Brad Pitt - Biography

Name: Brad Pitt

Born: 18 December 1963 (Age: 45)

Where: Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA

Height: 5' 11"

Awards: Won 1 Golden Globe; nominated for 2 Oscars and 2 BAFTAs

A critic once wrote that Brad Pitt combined "the matinee idol looks of Gary Cooper with the sex symbol loveliness of Marilyn Monroe". It's a line that sums up Pitt's pin-up appeal, but would certainly annoy the pants off Pitt himself. After all, he's spent years trying to explode a reputation as a Himbo, taking on a series of lead roles and cameos that should really have proven to the world that he is in fact a very fine actor indeed. He's played a dazed and confused pot-head, a near-incomprehensible street-fighting traveller, an IRA terrorist, a reluctant vampire, a Nazi mountain-climber, a psycho on the run, a mental patient dedicated to the destruction of world order, a dim-witted extortionist, a man who ages backwards, and he dared to act wholly unaided, later to be surrounded by cartoons. Dustin Hoffman was certainly correct when he said "Next to that kid, we all look like onions", but after two Oscar nominations he's surely earned our respect by now.

He was born William Bradley Pitt on the 18th of December, 1963, in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and remains a mid-Westerner to the core. 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.

Due to Bill's success, the Pitts never really wanted for anything, and Brad in particular used this as a springboard to try everything. A decent fellow, he was brought up as a Baptist, singing in the church choir. He loved movies, later recalling a fine day spent at an Ape-athon, watching all five Planet Of The Apes films, back-to-back. At Kickapoo High School he was involved in everything. He was a member of the golf, tennis and swimming teams, as well as the Key and Forensics clubs. He was into debating, school government and school musicals.

Graduating in 1982, he attended the University of Missouri, majoring in journalism, but also concentrating on advertising. Indeed, his ambition was to be an art director. He joined a fraternity, Sigma Chi, but always remained very close to his family. Fellow students recall him writing letters to his mother and grandma while in class.

His choice of career was something of a surprise to those around him. He'd acted in several fraternity shows, but never really revealed a desire to act professionally. Music seemed to be more his thing. But then suddenly, with no real experience behind him, he simply went for it. With two credits still needed before he graduated, in 1986 he climbed into his Datsun (known as Runaround Sue) and, with just $325 in his pocket, took off for California. "In my head," he later said "I was done with college. I was on to the next thing".

The father of a girl he knew had an apartment in California, occupied only by a housekeeper, and here he stayed for a month, rent free. Having made a few friends, he then moved into a flat in North Hollywood, along with eight other guys. They had no furniture, just a TV, a toaster oven and a stereo system. They all slept on the floor in the front room. It was basically Bloke Heaven. For money, they'd go down to the Job Factory, picking up odd jobs here and there. At one point, he had a bet with a buddy as to who could score the most humiliating job. Brad won hands down, dressing up as a giant chicken for El Pollo Loco and hanging out on the corner of Sunset Boulevard in 100 degree heat. Aside from this, he spent time selling cigarettes, delivering fridges, and, bizarrely, assisting a soap opera writer. He even worked driving strippers around in a limousine.

Pitt took the acting lark deadly seriously. He studied under coach Roy London, and would continue to do so for six years, from the off impressing his fellow students with his emotional freedom. And work came quickly. He appeared in the sit-com Head Of The Class, for a while dating the show's star Robin Givens, much to the disgruntlement of her ex-hubbie Mike Tyson. There was also an episode of Growing Pains. But there were better jobs than this. He appeared as Chris in the long-running soap Another World, which has variously featured Anne Heche, Ray Liotta, Kelsey Grammer and, coincidentally, the co-star of one of Brad's later hits, Morgan Freeman. After this, 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 dated her for real too, though she was a mere 16.

