Leonardo DiCaprio

Born : Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio, November 11, 1974 (1974-11-11) (age 34), Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Years active : 1988 — present

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (born November 11, 1974) is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning American film actor. He gained fame for his role as Jack Dawson in Titanic and has starred in many other successful films including Romeo + Juliet, Catch Me If You Can, and Blood Diamond. He has appeared in Martin Scorsese's recent films Gangs of New York, The Aviator, and The Departed, causing people to compare this relationship to that from which actor Robert De Niro benefited early in his career. DiCaprio has also been nominated two times for BAFTA, three times for SAG and is a Silver Bear Award winner.
Early life
DiCaprio was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Irmelin, a former legal secretary, and George DiCaprio, an underground comic artist and producer/distributor of comic books. His mother moved from Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany, to the U.S. during her childhood, while his father is a fourth-generation American of half Italian and half German descent. DiCaprio's parents met while attending college together and subsequently moved to Los Angeles. He was named after artist Leonardo da Vinci, as his pregnant mother was standing in front of a da Vinci painting at a museum in Italy when DiCaprio first kicked.
His parents divorced when he was one. He lived mostly with his mother, although his father was around intermittently. During his childhood, he attended Seeds Elementary School. He was interested in baseball cards, comic books, and he frequently visited museums with his father. DiCaprio and his mother lived in several neighborhoods, such as Echo Park.
During his teen years, he lived at 1874 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, California (which was later converted into a local public library) and his mother worked several jobs to support them. He graduated from John Marshall High School a few blocks away, after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years.
After his divorce, his father married Peggy Ann Farrar, who had a son named Adam Farrar, another actor/producer who became Leo's stepbrother and who inspired DiCaprio to become an actor. DiCaprio began looking for an agent at the age of twelve, but was initially turned down several times; one agent suggested that he anglicize his name to “Lenny Williams”, which DiCaprio rejected.
Career
Early career
DiCaprio's career began with his appearing in several commercials and educational films. He got his break on television in 1990 when he was cast in the short-lived series based on the movie Parenthood. On set, he met another struggling child actor, Tobey Maguire. The two quickly became friends and made a pact to help each other find roles in TV and movies. After Parenthood, DiCaprio had bit parts on several shows, including The New Lassie and Roseanne, as well as a brief stint on the soap opera Santa Barbara, playing the young Mason Capwell.
His debut film role was Critters 3, a B-grade horror movie, which later went straight to video. Soon after, in 1991, he became a recurring cast member on the hit ABC sitcom Growing Pains, playing Luke Brower, a homeless boy who is taken in by the Seavers.
His breakthrough came in 1992, when he beat out hundreds of other boys for the role of Toby Wolff in This Boy's Life, co-starring Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin. His performance as the troubled, abused teenager was critically acclaimed and Hollywood soon took notice. Later in 1993, he co-starred as the mentally handicapped brother to Johnny Depp in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. His performance earned him both an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor.
1995 was an eventful year for DiCaprio. That year he starred in four movies; in the first one, The Quick and the Dead, he played Gene Hackman's alleged son, Fee, starring alongside Sharon Stone and Russell Crowe.
After The Quick and The Dead, he starred in Total Eclipse, a fictionalized account of the homosexual relationship between Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis) and Arthur Rimbaud. River Phoenix was originally cast as Rimbaud, but died before production.
The black-and-white movie Don's Plum, a low budget drama featuring the actor and his friends (including Tobey Maguire) was filmed between 1995 and 1996. Its release was blocked by DiCaprio and Maguire, who argued that they never intended to make it a theatrical release. Nevertheless, it premiered in Berlin in 2001.
Also in 1995, he starred as Jim Caroll in The Basketball Diaries, a life story of drugs and prostitution. Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, again featured DiCaprio as the male lead and was one of the first films to cash in on DiCaprio's future star-status, with a worldwide box office take of $147 million. Later that year he starred in Marvin's Room, reuniting with Robert De Niro and appearing alongside Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton.
Personal life
He dated Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen on and off from 2001 to 2005, and has also dated Kristen Zang. Since 2005, he has dated Israeli model Bar Rafaeli. He is close friends with Tobey Maguire and Titanic co-star Kate Winslet. He is also good friends with Lukas Haas, Kevin Connolly, Mark Wahlberg, Aria Kamyab, Adrian Grenier and Vincent Gallo. He was childhood friends with the late Christopher Pettiet.
In January 2008, extradition processes began against Aretha Wilson, 37, who escaped to Toronto, Ontario, Canada after seriously injuring Leonardo DiCaprio with a broken beer bottle at a June 20, 2005 Hollywood Hills party, with pending aggravated assault cases.
On August 5, 2008, DiCaprio's maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken died in Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany, at the age of 93. His grandmother was an important pillar in his life; DiCaprio called her "Oma" (Grandma) and took her to some of his movie premieres. He had visited her in Germany in the last days of her life.
DiCaprio owns a home in Los Angeles and an apartment in TriBeCa, in Manhattan, New York. He bought an island in Belize where he is planning to create an eco-friendly resort, as well as an apartment in Riverhouse, an eco-friendly building overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan.
DiCaprio has said in interviews that his favorite TV show is The Twilight Zone and he plans to make a series of movies based on episodes written by Rod Serling.
Source: here