Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron ( shar-LEEZ THERR-ən;; born 7 August 1975) is a South African and American actress and producer. One of the world's highest-paid actresses, her accolades include an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for three BAFTAs and two Emmy Awards.

This profile of Charlize Theron covers Early Life and Family Background, 1991–2002: Early work and breakthrough, 2003–2010: Rise to prominence, 2011–2019: Established actress and 2020–present: Continued success.

Theron came to international prominence in the 1990s by playing the leading lady in the Hollywood films The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), and The Cider House Rules (1999). She received critical acclaim for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003), for which she won the Silver Bear and Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first South African to win an acting Oscar. She was nominated twice more for the Oscar for portraying a sexually abused woman seeking justice in the drama North Country (2005) and Megyn Kelly in the biographical drama Bombshell (2019). She received praise for playing troubled women in Jason Reitman's comedy-dramas Young Adult (2011) and Tully (2018).

Theron has starred in several commercially successful action films, including The Italian Job (2003), Hancock (2008), Prometheus (2012), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Atomic Blonde (2017), and The Old Guard (2020), as well as several Fast & Furious installments: The Fate of the Furious (2017), F9 (2021), and Fast X (2023). On television, she earned a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Britt Ekland in the biographical film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004).

Since the early 2000s, Theron has ventured into film production with her company Denver and Delilah Productions. She has produced numerous films, many in which she had a starring role, including The Burning Plain (2008), Dark Places (2015), and Long Shot (2019). Theron became an American citizen in 2007, while retaining her South African citizenship. In 2016, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Early Life and Family Background of Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron was born in South Africa, in Benoni in Transvaal Province (Gauteng Province since 1994). She is the only child of road builders Gerda (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. Her great-granduncle was Second Boer War military leader Daniel Theron. She is from an Afrikaner family, and her ancestry includes Dutch as well as French and German. Her French forebears were early Huguenots in South Africa. Although Theron is fluent in English, her first language is Afrikaans. She grew up on her parents' farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg.

When Theron was 15, on 21 June 1991, her mother killed her father in self-defense. It happened after her father, an alcoholic, drunkenly attacked her mother and fired a gun at Charlize and her mother. Theron's mother retrieved her own handgun, shot back and killed him. The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defense, and her mother faced no charges.

Growing up, Theron felt she did not fit in at school and was teased by other girls. She was frequently unwell with jaundice throughout childhood and the antibiotics she was administered made her upper incisor baby teeth rot; they had to be surgically removed. Theron's permanent teeth did not grow until she was roughly ten years old. She attended Putfontein Primary School (Laerskool Putfontein). At 13, Theron was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg. About her early life in her home country, Theron has said: "I grew up as an only child in South Africa, and there was turmoil in my family, but the surroundings were so great. I was usually barefoot in the dirt: no Game Boys, no computers, and we had sanctions, so there were no concerts. This meant you had to entertain yourself."

1991–2002: Early work and breakthrough of Charlize Theron

Although she saw herself as a dancer, Theron left South Africa at age 16 to begin a modeling career in Europe. That same year, she won a one-year modelling contract at a local competition in Salerno, Italy and moved with her mother to Milan, Italy. After Theron spent a year modelling throughout Europe, she and her mother moved to the United States; they resided in New York City and Miami. In New York, she attended the Joffrey Ballet School, where she trained as a ballet dancer until a knee injury closed this career path. As Theron recalled in 2008:

In 1994, Theron flew to Los Angeles on a one-way ticket her mother bought for her; she intended to work in the film industry. During her initial months there, she lived in a motel with the $300 budget that her mother had given her; she continued receiving checks from New York and lived "from paycheck to paycheck". Theron stole bread from a basket in a restaurant to survive. One day, she went to a Hollywood Boulevard bank to cash a few checks, including one her mother had sent to help with the rent; however; the check from her mother was rejected because it was out-of-state and she was not an American citizen. Theron argued and pleaded with the bank teller until talent agent John Crosby, who was the next customer behind her, cashed it for her and gave her his business card.

Crosby introduced Theron to an acting school. In 1995, she played her first non-speaking film role in the horror film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. In Theron's first speaking role, she portrayed hitwoman Helga Svelgen in 2 Days in the Valley (1996). Despite the film's mixed reviews, Theron drew attention due to her beauty and to a scene in which she fought Teri Hatcher's character. Theron feared being typecast as characters similar to Helga and recalled being asked to repeat her performance in the film during auditions: "A lot of people were saying, 'You should just hit while the iron's hot' [...] But playing the same part over and over doesn't leave you with any longevity. And I knew it was going to be harder for me, because of what I look like, to branch out to different kinds of roles".

When auditioning for Showgirls, Theron was introduced to talent agent J. J. Harris by co-casting director Johanna Ray. She recalled being surprised at how much faith Harris had in her potential. Theron has referred to Harris as her mentor. Harris found scripts and films for Theron in a variety of genres and encouraged her to become a producer. She served as Theron's agent for over 15 years.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlize_Theron), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.