There were a few movie roles too. He had uncredited parts in both Less Than Zero and Charlie Sheen's No Man's Land. Then came Cutting Class, about a maniac stalking cheerleaders. He began dating co-star Jill Schoelen, who earlier been seeing Keanu Reeves. Then came the 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 his terrible skin condition. The movie was shot in Yugoslavia, with Brad being paid $1,523 a week for seven weeks. It was looking good. Then, with editing nearly complete, civil war broke out and much of the film was lost in the ensuing chaos.

It would be rediscovered years later, and the film released, but Brad's first shot at success was gone. Not only that, but Schoelen dumped him. Ah, well.

. There was a bit of cop trouble around this time too. According to Inside Edition, a sheriff's report said Brad, while filming in LA, had strolled up to Malibu Canyon Highway and dropped his white shorts for A WHOLE MINUTE. Apparently, he was charged with indecent exposure, but had the charge reduced to disturbing the peace, with a $450 fine.

It got better, fast. Brad won a part in the TV movie Too Young To Die?, about an abused teenager given the death penalty for murder. As white trash drug-hound pimp Billy Canton, Brad was thoroughly unpleasant, taking beastly advantage of runaway Juliette Lewis, who he 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, during which period Brad's career took off big-time.

It was thought, when he appeared in Glory Days, about a group of High School friends pulled in different directions by their careers, that he'd become the new Johnny Depp. Sadly, the show was pulled after six episodes, so he had to find another way. He did this immediately, with a 15-minute mega-performance, showing off his fine physique, giving Geena Davis her first orgasm and then robbing her blind in Ridley Scott's Thelma And Louise. Brad had in fact been third choice for the role (George Clooney didn't even get that far). The first choice, William Baldwin, chose to do Backdraft instead.

Straight away, he fought against the possibility of being typecast as a mere beefcake. He was very, very groovy as a wannabe rock star, alongside Catherine Keener and Nick Cave, in Tom DiCillo's Johnny Suede. Then he took a big risk by competing with animations in Cool World - a movie that had millions of men questioning their sexuality when they found they fancied the cartoon version of Kim Basinger. He won both roles against the wishes of money-men who wanted bigger name actors to star.

The run of success continued with Robert Redford's dreamy, moving A River Runs Through It, for which Brad learned to fly-fish by casting off of Hollywood buildings. Many times, he's said, he caught his hook on the back of his own head. Once they had to pull it out with pliers. After the movie, Brad moved into an apartment with his co-star, Buck Simmonds.

Now Brad really began to prove himself. In True Romance, he was hilarious as Floyd, the bemused dope-head caught in the middle of dealers and mobsters. Then, in Kalifornia, he was tremendous as Early Grayce, crossing the States with girlfriend Juliette Lewis and scaring the bejesus out of everyone in his path. The movie was far superior to Oliver Stone's similar and far-more-lauded Natural Born Killers.

Now the roles got bigger. He played Lestat's foil Louis, hating himself for drinking blood in Interview With The Vampire. Then he sent millions of women wild as Tristan Ludlow, falling in love with his brother's girl, becoming an animal in the trenches of WW1 then finding inner truth back home in Legends Of The Fall. It was said he dated the girl for real too - Julia Ormond. He certainly broke up with Juliette Lewis and this was probably for the best, as Lewis had long complained of the pressure she felt dating such a beautiful man.

Next came a major hit, with David Fincher's bleak but wonderful Seven. Backed by Morgan Freeman's stern and studious Detective Somerset, Pitt was great as new-boy Detective David Mills, sent mad by the taunts of Kevin Spacey. Oh, and by the fact that Spacey has beheaded his pregnant wife. Always guaranteed to annoy, that. Seven also saw Brad begin a romance with co-star Gwyneth Paltrow that made them the most sought-after couple on the planet. When later accepting a Golden Globe for his role in 12 Monkeys, he'd call her "my angel, the love of my life", and he'd propose to her while in Argentina filming Seven Years In Tibet. Paltrow in turn would claim she'd give up acting to raise Brad's children. Sadly, they'd split in 1997, a few months into the engagement, a heartbroken Paltrow saying "I think you have to keep yourself intact in order to have a healthy relationship, and I didn't". Luckily for Brad, the break-up meant he wouldn't star with her in the horrible Duets. But he did have to suffer the indignity of having nude pictures of himself and Gwyneth, taken ages previously while they holidayed on St Barthelemy in the French West Indies, being published in Playgirl. He fought to have all copies withdrawn from the shops, but the damage was done.

