Argentinian native

Roberto Novo styles 

his way to success

Hair stylist Roberto Novo is a good example of true success. 

Novo was born in Argentina. In 1978 he left his country with only a pair of
scissorsand some brushes and went to Europe. Now, after many years of work,
dedication andtraining, Novo is the owner of three salons in New York City, the
Roberto Novo Salon, NovoCut, and NovoGlamour.

For a decade Novo lived and worked in Tokyo, Paris and London. In 1989 he went to
the US where his cosmopolitan accent proved a real asset in the salon. 

Novo discovered that he had talent when he cut a girlfriend's hair in the late 1970s.
He began taking hair styling classes in 1978. After moving to the US., he worked for
the famous Cuban-born hairstylist Oribe who has worked for fashion houses including
Versace and Dolce & Gabbana. He worked at Elizabeth Arden with Oribe for several
years and then decided to open his own salon.

Novo believes strongly in helping others. He is involved in raising money for

manycharities. His family, friends and employees are very important to Novo, he
says. 

Now he would like to open his own hair cutting school. His advice to people starting a
new business is to "have confidence in themselves and to keep in touch with their
customers."

READING COMPREHENSION ACTIVITY
COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES USING THE FOLLOWING
PHRASES: RAISE MONEY, ADAPT, HELP, HAVE CONFIDENCE ANDFIND
WORK. THEN CHECK HERE YOUR ANSWERS.
 1.  Roberto Novo left Argentina for Europe to   as a
     hairdresser.

2.  He had to work hard to   to life in a new country.

3.  Roberto advises people starting in business to   in

     themselves.

4.  Roberto works hard to   for charity.

5.  He wants to open his own haircutting school to   young

     hairdressers improve their skills.

GLOSSARY
pair of scissors: par de tijeras strongly: firmemente
brushes: pinceles, cepillos raising money: recolectando fondos
training: entrenamiento charities: obras benéficas
proved a real asset: resultó una auténtica ventaja, un confidence: confianza
punto muy favorable to keep in touch: mantenerse en
hair styling classes: clases de estilización del cabello contacto

Richard
Branson:
a business
maverick.
Click on PLAY to listen to the audio file.
Pulsa en REPRODUCIR para escuchar.

When Richard Branson left school at the age of seventeen, his headmaster made a
prediction: "Branson will either go to prison or become a millionaire". He avoided
going to prison, and became one of the most popular and successful entrepreneurs in
Britain. Every year teenagers in Britain vote Branson the businessman they most
admire.

Branson founded the huge Virgin group that includes airlines, music, soft drinks,
pensions, clothing, cosmetics, cinemas and railways. In the 1990s when politicians
decided to have a Mayor of London again, Branson was top of the opinion polls
without ever saying he was interested in standing.

Richard Branson was born on 18 July 1950. His father was a barrister, his mother
owned an embroidery business. Richard's mother, Eve, told him that shyness was a
weakness. When he was just four years old she left him half a mile from his
grandparents' house and told the small boy to walk there alone. Later that night he
was found a mile in the wrong direction, unharmed but cheerful.

Educated at a private school, Branson and a friend, Jonathan Holland-Gems, came up

with the idea of a magazine for their fellow students, called ‘Student’. They thought of
it as a way to publish their views against the school's rules. Branson said, ‘I never
intended to become an entrepreneur. I was 15, didn't like the way I was being taught,
wanted to get out of school and put the world right, so I started the magazine.’

Branson put all his energy into the magazine, and ignored his studies. As soon as he
could he left school, and set up business in the basement of Holland-Gems’ family
home. Branson had written to world leaders, actors, poets and singers for their views.
He even had a letter from Lyndon Johnson the US president. Branson had arranged
his own wave of publicity, a talent that was to stay with him in all his future business.

For a couple of years ‘Student’ went well, then the magazine hit financial problems.
Branson decided to close it and follow a new idea he had. He thought he could
compete against big record shops by selling cheap imported records by post. ‘Virgin
mail order’ was an immediate success. 

Branson nearly made both his headmaster's predictions come true when he tried to
avoid customs tax. He was arrested and only avoided prison by paying all the tax he
had avoided, over £50,000.

When his mail order business lost sales because of a post office strike, Branson
reacted by opening a record store on London's busy Oxford Street. The store was an
extraordinary success. Within a year there were 14 Virgin record stores in Britain,
making it one of the largest chain stores in the country at the time.
In 1973, Branson set up his next venture, Virgin Records, to make records. They
made an album by a young unknown artist who had been rejected by every other
record company. The artist was Mike Oldfield, the album was Tubular Bells, and it
became one of the all time best sellers.

