Reese Witherspoon Was Given One Incredibly Sexist Piece Of Advice Early In Her Career

Reese Witherspoon was born in New Orleans and then lived for a few years in what was then West Germany, where her father, — a surgeon with the U.S. Air Force — was stationed. Her family then moved to Nashville, where her mother worked as a registered nurse and also taught nursing at Vanderbilt University. Reese took a different path, modeling and appearing in commercials as a child before making her feature film debut in 1991's "The Man in the Moon." She starred in "Pleasantville" seven years later, then hit it big with her performance as Elle Woods in "Legally Blonde" in 2001. The following year, she told Vanity Fair that she had plotted her life as an actor for years. After filming a flower shop commercial for some family friends, "I came home and told my mother I wanted to be an actress