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| Brad
Pitt |
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William
Bradley Pitt known as Brad Pitt
was born on December, 18, 1963,
in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He was raised,
alongside brother Doug and sister
Julie, in Springfield, Missouri.
His father, Bill, managed a trucking
firm, working six days a week for
36 years - something of which Brad
is very proud. His mother, Jane,
was a High School counselor, but
his mind-set was influenced more
by his dad."Where I grew up,"
he once said "you deal. You
get through it, power through it,
straight up the middle. And you
don't complain". It's an attitude
that's served him well as he's battled
the improbable pressures of stardom.
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Raised
in Missouri, Pitt, the oldest of three
children, was brought up in a strict
Baptist household. Following his high-school
graduation, he enrolled at the University
of Missouri, where he studied journalism
and advertising. However, after discovering
his love of acting, he dropped out of
college two credit hours before he could
graduate and moved to Hollywood. Fearful
of his parents' reaction, he told them
he was going to Pasadena to study at
the Art Center College of Design. Once
in California, Pitt took acting classes
and supported himself with a variety
of odd jobs that included chauffeuring
strippers to private parties, waiting
tables, and wearing a giant chicken
suit for a local restaurant chain. His
first break came when he landed a small
recurring role on Dallas, and a part
in a teenage-slasher movie, Cutting
Class (1989), marked his inauspicious
entrance into the world of feature films.
The previous year, Pitt's acting experience
had been limited to the TV movie A Stoning
in Fulgham County (1988).
1991 marked the end of Pitt's sojourn
in the land of obscurity, as it was
the year he made his appearance in Thelma
& Louise. After becoming famous
practically overnight, Pitt unfortunately
chose to channel his newfound celebrity
into Ralph Bakshi's disastrous Cool
World (1992). Following this misstep,
Pitt took a starring role in director
Tom Di Cillo's independent film Johnny
Suede. The film failed to find favor
with critics or at the box office and
Pitt's documented clashes with the director
allegedly inspired Di Cillo to pattern
the character of the vain and egotistical
Chad Palomino, in his 1995 Living in
Oblivion, after the actor. Pitt's next
venture, Robert Redford's 1992 fly-fishing
drama A River Runs Through It, gave
the actor a much-needed chance to prove
that he had talent in addition to his
looks. Following his performance in
Redford's film, Pitt appeared in Kalifornia
and True Romance (both 1993), two road
movies featuring fallen women, violent
sociopaths, and tumbleweeds.
Pitt's next major role did not come
until 1994, when he was cast as the
lead of the gorgeously photographed
Legends of the Fall. As he did in A
River Runs Through It, Pitt portrayed
a free-spirited, strong-willed brother,
but this time had greater opportunity
to further develop his enigmatic character.
Following the film's release, People
magazine dubbed him the Sexiest Man
Alive. That same year, fans watched
in anticipation as Pitt exchanged his
outdoorsy persona for the brooding,
gothic posturing of Anne Rice's tortured
vampire Louis in the film adaptation
of Interview With the Vampire. Starring
opposite Tom Cruise, Pitt enjoyed the
further helping of fame that was served
up by the film's success.
Pitt next starred in the forgettable
romantic comedy The Favor (1994) before
going on to play a rookie detective
investigating a series of gruesome crimes
opposite Morgan Freeman in Seven (1995).
In 1997, Pitt received a Golden Globe
award and an Oscar nomination for his
portrayal of a visionary mental patient
in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys; the same
year, Pitt attempted an Austrian accent
and put on a backpack to play mountaineer
Heinrich Harrar in Seven Years in Tibet.
The film met with mixed reviews and
generated a fair amount of controversy,
thanks in part to the revelation that
the real-life Harrar had in fact been
a Nazi. Furthermore, due to its pro-Tibetan
stance, the film also resulted in Pitt's
being banned from China for life. Following
Tibet, Pitt traveled in a less inflammatory
direction with Alan J. Pakula's The
Devil's Own, in which he starred with
fellow screen icon Harrison Ford. Despite
this seemingly faultless pairing, the
film was a relative critical and box-office
failure. In 1998, Pitt tried his hand
at romantic drama, portraying Death
in Meet Joe Black, the most expensive
non-special effects film ever made.
The film, which weighed in at three
hours in length, met with excessively
mixed reviews, although more than one
critic remarked that Pitt certainly
made a very appealing representative
of the afterlife.
Pitt's penchant for quirk was prevalent
with his cameo in the surreal comic
fantasy Being John Malkovich (1999)
and carried over into his role as Tyler
Durden, the mysterious and anti-materialistic
soap salesman in David Fincher's controversial
Fight Club the same year. The odd characterizations
didn't let up with his appearance as
the audibly indecipherable pugilist
in Guy Ritchie's eagerly anticipated
follow-up to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels, Snatch (2000).
In July of 2000, the man voted "Most
Sexy Actor Alive" by virtually
every entertainment publication currently
in circulation crushed the hearts of
millions of adoring female fans when
he wed popular film and television actress
Jennifer Aniston in a relatively modest
(at least by Hollywood standards) and
intimate service.
Pitt's next turn on the big screen found
him re-teamed with Robert Redford, this
time sharing the screen with the A River
Runs Through It director in the espionage
thriller Spy Game (2001). A fairly retro-straight-laced
role for an actor who had become identified
with his increasingly eccentric roles,
he was soon cast in Steven Soderbergh's
remake of the Rat Pack classic Ocean's
11 (2001), the tale of a group of criminals
who plot to rob a string of casinos.
Following a decidedly busy 2001 that
also included a lead role opposite Julia
Roberts in the romantic crime-comedy
The Mexican, Brad Pitt was virtually
absent from the big-screen over the
next three years. After walking away
from the ambitious and proplematic Darren
Aronofsky production The Fountain, he
popped up for a very brief cameo in
pal George Clooney's 2002 directorial
debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
and lent his voice to the animated adventure
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, but
spent the majority of his time working
on the historical epic Troy. Directed
by Wolfgang Peterson, the film employed
a huge cast, crew and budget and premiered
in May of 2004.
Brad Pitt's next screen-role would be
surrounded in tabloid fervor, as it
cast him opposite bombshell Angelina
Jolie. While the comedic actioner Mr.
and Mrs. Smith was a tremendous box-office
earner, it was the stars' relationship
that made some of 2005's biggest headlines.
Before long, Pitt had split from his
wife Jennifer Aniston and adopted Jolie's
two children. In 2006, the brood expanded
to five with the birth of the couple's
first child.
In addition to increasing his family
in 2006, Pitt began expanding his career
by acting as producer on a number of
high profile films including Martin
Scorsese's The Departed and the adaptation
of Running With Scissors. He acted opposite
Cate Blanchett in the drama Babel. Interestingly,
that film hit theaters the same year
as The Fountain, a film that was originally
set to star the duo. Pitt also stayed
busy as an actor, reteaming with many
familiar on-screen pals for Ocean's
Thirteen. Although his western, The
Assassination of Jesse James by the
Coward Robert Ford was moved to an early
2007 release date.
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