Pitt was born William Bradley Pitt on December 18, 1963, in Shawnee, Oklahoma, the eldest of three children in a devoutly Southern Baptist family, and grew up in Springfield, Missouri. His father, Bill Pitt, owned a trucking company, and his mother, Jane Pitt, was a family counselor. Pitt originally aspired to be an advertising art director, studying journalism at the University of Missouri.