After Seven came Terry Gilliam's bizarro sci-fi thriller 12 Monkeys, for which Brad turned down Apollo 13. In it, he went for broke as a freaked-out denizen of an asylum who's actually the head of an extremely dangerous gang which destroys civilisation with a very nasty virus. For his pains he took that Golden Globe (he was also Oscar nominated). After Sleepers, there was The Devil's Own, where he mastered a Belfast accent to play a terrorist staying in Harrison Ford's house. Pitt has said the filming was a nightmare as the original script was binned but the studio head demanded they make a film anyway. Walking out would, he was told, cost him $63 million, so he tried to make the best of it. As you would.

Now he was one the biggest stars in Hollywood, getting paid over $17 million for playing Death in Meet Joe Black. Then he rejoined Fincher for Fight Club, playing Edward Norton's cool and sexy alter-ego Tyler Durden and, as he has done in so many movies, causing terrible social havoc. He also treated Helena Bonham Carter to pleasures similar to those enjoyed by Geena Davis in Thelma And Louise. Her appreciation was ear-splitting. For servicing her so expertly, Brad received another $17 million. For Davis it had been just $6,000.

After this, Pitt took a brief step down in budget for Snatch. A wild caper involving a diamond heist, Russian and American mafia and all manner of underworld shenanigans, this saw him as a gypsy boxer brought in as a ringer by two failing promoters (he honed his boxing skills at Ricky English's gym in Watford). The movie saw him dusting off his Devil's Own accent and, inspired by his co-star Benicio Del Toro's recent performance in The Usual Suspects, taking it to the Nth degree. Hilariously, no one could understand him, not even the other people in the film. Yet still respect did not come his way, his actorly efforts being for the most part overshadowed by events in his private life. 2000 would see him rise to an unprecedented level of celebrity when he married Jennifer Aniston, star of the huge hit TV comedy Friends.

He followed Snatch with The Mexican which, pairing him with Julia Roberts, could easily have been a blockbusting coupling of Hollywood's two most glamorous stars. Instead, it was a freaked-out road movie, with the glitzy duo spending very little screen time together. Here Brad was a small time crook who has to pay offf a debt to crime lord Gene Hackman by travelling to Mexico and picking up a priceless handgun, causing girlfriend Roberts to leave him and take off for Vegas. Poor Pitt has a terrible time. Fearful of Hackman, dominated and confused by Roberts and deceived and mocked by the Mexican locals, he keeps digging his hole deeper - a situation not helped by his wretched Spanish, essentially English with an O added at the end of each word.

The critics were disappointed by The Mexican's failure to play the Pitt-Roberts card. They weren't too keen on his next outing either, Spy Game. This saw him as the protege of retiring CIA spymaster Robert Redford - thus bringing together two generations of actors who had to battle against the effects of their own looks in order to gain respect. The movie begins with Pitt in a Chinese prison and Redford having 24 hours to save him. During the course of this fraught rescue mission, we flash back to see how an idealistic Pitt was recruited by Redford after Vietnam and how falling for a dodgy Catherine McCormack got him into this mess. It was intriguing stuff, but generally spoiled by director Tony Scott's insistence on super-snappy editing that did not allow any character to grow.

