He earned millions, slept with women and men, used drugs and drank. Then a serious diagnosis changed everything

Charlie Sheen turns 61 as a man almost unrecognizable from the celebrity who dominated Hollywood headlines 15 years ago. He says he has been sober for eight years. Recently, he published his memoir, The Book of Sheen, and took part in a Netflix documentary, efforts to reclaim control over a story that has long been told through scandal.

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rock star from Mars

Carlos Irwin Estévez, known around the world as Charlie Sheen, once seemed to have everything. The youngest son of acting legend Martin Sheen, he came from a dynasty built for the screen. His rise in the late 1980s was rapid. Oliver Stone cast him first in Platoon, the Oscar-winning film set amid the horrors of the Vietnam War, and later in Wall Street, where Sheen played a young man caught between a greedy mentor and an honest father portrayed by Martin Sheen.

Roles in Young Guns and the sports comedy Major League established him as a versatile and charismatic star. He moved comfortably between drama and comedy, showing that his famous surname was not his only asset. His defining opportunity arrived with the sitcom Two and a Half Men. He played Charlie Harper, a hedonistic jingle writer living in a Malibu beach house, surrounded by women and alcohol. The character was a polished, comic version of Sheen's own public image, and tens of millions of viewers embraced it.

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tiger blood

The show carried him into a financial stratosphere. Sheen became television's highest-paid actor, earning $1.8 million per episode, while his wealth peaked at an estimated $150 million. He appeared to be living the life he played on television. But beneath that commercial triumph, years of excess were moving toward a collapse. In early 2011, a series of bizarre interviews turned his breakdown into global news. He described himself as a "rock star from Mars" with "tiger blood" and "Adonis DNA," as his public image and career began to unravel.

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Adonis DNA