Reese Witherspoon is a direct descendent of a signatory of the Declaration of Independence who was also the sixth president of Princeton. Her mother is a professor, and her father is a doctor who once served as a lieutenant colonel in the army. She herself attended Stanford. It may have seemed inevitable to those around her that Reese was destined to make her mark in a professional or academic career, but by a twist of fate, Witherspoon was brought off course from following family tradition.
Born on March 22, 1976 in Baton Rouge, Witherspoon spent the first four years of her life on an army base in Germany before her family moved to Nashville. Witherspoon got her first break when she was 14. On a lark she went to an open casting call for a bit part in the film The Man in the Moon. She ended up getting the lead. Her performance brought her to the attention of critics and, most important, whetted her passion for acting.
After attending Stanford for one year, Reese made a decision that acting was her calling and dropped out. Her first big roles were in 1996’s Freeway and 1999’s Election. Although these films placed her on the screen with Hollywood stars like Kiefer Sutherland, Brooke Shields and Matthew Broderick, it was 2001’s Legally Blonde and 2003’s Legally Blonde 2 (for which she earned $15 million) that brought her true A-list status.Witherspoon seems to be dealing with her fame well. While many straight-to-the-top stars publicly and privately struggle with their success in a myriad of ways, Witherspoon has demonstrated an uncommon resilience against the trappings of celebrity and a remarkable ability to juggle her career with her familial responsibilities. When she was only 23 years old she married actor Ryan Phillippe and had two children with him by the time she was 27. Although they both maintain a busy film schedule, the couple has vowed to raise their children themselves and has yet to hire the requirement of most all Hollywood parents: a nanny. Sadly, Witherspoon and Phillippe's marriage ended in late 2006 with an amicable split.