Macaulay Culkin
Born: 26th August 1980
Where: New York
Success came early to the child star - at the age of just ten he played the lead in Home Alone, a £195m US earner and one of the highest grossers of all time.
With the ball rolling, Culkin went on to make the successful My Girl and eventually commanded a £5.5m pay cheque for a string of flops which also made him the richest child star ever.
Perhaps inevitably, the meteoric rise was followed by a equally spectacular fall with his parents separating and entering an unseemly squabble about his fortune.
Culkin then announced he would not accept any acting roles until the issues of parental custody were settled.
Now an adult, he is slowly clawing his way up the ladder of credibility with stage work and the lead in the biopic of disco king Michael Alig Party Monster.
The third of seven children, he first came into showbiz at the age of four, appearing in a string of off-Broadway shows and by eight was in the films Rocket Gibraltar and See You in the Morning.
In 1990, writer John Hughes turned his finished Home Alone script over to director Chris Columbus with a suggestion to consider Culkin for the lead.
After the smash hit his next project, My Girl, proved to be another hit for Macaulay, and featured his very first kiss with Anna Chlumsky.
He followed this with a cameo in Only the Lonely, and was featured in the Michael Jackson video Black or White.
In 1992 came Home Alone 2, and then The Good Son, his first role to depart from his cute kid comedies.
In 1994, at the age of 14, came a string of flops - The Pagemaster, Getting Even With Dad, and Richie Rich - but he was paid £5.5m for the last two, the highest salary ever paid for a child star.
In 1997 Culkin became godfather to Michael Jackson's first child, Prince Michael Jackson Jr, and a year later married actress Rachel Miner, but they separated in 2000.
Putting his nosediving film career behind him, he made an artistic 'comeback' on stage in 2001, appearing in a London production of Madame Melville.
His next film was the indifferent glam chronicle of doomed disco organiser Michael Alig Party Monster opposite Seth Green.
Recent work includes the role of a wheelchair bound rebel in the skewed religious comedy Saved!
