Charlize Theron Biography

Home Page | Biography | Trivia | Filmography | Photos Gallery | Desktop Wallpapers | Quotes

As legend has it, Charlize Theron was discovered by an agent while fighting with a bank manager on Hollywood Boulevard. Eighteen and starving, Theron purportedly got into the argument after the manager refused to cash her check. The outburst caught the agent’s attention, and eight months later Theron got her first acting job. She subsequently went on to become one of the hottest young actors in Hollywood, thanks to a fortuitous combination of talent and the blonde, statuesque good looks so fervently adored by the camera.

Born August 7, 1975, Theron was raised on a farm in Benoni, South Africa. Trained as a ballet dancer, she was sent to Milan at 16 to become a model following the death of her father (which, it was later revealed, occurred after he was shot by Theron’s mother, who was defending herself from his drunken abuse). After tiring of modeling, Theron returned to her first love, dancing, which resulted in a move to New York to dance with the Joffrey Ballet. Unfortunately, her career was halted by a knee injury, which led Theron — at her mother’s behest — to travel to Los Angeles to try her luck with acting. After a long, unprofitable struggle, fate smiled upon Theron in the form of the aforementioned bank encounter.

Following an inauspicious bit part in 1994′s Children of the Corn III, Theron won her first dose of recognition with 2 Days in the Valley (1996). The film wasn’t particularly successful, but it did give her both much-needed exposure and critical praise. The film also served as the stepping stone to her first leading role, that of Keanu Reeves’ embattled wife in The Devil’s Advocate (1997). The film drew poor reviews, but Theron managed to win widespread praise for her performance. Her next project, Trial and Error (1997), surfaced briefly before disappearing with nary a trace, but the subsequent Mighty Joe Young (1998) netted Theron more positive notices. Her ascent was confirmed with her casting in Celebrity, Woody Allen’s 1998 cameo-fest that also featured turns from everyone from Kenneth Branagh to Winona Ryder to Leonardo DiCaprio to Isaac Mizrahi. In her portrayal of a perpetually aroused supermodel, Theron shone in a role seemingly designed to allow her to flaunt her natural attributes and little else. She was rewarded with more substantial — not to mention multilayered — work in The Cider House Rules (1999), Lasse Hallstrצm’s Oscar-winning adaptation of John Irving’s novel. As a troubled young woman with secrets to hide, Theron received star billing alongside Michael Caine and Tobey Maguire.

In the wake of The Cider House Rules came a few highly publicized but ultimately disappointing projects, including John Frankenheimer’s Reindeer Games (2000), Robert Redford’s The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), and Sweet November (2001), the last of which reunited her with erstwhile co-star Keanu Reeves. Theron was also reunited with Woody Allen in his The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), another widely anticipated film that, despite a high-profile cast and stylish period design, was both a critical and commercial underacheiver.

None of this, however, nudged Theron from her A-list status, something that was confirmed by her casting in the flashy, star-studded 2003 remake of The Italian Job, a much-beloved 1969 comedy caper starring Michael Caine. The 2003 version featured Mark Wahlberg in the starring role, with Theron, Edward Norton, Seth Green, and Mos Def, among others, backing him up. That same year, Theron switched gears and dove headfirst into the “serious actress” category with her starring role in Monster, the crime drama based upon the real-life story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who, in the late ’80s, murdered seven men in Florida. Co-starring Christina Ricci as Wuornos’ lover, the film promised to show audiences a side of Theron that certainly hadn’t been hinted at in her previous portrayals of models, girlfriends, and Southern debutantes. It was evidently successful as Theron was showered with more than a dozen awards including an Oscar following her first-ever Academy Award nomination.

After appearing in a few notable films, Theron starred as the serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003). Film critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema”.[12] For this role, Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004,[13] as well as the SAG Award and the Golden Globe Award.[14] She is the first African to win an Oscar for Best Actress.[15] The Oscar win pushed her to The Hollywood Reporter’s 2006 list of highest-paid actresses in Hollywood; earning $10,000,000 for both her subsequent films, North Country and Æon Flux, she ranked seventh, behind Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Renée Zellweger, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman.[citation needed]

On September 30, 2005, Theron received her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the same year, she starred in the financially unsuccessful science fiction thriller Aeon Flux.

Theron received Best Actress Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for her lead performance in the drama North Country. Ms. magazine also honored her for this performance with a feature article in its Fall 2005 issue. In 2005, Theron portrayed Rita, Michael Bluth’s (Jason Bateman) love interest, on the third season of Fox’s critically-acclaimed television series Arrested Development. She also received Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for her role of Britt Ekland in the 2004 HBO movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

In 2008, Theron was named the Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year. That year she also starred with Will Smith in Hancock, a film that grossed $227.9M in the U.S.A. and $396.4M internationally, and in late 2008 she was asked to be a UN Messenger of Peace by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

On November 10, 2008, TV Guide reported that Theron will star in the film adaptation of The Danish Girl alongside Nicole Kidman. Theron will play Gerda Wegener, wife of Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe (Kidman), the world’s first known person to undergo sex reassignment surgery. In October 2009, Theron was cast to star in a sequel to the Mad Max films, titled Mad Max: Road Fury, which will commence filming at Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia in late 2010.

On December 4, 2009, Theron co-presented the draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa, accompanied by several other celebrities of South African origin. During rehearsals she drew an Ireland ball instead of France as a joke at the expense of FIFA, referring to Thierry Henry’s handball controversy in the play off match between France and Ireland. The stunt alarmed FIFA enough for it to fear she might do it again in front of a live global audience.

Theron still resides in her Los Angeles home, though her ex-boyfriend Stuart Townsend (with whom she starred in the 2004 film Head in the Clouds, as well as in the 2002 film Trapped and 2005′s Aeon Flux) has moved to their co-owned property in Malibu. The couple split up in January 2010.

Theron became a naturalised citizen of the United States in May 2007. Theron signed with William Morris Endeavour in 2009 and is represented by CEO Ari Emanuel.