Biography for
Charlize Theron

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Charlize Theron grew up on a farm outside Benoni, South Africa, as the only child. She got an education as a ballet dancer and has danced both the "Swan Lake" and the "Nutcracker Suite". There wasn't much for a young actress or dancer to do in South Africa, so she soon traveled to Europe and United States of America, where she got job at the Joffrey Ballet in New York. She was also able to work as a photo model. However, an injured knee put a halt to her dancing career.

At the age of 18, her mother made her go to Los Angeles to try a career in the movie industry. She came to Los Angeles without knowing anyone in the city but after two weeks when she was standing in line on Hollywood Boulevard an agent gave her his card. After eight months in Los Angeles she got her first part. Since then, she has taken acting lessons and her career has skyrocketed, most lately in The Devil's Advocate (1997).

Kurzbiographie

Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg-area, South Africa on August 7th, 1975. Her mother, Gerda, is German, while her late father, Charles, was French (she was named after him).

Charlize began her modeling career in 1991 aged 16 when she won a local modeling contest. She started modeling in Europe and came to New York a year later. She didn't like being a model though, and decided to try her luck with ballet, which had been her biggest passion as a child. Unfortunately, a knee injury prevented her from dancing. Her mother bought her a one-way ticket to Los Angeles in 1994 and Charlize started visiting all of the agents on Hollywood Boulevard but without any luck. She went to the bank to cash a check for $500 she'd got from her mother and became furious when she learned that the bank could not cash her check because it was an out-state check. She made a scene and an agent gave her his card, in exchange that she learn the language, which she did by watching soap operas on TV. Her first role was as a young mother in a park in a B-film in 1995, but it was a non-speaking role with three seconds of screen time. Her next role was as Helga in 2 Days in the Valley (1996), which landed her the role of Tina in That Thing You Do! (1996). Since then, she has starred in movies like The Devil's Advocate (1997); Mighty Joe Young (1998); The Cider House Rules (1999); The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) and The Italian Job (2003). An important day in her life was February 29th, 2004 when she was awarded with her first Academy Award for her performance in Monster (2003).

Dies und das

When she was 15 her father attacked her mother, and her mother shot him in self-defense. He died, but her mother was not charged in the incident.

First language is Afrikaans, English is spoken as her second language.

Appeared in the May 1999 issue of Playboy Magazine.

Became a fashion model at age 14.

Named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. (2000).

Turned down the female lead in Pearl Harbor (2001) to star alongside Keanu Reeves in Sweet November (2001).

Auditioned for the female lead in Showgirls (1995).

Dated Stephan Jenkins, lead singer of the band Third Eye Blind, from January 1998 to July 2001.

Was ranked 4th of the 100 Sexiest Women by FHM Taiwan (2001).

Placed #1 on Beautiful People Internet Poll, narrowly beating Cameron Diaz in #2 and Kate Beckinsale in #3. The photo featured on the site was the famous 'Diving Board' photo.

Both her parents are Africans, born and raised in South Africa. However her father is of French descent and her mother of German descent.

Voted the 12th Sexiest Female Movie Star in the Australian Empire Magazine September 2002.

Measurements: 36B-24-36 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine).

Used hypnotherapy as an aid to quit smoking.

Was named after her father, whose name was Charles.

She gained 30 pounds to play Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003).

On the show, "Sunday Morning Shootout" (2003), it was revealed that her manager discovered her in a Hollywood bank after he witnessed her yelling at a bank teller for refusing to cash her check.

Won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Aileen Wuornos on what would have been Aileen's 48th birthday: 29 February 2004.

After winning her Oscar, she returned to great celebrations in her native South Africa, and she even met former South African President Nelson Mandela. When he praised her for putting their country on the map and gave her a hug, Theron broke into tears (she was guest of honor at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg on March 11th 2004).

She has been dating Irish actor Stuart Townsend since August 2001.

Has said her favorite actor is Tom Hanks.

In 2004, injured her neck while filming Æon Flux (2005). Luckily, the injury wasn't serious enough to put her in the hospital, but it did shut down production for several weeks.

As a teenager in her native South Africa, she learned English by watching American TV.

At the 2005 Golden Globes she was sporting a new dark hair color. She is a now a member of the celebrities who have dyed their hair from blonde to brown, or black. They include, among others: Mary-Kate Olsen; Nicky Hilton; Mandy Moore; Renée Zellweger; Christina Aguilera, Melinda Messenger and Ashlee Simpson-Wentz.

She was the first person to sign on to be a presenter at the 77th Annual Academy Awards.

