Orlando Bloom: Snapshot
- Name
- Orlando Bloom
- Birth Date
- January 13, 1977
- Birth Place
- Canterbury, England
Nice timing. Just before graduation, director Peter Jackson picked him to star as elf warrior Legolas in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, now among the highest grossing films of all time. In 2002, he scored another blockbuster franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean.
In 2006, Bloom's four-year, on-and-off again romance with Kate Bosworth ended, and he has since been linked to Spanish siren Penélope Cruz. Although Bloom is taking a break from making movies, his luck still seems intact. To date, he has also survived a broken nose, ribs, arm, wrist, both legs, a finger and a toe.
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Orlando Bloom: Five Fun Facts
- Orlando Bloom boarded a Norwegian icebreaker bound for Antarctica in January 2007. The three-week trek offered no luxury to the star, who slept in a tiny bunk and took orders from the crew as he worked the frozen deck.
- Pirates of the Caribbean castmate Keira Knightley says Orlando Bloom is "a very good kisser" who always has breath mints on hand.
- Orlando Bloom has been a Buddhist since the age of 19. He adheres to the Japanese Soka Gakkai school of Buddhism. "It's about studying what is going on in my daily life and using that as fuel to go and live a bigger life," he told Details in 2007.
- Orlando Bloom's mother, language schoolteacher Sonia Bloom, named him after 17th-century British composer Orlando Gibbons.
- Orlando Bloom has two tattoos: one on his right arm of the Elvish word for nine and another of a sun on his navel, which he calls "a stupid idea" he had at age 15.
Orlando Bloom: Biography 
- 1993
Pushing Through Dyslexia
After struggling with dyslexia through Canterbury High School, Bloom, 16, drops out and moves to London to join the National Youth Theatre. In 1998, while studying at London's esteemed Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Bloom makes his film debut with a bit part in the Oscar Wilde biopic Wilde. Afterwards, he returns to school to finish up his three-year training.
- 1999
No Starving Actors Here
After graduating from Guildhall, Bloom heads to New Zealand to play the blond elfin sharpshooter Legolas in director Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. The film grosses more than $313 million when it opens in 2001.
- 2001
Reporting for Duty
Black Hawk Down, which Bloom shot in Morocco, hits theaters about the same time LOTR comes out. Bloom has a minor role as a soldier in the film, which is about the U.S. Army's ill-fated rescue mission in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993.
Photo Credits
Top Left: Matt Sayles/AP
BIOGRAPHY (top to bottom): REX USA; Columbia Pictures/Everett
