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Charlie Sheen: 1965—: Actor

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Charlie Sheen has been a prolific entertainer ever since he began acting as a child alongside his famous father, Martin Sheen. Although at first he thought he might be a baseball player—he was the star pitcher on his high school team—he eventually ended up following in the footsteps of his family. His first big break came when he got a part in Oliver Stone's Platoon, and since then, despite a period of wild behavior that effected his entire life, he has worked steadily in Hollywood and is known and loved by moviegoers everywhere.

First Introduced to Acting

Born Carlos Irwin Estevez to Ramon (Martin Sheen) and Janet Estevez on September 3, 1965, in New York City, the ability to entertain was something that all the Estevez clan seemed to inherit. Sheen's siblings also became entertainers—Emilio Estevez and Renee Estevez were also actors and Ramon Estevez was a songwriter. The family moved to Malibu, California, when Sheen was two because Sheen's father had begun to make a movie career for himself and needed to be closer to Hollywood. Sheen became friends as a youth with such later-known actors as Sean and Christopher Penn, and Rob and Chad Lowe, and the boys were often found making home movies rather than the other things young boys are wont to do. He made his screen debut at age nine in 1974 in The Execution of Private Slovik, a movie which starred his father, Martin Sheen. He was also seen as an extra in Martin Scorcese's Apocalypse Now, a movie his father also starred in. The movie made a lasting impression on Sheen because the whole family moved to the Philippines during filming. They had to suffer through typhoons and other natural problems, and then his father, Martin, suffered a near-fatal heart attack while filming the movie. Even with all these issues the experience left him with a positive view of the movie-making business.

Growing up Sheen was involved in various drama clubs, but it was baseball in which he really excelled. He went to baseball camp for four summers in a row and by the time he was a senior in high school he had become the lead pitcher. He was even offered a baseball scholarship by the University of Kansas, but he started skipping school and by the time his senior year ended, it was estimated that he missed two-thirds of the year. According to Hollywood.com, "The bad boy side of him also surfaced early with arrests for marijuana possession and credit card forgery coming prior to his unceremonious failure to graduate from high school." His parents were not happy with Sheen's failure to graduate—something that happened not because he wasn't good at school but because of his missed classes—and were worried when Sheen decided, rather than going back to school to get his degree, that he wanted to attempt a career as an actor. He only managed to pacify his parents with the promise that if he failed to launch a successful career soon he would return home, get his high school degree, and go on to college.

He started out making a few small movies that didn't do much to bring him to the attention of the public, but did get Sheen his Screen Actor's Guild card and some recognition by the industry. In 1985 Sheen had a daughter named Cassandra with Paula Profitt, his childhood sweetheart. They chose not to marry. In 1986, however, he played a small part in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as a rebellious boy who gave advice to Ferris Bueller's sister in jail. The part was endearing and won Sheen a lot of attention, even though it was small. It was this appearance that Oliver Stone saw that made him think that Sheen had something special and he cast him in his movie Platoon.

Career Took Off After Platoon

Platoon is considered the movie that launched Sheen's career. In the movie he played a young man going to war in Vietnam, a difficult part, but one that won Sheen critical acclaim, especially after the movie won an Academy Award for Best Picture in 1987. It was also this movie that led to Sheen being listed as one of twelve promising new actors of 1986 in John Willis' Screen World. Stone so admired Sheen's portrayal of Private Chris Taylor in Platoon that he decided while the film was still in production that he'd like to work with Sheen again. There was later a debate about what movie to do next, a sequel to the then popular Platoon or a movie set in the fast-paced world of Wall Street. The next year Sheen was seen in the movie Wall Street alongside Michael Douglas, with his own father playing a small part as his character's father.

He was next seen in the 1989 comedy Major League, where he was able to put his old baseball skills to use, playing a near-blind pitcher. With his success at comedy proven, he was next seen in Hot Shots! which spoofed action flicks like Top Gun and then Hot Shots! Part Deux which spoofed the Rambo movies. In 1993 Sheen was seen in the remake of The Three Musketeers, in which he played a dreamy and romantic Aramis. The following year, while Sheen was seen onscreen in Major League II, he was awarded a star on the illustrious Hollywood Walk of Fame.

It was at this time that Sheen's profligate behavior began to come to the public's notice as he was sent to court for a few infractions. He married Donna Peele in 1995, saying that she was the angel he needed to help him recover. They divorced six months later. Sheen gave the reason, according to The Buffalo News, that "I couldn't breathe. I like breathing too much. I had to come up for air." Just before his divorce in 1996, Sheen had his name come to light in connection with infamous Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss.

Returned to Healthy Living

Even though his life was in turmoil, however, Sheen was still seen in movie after movie, including All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 and Loose Women in 1996, and Money Talks and Mission to Mars in 1997. In 1998 Sheen's substance abuse problem came to a head when he overdosed on drugs. When he was released from the hospital, he checked himself into Promises, a rehab center. He stayed there, however, for only one day before he was out on the street drinking and taking drugs again. The police ordered him to return to Promises. According to the Herald Sun, this happened after "his father … reported his son's drug overdose to a Los Angeles judge and demanded he be 'locked away.'" This seemed to do the trick, because Sheen began cleaning up his act. In 1999 he was seen playing a funny cameo of himself in the movie Being John Malkovich, and he told cast members at the time that he had been sober and clean for a year. About his return from his downward spiral, Sheen told ET Online, "I'm just excited to be back in the game. I don't just mean the entertainment game; I mean the game of life. I'm excited to have been given a second shot … I've never had more fun."