Now, in an odd subversion of his leading man status, Brad chose to join an ensemble cast for Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 11, an update of the 1960 Rat Pack flick. This saw George Clooney as Danny Ocean, gathering a team of crack crooks to turn over a Vegas casino. Brad would play his trusty sidekick Rusty Ryan who, while casing the joint, notices that casino boss Andy Garcia is going out with Ocean's former wife (Julia Roberts, again). Could emotional stuff be getting in the way? Of course, it does, adding extra enjoyment to one of the slickest and smartest crime movies of recent times.

After this huge hit, Pitt would not be seen on screen for another three years, other than cameos for his new buddies Soderbergh and Clooney. First, alongside a host of stars including Roberts and his fomer Johnny Suede cohort Catherine Keener, he popped up in Soderbergh's $2 million budget Full Frontal, a cinematic curio of films within films within films. Deep in there would be Brad, appearing mostly on mag covers and playback video, playing a superstar playing a tough cop in a new movie. Full Frontal would be attacked as a major indulgence on the part of Soderbergh and his cast, with only Pitt escaping criticism. It was noted that he was the least actorly and pretentious of them, and more than willing to send himself up, as was Seven's director David Fincher, who here fawned over Pitt very amusingly.

The next cameo would see Brad playing it for laughs once more, in Clooney's Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, written by Charlie Kaufman and based on the cult memoirs of Chuck Barris, a game show host who claimed to have also been an assassin for the CIA. Working for free, Pitt would pop up in a flashback to an episode of TV show The Dating Game, where hopefuls would choose from three prospective spouses. Brad, and his Ocean's 11 co-star Matt Damon, would naturally be turned down in favour of Bachelor Number 3. With Julia Roberts also putting in an appearance, it was the fourth time in two years these major stars had graced the same credit listing.

2003 would see Pitt lend his voice to the titular hero of the animated Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas. But this was just a prelude to a far more ambitious mythical epic, Wolfgang Petersen's $220 million Troy. Having consciously avoided starring roles that played up his looks, now Brad went the whole hog as Achilles, the elite warrior charged by King Agamemnon to lead the seige of Troy and win back the stolen wife of his brother Menelaus. Petersen pulled out the stops in making Pitt look like a Greek god. Pitt, on the other hand, never keen to pose when he could be acting, attempted to deepen his character by playing Achilles as an embittered man with a profound disrespect for authority and an unhealthy death wish. Even so, it was his titanic battle with Eric Bana's Hector that really stood out in a movie marked by its spectacular SFX.

Such was the scope of Troy that Pitt was forced to pull out of Darren Aronofsky's sci-fi epic The Fountain. Coincidentally, a severe pulling of his Achilles' tendon also put back the filming of a forthcoming effort, a return to Soderbergh and Clooney with Ocean's 12, where the old gang are forced by their original victim Andy Garcia to regroup and pull off three major European heists. This would not, though, be the main reason Pitt was so glaringly in the public eye throughout 2004. Instead, the tabloids were foaming at the mouth over the possibility that Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston was on the rocks. Rumours abounded that on the set of his next picture, Mr And Mrs Smith, an affair had begun with co-star Angelina Jolie, rumours that would not cease. And, come January, 2005, Pitt and Aniston would indeed split (they'd divorce the following October) with Pitt now being photographed increasingly often in Jolie's company. The coverage would reach absurd proportions, with one set of sneaked photos selling for over $500,000. Eventually, the couple would confirm that they were, indeed, an item. Come 2006, Pitt would officially adopt Jolie's two children, Maddox and Zahara. Just a few months later they would have a child of their own, Shiloh Nouvel, born in Namibia. He'd also join Jolie in her ambassadorial work for the United Nations, travelling to an earthquake-ravaged Pakistan and making enormous charitable donations.

