Martin Sheen

Born: August 1940
Where: Dayton, Ohio, USA

Sheen's blackened face emerging from a jungle swamp was one of the iconic moments in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

Much in the star's back catalogue is unmemorable...but he's had enough good moments to place him firmly in the Hollywood firmament.

Born Ramon Estevez to immigrant parents, Sheen swapped home for the bright lights of NYC, apprenticing at Judith Malina and Julian Beck's Living Theatre.

His real breakthrough came as the amoral yet charismatic killer (still his favorite part) on the run with Sissy Spacek in Terrence Malick's Badlands, in 1973.

Sheen then concentrated on small-screen projects before returning to the fray, as the military assassin sent to terminate the command of a crazed Marlon Brando, in Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now in 1979 - it still remains his signature role.

Sheen rebounded from a heart attack whilst filming with a renewed sense of what was important in his life.

He donated his $200,000 salary for three weeks' work on Gandhi to various charities, and his meeting with Mother Teresa while filming in India restored him to the active Catholicism of his youth.

Sheen acted in many features during the Nineties, but his work for the small screen is what really stood out.

Badlands and Apocalypse Now not withstanding, his legacy may well be as a TV actor, most recently as US President Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing.