November 4th, 2007 - Happy Birthday Matthew McConaughey!

After a series of minor roles in the early 1990s (including his breakout role in Dazed and Confused, director Richard Linklater’s second feature film), he appeared in films such as A Time to Kill and U-571. He also played the leading man in several romantic comedies, including The Wedding Planner (2001), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) and Failure to Launch (2006).

McConaughey, the youngest of three boys, was born in Uvalde, Texas, son of Mary Kathlene “Kay” (née McCabe), a substitute school teacher, and James Donald McConaughey, a gas station owner who ran an oil pipe supply business and once played football for the Green Bay Packers. McConaughey has Irish ancestry and had what he describes as a conservative Christian upbringing. McConaughey’s mother and late father divorced and re-married each other several times, in what McConaughey describes as a “loving, but unstable relationship”.

McConaughey moved to Longview, Texas in 1980 and graduated from Longview High School in 1988, where he was voted the “Most Handsome”. Matthew lived for a year in Warnervale, NSW, Australia as a Rotary exchange student. He studied film direction at the University of Texas at Austin and was a member of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity, graduating in 1993.

In 2005, the actor frightened away a coyote that was threatening a mother and child in a Los Angeles park. McConaughey rescued various pets, including cats, dogs and hamsters, that were stranded after the flooding of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. In 2006 in Sherman Oaks, California, he rescued a cat from two youths who had doused the animal in hairspray and were attempting to light it on fire.

In addition to his home in Austin, he owns a 1,600 acre (6 km²) ranch in Texas. He has dated actresses Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Salli Richardson-Whitfield and more recently Penelope Cruz. The two had been together since 2004, following Cruz’s break-up with Tom Cruise. He and Cruz separated in April 2006. He is a Washington Redskins and University of Texas at Austin football fan, and he enjoys hobbies such as running, surfing, swimming, and biking.

Loretta Swit-Actress -70
Markie Post-Actress -57
Jeff Probst-Actor -45
Ralph Macchio-Actor -45
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs -37
Alexz Johnson-Singer/Actress -21

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