The eldest son of Martin Sheen and Janet Sheen, Emilio Estevez was born on May 12, 1962 in New York City. He lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side until his family relocated to Malibu in 1968. Before graduating from Santa Monica High School in 1980, Estevez had already acted as his famous father's stand-in on the set of Apocalypse Now, and also had a small role as a messenger boy that was ultimately cut from the film.

Though his father had opted to use the stage name "Sheen" over his more ethnic birth name "Estevez", Emilio chose to retain the family name, hoping to avoid riding his father's coat tails. He also thought the double "E" set of initials was "pretty".

He appeared in a few TV movies, the first of which was Seventeen Going on Nowhere, before making his big-screen debut opposite Matt Dillon in 1982's Tex. A part in The Outsiders followed, and Estevez made his first big splash as the punk rocker Otto in the cult classic Repo Man.

Originally cast as Bender, "The Criminal" in the seminal John Hughes flick The Breakfast Club, Estevez took the part of Andrew, "The Athlete" instead after Hughes could find no one else to fill the role. Another ensemble film, St. Elmo's Fire came next. Then Estevez made his screen-writing debut with That Was Then... This Is Now, a film in which he also starred.

He then starred in the Stephen King thriller Maximum Overdrive, but the film was a failure. The ambitious young actor added directing to his palette with Wisdom in 1986, but the film was universally panned and struck out at the box office. Estevez quickly rebounded with hits like Stakeout and Young Guns, as well as their subsequent sequels. He tried his hand at directing again with Men at Work before taking on one of his most famous roles as Coach Gordon Bombay in The Mighty Ducks. The enormously popular Disney film spawned sequels and a NHL hockey team of the same name, but Estevez was interested in making weighter films.

He agreed to make a brief appearance in D3: The Mighty Ducks in exchange for Disney helping him finance and distribute another effort as actor-director, The War at Home. Though smiled on by critics, The War at Home received a paltry distribution by Disney and thus went largely unseen. A devastated Estevez considered quitting the business but has ultimately continued to work in films, including a fourth effort as director and star, Rated X, which co-starred brother Charlie Sheen and was a selection at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2006, Bobby, a film about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy that Estevez wrote, directed, and acted in, premiered at the Venice Film Festival and received a seven-minute standing ovation.


D3: The Mighty Ducks (1996): $3,000,000

Was once engaged to Demi Moore. Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1985" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 37. Former brother-in-law of actress Denise Richards. Took a Robert McKee screen-writing course. Uncle of Sam Sheen, Lola Rose Sheen and Cassandra Sheen. Was one of the nine original members of the 1980s "brat pack", along with Judd Nelson, Mare Winningham, Anthony Michael Hall, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy and Andrew McCarthy. Almost went broke while writing the screenplay for Bobby (2006). He and brother Charlie Sheen have both played the son of real father Martin Sheen; Emilio in The War at Home (1996), and Charlie in Wall Street (1987) and two episodes of "Spin City" (1996). Was originally set to play the lead in Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986), but when production shut down for two years, he moved on to other projects. The role then went to his brother Charlie Sheen. He was later cast in Stone's doomed project "Jawbreaker".