. The scandal would have no effect on Pitt's pulling-power at the box-office. Mr And Mrs Smith, where he and Jolie played a married couple who, unbeknown to each other, are both assassins, was hugely stylish and another big hit, raking in $186 million at the US box office. And Pitt's other interests would begin to flower, too. Ever more involved in architecture, he would join Frank Gehry on a project in Hove, England. He'd present a BBC Radio 2 documentary on the tragic folk singer Nick Drake. And Plan B Entertainment, the production company he'd set up with Aniston and friend Brad Grey, really took off. With Grey appointed CEO at Paramount, the company would see success with Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and have a further dozen projects on the go. Pitt's divorce settlement would see Aniston take the Hollywood mansion and Pitt take control of Plan B with Aniston maintaining just a small holding. From now on, Pitt would usually produce his own movies, and many more besides. There'd be other sources of revenue, of course, with Pitt being paid an extraordinary $4.5 million for a Heineken ad that aired during 2005's Superbowl. Later that year, he would give this money, and more, towards rebuilding homes after the Katrina disaster struck New Orleans.

Onscreen, 2006 would bring two more offerings. First would be Babel, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, of Amores Perros and 21 Grams fame.

This was a series of interconnecting stories, taking place over 36 hours on three continents, with Pitt and Cate Blanchett as an American couple on holiday in Morocco, recovering from the death of their new baby. It would be a testing role for Pitt, who had to deal convincingly with the death, with Blanchett being shot and their other children going missing in Mexico. And he'd carry it off, Babel being a big winner at Cannes. Next he'd take on another heroic historical role, this time appearing as the titular bandit in The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford which, based on the novel by Ron Hansen, retold the famous western story through the eyes Casey Affleck's Ford, who joins the James gang then comes to resent Jesse's popularity. It was an impressive piece, often moving, with Pitt excellent as the publicly feted family man with an unpredictably and terrifyingly murderous side.

. 2007 would see Pitt and Jolie adopt another child, Vietnamese boy Pax. The next year they'd have twins of their own in Knox and Vivienne. Onscreen, Pitt would score another success with the Coen brothers Burn After Reading, a further reunion with George Clooney, where he'd play a dim-witted lunk who works in a gym. Along with co-worker Frances McDormand, he'd discover a computer disc lost by sacked CIA operative John Malkovich and attempt to extort money from him. Meanwhile, McDormand would begin seeing former agent Clooney who's in turn sleeping with Malkovich's wife, Tilda Swinton. It was crazy comic stuff and Pitt's efforts as a primping, preening dolt would see him nominated for a BAFTA.

There'd be more plaudits for his next venture, where he'd play the titular star of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, a third movie with director David Fincher. Based on a short story by F Scott Fitzgerald, this would see Pitt born as an old man and age backwards, enduring weirdness at school, horror in World War 2 and an inevitably doomed romance with Cate Blanchett, as well as a painful affair with Burn After Reading co-star Tilda Swinton. The film would cover much ground, acting as a history, an epic love story and a melancholy exploration of the fleeting nature of love, with Pitt's performance earning him nominations for both a Golden Globe and, for the second time, an Oscar. Nominated at the same time would be his wife, for her work in Clint Eastwood's Changeling.

Now clearly in the prime of his career, Pitt would move on to two more major projects. First would come Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, where he'd play an ill-educated Southerner who gathers a team of reprobate Jewish soldiers to harass and intimidate the Nazis in Occupied France. This they do by torturing, mutilating and butchering the enemy, getting involved in a plot to terminate the leaders of the Third Reich.

Pitt was properly vicious in this harsh twisting of the Lee Marvin role in The Dirty Dozen, demanding that his men each deliver him one hundred Nazi scalps - "And I want my scalps!" After this he'd move on to Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life, which would follow a mid-Western kid through his initial innocence to life-battered disillusionment, and on into an attempt to rediscover a sense of joy at the world's miraculous nature.

. Brad Pitt now chooses his parts carefully, clearly alternating between hero roles in blockbusters and more "interesting" fare. All he really needs now is for the diehard critics to finally accept that he's not just a screen stud. As he's said himself: "One, it's boring. Two, it's stupid. And three, it's death". Good luck to him - he most certainly deserves better.

Dominic Wills