pair stuck close throughout the evening as they mingled with Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem, who are also at the festival.

Kate and Louis – who has starred in high-profile campaigns for Burberry and Paul Smith – confirmed their romance back in August when they were seen hand-in-hand during a night out in London.

They were first linked earlier that same month when pictures emerged of the pair exercising together in the Big Apple.

According to friends, they have become inseparable – to the extent that Kate is loathe to leave Louis, also 34, behind when she heads to Chicago to film her new movie Contagion.

"Kate hates the idea of having a long-distance relationship, even for a short period of time," a source close to the actress has revealed.

"They have discussed the idea of Louis going with her while she films so they won't have to endure a long-distance relationship at such an early stage in what seems to be something pretty serious.

"Kate hasn’t been this happy in a very long time."

While in the Windy City filming the medical thriller – also starring Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law – the Oscar winner will arrange care of her two children with ex-husband Sam Mendes, who lives in New York.

They announced their separation after seven years of marriage in March this year. Kate and Sam are parents to son Joe Alfie, six, and the star also has a daughter Mia, who will be ten next month, with her first husband Jim Threapleton.

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Paris Hilton refused entry to Japan and sent home

Paris Hilton's recent drug charges have had far-reaching consequences.

Having pleaded guilty to cocaine possession and obstructing an officer on Monday, the 29-year-old has been refused entry to Japan.

Paris had flown there on a business trip with her sister following her court appearance.

Upon landing at Tokyo's Narita airport, she was questioned for six hours by Japanese immigration officials, and asked to stay overnight in a nearby hotel, while it was decided how to handle her case.

Under Japanese law, immigration authorities have the power to deny entry to visitors who have been convicted of drug-related offences.

Paris had been scheduled to appear in a news conference on Wednesday to promote her fashion and fragrance lines.

Having previously posted a photograph of herself and younger sister Nicky arriving in Tokyo (left), Paris later wrote on her Twitter page: "About to take off. Going home now.

"So disappointed to miss my fans in Asia. I promise to come back soon. I love you all! Love Paris xoxo"

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