Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a little farming community outside Johannesburg, South Africa on August 7th, 1975. Her mother, Gerda, is German, while her late father, Charles, was French (she was named after her him). Charlize began her modeling career in 1991, at 16, when she won a local modeling contest. She started modeling in Europe, and came to New York a year later. Her mother bought her a one-way ticket to Los Angeles in 1994, and Charlize started visiting all of the agents on Hollywood Bulevard, but without any luck. Her first role was as a young mother in a park in a B-film in 1995, but it was a non-speaking role with three seconds of screen time. Her next role was as Helga in 2 Days in the Valley (1996), which landed her the role of Tina in That Thing You Do! (1996). Since then, she has starred in movies like The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), The Cider House Rules (1999), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) and The Italian Job (2003). An important day in her life was February 29th, 2004, when she was awarded with her first Academy Award for her performance in Monster (2003).