Second actress (the first was Kim Basinger) to win an Oscar after appearing naked in Playboy magazine.

Met fiancé Stuart Townsend on the set of Trapped (2002).

She is the second South African-born person to win an Academy Award. The South African-born cinematographer Ted Moore was the first. South African-born actor Basil Rathbone was the first South African-born actor to be nominated, followed by Cecil Kellaway. Theron was the first South African-born woman to win an Oscar.

Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (September 29, 2005).

Named #15 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2005 list.

Was listed as a potential nominee on the 2006 Razzie Award nominating ballot. She was listed as a suggestion in the Worst Actress category for her performance in the film Æon Flux (2005). However, she failed to receive a nomination. (Had she gotten the nomination, she would have been the first person to be nominated for both Leading Actress awards at the Oscars, for North Country (2005), and the Razzies.)

Named #4 in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World 2005" special supplement (2005).

Studied acting with Ivana Chubbuck.

Named #15 in FHM magazine's "100 Sexiest Women in the World 2006" supplement. (2006).

Dyed her hair black for Æon Flux (2005).

Trained as a ballet dancer at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City, and performed in both "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker". Her dancing career ended after a knee injury.

One of the first movies she ever went to see at the theater was Splash (1984). She confessed that after watching the movie, she felt jealous of Daryl Hannah and developed a crush on Tom Hanks. She even said to herself that she could have played the role of Madison better than Hannah.

Was the recipient of the German television award "Goldene Kamera" for best international actress and appeared also in the award show. The award is sponsored by the German television program "Hörzu". [2006]

Shares the same background as actor Daniel Bonjour who also left South Africa as a teenage actor and traveled to Europe and then America. Both their parents are of European background. Also, both actors have found it easier to simply use an American accent in their work.

Chosen by Femme Fatales magazine as one of the "50 sexiest women on the planet". [February 2006]

Esquire magazine's Sexiest Woman Alive in 2007.

Entertainment Weekly predicted her Oscar win for Monster (2003) eleven months before she won it.

She earns $2 million per year endorsing Dior's J'Adore fragrance as well as $2.5 million per year endorsing Swiss Watch-maker, Raymond Weil.

At 16, she won a modeling competition to go to Milan and work on the catwalks and at 18, she won a scholarship to study ballet at the Joffrey School in New York. She turned to acting only because she injured both knees.

Mother's name is Gerda.

Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year for 2008.

Announced on "Late Show with David Letterman" (1993) that she is now a United States citizen (March 12, 2008).

Ranked #11 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2008 list.

Was considered for the role of Vickie Kittrie in Mercy (2000).

Also sprach...

[On the revelation that Charlize's mother shot and killed Charlize's father while he was in a drunken rage. The shooting was ruled self-defense]: I was always Mama's girl, and I always felt like her protector.

Women have conquered the world. And with everything we go through, it's about time we had a female president. I don't think we're that far away, but it should have happened already. I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary Rodham Clinton runs - I really admire her.

I've always been very proud to be a South African and I've always been very honest to people about that. And whatever I can do in my power I promise you I will do. I don't think it's too much pressure. I think it's our duty as citizens of this country. You don't have to win an Oscar to do something good for your country. We all can do that. If I can be an encouragement for that I'll be glad to be that.

I'm 50-50 on glamour stuff. I'd rather put on a pair of jeans and get on my Harley and act like a guy.

I think of myself as a highly sexual creature. I have to use that. I have no choice. I like it. I didn't grow up with a mother telling me what was under my clothes was bad or evil.

[On the importance of the Toronto Film Festival for smaller films]: If people, critics respond to the film there [Toronto Film Festival], it starts a nice little wave of chat, which for a movie like North Country (2005) is really important. It's one of those films that travels by word of mouth.

[On marriage]: I'm happy for people who want to get married but it's not my thing. I'm extremely happy in my relationship and I would love to have kids.

[On accents]: At first I found it really hard using three different English accents: South African, faking the American, faking the accent required by the job. I decided to make it easier for myself and just do one. I haven't lost my culture, just my accent.

[on bad habits and guilty pleasures] Anything fried I'll take. Are you kidding me? I will fry my shoe and eat it.

Looks alone won't get you that far. It may get you in the door, but there's always somebody younger, somebody prettier. You have to rely on something else.

What kind of stories can you tell with glamor? There are very few stories of conflict you can tell, right? I look for good stories; I'm not driven by anything other than good filmmakers and good stories. And then my job as an actor is to service those stories as well as I possibly can. The physical is the last thing that drives me.

