Ben Affleck Biography

Name: Ben Affleck

Born: 15 August 1972 (Age: 39)

Where: Berkeley, California, USA

Height: 6' 2"

Occupation: Actor, director, screenwriter, producer

Awards: Won 1 Oscar and 1 Golden Globe

Benjamin Geza Affleck was born on the 15th of August, 1972, in Berkeley, California, the family very soon moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts, a rich area of Boston, near the prestigious Harvard college. He has one brother, Casey, also an actor. His father, Tim, was an actor and director who'd worked and partied with such luminaries as Dustin Hoffman, and joined the Theatre Company Of Boston. His mother, Chris, was a schoolteacher, and would be the dominant parental figure in his life (she was his guest when he picked up his Oscar). But it was his dad's influence and connections that got him started in TV, VERY early in his life. He appeared in ads for Burger King before hitting double-figures and, by 12, had appeared as CT Granville in the cute and educative mini-series The Voyage Of The Mimi. At the age of 12 though, he suffered an emotional setback with the divorce of his parents. Tim had "a severe, chronic problem with alcoholism" which eventually broke the couple up. He left for the Recovery Centre in Palm Springs, got back on his feet, and now works counselling others in Rehab.

Actor, writer and director Ben Affleck hit the Hollywood radar in 1997 as the co-writer and co-star of "Good Will Hunting," earning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay along with childhood best friend Matt Damon. In fact, the seemingly overnight ascent to stardom in tandem with Damon became one of the great "Hollywood" stories" of all time - rivaling Lana Turner being discovered at Schwab's Drugstore. Flying past the more understated Damon in terms of initial popularity and box office, the handsome, chiseled Affleck went on to achieve box office gold in uneven blockbusters like "Armageddon" (1998), "Pearl Harbor" (2001) and "Daredevil" (2003), as well as quirky Kevin Smith comedies "Chasing Amy" (1997) and "Dogma" (1999). But it was his extracurricular activities - dating famous actresses and ending up in rehab - that made him a magnet for media attention. His overexposed romance with actress-singer Jennifer Lopez - collectively known as "Bennifer" - and a string of flops threatened to banish Affleck to B-film status until concerted efforts to reclaim his private life and his celebrated directorial debut "Gone Baby Gone" (2007) and his sophomore effort "The Town" (2010) proved that perhaps Affleck's most underused talent was his ability to write his own happy ending.