Reese Witherspoon Biography

NAME: Reese Witherspoon

OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Television Actress, Producer, Philanthropist

BIRTH DATE: March 22, 1976 (Age: 35)

EDUCATION: Stanford University

PLACE OF BIRTH: New Orleans, Louisiana

Actress. Born Laura Jean Reese Witherspoon on March 22, 1976, in Nashville, Tennessee. The daughter of a physician and a nurse, Witherspoon grew up in Nashville, where she was a debutante and attended Harpeth Hall, a private all-girls high school.

On a whim in 1991, Witherspoon answered a call for extras in her hometown newspaper. She wound up with the lead in her first feature film, The Man in the Moon. She was 14 years old. Her first year out of high school, Witherspoon considered abandoning acting altogether to follow her parents into medicine. But in 1996, her performance in Freeway earned her the Catalonian International Film Festival award for best actress. She deferred college for a year to focus on acting, then studied English literature at Stanford University briefly before deciding to return to work. She quickly established herself as a talented actress in films such as Pleasantville (1998), Election (1999) and Cruel Intentions (1999). While filming Cruel Intentions, Witherspoon began exploring an off-set romance with co-star Ryan Phillippe, whom she had met previously at her 21st birthday party. The couple married in 1999, and welcomed two children soon after: daughter Ava Elizabeth (born 1999) and son Deacon (born 2003).

Ready for a greater acting challenge, Witherspoon signed on to play country singer June Carter Cash opposite Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny in director James Mangold's biopic "Walk the Line" (2005). Witherspoon hit yet another career high point and was at her best in the role, which was set within the singer's tortured road to romance with the troubled "Man in Black." Beyond just mastering bringing a real person to life, the role also demanded she convincingly sing Carter's music, play the autoharp and deliver the wisecracks that were signature to Cash's concert appearances. The task proved to be well within the focus of the "type A" talent. Witherspoon's tough, touching, and mesmerizing performance earned both a Golden Globe and an Oscar award for Best Actress. Onscreen, the actress had weathered the ups and downs of a show business marriage but off-screen, her own pairing with Ryan Phillippe showed signs of strain. In a rare moment of candor, the couple revealed that they were in marriage counseling. Her personal life was further fodder for entertainment when she found herself at the center of issues involving paparazzi after several incidents led her to file charges against aggressive shutterbugs - particularly an altercation with the photographers while she and her children were at Disneyland.

Amidst rumors of his alleged cheating with "Stop Loss" (2008) co-star and Witherspoon doppelganger, Abbie Cornish, the couple announced their split at the end of 2006 and went through amicable divorce proceedings around the time she began filming the political thriller "Rendition" (2007). The film hit the big screen in 2007 and found Witherspoon co-starring alongside dramatic heavy-hitters Meryl Streep and Alan Arkin, starring as the pregnant wife of an Egyptian-born man who is detained in Morocco after being suspected of having terrorist ties. The film, like so many Eastern set films that year, failed to find an audience and many critics were disappointed that Witherspoon's performance lacked the spark of her finer works. However a romance with co-star Jake Gyllenhaal was sparked, which the pair kept very low profile. In 2008, Witherspoon's producing effort "Penelope," a modern-day fairy tale starring Christina Ricci as a young woman cursed with a pig's nose, finally hit theaters after several years of unexplained delays. The fantasy failed to capture much of an audience, despite marketing efforts that suggested Witherspoon was the film's co-star when her's was actually a very small role. The actress was slated to return to full-fledged comedy for the 2008 holiday season release "Four Christmases" (2008), in which starred opposite Vince Vaughn as a couple obligated to spend their holiday with a total of four sets of parents.

After voicing Susan Murphy, the 49-foot monster in the 3-D animated feature, "Monsters vs. Aliens" (2009), Witherspoon was in the tabloid news again when People magazine reported that she and Gyllenhaal had split at the end of November 2009. Though vehemently denied by both camps, Witherspoon was soon spotted with CAA talent agent, Jim Toth, in early 2010. Toward the end of the year, Witherspoon and Toth were a confirmed couple, complete with numerous photos ops with her children, while Gyllenhaal had reportedly moved on to actress Rachel Bilson. Back on the big screen, Witherspoon starred as a female professional softball player torn between a corporate executive (Paul Rudd) and a Major League Baseball pitcher (Owen Wilson) in James L. Brooks' love triangle comedy, "How Do You Know" (2010).