| Reese Witherspoon  AKA Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon
Born: 22-Mar-1976
Birthplace: New Orleans, LA [1]
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Legally Blonde Reese Witherspoon was born in New Orleans, and raised in an expensive part of Nashville. Her father was a surgeon, her mother a college professor, and Witherspoon attended a private, all-girls school, where she was a straight-A student. She became a model at the age of 7, when a family friend who owned a flower shop asked if young Reese could pose for an advertisement. She eventually appeared in several TV commercials, took acting lessons, and at 14 she auditioned for a small role in a movie to be filmed in the Nashville area, The Man in the Moon. Instead she landed the nominal lead, as the young tomboy who gets her first kiss from Jason London.
In supporting roles, she and William McNamara rescued an autistic and imprisoned Patricia Arquette in Wildflower, she played a hippie girl in Jack The Bear with Danny DeVito, and performed her first topless scene in the otherwise forgettable Twilight with Gene Hackman. She was the nymphomaniac sister of Tobey Maguire in Pleasantville, the innocent lass of Cruel Intentions with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Christian Bale's spoiled fiancé in American Psycho, and a prim and proper lady in The Importance of Being Earnest with Colin Firth.
She had leading roles in two more low-budget films that earned raves, playing a thoroughly modern Little Red Riding Hood in Freeway and a girl very determined to be class president in Election with Matthew Broderick. She came to major stardom as a law student wearing pink in Legally Blonde, then played the citified country girl in Sweet Home Alabama. She won the Oscar as Best Actress for her portrait of June Carter Cash, opposite Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line.
In 2002, her brother, John Witherspoon Jr, was arrested after breaking into a neighbor's house and attempting to sexually molest a woman while she slept. He said he was drunk, and was sentenced to two years probation.
An ancestor, John Witherspoon (1723-1794), was a preacher who emigrated from Scotland, and served as President of Princeton University while teaching moral philosophy, divinity, rhetoric, history, and French. He also served in the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, and his son James was killed in the Revolutionary War.
[1] Southern Baptist Hospital (now Memorial Medical Center). Father: John Witherspoon (doctor)
Mother: Betty Reese (Professor of Nursing, Vanderbilt University)
Brother: John Draper Witherspoon Jr. (real estate agent, b. 1973)
Boyfriend: Graham Locke (schoolmate, together in 1986)
Boyfriend: Jeremy Sisto (actor, ex)
Husband: Ryan Phillippe (actor, m. 5-Jun-1999, sep. 2006, div. 5-Oct-2007, one son, one daughter)
Son: Deacon Phillippe (b. 23-Oct-2003)
Daughter: Ava Elizabeth Phillippe (b. 9-Sep-1999)
Boyfriend: Jake Gyllenhaal (actor, together in 2007 per numerous reports)
High School: Harpeth Hall, Nashville, TN (1994)
University: Stanford University (dropped out)
Endorsement of Avon Global Ambassador (2007)
Friends of Hillary
Oscar for Best Actress 2006 for Walk the Line
Golden Globe 2006 for Walk the Line
Risk Factors: Vegetarian, Yoga
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Rendition (7-Sep-2007)
Penelope (8-Sep-2006)
Just Like Heaven (16-Sep-2005)
Walk the Line (4-Sep-2005)
Vanity Fair (01-Sep-2004)
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2-Jul-2003)
Sweet Home Alabama (20-Sep-2002)
The Importance of Being Earnest (17-May-2002)
Legally Blonde (13-Jul-2001)
The Trumpet of the Swan (1-Mar-2001) [VOICE]
Little Nicky (2-Nov-2000)
American Psycho (21-Jan-2000)
Best Laid Plans (14-May-1999)
Election (23-Apr-1999)
Cruel Intentions (5-Mar-1999)
Pleasantville (17-Sep-1998)
Overnight Delivery (07-Apr-1998)
Twilight (6-Mar-1998)
Fear (12-Apr-1996)
Freeway (Jan-1996)
S.F.W. (15-Sep-1994)
Return to Lonesome Dove (14-Nov-1993)
Jack the Bear (2-Apr-1993)
A Far Off Place (12-Mar-1993)
Wildflower (3-Dec-1991)
The Man in the Moon (15-Nov-1991)
Appears on the cover of:
People, 14-Jul-2003, DETAILS: Reese! My Real Life
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