Tom Berenger is an American actor known mainly for his roles in action films.
Berenger was born as Thomas Michael Moore in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 to an Irish Catholic

Irish Catholic

Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...

 family. Berenger's father was a printer for the Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Sun-Times

The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...

. Berenger has a sister, Susan. He picked "Berenger" as his professional name, after a school friend, because there was already a "Tom Moore" in the Actors' Equity Association

Actors' Equity Association

The Actors' Equity Association , commonly referred to as Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing the world of live theatrical performance, as opposed to film and television performance. However, performers appearing on live stage productions without a book or...

. He graduated from Rich East High School

Rich East High School

Rich East High School or REHS, is a public four-year high school located in Park Forest, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. The Rich East Campus serves the cities of Park Forest, Matteson,Olympia Fields,Chicago Heights, & Richton Park...

 in Park Forest, Illinois

Park Forest, Illinois

Park Forest is a village located south of Chicago in Cook County and Will County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a total population of 23,462...

, in 1967.