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Charlize Theron

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Born on August 7, 1975, in the town of Benoni, Charlize originally spoke Afrikaans, which is derived from 17th-century Dutch. Her heavy accent hindered the aspiring thespian when she first started out, and she admits fearing she'd never make it in Tinseltown.

It took long hours of practise – and lots of American TV – to iron out her native lilt, but these days she sounds LA born and bred. "At first I found it really hard using three different English accents: South African, faking the American, faking the accent required by the job," she says. "I decided to make it easier for myself and just do one. I haven't lost my culture, just my accent."

Charlize has come a long way since her childhood growing up on the family farm. It has been a journey which has taken her through France and Italy – where she worked as a model – and New York, where she trained as a ballet dancer. The road has not always been a smooth one, however, and the actress has had to overcome trauma and tragedy before finding happiness.

As a teenager she lost her father, a violent alcoholic, when her mother shot him in self-defence. "When you're 15 and your father suddenly dies, you realise life is very short," she says. "He was only 43. I know that if I die tomorrow I'll have at least tried everything I wanted to try. In some ways that's sad, but it's also been why I never give up."

In the year following her father's death Charlize won a modelling contest, launching her on her travels. After treading the catwalks of Milan and Paris, she found herself in New York, where she enrolled in the renowned Joffrey Ballet School. Her dreams of becoming a prima ballerina were cut short, however, by knee injuries. It was then that she turned to her third choice of career – acting. Her breakthrough role came in 1997 when she played Keanu Reeves' wife in The Devil's Advocate. Since then the 5ft 9in beauty has been sitting pretty at the top of Hollywood's "most wanted" list, illustrated by her win of the Best Actress Oscar gong in 2004 for her role in Monster.

Fame also brought public scrutiny, and there's been no shortage of tabloid interest in Charlize's love life. A fling with George Clooney set the gossip columns ablaze in 2000, but it was a lesser known, albeit equally handsome, actor who eventually won her heart. After meeting Irish actor Stuart Townsend on the set of Trapped in 2002, Charlize knew she had found the man she wanted to marry; and the pair got engaged not long afterwards.

Now she's looking to the future: "Things like big films are no longer so important in my life and recently I have started thinking lots about having children," the actress reveals. "Stuart is an amazing man and I know he is the one. It would be a dream come true to have his children."

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