Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon was born at the former Southern Baptist Hospital (now the Ochsner Baptist Medical Center) in New Orleans, Louisiana, where her parents were living while her father was a student at Tulane University medical school. Her father, John Witherspoon, is a Georgia-born otolaryngologist who previously served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army reserves. Her mother, Betty (née Reese), is from Harriman, Tennessee, has a Ph.D. in pediatric nursing, and works as a professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University. Reese Witherspoon has claimed to be a descendant of Scottish-born John Witherspoon, the sixth president of Princeton University and a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence. Because Witherspoon's father worked for the U.S. military in Wiesbaden, West Germany, she lived there for four years as a child. After returning to the U.S., she spent her childhood in Nashville, Tennessee. Although her parents are Catholic, she was raised as an Episcopalian. Witherspoon was selected as a fashion model for a florist's television advertisements at age seven, which motivated her to take acting lessons. At age eleven she took first place in the Ten-State Talent Fair. Reese Witherspoon received good grades in school; she loved reading and considered herself "a big dork who read loads of books." On mentioning her love for books, she said, "I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything." Witherspoon attended middle school at Harding Academy and graduated from the all-girls' Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, Tennessee, during which time she was a cheerleader. She attended Stanford University as an English literature major. After completing one year of studies, she left Stanford to pursue an acting career.