Catherine Zeta-Jones born 25 September 1969 is a Welsh actress, currently based in the United States. She began her career on stage at an early age. After starring in a number of UK and US television films and small roles in films, she came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as The Phantom, The Mask of Zorro, and Entrapment in the late 1990s. She won an Academy Award, BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for portraying Velma Kelly in the 2002 film adaptation of Chicago. Zeta-Jones was born Catherine Zeta Jones (note the hyphen omission) in Swansea, South Wales. Her mother, Patricia (née Fair), was an Irish seamstress, and her father, David "Dai" Jones (b. 1946), was a Welsh sweet factory owner. Her name stems from those of her grandmothers — her maternal grandmother, Catherine Fair, and her paternal grandmother, Zeta Jones (1917 – 14 August 2008). Zeta-Jones was raised Catholic. After her parents won £100,000 at bingo in the 1980s, they moved to St. Andrews Drive in Mayals, an upper-class area of Swansea. Zeta-Jones left school early to further her acting ambitions without obtaining O levels and went on to attend The Arts Educational Schools in Chiswick, west London, for a full-time three-year course in musical theatre.
Zeta-Jones' stage career began in childhood. She often performed at friend's and family functions when she was younger. She was part of a Catholic congregation's performing troupe before she was 10. Zeta-Jones made her professional acting debut when she played the lead in Annie, a production at Swansea Grand Theatre. She also starred in a version of Bugsy Malone as Tallulah. When she was 14, Mickey Dolenz stopped by the Grand Theatre to audition her for The Pyjama Game. He was so impressed with her performance that she was offered the opportunity to join his show for the rest of the tour. By 1987 Zeta-Jones was starring in 42nd Street as Peggy Sawyer in the West End. Zeta-Jones was cast in the leading role after the actress playing Peggy S
awyer and the understudy fell ill. She also played Mae Jones in a Kurt Weill opera called Street Scene with the English National Opera at the London Coliseum Theatre in 1989. Once the show closed, the actress traveled to France, where she received the lead role in French director Philippe de Broca's 1001 Nights (also known as Sheherazade), her feature film debut.
Her singing and dancing ability suggested a promising future, but it was in a straight acting role, as Mariette in the successful British television adaptation of H. E. Bates' The Darling Buds of May, that brought her to public attention. She briefly flirted with a musical career, beginning with a part in the 1992 album: Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of Spartacus, from which the single "For All Time" was released in 1992. It reached #36 in the UK charts. She went on to release the singles "In the Arms of Love," "I Can't Help Myself," and a duet with David Essex, "True Love Ways.", reaching #38 in the UK singles chart in 1994. She also starred in an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, as well as in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.
She continued to find moderate success with a number of television projects, including The Return of the Native (1994) and the mini-series Catherine the Great (1995). She also appeared in Splitting Heirs (1993), a comedy starring Eric Idle, Rick Moranis and John Cleese.
In 1996, she was cast as the evil aviatrix "Sala" in the action film, The Phantom, based on the comic created by Lee Falk. Her character did her best to kill Billy Zane's Phantom, while assisting villain Xander Drax (Treat Williams) in taking over the world with a weapon of doom. The following year, she starred in the CBS mini-series Titanic, which also starred Tim Curry and Peter Gallagher. Steven Spielberg, who noted her performance in the mini-series, recommended her to Martin Campbell, the director of The Mask of Zorro. Zeta-Jones subsequently landed a lead role in the film, alongside fellow Welsh compatriot Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas. She learned dancing, riding, sword-fighting and took part in dialect classes to play her role as Elena. Commenting on her performance, Variety noted, "Zeta-Jones is bewitchingly lovely as the center of everyone's attention, and she throws herself into the often physical demands of her role with impressive grace." In 1999, she co-starred with Sean Connery in the film Entrapment, and alongside Liam Neeson and Lili Taylor in The Haunting.
In 2000, she starred in the critically acclaimed Traffic with future husband Michael Douglas. Traffic earned praise from the press, with the critic for the Dallas Observer calling the movie "a remarkable achievement in filmmaking, a beautiful and brutal work". Zeta-Jones' performance earned her her first Golden Globe nomination, as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture.
