Oscar-winning South African movie star Charlize Theron was welcomed into the heart of Tinseltown on Thursday when she was awarded her own star on Hollywood’s glittering Walk of Fame.
The star of the 2003 film Monster turned out for the ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard’s famous pavement where she was awarded the 2 291st bronze-edged star on the Walk of Fame.
The ex-model and ballerina was the first South African to win an Oscar when she won the best-actress Academy Award for her startling performance as United States prostitute and serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the low-budget Monster.
The stunning actress underwent a staggering physical transformation — with the help of heavy make-up, liquid resin and an extra 13,6kg — to play Wuornos, who was executed in Florida in 2002.
Theron, born in the rural town of Benoni outside Johannesburg, grew up as a rural, Afrikaans-speaking South African schoolgirl who dreamed of a career as a ballerina and once told a teacher she was going to be a princess.
The idyll was shattered, when at the age of 15, her mother, Gerda, shot and killed her 43-year-old father Charles after he tried to attack them. No charges were brought in the case, but it marked the end of Theron’s childhood.
Shortly afterwards, the 16-year-old took up modelling in Paris and Milan before heading to New York, where she enrolled in a top ballet school until she was forced to stop dancing after a knee injury.
Just as she was poised to head home, her mother persuaded the then 18-year-old to fly to Hollywood to try her luck as an actress, although her command of English was still far from perfect.
After being discovered by a talent scout in a bank in 1994, Theron took acting lessons and began transforming her heavy South African accent to a California lilt to win film parts, the first of which she got in 1995.
Since, she has cranked out about 20 movies, including Sweet November with Keanu Reeves in 2001, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Reindeer Games with Ben Affleck and The Cider House Rules.
She later starred in The Devil’s Advocate with Al Pacino, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and 2002’s The Italian Job.
Her Oscar victory sparked major celebrations in South Africa, where the former farm girl met former president Nelson Mandela, whose praise and hug prompted her to weep.
In her next film, North Country, Theron stars as a miner who won the nation’s first major successful sexual-harassment case. It is scheduled to be released in North America on October 21. — Sapa-AFP