Born Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio on November 11, 1974 in Los Angeles, California, he is known as an actor famous during the 21st century. His first name, Leonardo, was attributed to him by his mother as a result of the 'kick' he gave her at the time she was standing in front of Leonardo Da Vinci painting at a museum in Italy. He is the son of an Italian-American comic books distributor, George DiCaprio and a German former legal secretary, Irmalin Idenbirkin who both got divorced at Leo first year age. Since his parents divorce, Leo spent his time in Echo Park, a particularly dirty and poor, drug-dominated area of Los Angeles where he and his stepbrother named Adam Farrar were raised by his mother and stepfather. During his childhood, Leo used to be a naughty and misbehave child that was nearly kicked out from Romper Room educational program he took when he was 3 years old. Spent time passing his ordinary life just like any young boys of his age, Leo then reached school age and attended Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies before then enrolled at the John Marshall High School in Los Angeles.
It was never came easy for Leo when he began his early acting career as he had ever been rejected by an agent who perceived his name as sounded too foreign so that they suggested him to change his name into Lenny Williams. But he refused it and kept using his name, for which in January 1999 his lawyer even filed an application for Leo to allow him to copyright his "prestigious" name. After that refusal, Leo went on to cast for the role of Garry Buckman in the 1990s TV comedy drama series, "Parenthood" where he met fellow actor Tobey Maguire and so both be best friends ever since. Still in 1990, Leo moved on appearing in an American soap opera "Santa Barbara", as Mason Capwell, which ran on NBC for 2137 episodes from July 30, 1984 to January 15, 1993. During that period of time, Leo was also busy playing the role of a homeless boy, Luke Brower, in the sitcom "Growing Pains." Playing in a bunch of movies, he was mostly famous for his roles in theatrical motion pictures, mainly for his debut role as Josh in "Critters 3" released in 1991.
