Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron is a naturalized American actress who was born in South Africa. Her first film successes included The Devil’s Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998) and The Cider House Rules (1999).

In 2004, she won an Academy Award in the category of Best Actress for her role as a serial killer in Monster (2003) as well as a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award. She is the first South African to win an Academy Award in a major acting category.

She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for her role in North Country, a movie about sexual harassment, in 2005 and nominated for a Golden Globe Award for role in Young Adult, a comedy-drama directed by Jason Reitman in 2011.

Her box office successes continued with roles in The Burning Plain (2008) for which she was also the Executive Producer and Dark Places (2014) for which she was also the producer. She was Queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and Meredith Vickers in Riddley Scott’s Prometheus (2012).

Theron has also ventured into the field of documentaries with East of Havana in 2006.

Theron received American citizenship in 2007 but has retained her South African citizenship. A native speaker of Afrikaans, she is also fluent in English. Her childhood was quite traumatic with an alcoholic father. She was not yet 16 when her mother shot and killed her drunken father in self-defense after he attacked her mother and threatened the two of them. Her mother was cleared of all charges.

Charlize is actively involved in several charitable efforts including her own organization that helps African youth avoid HIV/AIDS, working to prevent and stop violence against females, supplying shoes to impoverished children, pro-abortion rights, animal rights and same sex marriage.

Her organization, known as the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP), provides support for community organizations that attempt to prevent the spread of the disease.

Theron was enshrined on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with her own star on September 30, 2005.