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| Birth Name(s) : Sean Justin Penn |
Date of Birth: August 17, 1960 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
N/A |
| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Sean Penn Biography
Intense, brooding actor, known as much for his off-camera exploits as for his diverse and sometimes searing performances. He first caught audiences' attention as a young military cadet in Taps (1981) and (in a hilarious turn) as the ultimate surfer dude, Jeff Spicoli, who uttered the immortal line, "Hey bud, let's party!" right into the pop-culture lexicon in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
Sean and Robin Wright Penn lived together from 1991 until their marriage in 1996. They had two children before their marriage. |
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Additional Sean Penn Biography
Sean Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an Academy Award-winning American film actor and director best known for playing intense, often humorless and unsympathetic characters.
Penn was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Leo Penn, an actor and director, and Eileen Ryan (née Annucci), an actress. He has one living brother, musician Michael Penn. Another brother, actor Chris Penn, died in 2006. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Russia, descended from Rabbis. Penn's mother is a Roman Catholic of Italian and Irish descent. According to Penn's mother, Leo Penn had distant Spanish ancestry, as the family's surname was originally "Piñon". Penn was raised in a secular home and is an Agnostic.
Penn launched his career with the 1981 film Taps, followed a year later with the comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High in the role of Jeff Spicoli and has since starred in over 40 movies. He was awarded an Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in Mystic River. Penn has also been nominated for three other Academy Awards in recognition of his roles in I Am Sam, Sweet and Lowdown and Dead Man Walking.
In 1985, Penn gave a memorable performance in the role of Andrew Daulton Lee in The Falcon and the Snowman. Lee was a former drug dealer by trade, who was convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union and was originally sentenced to life in prison. Lee was paroled in 1998. According to a April 8, 2005 interview in The Guardian, Penn later hired Lee as his personal assistant, partly because he wanted to reward Lee for allowing him to play Lee in the film, and also because he was a firm believer in rehabilitation and thought Andrew Lee should be reintegrated into society now that he is a free man again.
On April 10, 2003, Penn's 1987 Buick Grand National was stolen in Berkeley, California with two firearms in the trunk. Sean also has a 1968 Chevrolet El Camino.
On October 18, 2002, Penn placed a $56,000 advertisement in the Washington Post asking President George W. Bush to end a cycle of violence. It was written as an open letter and referred to the planned attack on Iraq and the War on Terror. In the letter, Penn also criticized the Bush administration for its "deconstruction of civil liberties" and its "simplistic and inflammatory view of good and evil." Penn visited Iraq briefly in December 2002.
This advertisement was cited as a primary reason for the development of his friendship with Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Hugo Chávez has also used and read aloud an open letter Sean Penn wrote to President Bush in one of his recent televised speeches. The letter condemned the Iraq War, called for President Bush to be impeached, and also called President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "villainously and criminally obscene people". Chávez also said in the same televised speech "Welcome to Venezuela, Mr. Penn. What drives him is consciousness, the search for new paths," and also "He's one of the greatest opponents of the Iraq invasion".
On June 10, 2005, Penn made a visit to Iran. Acting as a journalist on an assignment for the San Francisco Chronicle, he attended a Friday prayer at Tehran University.
In September 2005, Penn traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana to aid Hurricane Katrina victims. He was physically involved in rescuing many people. One man was 73-year-old John Brown, who had told his sister over the phone: "Guess who come and got me out of the house? Sean Penn, the actor. The boys were really nice." The actor then gave some rescuees an unspecified amount of money to tide them over, and then took those who were in need of medical attention to the hospital. He was and is supported by best-selling author Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Tulane University and archival historian for the city. The two were seen on CNN coverage Friday, September 2, as Penn, filthy, soaked, and exhausted, gave an impromptu interview about what he was seeing and doing, and obviously critical of the response until that time, stating that at that time he felt there was only "about one-fifth" the assistance and resources there that needed to be.
On December 18, 2006, Penn received the Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award from the The Creative Coalition. On March 24, 2007, Penn publicly criticized President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq. Penn questioned whether President Bush's twin daughters supported the war in Iraq, and said "Let's show them we can fire this president and put him in fucking jail".
On April 19, 2007, Penn appeared on The Colbert Report and had a "Meta-Free-Phor-All" versus Stephen Colbert that was judged by Robert Pinsky. This stemmed from some of Penn's criticisms of President Bush. His exact quote was "We cower as you point your fingers telling us to support our troops. You and the smarmy pundits in your pocket — those who bathe in the moisture of your soiled and blood-soaked underwear — can take that noise and shove it." He won the contest 10,000,000, to Stephen Colbert's 1. |
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Sean Penn Quote(s)
| I was brought up in a country that relished fear-based religion, corrupt government, and an entire white population living on stolen property that they murdered for and that is passed on from generation to generation. |
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