Ben Affleck

American actor, an Academy Award winner on 3/23/1998 for the Best Original Screenplay of the film "Good Will Hunting." He and Matt Damon were two Cambridge buddies who first did the script as a Harvard assignment. When Hollywood snapped up the script, 1997 was an incredible year for the two life-long friends, taking them on a rollicking ride from struggling actors, upstarts on a short list of hot new talent, to winners of the most prestigious award in the field. In three years he went from struggling to pay his $300-a-month rent to commanding $12 million per film. The son of an auto mechanic turned photographer and a school teacher, he was his parents' Saturn-return child, born when they were both 29. At the age of seven, Ben had his first small film role in "The Dark End of the Street." When the boy was 12, his parents divorced, their marriage a casualty of his dad's drinking. Soon after, Tim Affleck started his sobriety with AA. Ben is known as a regular guy with no pretences and little ego. When visiting his mom he still takes his turn washing dishes. In late 1997 he began dating Gwyneth Paltrow, an affair that officially ended in early 1999. He had a decided financial loss in 2000 from investments made with Dana Giacchetto which turned out to be fraudulent. On 8/15/2001, Ben hopefully started his own road to sobriety by entering a live-in rehab facility for alcohol abuse in Malibu where he can talk shop with co-residents Paula Poundstone and Robert Downey, Jr. In December 2001 Ben met Jlo, Jennifer Lopez, on a movie set. After she left a marriage, they were seen together in public in July 2002 and from then on were highly public in their dual passions, kissing and shopping. After a year of publicity focused on the glamor couple in which the word "Bennifer" infiltrated the gossip rags,, Affleck and fiancée, Jennifer Lopez, were scheduled to be married on September 14, 2003 and 400 invitations were sent out. Five days before the wedding, however, the couple postponed the date, saying they wanted to avoid a media circus on their special day. But by September 13th, the media were reporting that Ben had called off the wedding, and the couple had split at least temporarily. Nine days after they canceled their wedding and went their separate ways, Ben and Jennifer Lopez were again together, insisting the wedding was never off; it was merely postponed. On February 11, 2004, the couple split up permanently it seemed. Just a few months later, Affleck was reported to be courting actress Jennifer Garner (born April 17, 1972 in Houston, TX according to media reports). They became engaged at her 33rd birthday party held on April 16, 2005 at her Brentwood, CA home. The actor wed Jennifer Garner in a private ceremony on Parrot Cay in the Caribbean on June 29, 2005. This ceremony, his first marriage and her second, was attended by very few people; their parents and many close friends were absent. Their daughter, Violet, arrived on December 1, 2005 at 6:26 PM EST in Los Angeles (3:26 PM PST). Their second child, another girl, was born on January 6, 2009 also in Los Angeles.She is named Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck. In late 2007 he made his directorial debut with "Gone, Baby, Gone," a widely acclaimed movie based on the book of the same name by Dennis Lehane and starring Ben's brother Casey. Link to Wikipedia biography Link to Astrodienst discussion forum