Brendan Fraser

Known for his versatility in acting with inner quality of being an unassuming and polite-manner person that surely makes him a special star in everyone's heart, Brendan James Fraser indeed is a fine example of a true Hollywood actor. The youngest of four children, he was born on December 3, 1968 in Indianapolis, Indiana and is the son of Carol and Peter Fraser whose job as a foreign service officer for the Canadian Government Office of Tourism often required the family to move from one place to another. Though this nomadic life caused him to frequently change schools during his early life, it gave the boy ample chance to see the unique nature of Detroit, Seattle, Ottawa, Netherlands, Switzerland, and especially London, where he was first introduced to the wonder of acting through a West End matinee of the musical "Oliver!". Instantly captivated by the performance, the kid could not help but fell in love with theater afterwards. "I was 12 or 13, and I would go off on my own and see plays," he recalled. "The stage just fascinated me. I couldn't get enough."

As his interest in this branch of arts grew larger when continued his study at Upper Canada College in Toronto, Brendan diligently honed his acting skills in the school's stage productions of plays and revues before taking theater major at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Successfully earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree by 1990, he then was selected to undertake an internship at the Intiman Theatre which he gladly took in his preparation to enter Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas for a master degree. Around this time, however, he heard about a movie audition held in the city for a role of a Latino guy in a film to be called "Bound By Honour" thus impulsively joined in to give himself a try. It unexpectedly brought him to L.A as the casting agent invited him to read for the director there and though he failed to land the part, his audition tape managed to get circulated around to ultimately result in a minor part as Sailor #1 in River Phoenix's vehicle of "Dogfight" (1991).

Upon finding himself drawn heavily into filmmaking, this charming blue-eyed guy subsequently came to a decision of pursuing an acting career in Hollywood which resulted in the cancellation of his enrollment in SMU. Persistently strove for bigger roles, he finally nabbed the second billing in Les Mayfield's comedy flick of "Encino Man" (1992) to play Link, a neanderthal brought back to life by two modern-day teenagers, played by Pauly Shore and Sean Astin, after they thawed him out from a block of ice. Despite being critically panned down, the picture surprisingly encountered great success in box-office with domestic income of more than 40 million U.S. dollar, automatically brought Brendan's name to the surface as a new fresh look to be noticed in that year. Moved on without much difficulty, he gradually became a familiar face to the audience through a series of other comedic features, like "Airheads" (1994) also "Mrs. Winterbourne" and "Glory Daze" which both came up in 1996.

It was not until he was cast to portray the title role in "George of the Jungle" (1997) that Brendan eventually rose to widespread recognition he had eyed for since the beginning of his career. Delivered wacky yet memorable performance, he effortlessly captured not only kids' attention, but also that of adults to fantastically propel the flick's total worldwide gross into more than $170 million, unmistakably creating tremendous profit for Disney, the film's distributor. Looking at this huge attainment, many thus waited in anticipation for him to generate another roaring laughter, but he, presumably intended to avoid being typecast, preferred to explore the diversity of human character instead, getting romantic in "Still Breathing" (1997) then showing his dramatic side in "Gods and Monsters" (1998) before again enacting a fish-out-of-water guy in "Blast from the Past" (1999). Kept staying away from comical roles, he next crossed to more exciting genre of adventure in "The Mummy" (1999), one of Universal's big-budgeted pictures of that year.

Starred opposite Rachel Weisz in this ambitious effort of Stephen Sommers, Brendan wonderfully managed to construct a good teamwork also chemistry with the British actress and so helped the movie to fabulously score over $415 million around the world after garnering about $44.6 million during its first weekend in U.S. theaters. The glorious achievement certainly gave such a great contribution to his career, boosting his popularity as well as his status in the industry several notches higher. Thus glided very smoothly in maintaining his path, he afterwards returned eagerly to comedy genre in subsequent projects of "Dudley-Do-Right" (1999), "Bedazzled" (2000), plus "Monkeybone" (2001) to later rejoin the "Mummy" cast for its sequel, "The Mummy Returns" (2001), which also gained tremendous result as its predecessor had experienced. Following this, came a challenging part in "The Quiet American" (2002) together with Michael Caine and another comic turn in WB production of "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" (2003).

Marked the year 2005 with a brief yet more polished performance alongside Sandra Bullock, Thandie Newton, Matt Dillon, also Terrence Howard in the 2006 Oscar-winning picture of "Crash", Brendan continued to walk on his way firmly by taking roles in "Journey to the End of the Night" and "The Last Time" for the next two years. 2008 even saw him get much busier as he had been tied to some big screen titles, like "The Air I Breathe", "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D", "Inkheart", and "Singularity." In between, the dark-haired actor eagerly took time to reprise his "Mummy" role in the third chapter of the adventure series, "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor", under the direction of action filmmaker Rob Cohen. All of these obviously proved that Brendan indeed still scored point in Hollywood despite the endless coming of much younger and attractive actors in this glamorous world.

Concerning his private life, Brendan married his longtime lover Afton Smith on September 27, 1998 after their four-years relationship followed by a romantic proposal on Seine river in Paris which led to an engagement for a year. Waited for almost four years, the couple finally embraced their first child, Griffin Arthur, on September 17, 2002 before added two more members to the family with the arrival of second son, Holden Fletcher, by August 16, 2004 and the third one named Leland Francis on May 2, 2006. In December 2007, the couple announced in a joint statement issued through the actor's publicist that they ended their 9-years marriage yet would "continue to maintain a close and caring friendship."