Everyone knows Haley Joel Osment as the damaged, fearful kid in The Sixth Sense, endlessly persecuted by Bruce Willis. "I see dead people" will surely be quoted back to the little fella till his dying day. Yet, having begun his professional life at the age of 4, Osment has a right to feel peeved that he's known worldwide for just that one role. The Sixth Sense is far from his only smash hit, and his CV is just as long as that of Jude Law, his co-star in Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence. What's more, his box office hit-rate is well in excess of $100 million per movie, only slightly behind that of Harrison Ford. The kid's got something, he really has.

What he's got was noticed early. Born on the 10th of April, 1988, in Los Angeles, Haley's brightness was quickly clear to his parents - actor Michael Eugene Osment and teacher Theresa. Eugene fondly recalls his surprise at hearing his son, like most 3-year-olds very keen on dinosaurs, correctly pronounce the word "paleontologist". Haley is in fact still interested in lizards, keeping a couple of leopard geckos from Pakistan. He certainly chose the right career for meeting reptiles.

Eugene was a budding stage actor, so it wasn't really his connections that gave Haley his start in film. What happened was infinitely more fortunate. Spotted by casting directors in the play-area of a furniture store, Haley was asked to audition for a Pizza Hut ad. He got the part, the ad was screened and - much to the chagrin of any actor who's had to pay their dues - it was noticed by director Robert Zemeckis. Zemeckis was still riding high on the success of the Back To The Future series, and looking to cast his next movie, a high-budget feast of Americana called Forrest Gump. Again, Haley walked into the part of Tom Hanks' son and, though onscreen for a very short period, was spellbindingly memorable.

Credit: tiscali.co.uk