Brad Pitt became famous in Thelma and Louise

Brad Pitt was born William Bradley Pitt, the first child of Bill and Jane Pitt, on December 18, 1963, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Moving to Springfield, Missouri, he attended Kickapoo High School and became a choirboy at South Haven Baptist Church. He might have become a journalist had he finished his degree at the University of Missouri at Columbia - where he was a model student who posed as a pin-up for a fund-raising calendar - but he left school two credits shy of a degree in 1986. By the time he got to Los Angeles at the age of 25, Pitt was ready to begin scratching his way to the top by playing the "El Pollo Loco" chicken man.

Brad Pitt soon found work as a model, specializing in advertisements for Levi's jeans, but after studying with acting coach Roy London, Pitt started to land "pretty-boy" roles on daytime and prime-time soap operas such as Another World and Dallas. His first starring role in a feature film came in Cutting Class (1989), an unremarkable slasher movie directed by Rospo Pallenberg. Afterward, Pitt continued to act for television in the Fox network series Glory Days and made-fortelevision movies such as NBC's Too Young to Die in which he played a pimp and a druggie. There he met costar Juliette Lewis, with whom he would later team on the big screen in Kalifornia (1993), with Pitt playing a hillbilly serial killer.

Brad Pitt's breakthrough role, however, came in Thelma and Louise (1991), directed by Ridley Scott, in which Brad Pitt had a small but pivotal role. From there, he played a series of supporting and starring roles that allowed him to prove that, despite his pretty-boy image, he had the talent and skill of a powerful actor. Brad Pitt played the wayward son of a preacher in the ROBERT REDFORD–directed drama A River Runs through It (1992). The movie was a hit, and Pitt received acclaim for his performance. Less successful were turns in Johnny Suede (1991), Cool World (1992), mixing live action with animation, and Contact (1992).

In True Romance (1993), the up-andcoming young actor portrayed a spaced-out pothead. He returned to leading roles the next year with appearances in Legends of the Fall (1994), a powerful historical drama in which he again played the wayward son, and Interview with the Vampire (1994), in which he played the lead vampire and costarred with TOM CRUISE. The film, which was maligned by fans of the Anne Rice book before its release, proved its merit by converting many of them in the end with its visual richness and solid performances.

Brad Pitt expanded his range in Se7en (1995), a crime drama and psychological horror story in which he played a young, overeager cop teamed with the world-weary MORGAN FREEMAN on a gruesome case of serial murder. The same year, he turned up as the deranged, activist son of a wealthy family in Terry Gilliam's dark tale of time travel, Twelve Monkeys. Next came a pair of thrillers, Sleepers (1996) and The Devil's Own (1997), before Brad Pitt played Heinrich Harrer in the memorable Seven Years in Tibet (1997). His role in Meet Joe Black (1998), a deadly but not-sogrim reaper, played the devil to ANTHONY HOPKINS's Faust, but his character was deeply flawed by his sensitive side.

Brad Pitt collaborated again with David Fincher for the controversial Fight Club (1999), a strange film that costarred Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter. Fight Club received mixed reviews and did moderate box office, but the movie captured a strong cult following that has grown steadily since its release on DVD. Brad Pitt plays the mysterious Tyler Durden, a traveling soap salesman and self-proclaimed cultural guerrilla who leads Norton down a violent and subversive path. The film's twist ending and dingy atmosphere made the outrageous story more believable.

Brad Pitt delivered his lines with a remarkably unintelligible (supposedly Romany) accent in Snatch (2000), Guy Ritchie's two-fisted crime romp follow-up to Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). The dialect seemed to make up for Pitt's pitiful Irish brogue in The Devil's Own. In 2001, Pitt appeared in three films, including the extremely successful heist caper Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the rat-pack classic; Spy Game, where ROBERT REDFORD groomed him as a young spy on a dangerous assignment; and The Mexican, which paired him with JULIA ROBERTS and James Gandolfini. He voiced the lead character, Sinbad, in the animated Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003).

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Brad Pitt became famous in Thelma and Louise

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