Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, South Africa on August 7, 1975 as an only child on a small farm. She was a ballet dancer at a very young age and she also had aspirations of being an actress but there isn’t a lot of room for advancement in the dancing or ballet professions in South Africa so at age 16 she moved to Europe. For a year or so she modeled in Europe and then her mother decided that Charlize Theron should make the move to Los Angeles and get into the movie industry as an actress. She had no formal training as an actor and knew absolutely no one in Hollywood but she made the trip and by the time she was 19 she had taken acting lessons and was making movies in Hollywood. Charlize Theron’s life has been shaped by events that happened in South Africa when she was only 15 years old. Her father attacked her mother and her mother shot him in self defense. Charlize Theron’s mother was never charged with any crime as it was determined that she was only protecting herself but it that event was one of the events in her life that convinced Charlize Theron that she needed to get out on her own and experience life outside of her little farm.

Throughout her career, pretty much since she was 14 years old, Charlize Theron has been called one of the most beautiful people in the world. Whether she is appearing in Playboy or making the People magazine list of the most beautiful people, Charlize Theron’s beauty has never gone unnoticed. But it is her very fast adaptation to the life of an actress that has amazed people. When she was 19 years old she appeared in a uncredited role in Children Of The Corn III and her career was under way. It seemed that good fortune smiled on Charlize Theron as she was able to land a fairly large role in the Tom Hanks’ 1996 movie That Thing You Do! where she appeared as a girlfriend to one of the main characters early in the movie. She had a look on the screen that drew people to her and it became obvious that Charlize Theron was destined for fame and fortune.

The next year she got to play along side the great Al Pacino in the 1997 movie The Devil’s Advocate. This was the first movie where she was nominated for an award and even though that award was not an Oscar the writing was on the wall that someday very soon this driven and talented actress would be gracing the Academy’s stage sooner rather than later. Her first big budget movie came in 1998 when she played in the failed remake of Mighty Joe Young. The movie may have flopped financially and critically but Charlize Theron’s performance did not go unnoticed and it helped to land her a role in the hugely successful 1999 film The Cider House Rules. This was her first financial hit and at age 24 she was already gathering more success than some actors see in an entire career.

In 2003 Charlize Theron did win that Academy Award for her role in the movie Monster. Even though the role called for her to wear a make-up treatment that completely hid her real face, it was Charlize Theron’s performance that impressed the Academy and Hollywood as well. In 2005 she was nominated for another Oscar for her role in North Country and she also got to show a sexy side to her acting in the 2005 movie Aeon Flux. Charlize Theron has a long list of movies coming out and her work load will probably not be slowing down any time soon. Not bad for a girl who was discovered by an acting agent at a bank while she was yelling at a teller.