Charlie Sheen was born the third of four children to actor Martin Sheen and his wife, Janet. He grew up on film sets – from his father’s all over the world, to his own in Malibu. There, he made ambitious Super 8s, with a roster of friends who went on to become household names, including his brother Emilio, Sean and Chris Penn and the Lowe brothers.
Sheen broke into movies in the 1980s, playing a hoodlum in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a young soldier in Platoon and an ethically compromised trader in Wall Street. But somewhere along the way, despite a successful transition to TV leading man in Spin City and Two and a Half Men, Sheen descended into a vortex of extracurricular activities.