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Catherine Zeta Jones extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Catherine Zeta-Jones
Zeta-Jones in February 2005
Born	Catherine Zeta Jones 25 September 1969 (1969-09-25) (age 39) Swansea, