Keanu Charles Reeves was born September 2, 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon, to Samuel Nowlin Reeves (half-Hawaiian, half-Chinese) and Patricia (English). There was a move to Australia for a year where his first sister, Kim, was born in 1966. A second (half) sister, Karina, was born in 1976. Keanu (Key-ah-nu) means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian. After their divorce, Patricia and Samuel went their separate ways: Patricia and the two kids to New York City, and Samuel to Hawaii. Keanu visited his father in Hawaii on occasion until he was thirteen. That was the last time Keanu saw him. Samuel was sentenced in 1994 to ten years in prison for drug possession. He was paroled in mid-1996. In New York, Patricia met and married director Paul Aaron. They moved to Toronto, and took up Canadian citizenship (which Keanu still retains), but split up less than a year later. Keanu described himself as a "middle-class white boy. A bourgeois, middle-class white boy with an absent father, a strong-willed mother, and two beautiful younger sisters." Patricia switched partners a few times more and moved as often. Her third husband was rock promoter Robert Miller (with whom she had Karina), and her fourth was Jack Bond, whom she divorced in 1994. Keanu attended Jesse Ketchum Public School in Toronto from kindergarten through the eighth grade, and attended four high schools (including De La Salle College and the Toronto School for the Performing Arts) before dropping out completely at age 17. Keanu took on lots of different jobs, including sharpening skates at an ice rink shop (he's an avid hockey player), landscaping, and making pasta (and managing the place to boot!). Then came some stage work (most notably - and notoriously - Wolfboy in 1984, his stage debut) and some bit parts on TV. His motion picture debut was in Dream To Believe in Canada but it [reportedly] was the 1986 TV movie Under the Influence that earned him his SAG union card. Keanu's first big feature film debut in a US film was in Young Blood in which he had a small part. Keanu hit the road for Hollywood in 1986 with $3,000, an old Volvo, and his stepfather Paul Aaron's address. A few name changes followed as "Keanu" was considered by his manager to be too exotic. They settled on K.C. Reeves, but it was short-lived. Keanu it was, and Keanu it was going to be. Keanu soon landed River's Edge, arguably one of his best roles ever. A string of movies followed (see CREDITS) as the troubled (or misfit) teen. His parts continued to grow, and then he started attracting the eye of more mainstream directors. He landed films like Dangerous Liaisons, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Much Ado About Nothing, and Little Buddha. But it was 1994's Speed that really made everyone stand up and notice. Perhaps not so much for Keanu's acting, but the fact that this was his first mega-hit, grossing nearly $300 million at the box office (world-wide). Figures like that will catch the eye of any studio executive, and Keanu was soon reportedly being offered sums up to $7 million for his services. With Johnny Mnemonic and A Walk in the Clouds already in the can, those offers were put on hold or turned down so that Keanu could return to Canada and fulfill a dream of playing the title role in Hamlet on stage. Reviews were mixed, but in general reviewers were kind. Keanu completed filming Feeling Minnesota in June 1995 (for September '96 release), and finished a summer '95 tour with his band, Dogstar. He has also completed a small role in the independent film The Last Time I Committed Suicide (released in '97), and the big action pic, Chain Reaction, which was released to tepid reviews on August 2nd, 1996. Another Dogstar Tour of Europe and the Far East has been completed. Keanu finished a film for Warner Brothers entitled Devil's Advocate, released in 1997, and started filming Matrix in March of '98.