Yamaha by Adrien Brody

The son of Hungarian-born photojournalist Sylvia Plachy and retired history teacher Elliot Brody, Adrien grew up an only child in Woodhaven, Queens, where he accompanied his mother on assignments for the Village Voice. He credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the camera. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in New York. Despite a strong performance in The Thin Red Line (1998), time constraints forced the director to edit out much of Adrien's part. In spite of his later work with Spike Lee and Barry Levinson, he never became the star many expected he would become...until Roman Polanski called on him to play a celebrated Jewish pianist in the Nazi-occupied Warsaw. He pulled off a brilliant performance in The Pianist (2002) drawing on the heritage and rare dialect of his Polish grandmother, as well as his father, who lost family members during the Holocaust, and his mother, who fled Communist Hungary as a child during the 1956 revolution against Russia. His mother is the Hungarian-born photojournalist Sylvia Plachy. Is the only actor to win a Best Actor Oscar when nominated alongside four previous Oscar winners. In 2003, at the age of 29, he replaced Richard Dreyfuss as the youngest actor ever to win the Best Actor Academy Award, for his role in "The Pianist". Has great appreciation for hip-hop. Like Beatnuts, one of his favorite groups, Brody is also from Queens. Performed magic shows at children's birthdays as a child, as 'The Amazing Adrien'. In 2004, Esquire Magazine named him the Best Dressed Man in America. Owned and drove a Hummer, which is famous in Hollywood for being Arnold Schwarzenegger's favorite vehicle. This ecologically-unfriendly vehicle gets under ten miles per gallon and was originally designed for warfare.