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Benjamin McKenzie Profile |
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Birth Date: September 12, 1978
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Birth Place: Austin, Texas, USA
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Birth Name: Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan
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Height:
5'8½"
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Benjamin McKenzie Wallpapers |
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Biography |
Benjamin McKenzie (born Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan on
September 12, 1978) is an American actor. He is the star of
the television series The O.C., playing Ryan Atwood, a
troubled teen who is relocated from Chino, California to
Newport Beach, with the help of his lawyer, Sandy Cohen
(Peter Gallagher).
McKenzie grew up in Austin, Texas and attended the
University of Virginia, where he majored in Foreign Affairs
and Economics. His uncle is the Pulitzer Prize-winning
playwright Robert Schenkkan. His parents are Pieter Meade
Schenkkan and Mary Frances Victory, a prize-winning poet. He
started being credited as Ben Mckenzie with the second
season of The O.C.
As of 2005, he became the third star of The O.C. to get
Punk'd. (His co-star Adam Brody was Punk'd in 2004, Rachel
Bilson was tricked by Ashton Kutcher in early 2005, and
Mischa Barton is the latest to get punk'd.) |
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Other
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Uncle is Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan
Education: Austin High, graduated 1997; University of
Virginia, bachelor's degree 2001
His paternal grandparents both did some acting when they
were young. His 22-year-old brother Nate is a Yale graduate
working in avant-garde theater in New York. Younger brother
Zack, 19, is attending Pomona College, a half-hour away from
Los Angeles, and still pondering his future.
He followed his father and grandfather to the University of
Virginia, where he graduated in 2001 with a degree in
economics and foreign relations.
He changed his name for screen-credit purposes because
there's an actor named Ben Schenkman registered with the
Screen Actors Guild.
Son of Austin attorney Pete Schenkkan and poet-writer
Frances Schenkkan
Has a manager, publicist and lawyer on the payroll (he's
shopping for a new agent now that his career is taking off)
He recently moved into a new apartment in Santa Monica and
bought a sleek new Infiniti G35, which he concedes he spends
more on than housing.
Moved to New York City three weeks before 9/11
While in New York he waited tables to help support himself
and shared a bunk bed in a cramped apartment in the city.
Mother: Frances Schenkkan will begin the master's program in
creative writing at the University of Texas in the fall.
She's been a newspaper reporter and editor, and in the 1980s
she served on the Austin Planning Commission and the board
of the Austin Child Guidance Center. She is a recipient of
the Adele Steiner Burleson prize in poetry at the
university. She and husband Pieter have three sons, Ben,
Nate, and Zack.
He graduated from the same high school in Austin that the
Bush twins (Jenna and Barbara) graduated from. He was a
senior the year they were freshmen.
Second cousin of Sarah Drew
Was a speaker at the Democratic National Convention on July
27, 2004.
Was voted one of InStyle's "10 Hottest Bachelors Of Summer"
in July 2005, placing at number 10. |
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