Charlize Theron born August 7, 1975 in Benoni, Gauteng, South Africa is an Academy Award winning South African actress and former fashion model. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Monster (2004). She was first featured in 2 Days in the Valley (1996), starring alongside such actors and actresses as Danny Aiello and Teri Hatcher. "Theron" is a French surname pronounced in Afrikaans as "Tronn," although she has said that she prefers the pronunciation "Thrown". The pronunciation commonly used in the United States involves two syllables, with stress on the first. Theron grew up as the only child on her parents' farm near Johannesburg (Benoni). At the age of thirteen, Charlize was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School Of The Arts in Johannesburg. At fifteen, Theron witnessed the death of her father, an abusive alcoholic; her mother shot him in self-defense when he attacked her. The police laid no charges against her.At the age of 16, Theron traveled to Milan, Italy, on a one-year modeling contract, after winning a local competition. Her contract ended while she was in New York City, and she decided to remain there, attending the Joffrey Ballet School, where she trained as a ballet dancer. A knee injury closed this career path when she was 18.Unable to dance, she bough
t a ticket to Los Angeles. After eight months in the city, she was cast in her first film part, a non-speaking role in the direct-to-video film Children of the Corn III. She followed this with larger roles in widely released Hollywood films, and her career skyrocketed in the late 1990s, with box office successes like The Devil's Advocate, The Cider House Rules, and Mighty Joe Young. 
