Michael Vartan

Michael Vartan was born on 27th November 1968 in France, the only child of a Eddie Vartan, a Bulgarian-born musician of Armenian-Hungarian decent, and Doris Vartan (nee' Pucher) a Jewish immigrant who was born in Poland. His parents divorced when he was only five. He spent his childhood shuttling between France (where his father, a musician, lived) and the United States (where his mother lived). At the age of eighteen, after deciding against joining the French military service (mandatory for all males above 18 in France) Michael shifted to the States. He hadn't really thought about becoming an actor. He enrolled in an acting school after being told by many people that he had the potential for it. He made his acting debut in the French film Un homme et deux femmes (1991) and followed that with another French film called Promenades d'été (1992). It was with the Italian film Fiorile (1993), in which he played (rather ironically), a French soldier that he made his international debut. He considers The Pallbearer (1996), in which he starred with David Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow to be his first big American movie.