A businessman, Randolph Fields, approached Branson in 1985 with the idea of starting
a small airline. Virgin Atlantic was launched, with Fields as chairman, with unusual
speed. Branson was excited by the challenge. However within a few years Fields took
Branson to court saying that Branson was leaving him out of the important decisions.
Branson paid Fields to leave, and took over control of the airline.

Branson's buccaneering spirit in business was matched by his personal adventures. A

team was attempting to cross the Atlantic by speedboat. They asked Branson if he
would sponsor them. Branson rose to the challenge and saw a perfect opportunity to
get a lot of media attention. Branson was in all the newspapers when Virgin Atlantic
Challenger tried to cross the Atlantic on 12 August 1985. The attempt failed, but the
media were now fascinated by him.

In 1987 he attempted another Atlantic crossing, this time by balloon. With Per
Lindstrand as pilot, the pair nearly died when they were forced to make an emergency
landing in the sea. This did not stop Branson and Lindstrand from several more
balloon record attempts. In 1991 they flew 6,700 miles across the Pacific Ocean. At
the end of the 1990s, the two made several attempts for a balloon flight record
around the world, but were not successful. During this time Branson risked death
again when he lost his parachute during a jump. His instructors managed to rescue
him.

While Branson's buccaneering spirit won sympathy with the general public, Branson
was careful to project his image in business as ‘a safe pair of hands’, as he increased
the number of businesses in the Virgin Group.

His reputation came under attack in 1991 in a ‘smear campaign’ by his business rivals,
British Airways. Branson took BA to court and won £500,000 and an apology. In a
brilliant piece of Branson PR, he divided the money equally among his staff.

Branson found himself in court again in 1998 after he lost the competition to run the
UK National Lottery. Branson accused the chief executive of the rival bidders of trying
to bribe him to stay out of the bidding. Branson won, and gave the £100,000 award to
charity.
Branson continues to be a master of self-publicity, even posing semi-naked to
advertise his autobiography. As he enters his 50s, he seems to have as much energy
and enthusiasm as ever. He sums up his success to the goals he sets himself: ‘My
interests in life come from setting myself huge and unachievable challenges – and
then rising above them.’

Source: English Digest

READING COMPREHENSION ACTIVITY

Read the article again and find the answers to the following
questions.Then check your answers here.

1. What is the name of the huge business founded by Richard Branson?

2. What was the name of the magazine that Branson started when he was at
    school?

3. Which famous politician replied to one of Branson's letters asking for his
    views?

4. Where did Branson open his first large record store?

5. Which album released by Virgin Records became an all time best seller?

6. How did Branson attempt to cross the Atlantic in 1987?

7. How did Branson nearly lose his life?

8. Who beat Branson in the competition to run the UK National Lottery?

 9. How did Branson publicise his autobiography?

GEORGE CLOONEY: A Hollywood Celebrity

Kesta Allen

"I don't like to share

my personal life.
It wouldn't be personal
if I shared it".

Click on PLAY to listen to the audio file.

Pulsa en REPRODUCIR para escuchar.

After nearly ten years spent working as a minor TV actor, George Clooney
finally hit the jackpot in the world famous TV series, ER as Dr. Doug Ross. With
his trendy short haircut, soulful eyes, and perfect bedside manner, he is a big hit
with both women and men.

Born in Lexington, Kentucky, George Clooney grew up doing commercials for his
father’s TV show in Cincinatti. Almost every day Nick Clooney and his children
made some sort of public appearance. Nick was a strict father to George, and had
a strong sense of justice. He once told George off for remaining silent when a
classmate was rude to another boy. George also remembers that every Christmas
his father would take him to the house of a poor family. George says this made
him respect everyone as human beings.

It was inevitable that George would make his way into showbiz. Young George
had the role models of his famous uncle and aunt, Jose Ferrer and jazz singer
Rosemary Clooney. However it took him a while before he got there. He may have
been put offby the large number of banquets and picnics his family went to.
George even developed anxieties about eating in public.

Baseball was one thing that he felt he was good at. At Northern Kentucky
University he became so good that he even tried out for the Cincinatti Reds, and
only just failed to be selected as a centre-fielder.

