BRAD PITT BIOGRAPHY (Part 3)

Now Brad really began to prove himself. In True Romance, he was hilarious as Floyd, the bemused dope-head caught in the middle of dealers and mobsters. Then, in Kalifornia, he was tremendous as Early Grayce, crossing the States with girlfriend Juliette Lewis and scaring the bejesus out of everyone in his path. The movie was far superior to Oliver Stone's similar and far-more-lauded Natural Born Killers.

Now the roles got bigger. He played Lestat's foil Louis, hating himself for drinking blood in Interview With The Vampire. Then he sent millions of women wild as Tristan Ludlow, falling in love with his brother's girl, becoming an animal in the trenches of WW1 then finding inner truth back home in Legends Of The Fall. It was said he dated the girl for real too - Julia Ormond. He certainly broke up with Juliette Lewis and this was probably for the best, as Lewis had long complained of the pressure she felt dating such a beautiful man.

Next came a major hit, with David Fincher's bleak but wonderful Seven. Backed by Morgan Freeman's stern and studious Detective Somerset, Pitt was great as new-boy Detective David Mills, sent mad by the taunts of Kevin Spacey. Oh, and by the fact that Spacey has beheaded his pregnant wife. Always guaranteed to annoy, that. Seven also saw Brad begin a romance with co-star Gwyneth Paltrow that made them the most sought-after couple on the planet. When later accepting a Golden Globe for his role in 12 Monkeys, he'd call her "my angel, the love of my life", and he'd propose to her while in Argentina filming Seven Years In Tibet. Paltrow in turn would claim she'd give up acting to raise Brad's children. Sadly, they'd split in 1997, a few months into the engagement, a heartbroken Paltrow saying "I think you have to keep yourself intact in order to have a healthy relationship, and I didn't". Luckily for Brad, the break-up meant he wouldn't star with her in the horrible Duets. But he did have to suffer the indignity of having nude pictures of himself and Gwyneth, taken ages previously while they holidayed on St Barthelemy in the French West Indies, being published in Playgirl. He fought to have all copies withdrawn from the shops, but the damage was done.

After Seven came Terry Gilliam's bizarro sci-fi thriller 12 Monkeys, for which Brad turned down Apollo 13. In it, he went for broke as a freaked-out denizen of an asylum who's actually the head of an extremely dangerous gang which destroys civilisation with a very nasty virus. For his pains he took that Golden Globe (he was also Oscar nominated). After Sleepers, there was The Devil's Own, where he mastered a Belfast accent to play a terrorist staying in Harrison Ford's house. Pitt has said the filming was a nightmare as the original script was binned but the studio head demanded they make a film anyway. Walking out would, he was told, cost him $63 million, so he tried to make the best of it. As you would.

Now he was one the biggest stars in Hollywood, getting paid over $17 million for playing Death in Meet Joe Black. Then he rejoined Fincher for Fight Club, playing Edward Norton's cool and sexy alter-ego Tyler Durden and, as he has done in so many movies, causing terrible social havoc. He also treated Helena Bonham Carter to pleasures similar to those enjoyed by Geena Davis in Thelma And Louise. Her appreciation was ear-splitting. For servicing her so expertly, Brad received another $17 million. For Davis it had been just $6,000.

After this, Pitt took a brief step down in budget for Snatch. A wild caper involving a diamond heist, Russian and American mafia and all manner of underworld shenanigans, this saw him as a gypsy boxer brought in as a ringer by two failing promoters (he honed his boxing skills at Ricky English's gym in Watford). The movie saw him dusting off his Devil's Own accent and, inspired by his co-star Benicio Del Toro's recent performance in The Usual Suspects, taking it to the Nth degree. Hilariously, no one could understand him, not even the other people in the film. Yet still respect did not come his way, his actorly efforts being for the most part overshadowed by events in his private life. 2000 would see him rise to an unprecedented level of celebrity when he married Jennifer Aniston, star of the huge hit TV comedy Friends.

He followed Snatch with The Mexican which, pairing him with Julia Roberts, could easily have been a blockbusting coupling of Hollywood's two most glamorous stars. Instead, it was a freaked-out road movie, with the glitzy duo spending very little screen time together. Here Brad was a small time crook who has to pay offf a debt to crime lord Gene Hackman by travelling to Mexico and picking up a priceless handgun, causing girlfriend Roberts to leave him and take off for Vegas. Poor Pitt has a terrible time. Fearful of Hackman, dominated and confused by Roberts and deceived and mocked by the Mexican locals, he keeps digging his hole deeper - a situation not helped by his wretched Spanish, essentially English with an O added at the end of each word.