Charlize +1 Arrive Home

Theron returned to South Africa with her Oscar statue, to promote her new movie Monster and to show off her new item of mantelpiece ornamentation to her compatriots.

Despite leaving the country as a young girl with a traumatic background - after her mum killed her father - she has now returned with the world at her feet.

After she left South Africa, she became a model, then a ballet dancer and then she went to LA to have a crack at acting.

The story goes that she was signed up by an agent after he witnessed her giving a bank clerk hell for not cashing her cheque... the rest they say is history... surely it won't be long before her story is made into a film.

Now she returns with the Oscar she won for best actress for her Monster role as serial killer Aileen Wuornos, and the country she calls home welcomed her back like a prodigal daughter.

The actress was a guest on a TV chat show and even had a date (in non-romantic terms) with the country's President Thabo Mbeki.

Mbeki said after her Oscar win:

"Ms Theron, in her own personal life, represents a grand metaphor of South Africa's move from agony to achievement."

Theron is now the hottest thing in Hollywood, with recent reports that her latest film project will see her pocketing £6m for starring as a bikini-clad assassin in Aeon Flux.

The sci-fi movie will ensure she never has to yell at a bank clerk again.