Zac Efron - Biography

In a nutshell

There's no denying that Zac Efron is one of those good-looking, all-American actors who has captured the hearts of many. Schoolgirls want to run their fingers through his hair, mothers want to scoop him up and look after him and gay guys want to... well, we can only imagine.

Zac wasn't from a family of starry-eyed performers. Far from it. His dad was an engineer and his mother a secretary. His dad steered him towards acting when he was just 11 and managed to blag some school theatre roles before Zac's drama teacher sent his details to an agent in Los Angeles and things developed from there.

You're probably an alien if you don't know that Disney's High School Musical propelled Zac from zero to quite-frankly-an-amazingly-worldwide-hit-hero. The 2006 film wasn't expected to perform very well but exceeded all expectations.

Although Zac's singing skills have been drawn into question he was signed for the remake Hairspray movie in 2007.

Of course, where there's popularity there's sequels. High School Musical 2 was released in August 2007 and High School Musical 3 in 2008 and they too raked in a lot of money ? with various lunchboxes, pens and assorted merchandise flooding toy shops everywhere.

Zak has been dating his HSM co-star Vanessa Hudgens since 2005. Hard luck, ladies.

Did you know?