Charlie Sheen was born Carlos Irwin Estévez on September 3, 1965, in New York City. His father, Martin Sheen, at the time was an actor just breaking into the business with performances on Broadway. His mother, Janet Sheen, was a former New York art student who had met Charlie's father right after he had moved to Manhattan. Martin and Janet had three other children, Emilio Estevez, Renée Estevez, and Ramon Estevez, all of whom became actors.
At a young age, Charlie took an interest in his father's acting career. When he was nine, he was given a small part in his dad's movie The Execution of Private Slovik (1974) (TV). In 1977, he was in the Phillipines where his dad suffered a near-fatal heart attack on the set of Apocalypse Now (1979).