Charlize Theron

Early life
Theron was born in Benoni, in the then-Transvaal Province of South Africa, the only child of Gerda (née Maritz; who has also called herself Gerta) and Charles Theron (born 27 November 1947). Second Boer War figure Danie Theron was her great-great-uncle. Her ancestry includes French, German, and Dutch; her French forebears were early Huguenot settlers in South Africa. "Theron" is an Occitan surname (originally spelled Théron) pronounced in Afrikaans as /tron/, although she has said that the way she pronounces it in South Africa is /θron/. She changed the pronunciation when she moved to the U.S. to give it a more "American" sound.
She grew up on her parents' farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg. Her father was lawfully killed by her mother with a firearm on 21 June 1991. Theron's father, an alcoholic, physically attacked her mother and threatened both her mother and her while drunk. The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defense and her mother faced no charges.