The lure of the screen proved too strong, however, and George decided to seek a
career in acting. In 1982, with casual self-confidence, he dropped out of
college to drive to Los Angeles – a strange choice for a man who confesses that
he is terrified ofearthquakes. He had 300 dollars in his pocket and was driving a
car that had such an unreliable engine he dared not switch it off. ‘You’re never
going to survive. You’re never going to make it,’ said his father.

His father’s words must have echoed many times in George’s ears over the next
year. For twelve months he tried to get an acting role while he slept on a friend’s
floor. His first professional job was in a commercial. He arrived at the audition with
a six-pack of beer under his arm. ‘If you watch auditions, the best actor never gets
the job,’ George said later, ‘especially in TV. You get the job when you walk in the
door. Because in a strange way, we’re not selling acting. What we’re selling is
confidence.’

Clooney needed all the confidence he could muster while he worked on fifteen TV

shows, none of which became series. Around this time he also took a junior role in
a hospital-based drama series called ER. It was never very popular, and his role
was not continued. Curiously, ten years later in 1994, he won a role in another
hospital drama series called ER. This time this show became hugely popular, and
George’s classic good looks as Dr Doug Ross, a children’s doctor, made him the
star of the series.

George’s role as Doug Ross on ER made him a sex symbol, a role he is not always
comfortable with. He turned down the award of ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ from ‘People’
magazine. They put him on the front cover anyway, and his fans went wild.

George became hot property and attractive film offers rained down on him. He
appeared as the handsome robber and vampire slayer, Seth Gecko, in Quentin
Tarantino’s very violent 1996 film, From Dusk Till Dawn. Despite the film’s mixed
reviews, it made him even more popular. In late 1996, he charmed Michelle
Pfeiffer in the romantic comedy, One Fine Day. It was a role totally different from
his role in From Dusk Till Dawn, and showed off his creative talent as an actor.

It wasn’t long before George was chosen to replace Val Kilmer as the caped
crusader inBatman and Robin. Some say he gave the character its most sensitive
representationso far. Amazingly it was only eight years since he had appeared in
a co-starring role inAttack of the Killer Tomatoes!

George’s film roles and other projects began to affect his commitment to
the ER series. Eventually he decided to make the break, and he was written
out of the series. His character walked away from a girlfriend pregnant with twins,
a plot twist that seemed sure to give him a ‘bad boy’ image. But it seems his fans
are completely unfazed by this. The number of letters he received from his fans
still stayed at the same level.

George’s private life has had its ups and downs. George’s marriage to Talia
Balsambroke up in 1992 after just 4 years. Since then he has dated many famous
women, including Dedee Pfeiffer, Michelle Pfeiffer’s sister, and Denise Crosby, Bill
Crosby’s daughter. His longest relationship since his marriage was with Celine
Balitran, a waitress he met in Paris. They parted after three years together, in
1999. George vows that he will never get married again, nor have any children.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman think differently to George. They had each bet
$10,000 that he would be a father before he turned 40 in 2001.

Despite living his life in the public eye, George has very strong feelings about
protecting his private life. When American TV programme Hard Copy showed a clip
of him with Celine, George organised a boycott of the programme. The clip had
been filmed by ‘paparazzi’ without his knowledge. The programme gave him a
public apology, although they still use such clips.

George’s popularity at work is as great off screen as on, and he enjoys drinking
and playing basketball with the crew at the end of a day filming.   

On the set of The Three Kings, he disliked the way the director was treating the
crew, and the two men ended up in a fight. Tempers were calmed and the film
finished without problems. Asked about being cast in the film, George joked,
‘Luckily, both the actors Mel Gibson and Nicholas Cage were tied and gagged in
my apartment, and that was a problem for the casting department.’

George’s own production company has many projects in various stages of

progress, but there is one in which he takes a special interest. It is called Kilroy, a
TV series about a hopeful young actor who arrives in Hollywood to play small parts
in a lot of TV series, just like George did.

And now George Clooney is the top hero of The Perfect Storm, a real story, based
on the shipwreck of a group of fishermen, doing everything to get out from
poverty.

No one is saying who the actor will be, but with the potential to be the next
George Clooney, there has been a huge response from actors who are queuing
just to get an audition!

