BIOGRAPHY

William Bradley Pitt is the eldest of three children. He was born on 18 December 1963, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. His mother was a school counselor and his father worked as an executive at his own trucking company. The family moved to Springfield, Missouri, where Brad attended Kickapoo High School. In Springfield Brad also worked for Colonel Day's Levi Emporium as a salesman.


1978-82 - Kickapoo High School

In high school Brad was involved in tennis, basketball, debating, student government and school musicals. He was also named 'best dressed student' by his peers.


1982-86 - University of Missouri

Pitt originally aspired to be an advertising art director and studied journalism at the University of Missouri. At the university he also joined the fraternity Sigma Chi, and 'got in enough trouble to keep things interesting.' He posed for the "Men of Mizzou" pinup calender.


1987 - Arriving in Hollywood

In 1987 (his senior year), he left the university, two credits shy of graduation, and packed his battered silver Datsun named 'Runaround Sue' and headed for California (with $375 in his pocket). Pitt told his parents he intended to enroll in the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. His first jobs was handing out free cigarette samples, standing outside El Pollo Loco restaurant in a chicken outfit and also escorting strippers around in a limousine. He also worked as a swimming pool attendant, bus boy and refrigerator boy. The money from these odd-jobs helped to pay for community theater and acting lessons. After only seven months in Los Angeles, Pitt had secured an agent and regular acting work. Slowly, he began to find his way into television and later to his breakout role.


1987-1990 - The first struggling years in Hollywood

Soon after arriving in California, Brad appeared on 'Growing Pains', 'Another World', a short appearence in 'Less Than Zero' and 'No Man's Land'. He also appeared on a five-episode stint on Dallas as Randy. He also appeared on '21 Jump Street' and in the television movie 'A Stoning in Fulham County'. Brad's first movie 'Dark Side of the Sun' was was shot in Yugoslavia a few years before the war, during the summer of 1987.


1991-1994 - The breaktrough

Brad was cast in the role of 'J.D.' a lanky cowboy in the movie 'Thelma & Louise.' Pitt's performance as a renegade, sugar-tongued hitchhiker who gets picked up by the two title characters in Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise grabbed universal attention despite only a few minutes of screen time. Pitt's combination of charming bad boy charisma and sexual playfulness (particularly in a fiery love scene with Geena Davis) secured him as a genuine sex symbol. He followed up that success with a good turn in 'A River Runs Through It'. Pitt's next few films failed to boost his acting credibility and establish him as more than just a pretty face in Hollywood. He appeared in The Favor (1992) with Elizabeth McGovern, Tom CiCillo's directorial debut, Johnny Suede (1992), and the unconvincing, half-animated Cool World (1992). In 1993, Brad teamed with his girlfriend Lewis in Dominic Sela's 'Kalifornia'. Pitt played Early Grayce, a man who goes on a cross-country killing spree with his girlfriend. The film was deemed self-indulgently violent and nihilistic by many reviewers and did not do well in the box office. Pitt and Lewis also broke up soon after filming, creating a publicity disaster. In 1994, Brad starred in two great movies, Interview with the Vampire and Legends of the Fall.


1995-1998 - Good and bad times in Hollywood

In 1995 Brad played a police detective on the trail of a serial killer in David Fincher's disturbing and gory thriller, 'Seven'. During filming, he met and began dating his then relatively unknown costar, Gwyneth Paltrow. Both claimed it was “love at first sight.” The two stayed together for two and a half years and were one of Hollywood's most admired and celebrated couples. In 1995, Brad also starred as a mental patient in Terry Gilliam's psychological thriller 'Twelve Monkeys' and won a Golden Globe for best supporting actor. He followed with another dark thriller, Sleepers (1996), and Alan J. Pakula's Devil's Own with Harrison Ford, before heading to Argentina to film Seven Years in Tibet, an ambitious, seventy million dollar project, which met disappointingly mixed reviews. Unfortunately, his next film, the three-hour movie 'Meet Joe Black', co-starring Anthony Hopkins, in which he played a very comely version of Death, also inspired little praise. On June 16th 1997, after a seven-month engagement, Brad's publicist announced that the relationship with Gwyneth was over.


1998-2005 - Jennifer Aniston and good times in Hollywood

In 1998 Brad began dating Jennifer Aniston, star of the TV sitcom Friends. Brad and Jennifer were married July 29, 2000, in Malibu, California. In 1999, after a brief hiatus from the Hollywood hot list, Pitt re-teamed with Seven director, David Fincher, to make Fight Club. The apocalyptic film, also starring Edward Norton, presents an unglamorous Pitt in a disturbing role as leader and recruiter of Fight Club—a bloody diversion for young professional males. Next up for Brad was the British crime-caper Snatch (2001), costarring Benicio Del Toro and directed by Guy Ritchie. That same year, Pitt starred with Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy The Mexican, teamed with Robert Redford in the thriller Spy Game, and joined an A-list ensemble cast including Roberts, George Clooney, and Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh's remake of the Rat Pack heist caper Ocean's Eleven. In 2004, he starred as the Greek hero Achilles in Warner Bros.' blockbuster epic Troy. He will also be producing The Madman of Alcatraz, based on the true story of the psychiatrist who treated the infamous Robert "Birdman" Stroud. The couple announced their separation in January 2005 and divorced in October of that year.


2005- - A big family

Soon after his separation with Jennifer, Brad began dating actress Angelina Jolie with whom he has three children, Maddox, Shiloh and Zahara.