The son of a Carter Administration, federal prosecutor and an English teacher, as well as the grandson of famed developer James Rouse, Edward Norton was born in Boston on August 18, 1969. He was raised in the planned community of Columbia, Maryland, and from an early age was known as an extremely bright and somewhat serious person. His interest in acting began at the age of five when his baby sitter, Betsy True who went on to become an actress on stage and screen, took him to a musical adaptation of Cinderella. Shortly after that, Norton enrolled at Orenstein"s Columbia...
X. Norton"s stunningly powerful portrayal of a reformed white supremacist won him an Oscar nomination, but the film itself was both a box-office disappointment and the subject of vituperative disassociation on the part of its director, Tony Kaye, who insisted that Norton and the studio had edited his film beyond recognition. Despite such embittered controversy, Norton managed to emerge from the mess relatively unscathed. After serving as one of the narrators for the acclaimed documentary Out of the Past the same year, he went on to star opposite Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter in Fight Club in 1999.