| Billy Bob Thornton  Born: 4-Aug-1955
Birthplace: Hot Springs, AR
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor, Screenwriter, Film Director Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Sling Blade Billy Bob Thornton wrote his way to fame by co-scripting One False Move, a critically-acclaimed indie hit in 1992, starring himself and Bill Paxton. He also spent several years writing Sling Blade, which he then directed and starred in. That screenplay won him a 1996 Oscar, but since then, the few films Thornton has written or directed have drawn little notice. He is now better known as an actor in films like Armageddon, A Simple Plan, Monster's Ball, Bad Santa, and Friday Night Lights.
Thornton is one quarter Choctaw Indian, one quarter Italian, the rest of Irish extraction. And as Thornton describes it, his childhood was thoroughbred Arkansas hillbilly. The Thorntons lived in a small cabin in the woods near Alpine, a town of about 100. The home had no electricity or running water, and the family often ate whatever game they shot in the nearby forests. It says Billy Bob on his birth certificate, not William Robert. He is so authentic a Billy Bob he was actually cast as a character named Billy Bob in his first film, Hunter's Blood, in 1987.
Thornton's early credits include Adam Sandler's pre-SNL debut Going Overboard and Troma Films' Chopper Chicks in Zombietown. He was a regular on two TV series, The Outsiders (based on S. E. Hinton's novel and Francis Ford Coppola's film) and John Ritter's 1990s sit-com Hearts Afire. Ritter and Thornton were fast friends until Ritter's death.
Thornton has divorced four of his five wives within two years of their wedding. His second wife, Toni Lawrence, is the daughter of pock-faced movie tough guy Marc Lawrence (Key Largo, among many other films). His fourth wife, ex-Playboy model Pietra Dawn Cherniak, claimed "spousal abuse" in divorce papers.
Thornton's mother, a psychic, predicted that he would work with Burt Reynolds -- and Thornton later appeared on Reynolds' Evening Shade TV series. She also says she envisioned an Eskimo somehow related to his fifth wife, Angelina Jolie, for about 14 years, long before ever meeting or even hearing of Jolie. Thornton sports at least 13 tattoos, and has a fear of antiques, which he believes may harbor the spirits of past owners. Says Thornton: "To sit in an old hand-carved chair with velvet, y'know, I get creeped out."
As a kid, one of his favorite snacks was a cube of butter. He has said he was hospitalized in the early 1980s due to complications from eating nothing but potatoes. He dreams of retiring to Missouri where he would raise llamas. It has also been suggested that Thornton might be making up some or most or all this stuff, to fine-tune his wacko public persona and chuckle at the coverage on Entertainment Tonight.
Father: Billy Ray Thornton (teacher, b. 14-Nov-1929, d. 8-Aug-1974 lung cancer)
Mother: Virginia Roberta Faulkner Thornton (psychic)
Brother: Jimmy Don Thornton (musician, b. 12-Apr-1958, d. 3-Oct-1988)
Brother: John David Thornton (doctor, b. 1969)
Wife: Melissa Lee Gatlin (m. 1978, div. 1980, one daughter)
Daughter: Amanda Thornton
Wife: Toni Lawrence (actress, m. 1986, div. 1988)
Wife: Cynda Williams (actress, m. 1990, div. 1992)
Wife: Pietra Dawn Cherniak (Playboy model, m. 18-Feb-1993, div. Apr-1997, two sons)
Son: William
Son: Henry James ("Harry")
Wife: Angelina Jolie (actress, m. 5-May-2000, div. 27-May-2003, one son adopted)
Son: Maddox (adopted)
Girlfriend: Danielle Dotzenrod (model, dated 2003)
Girlfriend: Connie Angland (seamstress, b. circa 1965, one daughter)
Daughter: Bella (b. 22-Sep-2004)
Girlfriend: Laura Dern
High School: Malvern High School, Malvern, AR (1973)
University: Henderson State University (psychology, dropped out after two semesters)
Edgar Allan Poe Award Best Motion Picture, for Sling Blade (1997)
Choctaw Ancestry
Risk Factors: Smoking, Aviophobia
TELEVISION
Hearts Afire Billy Bob Davis
The Outsiders Buck Merrill
FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
Daddy and Them (6-Jun-2001)
All the Pretty Horses (11-Dec-2000)
Sling Blade (30-Aug-1996)
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Mr. Woodcock (14-Sep-2007)
The Astronaut Farmer (23-Feb-2007)
School for Scoundrels (29-Sep-2006)
The Ice Harvest (3-Sep-2005)
Bad News Bears (22-Jul-2005)
Friday Night Lights (06-Oct-2004)
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (4-Sep-2004) [VOICE]
The Alamo (27-Mar-2004)
Chrystal (16-Jan-2004)
Bad Santa (26-Nov-2003)
Love Actually (7-Sep-2003)
Intolerable Cruelty (2-Sep-2003)
Levity (16-Jan-2003)
Waking Up in Reno (25-Oct-2002)
The Badge (07-Sep-2002)
Monster's Ball (11-Nov-2001)
Bandits (12-Oct-2001)
Daddy and Them (6-Jun-2001)
The Man Who Wasn't There (13-May-2001)
South of Heaven, West of Hell (28-Jan-2000)
Pushing Tin (23-Apr-1999)
A Simple Plan (12-Sep-1998)
Armageddon (1-Jul-1998)
Homegrown (17-Apr-1998)
Primary Colors (20-Mar-1998)
An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (29-Sep-1997) Himself
The Apostle (6-Sep-1997)
U Turn (27-Aug-1997)
A Gun, a Car, a Blonde (Jun-1997)
The Winner (13-Sep-1996)
Sling Blade (30-Aug-1996)
Don't Look Back (13-Jul-1996)
The Stars Fell on Henrietta (15-Sep-1995)
Dead Man (26-May-1995)
On Deadly Ground (18-Feb-1994)
Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade (24-Jan-1994)
Floundering (Jan-1994)
Tombstone (25-Dec-1993)
Blood In, Blood Out: Bound by Honor (16-Apr-1993)
Indecent Proposal (7-Apr-1993)
The Killing Box (1993)
One False Move (8-May-1992)
Trouble Bound (1992)
For the Boys (16-Jan-1991)
Going Overboard (1989)
Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1989)
The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains (31-Oct-1987)
Official Website:
http://www.billybobthornton.net/
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