American actor, film director, and writer,Emilio Estevez has an estimated net worth of $15 million. Both a member of Hollywood royalty and the Brat Pack, Emilio Estevez had the odds (and the press) against him when it came to forging a long-term career in show business. Yet, though he did become the butt of many jokes, Estevez has had the last laugh: he grew up into a prolific, if not acclaimed, actor/writer/director who managed to sidestep the celebrity pratfalls that befell his family and his Brat Pack colleagues.

Born in New York on May 12, 1962, Estevez is the eldest son of actor Martin Sheen (formerly known as Ramon Estevez) and his wife, Janet. He grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side with his two younger brothers, Ramon and Charlie Sheen, and his younger sister, Renée. Though Estevez started attending school in the New York public-school system, he transferred to a prestigious private academy once his father's career blossomed. In 1968, after Sheen landed a starring role in Catch-22 (1970), the family moved west to Malibu, CA. There, the young Estevez began writing short stories and poems. By the time he turned eight, he had already submitted a script to Rod Serling's Night Gallery television series (it was, unfortunately, rejected).

When Estevez was 11, his father bought the family a portable movie camera. Estevez, his brother Charlie, and their friends, Sean and Chris Penn, and Chad and Rob Lowe, used it to make short films, which Estevez would often write. He then began acting in all the junior-high-school plays, including The Dumb Waiter, Hello Out There, and Bye, Bye, Birdie. While accompanying his father to the Philippine set of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), Estevez got his first professional acting role as a messenger boy in the film. His scene, however, did not make the picture's final cut. After returning home to attend Santa Monica High School, Estevez grew interested in sports and did not become involved with the drama department until his senior year. Uninspired by the usual high-school productions, he wrote an original play and drafted Sean Penn to direct it. Titled Echoes of an Era, the story was based on the life of a Vietnam vet whom Estevez met while staying in the Philippines. Around the same time, he landed his first professional stage role opposite his father in Mr. Roberts at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Jupiter, FL.

Estevez made his small-screen debut right after graduating from high school. He appeared in the ABC Afterschool Special Seventeen Going on Nowhere (1980) before joining his father in the cast of To Climb a Mountain (1981), an installment of the religious television series Insight.

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