Catherine
Zeta-Jones (born September 25, 1969) is an Oscar-winning
Welsh actress. Born Catherine Jones in Swansea, West
Glamorgan, Wales, her name stems from those of her
grandmothers; one named Catherine, and the other Zeta,
named after a ship which her great-grandfather had
sailed on. She was one of three children born to Patrick
Jones, a Welsh candy factory worker and Dia Fair,
who was of Irish Catholic extraction; Catherine was
raised a Catholic. Besides English she speaks Welsh,
Spanish and French fluently. As a child, she had a
tracheotomy which left a scar.
Zeta-Jones' stage career began in
childhood. She sang and danced her way to local stardom
as a part of a Catholic congregation's performing
troupe before she was 10, and by 1987 she was starring
in Forty-Second Street as Peggy Saywer in the West
End. Once the show closed, Zeta-Jones travelled to
France, where she received the lead role in French
director Phillippe De Broca's 1001 Nights (a.k.a.
Sheherazade), her feature film debut.
Her exotic beauty, along with her
singing and dancing ability, suggested a promising
future, but it was in a straight acting role, as Mariette
in the successful television adaptation of H. E. Bates'
The Darling Buds of May (1991), that she made her
name. She became famous outside Britain after leading
roles in two movies, The Mask of Zorro (1998) with
Antonio Banderas and Entrapment (1999) with Sean Connery.
It is said that she gained the role in Zorro after
Steven Spielberg saw her performance in the Lifetime
Television event of Titanic, also starring Tim Curry
and Peter Gallagher.
She won an Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actress for the movie Chicago in 2003.
On October 22, 2005, she parodied this fact as guest
host on the TV show Saturday Night Live, surrounded
by four male dancers, mimicking the Bob Fosse-inspired
Chicago-style dancing, suggesting in song that, no
matter how bad she might be that night, "They
Can't Take My Oscar Away."
Apart from her acting career, Zeta-Jones
is also an advertising spokeswoman for the mobile
phone company T-Mobile. She is currently the global
spokeswoman for cosmetics giant, Elizabeth Arden.
Zeta-Jones is married to actor Michael
Douglas, with whom she has two children. Her son,
Dylan Michael Douglas was born August 8, 2000. (Her
American admirers like to think that he is named after
Bob Dylan - a favourite of Douglas - while her British
admirers like to think that Dylan Thomas, also born
in Swansea, was the inspiration, although Dylan is
a reasonably common Welsh firstname). Her daughter,
Carys Zeta Douglas was born April 20, 2003. Zeta-Jones
has determined that her children grow up aware of
their Welsh heritage and has built a seaside dream
home in her hometown of Swansea.
Selected filmography
The Legend of Zorro (2005)
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
The Terminal (2004)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) (voice)
Chicago (2002)
America's Sweethearts (2001)
Traffic (2000)
High Fidelity (2000)
The Haunting (1999)
Entrapment (1999)
The Mask of Zorro (1998)
Titanic (1996) (miniseries)
The Phantom (1996)
Splitting Heirs (1993)
The Darling Buds of May (1991) (TV series)
Trivia
Has the same birthday as husband Michael Douglas.
Douglas is 25 years her senior.
For her role in Chicago, she specifically requested
a 1920s-style short bob haircut, so her face could
be seen and fans wouldn't doubt she did all her dancing
herself.
source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
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