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Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2007
SpouseJennifer Aniston (2000-2005)

William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He became known during the mid 1990s, after starring roles in several major Hollywood films, including Interview with the Vampire in 1994 and the thriller Se7en in 1995. Pitt has been nominated for an Academy Award and has won a Golden Globe Award, both for his role in Twelve Monkeys (1996).

Early life

Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma to Jane Etta Hillhouse and William Alvin Pitt. He and his two siblings, Doug and Julie, grew up in Springfield, Missouri, where the family moved soon after his birth. Pitt's parents and siblings still live near Springfield.

Pitt was raised in the Baptist church and is of English ancestry. At Kickapoo High School, he was involved in sports, debating, and student government. He attended the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri - Columbia where he became a member of The Sigma Chi fraternity.

Acting career

In 1987, he arrived in Beverly Hills, California. Pitt studied under coach Roy London for six years. He first appeared in the sitcom Head Of The Class, for a while dating the show's star Robin Givens. He also guest starred in two episodes of Growing Pains. Pitt appeared as Chris in the long-running soap Another World. While auditioning for the show Our House, he was asked to read for another part, and found himself playing Shalane McCall's boyfriend Charles in Dallas. He also had a number of roles in prime time series such as thirtysomething, 21 Jump Street, and Freddy's Nightmares. Pitt appeared uncredited in both Less Than Zero and Charlie Sheen's No Man's Land before appearing in Cutting Class, about a maniac stalking cheerleaders. He began dating co-star Jill Schoelen.

In 1988, Pitt had his first starring role, in Dark Side Of The Sun, where he played a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic to find a remedy for a skin condition. The movie was shot in Yugoslavia in the summer of '88 with Brad being paid $1,523 a week for seven weeks. However, with editing nearly complete, war broke out and much of the film was lost. The film was released years later. Pitt won a part in the TV movie Too Young to Die?, about an abused teenager given the death penalty for murder. Pitt played the part of a drug addict, Silly Canton, who took advantage of runaway Juliette Lewis, who Pitt began dating in real life. "It was quite romantic", he later observed dryly "shooting her full of drugs and stuff". The pair would be together for three years.

1991–1993

In 1991, Pitt starred as Joe Maloney in Across the Tracks in which he portrayed a high school runner with a difficult criminal brother played by Ricky Schroder. Pitt attracted broader public attention from a supporting role in Thelma & Louise where he played a small time criminal drifter in a love scene with Geena Davis.

After Thelma and Louise, Pitt starred in the low budget 1991 film Johnny Suede as an awkward dreamer who aspired to be a big-haired rock star alongside Catherine Keener and Nick Cave, directed by Tom DiCillo. Pitt had agreed to play the part before Thelma & Louise was released. After appearing in Cool World, Pitt starred in Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It in 1992, for which Pitt learned fly fishing by casting off of Hollywood buildings. Pitt struck up a friendship with co-star Buck Simmonds and following the movie, they moved into an apartment together. Then came Kalifornia in 1993, a road movie in which he played a scruffy serial killer alongside his then girlfriend Juliette Lewis and X-Files actor David Duchovny.

1994–2000

In 1994, Pitt played vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the movie adaptation of Anne Rice's novel Interview With The Vampire. Pitt played the eighteenth century vampire which required several hours work in make-up on set to achieve the white skin of the character and he had to wear a pair of luminous green eyes, vampire fangs and a shoulder-length hairpiece to complete the appearance. Pitt worked with the eleven-year-old Kirsten Dunst, as well as Tom Cruise, Christian Slater and Antonio Banderas. He then starred in Legends of the Fall and Se7en. In Se7en Pitt starred as the police detective David Mills alongside Morgan Freeman in the hunt for a serial killer played by Kevin Spacey.

Pitt was then nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Jeffrey Goines in the 1995 film Twelve Monkeys in which he acted alongside Bruce Willis. In 1997 Pitt played the IRA terrorist Rory Devany in The Devil's Own alongside Harrison Ford, the first of several films where he has acted using an Irish accent. Reportedly Pitt had a difficult time with the making of the film and expressed his unhappiness with the final script which had apparently been rewritten seven times.

That same year he played the main role of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jean Jacques Annaud film Seven Years in Tibet. Pitt trained for months for the role which demanded a great deal of trekking and mountain climbing, working out with co-star English actor David Thewlis by rock climbing in California and the Alps. Due to the themes of Tibetan nationalism in the film, the Chinese government banned Pitt and Thewlis from China for life. In 1998, Pitt starred as the main character in the film Meet Joe Black. Pitt starred as a personification of Death inhabiting the body of a young man in order to learn what it is like to be human while informing a billionaire tycoon that his life on Earth is nearly over. The film gave Pitt another chance to work alongside Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins whom he had previously worked with in Legends of the Fall.

