Born on September 28th, 1973 in Los Angeles California, Gwyneth was immersed right from the beginning in Hollywood life. Her mother was Tony Award winning actress Blythe Danner and her father was influential television producer Bruce Paltrow. Right from birth, Gwyneth was surrounded with the trappings of celebrity. Starting off early, in small walk-on roles in her father’s productions, she got a taste of what was to come. When she was eleven, her family moved to New York, where she attended Spence School. While a teenager, her summers were often taken up by watching her mother perform in summer-stock theater. Gwyneth’s own stage debut was at the Williamstown Theater Festival in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. She followed that with other plays, and it was her performance in Picnic with her mother that convinced her to end her studies of Art History at the University of California in Santa Barbara and pursue a career in acting.
Her feature film debut was in the musical Shout, starring John Travolta. From there she moved on to supporting roles in Flesh and Bone, Malice, Se7en and Moonlight and Valentino. These roles all had one thing in common (despite the fact that they were small): when you saw them, you noticed Gwyneth Paltrow. Her first starring role was in the charming screen adaptation of the Jane Austin novel, Emma. Ironically, her biggest claim to fame is not a movie role, but a real life love story. After meeting Brad Pitt while working on Se7en, the couple had a well publicized, picture-book romance. While it’s over now, the pair have always maintained that it was an amicable break-up. The great love affair, which was chronicled for the world to see, catapulted Gwyneth to fame
Since her break up with Pitt, she has been keeping busy. In 1998 and 1999 alone, she will star in eight movies! What is even more surprising is that despite her young age, she has somehow managed to avoid the ‘’college student'’ roles and plays adults. Although Sliding Doors was a typical romantic comedy that was hardly challenging to her abilities, her roles in Great Expectations, Hush and A Perfect Murder all show the actress’ range and capacity to play more demanding characters. Her role in Shakespeare in Love earned the young actress her first Oscar for Best Actress. Her career is definitely taking off, and she is fast becoming one of the most influential women in Hollywood, even eclipsing her former beau, Brad Pitt’s celebrity.