Carlos Irwin Estévez (born September 3, 1965), known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor. He has appeared in films such as Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), Young Guns (1988), The Rookie (1990), The Three Musketeers (1993), and The Arrival (1996). In the 2000s, when Sheen replaced Michael J. Fox as the star of ABC's Spin City, his portrayal of Charlie Crawford earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. He then starred as Charlie Harper on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003–11), for which he received multiple Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy nominations, and as Dr. Charles "Charlie" Goodson on the FX series Anger Management (2012–14). In 2010, Sheen was the highest-paid actor on television, earning US$1.8 million per episode of Two and a Half Men.
Sheen's personal life has made headlines, including reports of alcohol and drug abuse and marital problems, as well as allegations of domestic violence. In March 2011, his contract for Two and a Half Men was terminated by CBS and Warner Bros. following his derogatory comments about the series' creator, Chuck Lorre. On November 17, 2015, Sheen publicly revealed that he is HIV positive, having been diagnosed four years previously. The disclosure resulted in a vast increase of online search queries for HIV prevention and testing, which was later dubbed the "Charlie Sheen effect".
Early life
Sheen was born Carlos Estévez on September 3, 1965, in New York City, the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen (whose real name is Ramón Estévez) and artist Janet Templeton. His paternal grandparents were emigrants from Galicia (Spain) and Ireland, respectively. Sheen said in 2011 that his father was Catholic and his mother was Southern Baptist. He has two older brothers, Emilio and Ramon, and a younger sister, Renée, all actors. His parents moved to Malibu, California, after Martin's Broadway run in The Subject Was Roses. Sheen's first movie appearance was at age nine in his father's 1974 film The Execution of Private Slovik. Sheen attended Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California, along with Robert Downey Jr., where he was a star pitcher and shortstop for the baseball team.
At Santa Monica High School, he showed an early interest in acting, making amateur Super 8 films with his brother Emilio and school friends Rob Lowe and Sean Penn under his birth name. A few weeks before graduation, Sheen was expelled from school for poor grades and attendance. Deciding to become an actor, he took the stage name Charlie Sheen. His father had adopted the surname Sheen in honor of the Catholic archbishop and theologian Fulton J. Sheen, while Charlie was an English form of his given name Carlos.
