Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon was born on March 22, 1976 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Betty Witherspoon, a registered nurse & John Draper Witherspoon, a military surgeon. Reese spent the first 4 years of her life in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany, where her father served as a lieutenant colonel in the US Army reserves. Shortly after, the family moved back to the USA & settled in Nashville, Tennessee.
Reese was introduced to the entertainment industry at a very early age.
At age 7, she began modeling. This led to appearances on several local
television commercials. At age 11, she placed first in a Ten-State
Talent Fair.
In 1990, she landed her first major acting role in
Robert Mulligan's
Der Mann im Mond (1991).
Her role as a 14-year old tomboy earned her rave reviews. Roles in
bigger films such as
Mein Vater, mein Freund (1993) and
Die Spur des Windes (1993) followed
shortly after.
Following high school graduation in 1994 from Harpeth Hall, a Nashville
all girls school, Reese decided to put her acting career on hold and
attend Stanford University where she would major in English literature.
However, her collegiate plans were shortly dashed when she accepted
roles to star in two major motion pictures:
Fear: Wenn Liebe Angst macht (1996), alongside
Mark Wahlberg, and
Freeway (1996) with
Kiefer Sutherland. Although neither
film was a huge box-office success, they did help to establish Reese as
a rising starlet in Hollywood and open the door for bigger and better
film roles. Those bigger roles came in movies such as
Pleasantville - Zu schön, um wahr zu sein (1998),
Election (1999) and
Eiskalte Engel (1999).
Her breakthrough role came as Elle Woods in the 2001 comedy,
Natürlich blond (2001). The movie
was huge box-office smash and established Reese as one of the top
female draws in Hollywood. The next year, she scored a follow-up hit
with Sweet Home Alabama - Liebe auf Umwegen (2002),
which went on to gross over $100 million dollars at the box office. In
2006, she took home the best actress Oscar for her role as
June Carter Cash in the
Johnny Cash biopic,
Walk the Line (2005). On the late
2000s and early 2010s, Reese continued to star in more romantic comedies, such as Mein Schatz, unsere Familie und ich (2008) and Woher weißt du, dass es Liebe ist? (2010). In December 2010, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In the year 2014, she produced both
Gone Girl - Das perfekte Opfer (2014) and Der große Trip - Wild (2014), for which she got nominated for best actress Oscar again for her role as Cheryl Strayed.
