Denise Richards

Denise Richards

Denise Lee Richards (born February 17, 1971)[1] is an American actress and former fashion model. She has appeared in films including Starship Troopers, Wild Things, and The World Is Not Enough. She appeared on the reality TV show, Denise Richards: It's Complicated, which was carried by American cable channel E!.

Early life

Richards was born in Downers Grove, Illinois,[2] the daughter of Joni, a coffee shop owner, and Irv Richards, a telephone engineer. She has one sister, Michelle, and grew up in both Mokena and Downers Grove, Illinois. She graduated in 1989 from El Camino High School in Oceanside, California. As a child, she was the "only girl on the baseball team.

Before she was an actress, Richards was signed by the Judith Fontaine Modeling & Talent Agency as a model.

Career

In 1986, Richards appeared in the music video "The Captain of Her Heart" by Double. She spent the majority of the 1990s appearing in lower-budget films and TV shows such as Saved by the Bell, television movies, and guest starring in episodes of several television shows such as Married with Children (1991), a 5 second walk through. Her first starring role in a wide theatrical release was Starship Troopers in 1997, which was followed by her role in Wild Things in 1998.[4] In 1998, she appeared in the music video for the Blues Traveler song Canadian Rose.

Richards was cast as the nuclear-physicist Christmas Jones in the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999). Though she considered her role "brainy", "athletic", and having depth of character,[6] she was criticized as not credible in the role.[7][8] Her outfit, which often comprised a low-cut tank top and tight shorts, elicited comments.[9] She was ranked as one of the worst Bond girls of all time by Entertainment Weekly in 2008,[10] and was chosen as "Worst Supporting Actress" at the 1999 Razzie Awards for the role.

In addition to her film work, Richards has made appearances in the situation comedies Spin City, Two and a Half Men, Friends and Seinfeld. She also starred in the short-lived UPN series Sex, Love & Secrets in 2005.

Richards appeared in Valentine, Undercover Brother and Scary Movie 3. In December 2004, she posed for a nude pictorial in Playboy magazine, five months after giving birth.[12] Richards also posed semi-nude for the July 2006 issue of Jane magazine to raise money for the Clothes Off Our Back Foundation. In 1999, she ranked 9th in Maxim's 50 Sexiest Women and in 2001 she was voted 2nd in FHM's USA 100 Sexiest Women, 5th in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women and 19th in AskMen.com's 50 Most Beautiful Women.

Richards appeared on the 8th season of Dancing with the Stars, paired with Maksim Chmerkovskiy. She was eliminated second on March 24, 2009. Richards sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field on May 1, 2009.

Personal life

On November 8, 2006, officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were called to the River Rock Casino in Richmond, B.C., where Richards was making a movie. After seeing two photographers taking her picture from a nearby balcony, she confronted them, and threw their two laptop computers over the balcony. One laptop struck an 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair. The other laptop grazed the arm of a 91-year-old woman. Neither woman suffered serious injury, and no charges were pressed against Richards.

On December 1, 2007, it was announced that Richards' mother, Joni, died from cancer.

In a May 18, 2008 interview with Larry King on Larry King Live, when asked about her Catholicism, Richards claimed, "I do have faith.

Marriage to Charlie Sheen

In 2002, Richards married actor Charlie Sheen, with whom she appeared in Good Advice and then Scary Movie 3, in which she played his character's wife who was pinned to a tree in a car accident. They have two daughters, Sam J. Sheen (born March 9, 2004).[18] and Lola Rose Sheen (born June 1, 2005).Of her mothers side she is of Croatian descent.

In March 2005, Richards filed for a divorce from Sheen.[21] The couple briefly reconciled and were seeking marriage counseling to mend their relationship. However, on January 4, 2006, Richards' representative announced that she was continuing with the divorce, and she later sought a restraining order against Sheen, citing his alleged death threats against her.

On April 19, 2006, Richards filed formal legal papers asking for a divorce from Sheen under the laws of the state of California.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Sheen described Richards' actions as a "smear campaign"

In 2008, Richards decided to include her two daughters with Charlie Sheen in her confessional reality program on E!, Denise Richards: It's Complicated, which premiered on May 26, 2008. He deemed her plans "greedy, vain and exploitative".[25] On January 25, 2008, Richards won a court case against Sheen so that she can include her daughters in the show.[26] When a judge rejected Sheen's request to block it,[27] Sheen urged fans to boycott it.[28]

An agreement was reached between Sheen and Richards regarding the custody of the children, with Sheen stating in April 2009 that “we had to do what’s best for the girls.”[29]

Osama had support system in Pak: US

The US troops were prepared to capture him alive, but his resistance and use of a woman, presumed to be his wife, as shield forced them to kill the al-Qaeda chief.

'I think it's inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time,' Deputy National Security Advisor for Counter-terrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan told reporters at a crowded White House news conference here.

'I am not going to speculate about what type of support he might have had on an official basis inside of Pakistan,' he said.
Bin Laden was shot dead yesterday in a pre-dawn helicopter-borne secret US operation in a house just yards away from Pakistan's Military Academy in Abbottabad, raising questions whether the establishment knowingly harboured him.

'We are closely talking to the Pakistanis right now. And, again, we are leaving open opportunities to continue to pursue whatever leads might be out there,' Brennan said responding to questions on how the most wanted terrorist was found in one of the most affluent neighborhoods of Islamabad, which is residences of top retired military officials.

'People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. Clearly, this was something that was considered as a possibility. Pakistan is a large country. We are looking right now at how he was able to hold out there for so long and whether or not there was any type of support system within Pakistan that allowed him to stay there,' Brennan said.

'We know that the people at the compound there were working on his behalf, and that's how we ultimately found our way to the compound. But we are right now less than 24 hours after this operation, so we are talking with the Pakistanis on a regular basis now. And we're going to pursue all leads to find out exactly what type of support system and benefactors that bin Laden might have had,' he said.

Brennan said following the conclusion of the successful operation, a number of senior US officials are in regular contact now with their Pakistani counterparts.

'We are continuing to engage with them. We're engaging with them today as we learn more about the compound and whatever type of support system bin Laden had.'

Brennan said the fact that bin Laden was found so close to the capital raises questions. 'There are a lot of people within the Pakistani government, and I'm not going to speculate about who or if any of them had fore-knowledge about bin Laden being in Abbottabad. But certainly his location there outside of the capital raises questions. We are talking to the Pakistanis about this,' he said.

'But they, at least in our discussions with them, seem  as surprised as we were initially that bin Laden was holding out in that area,' he added.

Brennan said the US troops were prepared to capture bin Laden alive, but his resistance and use of a woman, presumed to be his wife, as shield forced them to kill him.

'If we had the opportunity to take bin Laden alive, if he didn't present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that. We had discussed that extensively in a number of meetings in the White House and with the (US) President,' he said.

'We were not going to put our people at risk. The President put a premium on making sure that our personnel were protected, and we were not going to give bin Laden or any of his cohorts the opportunity to carry out lethal fire on our forces. He was engaged, and he was killed in the process. But if we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done that,' he said.

Brennan said the course of action and the subsequent decisions were made over the course of the last several months.

'It was looked at from the standpoint of, if we captured him, what would we do with him, where would he go. If he was killed, what would we do with him and where would he go?' he added.

Besides bin Laden, the two al-Qaeda facilitators - who were the courier, his son Khalid and a woman presumed to be his wife, died in the operations.