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| Charlize Theron Biography |
Charlize Theron Biography: Charlize Theron (born 7 August 1975) is a South African actress. She started her acting career in the United States and rose to fame in the late 1990s following roles in The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), and The Cider House Rules (1999). Theron won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003), becoming the first African to win an Academy Award in a major acting category. She received another Academy Award nomination for her performance in North Country (2005). Theron became a US citizen in 2007, while retaining her South African citizenship.
Early life
Theron was born in Benoni, in the then Transvaal Province of South Africa, the only child of Gerda Jacoba Aletta Maritz (who has also called herself Gerta) and Charles Jacobus Theron (born 27 November 1947). Her mother is of German descent and her father was of Occitan (French) and Dutch ancestry; Theron is descended from early Huguenot settlers, and Boer War figure Danie Theron was her great-great uncle. "
Theron" is an Occitan surname (originally spelled Théron) pronounced in Afrikaans as [tron], although she has said that the way she pronounces it in South Africa is [?ron]. She changed the pronunciation when she moved to the U.S. to give it a more "American" sound.
She grew up on her parents' farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg. Her father died on 21 June 1991, after he was shot by Theron's mother. Theron's father, an alcoholic, physically attacked her mother and threatened both women while drunk. The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defence and her mother faced no charges.
Theron attended Putfontein Primary School (Laerskool Putfontein), a period she later characterised as not "fitting in". At 13, Theron was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg. Although Theron became fluent in English (which she speaks with a General American accent) around age nineteen, her first language is Afrikaans.
