Growing up in California, Kevin Spacey was a difficult child. Years later, he was asked why, at the age of 14, his parents had shipped him off to military academy following a domestic fracas. "I won't tell you exactly what the incident was that made my parents send me to military school," Spacey replied. "Let's just say it involved my sister's tree-house and some matches."

[Spacey lasted only a few months before being expelled for throwing a tire at a classmate's head -- shortly after winning a Leadership Award. "I didn't like the mentality of military school," he recalled. "I didn't like its violence, and I responded to being hit in the only way I knew how, which was to hit back, and I got thrown out. And I was f---ing delighted."]

[Spacey, a versatile performer, once rotated through all the parts in David Rabe's "Hurlyburly".]