Charlize Theron

Theron was born in Benoni, in Transvaal Province (Gauteng Province since 1994) of South Africa on 7 August 1975. She is the only child of road constructionists Gerda (née Maritz): 16-18  and Charles Theron (27 November 1947 – 21 June 1991).: 16-18, 34  The Second Boer War military leader Danie Theron was her great-granduncle.: 14  She is from an Afrikaner family, and her ancestry includes Dutch as well as French and German. Her French forebears were early Huguenots in South Africa.: 14  She grew up on her parents' farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg. On 21 June 1991, Theron's father, an alcoholic, threatened both Charlize and her mother while drunk, physically attacking her mother and firing a gun at both of them. Theron's mother retrieved her own handgun, shot back and killed him. The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defense, and her mother faced no charges. Theron attended Putfontein Primary School (Laerskool Putfontein), a period during which she has said she was not "fitting in". She was frequently unwell with jaundice throughout childhood and the antibiotics she was administered made her upper incisor milk teeth rot; they had to be surgically removed. Theron's permanent teeth did not grow until she was roughly ten years old. At 13, Theron was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg. About her early life in her home country, Theron has said: “I grew up as an only child in South Africa, and there was turmoil in my family, but the surroundings were so great. I was usually barefoot in the dirt: no Game Boys, no computers, and we had sanctions, so there were no concerts. This meant you had to entertain yourself.” Although Theron is fluent in English, her first language is Afrikaans.