Celebrity Heights: Reese Witherspoon

Profile: Reese Witherspoon

Reese was born March 22, 1976, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Reese is an accomplished star actress. Her father being a military Physician and mother a Registered Nurse, gave Reese a very well traveled childhood. Reese, as we know her, was born Laura Jean Reese Witherspoon. Reese is her mother's maiden name. She spent a lot of time in Germany and Europe as a child before settling down in Nashville, Tennessee. She attended an all girls school in Nashville Harpeth Hall, and attended Stanford where her major was English literature. Reese did some modeling and local commercials, but never seriously expected to be an actress when she was growing up. She always just accepted the fact that she would be some sort of Phsyician. This all changed when Reese went with some friends to an open audition for movie extras. The director, Robert Mulligan, was so impressed with her screen tests for a small speaking role that he later offered her the lead role. In the 1991 drama, "The Man in the Moon", Reese played a young girl in 1950's Louisiana who falls in love for the first time. Like a great short story, it's one of those masterpieces of language and mood. It flows so smoothly from start to finish that it hardly even seems like an ordinary film. Reese modestly admits that the main reason she was cast, was because she was very flat chested for a sixteen-year-old. In this role, Reese immediately gained critical praise and became part of audiences' hearts. She followed this initial success with several television roles. In 1991, she appeared in the Diane Keaton television movie Wildflower. Reese played a Depression-Age girl who, with her older brother, helps an epileptic girl who has been mistreated by her family. Next came "Desperate Choices: To Save My Child", where Reese played a teenager whose family is almost torn apart when they learn she has cancer. Her last made-for-television movie role was on the CBS mini-series "Return to Lonesome Dove". Many star roles followed in a wide variety of films, establishing Reese as a true celebrity. Reese met Ryan Phillippe, her now husband, at her 21st birthday party, and finally became engaged in December 1998. They were married June 5th, 1999, in South Carolina at the Wide Awake Plantation. On September 9th, 1999, Reese gave birth to their daughter, "Ava Elizabeth".