This sensuously handsome blond actor emerged as one of the most celebrated screen sex symbols of 1990s Hollywood. Brad Pitt started out in TV guest spots (including a recurring role on the CBS primetime soap "Dallas" in 1987) that tended to capitalize on his wiry good looks. He co-starred in "Glory Days" (Fox, 1990), a short-lived drama about post-high school angst. Pitt entered features via the well-traveled low road, appearing in supporting roles in such standard teen fodder as slasher flicks, sex comedies and family-oriented sports dramas.

Pitt gained relatively instant stardom as the hitchhiking hunk--part charmer, part thief--who seduces Geena Davisin the female buddy movie, "Thelma & Louise" (1991). The following year, he achieved leading man status sporting a formidable pompadour as the fictitious, aspiring teen idol "Johnny Suede", and maintained the hairstyle as a soft-hearted yet hard-boiled vet turned cartoon cop in "Cool World", Ralph Bakshi's uneven blend of live-action and animation. Pitt gained some critical esteem playing the troubled younger brother who casts a mean fishing line in Robert Redford's "A River Runs Through It" (also 1992), but fared less well as a bearded psycho killer in "Kalifornia" (1993). He provided a delightful character turn as a stoner roommate in the Quentin Tarantinoscripted "True Romance" (also 1993). Pitt subsequently played his first high profile lead in a Hollywood blockbuster as Louis, the lachrymose narrator of "Interview With the Vampire" (1994). His depressed bloodsucker seemed all the more anemic paired with a lively Tom Cruise. Pitt's star qualities were better displayed in "Legends of the Fall" (also 1994), as the wild, middle brother of a colorful Western clan. In a change of pace from glamour roles (and to subtly subvert his being dubbed "the sexiest man alive" by People magazine), the actor played a scruffy, arrogant policeman tracking a serial killer with Morgan Freemanin "Seven" and earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination as a twitching mental patient/animal rights activist in the Terry Gilliam-directed "12 Monkeys" (both 1995).

After a turn as a prosecutor in Barry Levinson's "Sleepers" (1996), Pitt adopted a Belfast accent as an IRA gunman seeking refuge in the home of a NYC cop (Harrison Ford in "The Devil's Own" (1997). What had been a long a troubled shoot resulted in a muddled and uneven drama. Pitt caused some controversy with a Newsweek interview in which he made disparaging comments about the film and its script. With "Seven Years in Tibet" (1997), he adopted an Austrian accent to play an egotistical man who undergoes a conversion of sorts when he is befriended by the youthful Dalai Lama. That film was also the subject of some debate when it was revealed that Heinrich Harrer (the character Pitt portrayed) had been a Nazi Party member; the resultant negative publicity and mixed reviews probably hurt the film's box office. Pitt followed by reteaming with his "Legends of the Falls" co-star Anthony Hopkinsin the languid "Meet Joe Black" (1998), a loose remake of "Death Takes a Holiday" with the younger thespian portraying the Grim Reaper in human form.

Further downplaying his attractive facade, Pitt was cast as Tyler Durden, the straight-shooting but charismatic mastermind behind "Fight Club" (1999), an underground society of disaffected young men who engage in fisticuffs. He continued in a similar vein with a turn as an Irish gypsy with a flair for bare knuckles boxing in "Snatch" (2000). In both of these films, Pitt's muscular physique was on display but in "Fight Club", he favored a scruffy look while in "Snatch", he was covered in tattoos. In "The Mexican" (2001), he offered a relaxed, loose turn as a somewhat dim low-level gangster sent south (over the objections of his long-time girlfriend) to retrieve the title object, an antique pistol that supposedly carried a curse. He remained busy portraying the protege of a retiring CIA operative (Robert Redford) in "Spy Game" and joining the ensemble of the Steven Soderbergh-directed remake of "Ocean's Eleven" (both 2001). In 2002, Pitt made a brief appearance in Soderbergh's experimental film "Full Frontal." He also took on the role of a man who travels 500 years in his past in the science fiction movie "The Fountain" which also starred Cate Blanchett Ellen Burstynand Johnny Depp(lensed 2002).