Another talent from Hollywood's factory line of fresh-faced actors, Josh Hartnett (below, with actress Kate Beckinsale) has done a fair job fighting from under the bombs of the Japanese Navy - and from under the beam of co-star Ben Affleck's pearly white smile - in Michael Bay's massive misfire, Pearl Harbor.
The eldest of four children, Hartnett was born on July 21, 1978, in San Francisco and moved with his family to St Paul, Minnesota, at an early age. He supplemented his time at South High School in Minneapolis by playing American football and working in a video store, where the acting of the legendary James Stewart caught his eye.
The State University of New York was his next, brief stop. In April 1997, he was lured from study into acting. His chiselled good looks were exploited, first with the short-lived American series Cracker and then in TV commercials and plays.
Things improved in 1998 when Hartnett was cast as Jamie Lee Curtis' son in the dud Halloween: H20, which led to the actor being voted one of Teen People's Magazine's '21 Hottest Stars Under 21'.
This opened more doors, including a role in the teen-slasher flick The Faculty, which brought a modelling contract with the Tommy Hilfiger fashion line. Front covers and billboards followed and Hartnett was cast in Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides (1999). He missed out on a role in Remember The Titans the following year but bounced back with Pearl Harbor and Town And Country - not great films but productions which have kept him in the public eye, nonetheless.
