Actor and producer Brad Pitt is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winner known for such films as 'Legends of the Fall,' 'Fight Club,' 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' 'Moneyball,' '12 Years a Slave' and 'Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.'
Actor and producer Brad Pitt made his big-screen debut in the 1989 horror film Cutting Class and his role in 1994's Legends of the Fall helped secured his place as a Hollywood staple. A two-time winner of People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" title, Pitt also proved willing to take on grittier roles for features like Seven (1995) and Fight Club (1999). He began earning more serious award consideration for performances in Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Moneyball (2011), winning his first Oscar in the best picture category as a producer for 12 Years a Slave (2013). Along with later works like The Big Short (2015), Allied (2016) and his Oscar-winning role in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019), Pitt is known for his high-profile relationships with actresses Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie.
Pitt was born William Bradley Pitt on December 18, 1963, in Shawnee, Oklahoma, the eldest of three children in a devoutly Southern Baptist family, and grew up in Springfield, Missouri. His father, Bill Pitt, owned a trucking company, and his mother, Jane Pitt, was a family counselor. Pitt originally aspired to be an advertising art director, studying journalism at the University of Missouri.
However, the young college student had other, quiet aspirations that were the product of a childhood love of movies. His dreams finally seemed tangible his last semester at university when he realized, "I can leave." On a whim, Pitt dropped out of college, packed up his Datsun and headed west to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles, just two credits shy of a college degree.
Pitt told his parents he intended to enroll in the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena but instead spent the next several months driving a limousine — chauffeuring strippers from one bachelor party to the next, delivering refrigerators and trying to break into the L.A. acting scene. He joined an acting class and, shortly after, accompanied a classmate as her scene partner on an audition with an agent. In a twist of fate, the agent signed Pitt instead of his classmate. After weathering only seven months in Los Angeles, Pitt had secured an agent and regular acting work.