In 2000 Sheen co-starred in the movie Rated X, alongside his brother Emilio Estevez. In the movie they played the real Mitchell brothers, Jim and Artie, who were famous for producing the porn movie Behind the Green Door, a movie that took porn movies into mainstream consciousness. Sheen and his brother had barely spoken in the past ten years while Sheen was ensconced in his rather questionable world of drugs and sex, but now things between the brothers seemed to be improving. Estevez told The Fresno Bee, "The experience of making this picture together probably brought us closer together than we had been in the last 10 years. And we went from sporadically conversing to really talking every day. So I feel like, if nothing else, this movie really brought us closer together and I'm thankful for that." There were some fears that people would compare the lives of the Mitchell brothers with Sheen and Estevez, or that the act of pretending to take drugs would increase Sheen's desire to return to his wilder lifestyle. Sheen told Entertainment Weekly, however, that this was not the case, "I was reminded why I didn't want to live that lifestyle anymore."

In 2000 Sheen was given the opportunity of his newly cleaned up life—he took over as lead on the sitcom Spin City after Michael J. Fox was forced to quit because of his battle with Parkinson's disease. Producers approached him about playing a rather colorful character on the show, and Sheen jumped at the opportunity to, as he told the Herald Sun, "deal with my notoriety head-on." According to Hollywood.com, "While there were naysayers who weren't sure that the intense actor could pull off working in a weekly comedy series, he more than proved them wrong, developing a nice rapport with the cast. Not only did he reinvigorate his own career, but he also rejuvenated the flagging series." He told ET Online about working on the show, "There's such a good camaraderie. It is such a warm and groovy place to work, a lot of laughs, a lot of fun, a lot of freedom.… It's the best working environment I've ever encountered in my 18 years in the business." In 2002 Sheen won a Golden Globe for best actor in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy.

In 2001 Sheen was seen in the movie Good Advice alongside Angie Harmon and Denise Richards. Richards also appeared on Spin City, guest starring as Sheen's girlfriend. Sheen and Richards had met years before, but it was the Spin City spot that brought them together. In 2002 the two were married. Sheen's future projects include a new CBS sitcom, Two and a Half Men, with Jon Cryer and Blythe Danner, scheduled to begin airing in the fall of 2003. Sheen has returned to Hollywood like the prodigal son and has managed to retain his bank of supporters and fans. Sheen told the Sunday Herald Sun that he had always kept faith that Hollywood would forgive him, despite his temporary ban from the A-list. "It's a hard place, but it's a company town. If you work hard and get the ratings (on TV) they will forgive you almost anything." And things are only looking up from here, with a new wife, a refurbished career, and a Golden Globe under his belt, Sheen should be an exciting person to watch in Hollywood.

Selected works

Film

The Execution of Private Slovik, 1974.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986.

Platoon, 1986.

Wallstreet, 1987.

Eight Men Out, 1988.

Major League, 1989.

Navy Seals, 1990.

Men at Work, 1990.

Hot Shots!, 1991.

Hot Shots! Part Deux, 1993.

The Three Musketeers, 1993.

The Chase, 1994.

Major League II, 1994.

The Arrival, 1996.

Loose Women, 1996.

Money Talks, 1997.

Mission To Mars, 1997.

Being John Malkovich, 1999.

Rated X, 2000.

Good Advice, 2001.

Film production

Comicitis, 1989.

The Chase, 1994.
No Code of Conduct, 1998.

Screenwriting

Tale of Two Sisters,, 1989.

Mission to Mars, 1997.

No Code of Conduct, 1998.

Television

Spin City, 2000-2002.

Two and a Half Men, 2003.

Sources

Books

Almanac of Famous People, 7th edition, Gale Group, 2000.

Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Volume 17, Gale Research, 1997; Volume 40, Gale Group, 2002.
Dictionary of Hispanic Biography, Gale Research, 1996.

Newsmakers, Issue 2, Gale Group, 2001.

U*X*L Biographies, U*X*L, 1999.

Periodicals

Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY), February 21, 1996, p. C4.

Dayton Daily News (Dayton, OH), July 20, 2000, p. 1C.

Entertainment Weekly, September 5, 1997, p. 25; October 10, 1997, p. 9; June 19, 1998, p. 79; May 12, 2000, p. 60.

Fresno Bee (Fresno, CA), May 11, 2000, p. E3.

Houston Chronicle, May 15, 2003, p. 4.

In Style, February 1, 2003, p. 268.

Lansing State Journal (Lansing, MI), October 18, 2000, p. D5.

National Review, January 22, 1988, p. 65.

Mirror (London, England), June 21, 2002, p. 9; January 19, 2003, p. 36.

New Republic, January 4, 1988, p. 24.

Newsweek, May 15, 2000, p. 72.

People Weekly, September 18, 1995, p. 208; June 15, 1998, p. 11.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, WA), June 18, 2002, p. C2.

Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), October 31, 2001, p. H07; May 4, 2003, p. 115.

Tampa Tribune (Tampa, FL), August 12, 1998, p. 4.

Variety, June 4, 2001, p. 21.

Virginian Pilot, February 6, 1997, p. E3; August 23, 1997, p. E1.

On-line

"Charlie Sheen," Hollywood.com, www.hollywood. com/celebs/bio/celeb/1676679 (June 9, 2003).

"Charlie Sheen," Internet Movie Database, www. imdb.com/Name?Sheen,+Charlie (June 9, 2003).

"Sheen and Fox on Spin City," ET Online, www.et online.com/television/a6719.htm (June 9, 2003.)

"The Sheens on Spin City!," ET Online, www.et online.com/television/a8716.htm (June 9, 2003).

"The Ultra Lean Charlie Sheen!," ET Online, www .etonline.com/celebrity/a2811.htm (June 9, 2003).

—Catherine Victoria Donaldson