Beyonce Knowles

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (born September 4, 1981) is an American R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, actress,fashion designer. Knowles rose to fame as the creative force and lead singer of R&B girl group Destiny's Child, the world's best-selling female group of all time, with over fifty million records sold.

After a series of commercially successful releases with the group, Knowles released her debut solo album Dangerously in Love in 2003. The album became one of the biggest commercial successes of the year, topping the album charts in the U.S. and the UK. It also spawned the number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy" and earned Beyoncé five Grammy Awards in a single night in 2004. Knowles' sophomore album, B'Day, which was released worldwide on September 4, 2006 (her twenty-fifth birthday), continued her success. The album spawned the UK number-one single "Deja Vu", "Ring the Alarm", and the worldwide number-one hit "Irreplaceable", and earned Knowles her seventh solo Grammy Award (she has won ten in total). As a solo artist, Knowles has sold more than twelve million albums worldwide.

Knowles has contributed to the soundtracks to films in which she has starred, including Dreamgirls (2006), for which she received two Golden Globe Award nominations, one for acting and another for the soul hit "Listen".

Early life

Knowles is the oldest of two daughters born to Mathew Knowles and Tina Beyincé in Houston, Texas. Her father is African-American and her mother is an African-American of Louisiana Creole descent. Her parents decided on her first name as a tribute to her mother's maiden name. Her maternal grandparents, Lumis Beyincé and Agnéz Deréon (a seamstress), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles. She is the older sister of Solange Knowles, cousin to Angela Beyincé (her personal assistant and song co-writer), and aunt to Solange's son Daniel Julez Smith.

By age seven, she was attending dance school and was a soloist in her church's choir. Her dance instructor took an interest in Knowles and took her star student to various competitions. Knowles went on to win over thirty local singing and dancing competitions.

Knowles and her childhood best friend LaTavia Roberson along with Kelly Rowland and LeToya Luckett formed a quartet that would perform in their backyards and in Tina Knowles' hair salon. After singing at local events, they got their break when they entered Star Search. The group, then named "Girl's Tyme", were disappointed after losing the competition. Mathew Knowles, Beyoncé's father decided to help the girls reach their dreams of becoming singers. He quit his six-figure salary job as a multi-million dollar equipment salesman at Xerox to manage the group. This decision by Mathew eventually affected the whole family. Their income had been cut in half, causing the family to move into two different apartments. When the group was signed to Columbia Records in 1996, it gave the entire family a second chance at making things work.

As a teenager, Knowles attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, where she showed her musical talents. She later went to Alief Elsik High School, in the Alief neighborhood of Houston.

Film career

In 2001, Knowles turned to acting, starring alongside actor Mekhi Phifer in the MTV made-for-television film Carmen: A Hip Hopera.

In the summer of 2002, Beyoncé co-starred in the film Austin Powers in Goldmember, playing Foxxy Cleopatra opposite Mike Myers and Michael Caine. Beyoncé also recorded the song "Work It Out" for the film's soundtrack. "Work It Out" was a top ten hit in the UK and a top forty hit in the Netherlands, Australia, and Ireland, despite being Knowles' biggest commercial disappointment to date in the U.S., where radio stations barely played the song and the video received very minor exposure, playing only on digital video channels, MTV Jams, and VH1 Soul.

In 2003, Knowles starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr. in the film The Fighting Temptations, and recorded a song for it called "Fighting Temptation", alongside female rappers Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free. Unlike Knowles' own singles, the song did not become a hit, although the film was a moderate success at the box office.

Knowles co-starred in the film The Pink Panther, playing the role of Xania, an international pop star, opposite Steve Martin, who plays Inspector Clouseau. The film was released on February 10, 2006, and was number one at the box office on its opening weekend.With Austin Powers in Goldmember and The Pink Panther, Knowles appeared in two films that opened at number one at the box office; the two films have grossed over $481,364,728 worldwide.

Knowles' latest film work is Dreamgirls, the film adaptation of the hit 1981 Broadway musical about a 1960s singing group loosely based on Motown all-female group The Supremes, as the Diana Ross-based character Deena Jones. The film received a limited release on December 15, 2006 and a wider release on December 25, 2006. On December 14, 2006, Beyoncé was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for the film Dreamgirls - "Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy" and "Best Original Song" for "Listen". The film opened number three at the box office with an eight-million-dollar opening weekend. Beyoncé was quoted to say this was her first real acting film. Dreamgirls was nominated for eight 2007 Academy Awards - including "Best Original Song" for "Listen" -, of which it won two. The film has passed the $100 million dollar gross mark in the United States.

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