In 1999 Brad Pitt starred in Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Working with his previous director whom he had worked with on Se7en Pitt portrayed the character of Tyler Durden, a highly colorful and complex character.

In 2000 Pitt played the role of Mickey, a gypsy Irish boxer in the gangster movie Snatch alongside Vinnie Jones and Benicio Del Toro. The film was a wild caper involving a diamond heist, Russian and American mafia and the shady underground world , that saw Pitt brought in as a ringer by two failing promoters. The movie saw him moving on from his attempt at the conventional Devil's Own Northern Irish accent, and perhaps inspired by his co-star Benicio Del Toro's recent performance in The Usual Suspects, Pitt created a just-barely-intelligible accent suggesting the Irish Pikeys, itinerant and insular Irish Gypsies. Pitt continued to train for the role, and honed his boxing skills at Ricky English's gym in Watford.

2001–2007

After his wedding to Friends actress Jennifer Aniston on July 29, 2000, he immediately began filming for Spy Game, a Cold War thriller in which he starred alongside veteran actor Robert Redford playing the role of his mentor. In 2001 Brad Pitt worked with long-term friend and actress Julia Roberts in the comical road movie The Mexican. At the end of the year, Pitt finished filming Ocean's Eleven with George Clooney and Matt Damon, a remake of the 1960s version which starred Frank Sinatra. The film established a close friendship between the three, particularly between Pitt and Clooney.

Since then, he has starred in numerous films, including Ocean's Twelve and the Greek historical epic Troy in 2004 in which he portrayed the historical character of Achilles. Ironically, during the production of Troy, Pitt tore his Achilles tendon, delaying production for several weeks. In 2005, Pitt starred in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which he and Angelina Jolie starred as husband and wife assassins. There was much speculation in the press at the time that Pitt was embarking on a relationship with Angelina while the film was under production, but Pitt denied there was any intimate involvement with Jolie while he was married to Jennifer Aniston.

In March 2006, it was announced that Paramount had purchased the rights to The Sparrow for Pitt's production company, Plan B, and that Pitt would be playing the lead role of Sandoz. In June 2006 it was announced that Paramount and Plan B will be working on a new zombie film called World War Z, based on the book of the same name by Max Brooks.

Pitt made his return to Hollywood, in the fall of 2006, with Alejandro González Iñárritu's critically acclaimed Babel, starring alongside Cate Blanchett. The movie garnered a total of seven Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, one of which was a Golden Globe nomination for Pitt as Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. The movie has since become Pitt's highest grossing drama.

Other work

Pitt has appeared in television commercials in Asia, such as for Edwin Jeans, the Toyota Altis, and Japanese canned coffee, ROOTS. He also appeared in a Heineken commercial which aired during the 2005 Super Bowl. It was directed by David Fincher, who directed Pitt in the feature films Se7en and Fight Club. Together with Aniston and Paramount Pictures head Brad Grey, Pitt is the co-founder of the production company 'Plan B'. Aniston is no longer a partner in the company, although she is still attached to many projects that were set up before her divorce with Pitt. The company produced the blockbuster Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp.

He has also had a cameo appearance in season 8 of Friends and on an episode of MTV's Jackass, in which he took part in a staged abduction of himself. In a later episode, he and some cast-members run wild through the streets of Los Angeles in gorilla suits.

Pitt has been an active supporter of research into diseases such as AIDS.

i suck balls

In popular culture

Brad Pitt at the Incirlik hospital, Incirlik Air Base

In 1995, Pitt was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 25 sexiest stars in film history. Pitt has also twice been named the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine.

Pitt is also prominently featured in the December 2006 Art Issue of Vanity Fair. Pitt appears on the cover in nothing but a pair of white boxers. The cover promotes an article on the Robert Wilson video portraits, a production of LAB HD that includes numerous celebrities and noted personalities. This cover has drawn criticism from Pitt because although he had signed a release for the image, he did not expect it to end up on the cover of Vanity Fair more than a year later. The video portrait, which represents Pitt’s first effort in avant-garde cinema, was exhibited at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.

Filmography

Awards and nominations

Awards won:

Template:S-awards
Preceded byMartin Landau
for Ed Wood 		Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
for Twelve Monkeys
1996 		Succeeded byEdward Norton
for Primal Fear

Awards nominations:

Footnotes

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  1. http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/bpitt/index.html
  2. http://www.hellomagazine.com/profiles/bradpitt/
  3. http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=B56988
  4. http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=BP%7C70493
  5. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/06/1083635286338.html?from=storyrhs
  6. http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22626
  7. http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_9032.html

External links


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