Hilary Ann Swank (born July 30, 1974) is an American film actress. She has won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, as Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and as struggling waitress-turned-boxer Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby (2004).
Swank was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her mother, Judy Kay (née Clough), was a secretary and dancer, and her father, Stephen Michael Swank, was an officer in the Air National Guard and later a traveling salesman.
She has a brother, Daniel, who is eight years her senior. Her surname, originally Schwenk, is of German origin. Many of Swank’s family members hail from Ringgold County, Iowa, and her maternal grandmother was of Spanish and Shoshone (Native American) ancestry.
After having lived in Spokane, Washington, Swank’s family moved to a trailer park near Lake Samish in Bellingham, Washington, when Swank was six.
She attended Happy Valley Elementary, Fairhaven Middle, then Sehome High School in Bellingham until she was sixteen.She also competed in the Junior Olympics and the Washington state championships in swimming; she ranked fifth in the state in all-around gymnastics.
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