Keanu Charles Reeves was born on September 2, 1964 in Beirut
Lebanon to Patricia, a showgirl, and Nowlin Reeves, a geologist. His father is
part Chinese and part Hawaiin, and his mother is English. Keanu is named after
his great, great uncle, and his first name means "cool breeze over the
mountains" in Hawaiin. Keanu's father left the family when he was very young,
and after his parents divorced his mother moved with Keanu and his younger
sister Kim to New York City, and then they moved on to Toronto, Canada. Patricia
remarried three times, first to Paul Aaron, a stage and film director, and then
Robert Miller, a rock promoter, and finally Jack Bond, a hair salan owner.
Keanu's biological father served time in prison, and was paroled after serving 2
years of a 10 year sentence for selling heroin at Hilo Airport in 1992. He and
Keanu do not speak.
Keanu Reeves' main priorities at North Toronto High School were
ice hockey and drama. In fact, his nickname, "The Wall", came from his position
as team goalie on his high school team where he was the MVP. As he was not
particularly interested in academics, Keanu dropped out of school at 17 to
pursue his acting career. In 1980, Keanu was cast in a television commercial for
Coca-Cola, and a few years later, he also did a commercial for Kellogg's Corn
Flakes.
His first major breakthrough came when he was cast as Rob Lowe
in the hockey film Youngblood (1986). His next major success was as Ted
Logan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989). After trying to
shake the 'dude' stigma and cult-like following from that film, Keanu starred in
several other movies, but his recognition as a true actor came with his star
role in the action movie Speed (1994). After a five year string of small
films after Speed, Keanu hit gold when he accepted the role of Neo in
The Matrix (1999) and both sequels. His latest film, Constantine came
out in January, 2005, in which he will star with Rachel
Weisz.
Keanu also has a love of music and played the bass guitar for the
band "Dogstar," which released an album, Our Little Visionary, in
1996. In 2002, he joined the band "Becky". He also enjoys ballroom
dancing, horseback riding, and surfing.
Around Christmas 1999, Keanu and his girlfriend, Jennifer Syme,
suffered the death of the baby girl they were expecting when she was stillborn a
few weeks before the delivery date. They had planned to name her Eva Archer Syme
Reeves. Then, Jennifer Syme, estranged from Keanu at the time, was killed on
April 2, 2001, when her Jeep Cherokee ran onto the wrong wide of the road in Los
Angeles near Highway 101 and smashed into three parked cars. Her Jeep flopped
over and she was thrown through the windshield. Keanu currently splits his time
and lives in both Beverly Hill and Toronto.
