Charlize Theron

Born: 7 August 1975
Where: Benoni, South Africa

The former model and ballet dancer, turned Oscar-winning actress, made her breathtaking debut as a cat-suited Norwegian hitwoman in the thriller Two Days in the Valley.

Legend has it she attracted the attention of talent manager John Crosby with a tour de force hissy fit, thrown in a bank when a clerk refused to cash a cheque.

Offers poured in for her to reprise the icy sex kitten of her first role, but she opted for the part of prissy marriage-minded girlfriend of a drummer in Tom Hanks' directorial debut, That Thing You Do.

She next attracted attention in a comic role as a waitress who catches Jeff Daniels' eye, in Jonathan Lynn's Trial And Error, and impressed with her de-glamourised turn as Keanu Reeves' brunette wife in The Devil's Advocate.

Theron, whose father was French and mother German, grew up an Afrikaans-speaking only child on a farm outside Benoni, in South Africa, where she spent most of her time practising ballet.

When she was 15, her father attacked her mother and her mother shot her father in self-defence. Her father died but her mother was never charged.

After winning a modelling contest at 16, she travelled to New York, barely speaking English, where she combined catwalk work with a job with Joffrey Ballet.

When a ballet career was ruled out by a knee injury, she went to LA and the call came through from Hanks.

In 1998, Woody Allen gave Theron the chance to spoof her modeling experience as the over-sexed supermodel of Celebrity, and she enjoyed her first starring turn in the well-crafted Disney remake of Mighty Joe Young.

Theron was right on the money with her mixture of strong-willed resilience and moist-eyed vulnerability as The Astronaut's Wife, an extra-terrestrial spin on Rosemary's Baby.

She continued to impress as Candy, a young woman tempted by another man while her soldier boyfriend is away at the war, in The Cider House Rules, opposite Tobey Maguire.

Next up was the chilly thriller Reindeer Games, and she put in an appearance as Faye Dunaway's daughter in The Yards.

Theron then teamed up with Will Smith and Matt Damon for Robert Redford's golfing caper, The Legend Of Bagger Vance, and also joined another salt 'n' pepper tandem, Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr, for Men of Honor.

In 2001, Theron was seen in two competent movies - Woody Allen's Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Sweet November, with Keanu Reeves (for which she turned down Pearl Harbor).

2002 saw her playing in a chilling drama (Trapped) and in a daring comedy (Waking Up in Reno), but neither did much business.

She returned in 2003 opposite Mark Wahlberg in F Gary Gray's slick and engaging but conventional remake of the 1969 heist drama The Italian Job.

Recent work has seen her playing convicted murderer Aileen Wuornos, one of America's first known female serial killers in Monster, a part which has bagged Theron her first Oscar, as Best Actress - the first African to win the prize.

She also played the part of Britt Ekland in the bio-pic The Life And Death Of Peter Sellars and is set to star in Head In The Clouds with Penelope Cruz.

Recent work includes the critically-acclaimed portrayal of factory worker Josey Aimes in the social drama North Country.