Brad Pitt was born in Oklahoma to Jane and Bill, a manager at a trucking firm. They later moved to Springfield, Missouri, where Brad would remain throughout childhood. In high school Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student government and school musicals. After high school, he was torn as to where to go, but finally decided on college.
Pitt attended the University of Missouri where he majored in journalism with a focus on advertising. He occasionally acted in fraternity shows. He left college two credits short of graduating to move to California. He had hopes of being a big star, but didn't know where to start.
Before he became successful at acting, Pitt supported himself by driving strippers in limos, moving refrigerators and dressing as a giant chicken while working for "el Pollo Loco". In 1994, he starred in Legends of the Fall, and his long hair and overall 'sexiness' made him People Magazine's [coveted] Sexiest Man Alive. The honor helped propell him even further.
Brad's first starring role in a feature film was in Dark Side of the Sun, The film was shot in pre-war Yugoslavia during the summer of 1988. As editing neared completion civil war tore apart the region and much of the footage was lost. In 1996, after a five-year search, all of the lost footage was found and returned to producer Angelo Arandjelovic, who is currently working on getting a distribution deal for the film. Pitt was paid $1,523 per week for seven weeks. He played a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic Sea to search for a cure for a rare skin disease.
He is banned from entering China because of his role in Seven Years in Tibet.
His love life has often been under the microscope, and he's dated many of Hollywood's elite. But his romance with Gwyneth Paltrow was front page news, landing him on People's cover almost weekly. The romance fizzled, however, when according to Paltrow, their careers and romance didn't seem to be able to mesh.
However, in 2000 he finally did settle down with Friends star Jennifer Aniston in a million dollar wedding in a secluded Hawaiin chapel. The wedding wasn't without incident, as Aniston's mother wasn't invited to the ceremony and Paltrow seemed to be in hiding and later said that upon breakup with Pitt, "something within her died."
