Ewa Laurance

Ewa Laurance (aka Ewa Mataya aka the Striking Viking) was born on February 26, 1964 in Gävle, Sweden. She is a Swedish-American professional pool player, most notably on the Women's Professional Billiard Association nine-ball tour. She is also a sports commentator for ESPN.

Laurance is playing pool since she was 14 years old in her native country and moved to the United States in 1983.

She has authored three books related with pool i.e. The Ewa Mataya Pool Guide, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pool and Billiards and Quick Start Guide to Pocket Billiards. She has also written monthly columns for the Pool & Billiard magazine.

In 2004, she was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame.

In 2005, Ewa Mataya Laurance bested three of her peers, WPBA tour members Allison Fisher, Dawn Hopkins, and Gerda Hofstatter, at the Women's Trick Shot Challenge held at the New York Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, pocketing $25,000 as the grand prize.

She has also done modeling for many brands.

J K Rowling

Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England. She is an English fiction writer who writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has gained worldwide attention and won multiple awards.

She is the first person to become a US-dollar billionaire by writing books with fortune of £545 million. In 2006, Forbes named Rowling the second richest female entertainer in the world and ranked her as 48th on the 100 most powerful celebrities list of 2007.

The seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series with title Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on 21st July 2007.

Recently released Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix is the picturization of fifth novel from the Potter series by J K Rowling. Emma Watson and Katie Leung are leading actress in this movie.

Check more about J K Rowling here.

Nicole Richie

Nicole Richie was born on September 21, 1981 in Berkeley, California, USA. She is an American socialite, actress, author and singer.

Padma Lakshmi

Padma Lakshmi was born in September 1, 1970. She is a New York based Indian-American model, actress and award-winning cookbook author. She modeled for top designers such as Emanuel Ungaro, Ralph Lauren and Alberta Ferretti and done ad campaigns for Roberto Cavalli and Versus. She gave her acting performance in Glitter with Mariah Carey and in Boom with Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Gulshan Grover, Madhu Sapre, Katrina Kaif and Zeenat Aman and in 2005 in The Mistress of Spices with Aishwarya Rai, Dylan McDermott, Ayesha Dharker.

She has been the host of the reality television program Top Chef since season two and an ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Her first cookbook Easy Exotic was awarded Best First Book at the 1999 World Cookbook Awards at Versailles.

Padma and her novelist husband Salman Rushdie filed for divorce on July 2, 2007.

Check out more about Padma at her official website.

Madonna

Madonna was born on August 16, 1958 in Bay City, Michigan. She is an American pop singer, songwriter, record and film producer, dancer, actress, author and fashion icon. In 2000, The Guinness World Records listed Madonna as the most successful female recording artist of all time, with estimated worldwide sales of 120 million albums. Madonna is the highest earning female singer of all time according to both the 2007 Guinness Book of Records and Billboard Magazine. Madonna also holds the record for the top-grossing concert tour by a female artist.

Teri Hatcher

Teri Lynn Hatcher was born on December 8, 1964 in Palo Alto, California, and grew up in Sunnyvale, California. She is an Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe Award-winning American actress and author. She gained attention for her role as Lois Lane in the television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman co-starring with Dean Cain. Hatcher is also well-known for portraying Susan Mayer, in Desperate Housewives, a charming accident-prone divorcee. She is also a "Bond Girl", having played Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997.

Paulina Porizkova

Paulina Porizkova was born on April 9, 1965 in Prostějov, Czech Republic. She is a Czech-born supermodel and actress.

She appeared twice on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 1984 and again in 1985. She was also the cover model for the 20th Anniversary issue of Cosmopolitan magazine in November 1985.

Paulina was the first to be voted off from ABC's fourth season of "Dancing With the Stars", which began last week.