Charlie Sheen

Name at birth: Carlos Irwin Estevez

Charlie Sheen is the son of actor Martin Sheen, and a movie star in his own right thanks to big-budget, high-profile movies of the late 1980s. From notable young man roles in Red Dawn (1984, starring Patrick Swayze) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986, starring Matthew Broderick), Sheen emerged as a leading man in the Oliver Stone films Platoon (1986, starring Willem Dafoe) and Wall Street (1987, starring Michael Douglas). Since stardom his appearances in the tabloids have rivalled his appearances on the big screen; as played out in the gossip columns, Sheen's life has been a wild ride that includes cocaine, high-priced prostitutes, an accidental shooting (in 1990 -- his then-girlfriend, Kelly Preston, was wounded) and a long, bitter divorce battle with actress Denise Richards. All the while, Sheen has kept working in hits and misses that include dramas such as Eight Men Out (1988, with David Strathairn) and The Arrival (1996), and lowbrow comedies such as Hot Shots (1991) and Scary Movie 3 (2003). After a string of so-so performances and a much-publicized drug problem, Sheen had a comeback of sorts by 2000, poking fun at himself in the film Being John Malkovich (1999, starring John Cusack) and replacing Michael J. Fox in the TV series Spin City. Sheen landed his own comedy series in 2003, the sitcom Two and a Half Men, a hit that brought him Emmy nominations in 2006 and 2007.