Gwen Stefani
Gwen was born on October 3, 1969 in Orange County, California. The star's father is Italian and her mother has English and Scottish roots. Gwen also has a sibling, Jill, and two brothers, Eric and Todd. During her time at Cal State Fullerton High School, Gwen was overweight, took swimming lessons, and was even on the swim team.
Success didn't find Stephanie right away, at first she moonlighted as a floor scrubber at the Dairy Queen Cafe and as a sales clerk. Her singing career began in 1986 when her brother Eric and his friend John Spence formed the band No Doubt. Gwen became the band's leader after Eric, a keyboardist, left the band in hopes of pursuing a career as an animator, drawing Simpsons cartoons, and band organizer Joe Spence committed suicide in December 1987. The members of the group, who had worked side by side for three years, the breakup was very hard. They were together until 1995, the year their third album Tragic Kingdom was released, featuring several hit songs and starting with the single "Just a Girl".
After the release of the "Tragic Kingdom" album, Gwen gained even more popularity and recognition. The same thing happened with the music video for the song "Don't Speak", which was included on the album. Gwen composed most of the songs while under the influence of the breakup with her friend from another music group, Tony Canal, whom she dated for eight years and broke up with because he demanded more freedom for himself. After breaking up with the man she loved, Gwen fell into a depression that only intensified after a grueling tour presenting the album "Tragic Kingdom."
Life went gray for Stephanie until in 1996, while giving a concert, she met Gavin Rossdale, the guitarist of the band Bush. The friendship grew into marriage - the wedding took place on September 14, 2002, Gwen wore a wedding dress by John Galliano. In June 2006, Gwen gave birth to her first child.
Besides the leader of No Doubt, Gwen is also known as a performer of solo compositions. Her breakthrough came with a song duet with techno singer Moby and rapper Eve in 2001 for which she won two MTV awards for Best Male Video and Best Female Video for the first time in show business history. A little later, Gwen recorded her first solo album titled "Love, Angel, Music, Baby", released in America on November 23, 2004. The single from that album, "What You Waiting For?" reached number one in Australia and number four in the U.K. chart. It also broke the record for all the previous albums by reaching number seven in the chart and selling 350,000 copies in the first week alone.
The desire to look different every time prompted Stephanie to start her own fashion business called L.A.M.B - wearable clothes, handbags and purses that Stephanie herself wears. Gwen has proven to be a successful business and today most celebrities such as Nicky Hilton, Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, Carmen Electra, Nicole Ricci and Halle Berry use clothes and handbags from Gwen. For her good taste in clothes and flawless makeup, in 2005 Gwen Stefani was named one of the 50 most beautiful people by "People" magazine, and, in 2002, was ranked #22 on Stuff magazine's list of the world's sexiest women.
