In Beruit, Lebanon, Patricia Reeves had
an excellent adventure on a bogus journey to motherhood. On September 2,
1964, she and husband Samuel Nowlin Reeves welcomed little Keanu into the
world. The family has a thing for the letter "K," as Keanu's two sisters
are Kim and Karina. Keanu's name draws from his father's Hawaiian ancestry,
and means "cool breeze over the mountains."
His parent's marriage, however, was far
from a cool breeze, and the two would eventually divorce. She was a showgirl,
and he a geologist, so if nothing else, the careers were down quite different
alleys. Keanu and his mother moved to New York City, where she met and
married actor Paul Aaron. When Keanu was just five, the family then moved
to Toronto, where Keanu would become a Canadian citizen. Paul and Patricia
divorced within a year, but again she married, this time to rock promoter
Robert Miller (this couple divorced) and then Jack Bond.
At age 13, Keanu saw his father for the
last time. Keanu doesn't speak much of his father, but he has described
himself as a "middle-class white boy, with an absent father." His father
is now in prison, on felony cocaine possession charges. Keanu attended
kindergarten through eighth grade in Canada at Jesse Ketchum Public School.
High school became a problem though. Keanu bounced around through four
different schools before deciding that high school was just not for him.
Although he enjoyed the ice hockey (where he earned the nickname "The Wall"),
he was not a fan of the academics. He dropped out completely at 17, to
pursue an acting career.
He landed a few roles, but it was Bill
and Ted's Excellent Adventure that catapulted him to stardom. He then did
a sequel to the film, but vanished into obscurity. He received a script
for a film called "Speed," and he signed on with then unknown Sandra Bullock.
The film was a breakaway success, and once again pulled him to the forefront
of Hollywood actors. He oddly passed on the sequel to "Speed" (maybe he
learned from the Bill and Ted's disaster), and instead worked with his
band, Dogstarr, where he plays the bass guitar.
In 1999, he once again had a huge hit in
The Matrix, a film that received critical praise and became one of the
most successul movies of the year. The movie would spawn 2 more, and give
him quite a bunch of money.
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