In 2002, Zeta-Jones played Velma Kelly in the film Chicago. Velma Kelly is a glamorous Chicago jazz stage performer who has to do time after killing her sister and her husband. Her performance was praised by the press, among them were the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which stated, "Zeta-Jones makes a wonderfully statuesque and bitchy saloon goddess." Zeta-Jones won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. For her role in Chicago, she specifically requested a 1920s-style short bob wig, so her face could be seen and fans would not doubt she did all her dancing herself.
In 2003, she voiced Marina in Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas opposite Brad Pitt, as well as starring in Intolerable Cruelty with George Clooney. In 2004 she was in The Terminal, as well as Ocean's Twelve, the sequel to Ocean's Eleven. In 2005, she reprised her role as Elena in The Legend of Zorro, the sequel to The Mask of Zorro. In 2007, she starred in the romantic comedy No Reservations, a remake of the German film Mostly Martha. She starred in a biopic about legendary magician Harry Houdini: Death Defying Acts, directed by Gillian Armstrong and alongside with Guy Pearce and Saoirse Ronan. In 2009, she will star in a romantic comedy The Rebound, a film by Bart Freundlich; in which she plays a 40 year old mother of two who falls in love with a younger man played by Justin Bartha.
Apart from her acting career, Zeta-Jones is also an advertising spokeswoman, currently the global spokeswoman for cosmetics giant Elizabeth Arden. She has appeared in numerous TV commercials for the phone company T-Mobile. She is also the spokeswoman for DiModolo jewelry. Zeta-Jones is married to actor Michael Douglas, exactly 25 years her senior. She claims that when they met, he used the line "I'd like to father your children." They were married at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on 18 November 2000. A traditional Welsh choir (Côr Cymraeg Rehoboth) sang at their wedding. Her Welsh gold wedding ring includes a Celtic motif and was purchased in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth The couple have two children. Their son, Dylan Michael Douglas (named after Dylan Thomas), was born on 8 August 2000; Zeta-Jones's pregnancy was incorporated into Traffic. Their daughter, Carys Zeta Douglas, was born on 20 April 2003. Zeta-Jones has two brothers, David and Lyndon. Her father's cousin is married to singer Bonnie Tyler, from nearby Neath, Wales. Her uncle owns Swansea's Škoda car dealership as well as Llanelli A.F.C. football club. Her younger brother, Lyndon Jones, is her personal manager and producer for Milkwood Films. Zeta-Jones's parents recently moved from their Mayals property to a £2 million home two miles further west along the Swansea coast, paid for by their daughter.
Claire Catherine Danes born on April 12, 1979 in Manhattan in New York is a Golden Globe Award-winning and Emmy Award-nominated American film, television, and theater actress. She attended the Dalton School. She has a brother, Asa, who graduated from Oberlin College and works as a litigation attorney for the law firm of Paul Hastings. Danes attended the exclusive private high school Lycée Français de Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California, and later attended Yale University (her father's alma mater) for two years as a psychology major, starting in 1998. She dropped out of Yale to focus on her film career. Danes is perhaps most famous as Angela Chase in the 1994 television drama series My So-Called Life, for which she won a Golden Globe Award and received an Emmy nomination, followed by her role as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet. Her first role in an animated feature came in 1999 with the English version of Princess Mononoke. During the same year, she took the lead role in Brokedown Palace, alongside Kate Beckinsale and Bill Pullman. She cites Meryl Streep as a mentor and major influence in her acting. In 2002, Danes starred opposite Susan Sarandon and Kieran Culkin in Igby Goes Down. She later co-starred as Meryl Streep's daughter in the Oscar-nominated The Hours, with Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Ed Harris. The following year, she was cast in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines; and Stage Beauty, in 2004. She earned critical acclaim in 2005 when she starred in Steve Martin's Shopgirl alongside Martin and Jason Schwartzman, and in The Family Stone opposite Sarah Jessica P.jpg)
arker and Diane Keaton. In 2007, Danes will appear in the fantasy epic Stardust opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert DeNiro, and Sienna Miller, and in The Flock, opposite Richard Gere. Danes appeared in Off-Broadway plays including Happiness, Punk Ballet, and Kids On Stage, in which she choreographed her own solo dance.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg){kind=link}