William Bradley Pitt or Brad Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma to parents William Alvin Pitt, a trucking company owner, and Jane Etta Pitt, a high school guidance counselor. He has two younger siblings, Doug and Julie Neal. Despite being born in Oklahoma, the Pitts grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and were raised as conservative Southern Baptists. He attended and excelled in high school at Kickapoo High School, where he was active in extracurricular activities and sports such as swimming, tennis, golf, debate, and high school musicals. He then went on to study at the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism and advertising. During his last semester in college, Brad realized that he had higher aspirations in the world of acting, and he dropped out and headed to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.

Pitt worked a series of odd jobs in Los Angeles, from chauffeuring a stripper to delivering refrigerators. All this he did while he was enrolling in acting classes. After seven months of hard work, Brad Pitt was able to land his own agent and acting jobs. He first got his start on television on shows like Dallas, Growing Pains, and Another World. During these years, he also met his then-girlfriend Juliette Lewis while filming a made-for-TV movie Too Young to Die. In 1989, Pitt made his big-screen debut in Cutting Class, but it was his role in Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louis that caught Hollywood’s attention. Unfortunately, his subsequent films The Favor, Johnny Suede and Cool World were not enough to increase his credibility as an actor and only earned him the title of Hollywood hottie. It wasn’t until he starred in A River Runs Through It later that year that he gave such a terrific performance that Hollywood noticed Pitt as more than just a pretty face. The next major role of his, which again garnered a lot of critical attention, was in the film Interview with the Vampire with Tom Cruise. His subsequent films Legends of the Fall and Seven only secured his place in Hollywood. During the filming of Seven, he met and fell in love at first sight with then-unknown actress Gwyneth Paltrow and eventually got engaged after two and a half years together. Sadly, the couple broke up for unknown reasons seven months after their engagement.

Pitt starred in such critically acclaimed films as Devil’s Own, Seven Years in Tibet, Meet Joe Black and Twelve Monkeys, for which he won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. He later reteamed with David Fincher, director of Seven, for the film Fight Club, which soon became a cult film. Soon after, Pitt worked on more critically acclaimed films like Snatch, Troy, and the Ocean’s Eleven franchise. In 2005, he worked on the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Angelina Jolie, with whom he would later end up with three adopted children and three biological children. Brad Pitt had previously married Friends star Jennifer Aniston in 2000, but divorced in 2005. Pitt’s films during those years included Babel, Burn After Reading, and Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen. His last film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, received many Academy Award nominations, including Pitt’s first Best Actor nomination. Pitt will star in the upcoming film Inglorious Basterds and The Tree of Life with Sean Penn.