Bill Paxton
Born: 17th May 1955
Where: Fort Worth, Texas
Paxton discovered his acting aspirations during high school when he and several friends made their own movies using hand-held cameras.
Not content to settle for small-time special effects, the young film-makers borrowed guns to shoot holes in cars for one realistic action sequence, and Bill even set his arm on fire for another!
Paxton moved to Los Angeles at 18 after he had been promised a few weeks of work on an educational film.
Three weeks turned into three years, and when he wasn't hanging around movie sets, he paid the bills by parking cars at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
He earned his first break at Roger Corman's New World Pictures, where he worked as a set dresser and eventually won a small role in Crazy Mama directed by Jonathan Demme.
Convinced that he would get more work with the benefit of a few acting lessons, Bill relocated to the East Coast to study acting under famed drama coach Stella Adler, at New York University.
He landed roles in a couple of low-budget horror films, including Mortuary, before winning a small role in 1981 in Stripes.
Although he continued to work steadily in film and TV, his big break didn't come until 1991 with his lead role in the critically acclaimed film-noir One False Move.
This quickly led to strong supporting roles, with rappers Ice Cube and Ice-T in Trespass, and Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell in Tombstone.
He has since become a favourite for director James Cameron, starring in The Terminator, True Lies, Titanic and Aliens.
In 1998, he appeared in Sam Raimi's critically acclaimed A Simple Plan as well as the crowdpleasers U-571 and Vertical Limit.
Switching to behind the camera, he made his directorial debut with the well-received chiller Frailty in 2001.
He also featured in Cameron's Titanic documentary, Ghosts Of The Abyss.
His most recent work includes a cameo in the comedy Club Dread, as a former hippy and rock star and he played lanter-jawed Jeff Tracy in kids caper Thunderbirds.
