Ordinary Angels' star Hilary Swank lived on streets of LA in her car before big break

 

From an early age, actress Hilary Swank had an urge to act. An interest in the craft, coupled with her innate talent, ultimately led Swank to make a big change: leave high school after her sophomore year and move to California.

She and her mother Judy, who had recently separated from her father Stephen, caravanned from Washington to California in pursuit of giving Swank a Hollywood career, but things would not materialize right away.

"In L.A., my mother and I first lived in her Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme on quiet residential streets," she wrote in an essay for The Wall Street Journal.

When we weren’t sleeping in the car, we stayed at the house of a new friend my age whose family had just moved out and were trying to sell their home. We slept on an air mattress."

The "Ordinary Angels" actress said after her mother landed a secretarial position, they were able to rent "a bedroom from a single mother in Burbank."