Source: English Digest

GLOSSARY
minor: small and not very important
(secundario, sin mayor importancia)
hit the jackpot: to have a very big success
(sacó el premio mayor)
soulful: expressing deep emotions
(conmovedor, espiritual)
bedside manners: a doctor's bedside manner
is the way they talk to people they are treating
(modales o conducta típicas de un médico que
conversa con sus pacientes)
tell off: talk angrily to someone because
she/he has done something wrong (retar,
reprender a alguien)
showbiz: (colloquial) show business (mundo
del espectáculo, farándula)
put off: embarrassed (incómodo, fuera de
lugar)
try out: to try to be chosen as a member of a
team (someter a prueba, probar)
lure: qualities that attract by seeming to
promise some kind of reward (atracción)
to seek: to search, to look for (salir a buscar)
dropped out of college: quitted school before
graduation (abandonó los estudios
universitarios)
earthquake: shaking and vibration at the
surface of the earth resulting from underground
movement along a fault plane of from volcanic
activity (terremoto)
switch it off: turn it off (apagarlo)
echoed: repeated (resonado, repetido)
to echo/echoed/echoed/echoing: to repeat as
the echo (resonar, repetirse una y otra vez)
muster: to find as much confidence as you can
in order to do something difficult (juntar
confianza)
hugely: enormously (enormemente)
rain down: (colloquial phrasal verb) to fall in
large quantities (caer a montones, llover a
cántaros)
slayer: killer (asesino)
showed off: exhibited (exhibía, mostraba)
so far: up to now (hasta el presente, hasta
ahora)
written out: removed from the
script (eliminado del guón de la serie de TV)
unfazed: not confused or shocked by
something (imperturbable)
broke up: (legally)
terminated (se disolvió, sedio por terminado)
parted: discontinued their relationship (se
separaron)
in the public eye: of great interest to the public
or his fans (en público, expuesto a todos)
as great off screen as on: as important off TV
screen as on TV screen (tan importante fuera
de la pantalla como en ella)
crew: organized group of workmen (equipo de
TV o cine, tripulación)
gagged: enclosed and prevented from
speaking (amordazado)
shipwreck: destruction of a ship or boat at sea
by storm or collision, etc. (naufragio)
huge: enormous (enorme)

PHRASAL VERBS: UNA UTIL GRAMATICA

PHRASAL VERBS (Verbos Frasales) son verbos seguidos de preposiciones o partículas
adverbiales que le modifican, a veces totalmente, su sentido o traducción básica. Como
verbo principal, LOOK significa "mirar", sin embargo, observemos qué cambios ocurren
cuando va seguido de after, into, up, to, forward y back:

LOOK AFTER: take care of (cuidar): Please, look after my cat while I am on holiday (Por

favor, cuida mi gato mientras estoy de vacaciones).
LOOK INTO: investigate, examine (investigar, analizar): The police promised to look into
the problem (La policía prometió investigar el problema).
LOOK UP TO respect (respetar): Everybody at school looks up to the headmaster (En la
escuela todos respetan al director).
LOOK UP: 
1) improve (mejorar): Trade looked up this year (Este año los negocios mejoraron).  
2) visit (visitar): If I go to Barcelona I will look her up (Si voy a Barcelona, le haré una visita).
LOOK FORWARD TO: hope with anxiety (esperar ansiosamente): I look forward to your
next visit (Espero ansiosamente tu próxima visita). Si le sigue otro verbo, el mismo va
seguido de la forma ING: I look forward to visiting you (Espero ansiosamente visitarte).
LOOK BACK ON: recall (recordar, añorar): The old man looked back on the days of his
youth(El anciano recordaba los días de su juventud).

¿DIFICIL DE RECORDAR? TRATA DE PRACTICARLO AQUÍ ABAJO !!!

READING COMPREHENSION ACTIVITY
COMPLETE EACH SENTENCE BELOW WITH ONE THE SEVEN FORMS
OF THE VERB "TO LOOK" EXPLAINED ABOVE. BE CAREFUL AS THE
VERBAL TENSES MAY BE DIFFERENT. THEN CHECK HERE YOUR
ANSWERS.

Nick Clooney taught his son always to                                                        
1.
(= respect) the poor.

At university, George                                                        

2.  (= hoped with anxiety)
playing with the Cincinatti Reds.

George                                                           (=

3. visited) an old friend when he arrived
in Los Angeles

After working on 15 TV series, things began to                                          
4. .
(= improve)

A TV programme                                                           

5. (= investigated) his relationship
with Celine Balitran.

6. George felt strongly that the director of The Three Kings was not

                                                          (= taking care
of) the crew.
 His latest TV series, Kilroy,                                                       
7.  (= recalled) his own
early career, struggling to make it in Hollywood.

MAS "EL CINE Y SUS ESTRELLAS"   FORO   INICIO

pulsa aquí para recomendar esta web a un amigo