I live a very simple life. I don't have to make those giant movies. I don't have a yacht or a private plane. As long as I can maintain this life, which is pretty low-maintenance and simple, then all of a sudden you don't have to worry about all that stuff. I don't have to take a job to pay a mortgage on a house I can't afford.

I've always said that I worry about being with a man who doesn't flirt.

On a possible biopic of her life: 'God I hope not. I've been working harder than anything in my life to try and keep my life sacred. I really don't mind when I'm in front of a camera and playing a character I'm comfortable with... but I don't necessarily like the spotlight to be about me - not at all. The idea of sitting in Cannes and watching that... ugh. No.'

On playing unglamorous characters yet posing for glamorous spreads: 'Well guess what? I'm a sexual creature. There's nothing wrong with that. Why do we have to be ashamed of being so many different things? Why do we have to be only one thing, a good mother or a hooker? I don't think that what's under my clothes is evil. I'm a woman, I'm feminine. And I like the way I look. And I celebrate that. And I don't make excuses for that.'

People just aren't willing to see conflict, or ugliness or the more flawed side of life through a female character's eyes. I mean, can you imagine a woman playing "Travis Bickle" in Taxi Driver (1976)? When Robert De Niro does it, it's fine, [but] people are very uncomfortable about seeing that through a woman's eyes. We aren't allowed complexity.

On the media's reaction to her appearance in In the Valley of Elah (2007): 'It just bummed me out because I was, "What do you want?" Do you want me to play a detective from Albuquerque who's a single mom in a Dior dress?' The way they focused on my appearance, I felt like it hurt [In the Valley of Elah (2007)] and I was embarrassed because _Paul Haggis_ had worked really hard and just because I had a ponytail that's what they were talking about.'

I don't believe in charmed lives. I think that tragedy is part of the lesson you learn to lift yourself up, to pick yourself up and to move on.

On being congratulated by Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki after winning a Best Actress Oscar for Monster (2003): 'I don't think I want to be a pin-up for anything! The people who inspire me are the ones who just live life and live it in a way that's good natured. Do unto others what you want done unto yourself. It's not that hard. Don't screw people over. Enjoy life, travel, adventure. Enjoy. 'I try to just live my life in as good and authentic a way as possible. And I just wish people would write about that and the matter-of-fact way that that is, rather than: "On a summer's day, her mother shot her father". It's like I walk around with this badge. 'I live my life the way I want to live my life. It's like I have chosen this life. I want to be able to go to sleep at night and feel that I'm not haunted and I'm happy and I enjoyed my day in London and that I enjoy my friends and my love, and that if this is all gone tomorrow, like that man who died so horribly in front of me when I was five, that it was good'.

On her mother shooting her drunken-raging father in self-defense: 'You know, people drank. Some people drank more, but it was never considered that this might be a problem. It was just the way it was then.'

I was trying to make the correlation between Aileen Wuornos and her experiences when she was very young. And I was reminded of something that happened to me. I was five years old and we were driving... all the cars stopped because a truck had rolled over and was ablaze. The doors were jammed and there was a man trapped inside. In South Africa, everybody carries a weapon and the man begged for someone to shoot him because he didn't want to burn to death. Nobody could get him out of the cab, so somebody shot him. It was horrific, but definitely a moment that made me have a great value for life. Other things in life have taught me not to take a moment for granted.

I never got offered parts like that, never. And it took a woman, a first-time female director to offer me that role. Paul Haggis [the director of Crash (2004/I) and In the Valley of Elah (2007)] recently said to me, "You know, often it's the material that will define an actor, but you didn't do that. You defined yourself with what you chose to do". And I thought that was a nice compliment'.

I do like the challenge of finding material that people don't want to risk a lot of money on and that studios don't necessarily jump to go, "Yeah! We want to tell that story." And how could I not after I had done something like Monster (2003)? Everybody wondered how a movie like that could be successful.

On her role in Hancock (2008)'I keep myself guessing. I get bored so quickly. I just really liked the material. And the girl was cool. I wasn't ticking any boxes. I just try and do good material and how it gets made is secondary... And anyway, it's really nice to get a decent pay cheque.'

As you get older, you get wrinkles and your boobs sag. But you get wisdom, too. So it's not all bad!

Im Moment beschäftigt mit...

(January 2005) Took a break from filming Æon Flux (2005) due to a minor injury, but returned to the set. She was also a presenter at the Golden Globes in the middle of January.

(June 2005) On Greek island, Santorini, having a vacation with Stuart Townsend.

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