Shia Saide LaBeouf (pronounced  "SHY-uh luh-BUFF"; born June 11 1986 is a Daytime Emmy Award and Bafta-winning American actor and comedian. After growing up in California, he became known with a starring role in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens. He made the transition to film roles withHoles, a box office success, and had supporting roles in Constantine, I Robot, and The Greatest Game ever Played.

Film producer and director Steven Spielberg cast LaBeouf in starring roles in the 2007 films Disturbia and Transformers, as well as 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Scull andEagle Eye. Several media publications have speculated that LaBeouf, whose screen persona was described by Time magazine as that of the "scrappy kid next door", would become a major film star throughout 2008.

LaBeouf was born in Los Angeles, california, the only child of Shayna (nee Saide), a dancer and ballerina turned visual artist and clothing/jewelry designer, and Jeffrey Craig LaBeouf, a Vietnam War veteran who "drifted" from job to job, working as a mime at a circus and as a rodeo clown Shia LaBeouf's New York-born mother is Jewish and his father is a Cajun (once described by LaBeouf as a "Raqin'Cajun"). LaBeouf was raised in theJewish religeon and had a Bar Mitzah. The name Shia isHebrew for "gift from God" and the surname LaBeouf is a variation of "le boeuf," theFrench term for "the ox" or "the beef." LaBeouf has said that he comes from "five generations of performers" and was "acting when [he] came out of the womb". LaBeouf's maternal grandfather, who shared his first name, was a comedian who worked in the Borscht Belt of the Catskill Mountains, and his paternal grandmother was a Beatnik poet and lesbian who associated with Allen .Ginsberg. LaBeouf has described his parents as "hippies", his father as "tough as nails and a different breed of man", and his upbringing as similar to a "hippy lifestyle", stating that his parents were "pretty weird people, but they loved me and I loved them". LaBeouf's father used to grow cannabis , and the two smoked marijuana together when LaBeouf was ten. LaBeouf has also said that his father was "on drugs" during his childhood, being addicted to heroin and placed in drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction, while LaBeouf's mother was "trying to hold down the fort". His parents eventually divorced, and he had what he has described as a "good childhood", growing up poor with his mother (who worked selling fabrics and brooches) in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California.

Education

LaBeouf attended a predominantly Latino and African-American school. Theatrically, LaBeouf attended 32nd Street Visual and Performing Arts Magnet school in Los Angeles (LAUSD) and Alexader Hamilton High School, although he received most of his education from tutors. Following high-school, LaBeouf was accepted to Yale University, but declined, later remarking that he is "getting the kind of education you don't get at school", although he would like to attend college.