The actor turned bad-boy turned actor once again.

Charlie Sheen was born September 3, 1965 as Carlos Irwin Estevez, the son of Ramon Estevez (more commonly known as Martin Sheen). Interestingly enough, Charlie was born a blue baby. The doctor that helped save him was named "Irwin," and hence that became Charlie's middle name. That wasn't the end of his "naming" drama, however. Unlike his older brother, Emilio Estevez, later in life Charlie decided to drop the Estevez name and adopt his father's on-screen name of Sheen. The move brought him criticism of trying to milk his father's success, but such criticism became mostly unfounded as Charlie began to gather on-screen credibility of his own.

Charlie had been interested and involved with film from a very young age, scoring his first on-screen role at age nine in his father's film The Execution of Private Slovik. He also made many amateur short films in his school days with his big brother and high school friends who included none other than Sean Penn and Rob Lowe.

Charlie's first real on-screen role came in 1984 with Red Dawn, a really awful film about a Soviet invasion of the US. Afterwards, he made a few lesser known appearances in a variety of films, including a cameo appearance in Ferris Bueller's Day Off ("Drugs?"), but his big break came in 1986 with the lead role in Platoon, the widely successful Vietnam War film directed by Oliver Stone. This firmly established Sheen as a dramatic presence, and he was given the lead role in Stone's next big film, Wallstreet, as well.

Sheen established his comedic presence by playing Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn in the popular 1989 baseball comedy, Major League. His funny-man skills also propelled him through his next two hit movies, Hot Shots! (1991) and Hot Shots! Part Deux (1992).

After Hot Shots, Sheen starred in a number of more mediocre films with varying degrees of success, but unfortunately the 90s brought him much more trouble than glory. By this time, Charlie had already established himself as party-hard guy with a few bizarre incidents in his back pocket. In 1990 he was engaged to marry the actress Kelly Preston, but she broke it off sometime after she was accidentally shot in the wrist with his revolver. Charlie was married to Donna Peele in 1995, but the marriage was very short-lived as later that year, testifying in the Heidi Fleiss prostitution trial, Sheen admitted to having spent over $50,000 for the services of hookers. Shortly afterwards, Charlie was seen dating two adult film stars, one of whom ended up filing assault charges against him. In 1998, he hit rock bottom and was hospitalized for drug and alcohol abuse.

Luckily, Charlie's life has taken a much brighter turn in recent years. Shortly after the incident in 1998, he entered rehab and within a year had completely sobered up. With some help from his brother, Emilio Estevez, he was able to keep his acting career going, and in 2000, he landed the lead role as Michael J. Fox's replacement on the TV sitcom Spin City, a job that he held until the series ended in 2002.

In 2002, he married actress and super-model Denise Richards. They divorced in 2005.

By all accounts, these days he appears to be clean, happy, and successful.


Sources:
http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&id=1800020143&cf=bios&intl=us
http://www.amctv.com/article/0,,1153-1--0-9-EST,00.html
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Sheen,+Charlie
http://www.allstarz.org/~charliesheen/cs_bio.html