Charlize Theron is a South African movie and TV actress, and a very sexy lady with a whole lot of class. She has made a name for herself over the last few years as an actress of real talent and has appeared in a number of quality movies, winning the Best Actress Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Oscar in 2003, for her devastating performance in 'Monster' when she completely changed her appearance in portraying the serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

In October 2007, Esquire magazine named her The Sexiest Woman Alive and she also ranked No. 24 on AskMen's Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2007. We get the feeling that this beautiful, talented lady is only just getting going, so look out for Charlize Theron!

Charlize Theron was born and brought up in Benoni, near Johannesburg, South Africa, in August, 1975.  She was always passionately interested in the theatrical world and as a child trained and showed promise as a classical ballerina. In pursuit of her dream she moved to New York when she was 18 and joined the Jofffrey Ballet Company. Her dancing dreams were ruined by an injured knee and after a spell of photographic modeling she was encouraged by her mother to try her hand at acting.

She made the move East to LA and fate smiled upn her almost at once. She was in a bank having an argument with the teller about a cheque when she got spotted by a casting scout. He invited her for an audition and she got signed up provide she learned to speak English without her pronounced Africaans accent. This she did by watching soap operas on TV and practising what she heard.

Her first role was non-speaking in a B-film in 1995, and the following year she played Helga in 2 Days in the Valley, which led to the role of Tina in That Thing You Do! in the same year.  After that her roles became bigger and bigger in successful 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).

In 2003 Charlize starred as the serial killer,  Aileen Wuornos  in the movie 'Monster'. She gave a stupendous performance which critic Roger Ebert called  "one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema". She won the Oscar for Best Actress as well as the SAG Award and the Golden Globe Award.Charlize had well and truly arrived and became one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood.

When she was 15 her father attacked her mother, and her mother shot him in self-defense. He died, but her mother was not charged in the incident.

First language is Afrikaans, English is spoken as her second language.

Appeared in the May 1999 issue of Playboy Magazine.

Became a fashion model at age 14.

Named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. (2000).

Measurements: 36B-24-36 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine).

Used hypnotherapy as an aid to quit smoking.

Was named after her father, whose name was Charles.

She gained 30 pounds to play Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003).

Has said her favorite actor is Tom Hanks.

In 2004, injured her neck while filming Æon Flux (2005). Luckily, the injury wasn't serious enough to put her in the hospital, but it did shut down production for several weeks.

Second actress (the first was Kim Basinger) to win an Oscar after appearing naked in Playboy magazine.

Met fiancé Stuart Townsend on the set of Trapped (2002).

Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (September 29, 2005).

She earns $2 million per year endorsing Dior's J'Adore fragrance as well as $2.5 million per year endorsing Swiss Watch-maker, Raymond Weil. And good luck to her!