Reese Witherspoon was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on March 22, 1976. As a teen, the debutante from Nashville answered a call for extras in her hometown newspaper just for kicks. She wound up with the lead in her first feature film, 1991's "The Man in the Moon." Her first year out of high school found Witherspoon unhappy enough with her career choice to consider abandoning acting all together to follow her parents into medicine. Then, 1996's "Freeway" became a cult favorite, won Witherspoon the Catalonian International Film Festival award for best actress and rejuvenated the emotionally spent thespian. Need more proof?

She later did some modeling. Just 14 when she landed the part of a young woman in love for the first time in "The Man in the Moon," the actress faxed her assignments to school when her budding movie career sent her out on location. She deferred college for a year after high school, then studied English literature at Stanford University briefly until deciding to return to work. Since then, she's established herself as a talented actress in films such as "Pleasantville," "Election" and "Cruel Intentions."

In the latter, she also proved willing to suffer for her art. Witherspoon, who played Phillippe's onscreen love interest in the modernized adaptation of "Dangerous Liaisons," took a scene in which his character dumped hers a bit personally. "He was off camera giving me my lines, and he started to ad lib -- which is a bad thing when you're doing this kind of scene -- and talking like, 'I never loved you! You're not attractive!' Terrible things," she told the Toronto Sun. "I got so upset I just hauled off and socked him in the face."

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