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William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American
actor, film producer, and social activist. He became famous during the mid 1990s
after having starring roles in several major Hollywood films, including Interview
with the Vampire in 1994 and the thriller Se7en in 1995. Pitt was nominated for an
Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award, both of which were for his role in
Twelve Monkeys (1996).
Pitt is consistently cited as one of the most attractive men alive by celebrity
magazines and is regarded one of the top Hollywood A-listers. His former marriage
to Jennifer Aniston and current relationship with Angelina Jolie have been widely
covered in the world media. He is the father of four children, one biological, all
of whom have also received fevered media coverage. Since his connection with Jolie,
he has become increasingly involved in social issues, both domestically (in
Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans) and abroad (in the poverty-stricken third
world).
 Early
life
Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma to Jane Etta (née Hillhouse), a high school
counselor, and William Alvin Pitt, a truck company owner. Along with his brother
Doug and sister Julie Neal, he grew up in Springfield, Missouri, where the family
moved soon after his birth. He was raised a Baptist. He attended Kickapoo High
School, where he was involved in sports, debating, student government, and acting.
He attended the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri -
Columbia where he was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity.
Career
Early
career
In 1987, Pitt arrived in Beverly Hills, California. He
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 on the daytime soap 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.
Moderate
success
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 Pitt 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. The
pair would be together for three years.
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. 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:
Mainstream success and acclaim
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.
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, 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 Gypsies, referred to as Pikeys in the movie. Pitt continued to train for
the role, and honed his boxing skills at Ricky English's gym in Watford.
2000s: Ascension to
the A-list
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 and look-alike Robert
Redford playing the role of his mentor. In 2001 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.
Since then, he has starred in numerous films, including Ocean's Twelve and the epic
Troy, based on the Iliad, in which he portrayed the legendary hero 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
played husband and wife assassins.
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 late 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. That same year, he also
produced the eventual Best Picture winner, The Departed.
In 2007, Pitt was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The
World. He was listed among artists and entertainers, and was credited with using
"his star power to get people to look at places and stories that cameras don't
usually catch."
Other
projects
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 an eighth-season episode of Friends, lent his
voice on an episode of King of the Hill where he played Boomhauer's brother, Patch
Boomhauer, 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. He is a
knowledgeable fan of architecture, particularly that of Frank Lloyd Wright, and has
helped the National Trust for Historic Preservation raise money.
Pitt is behind Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention and
resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur, along with George
Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub.
Popular
esteem
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 was 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.
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Bradd Pitt -
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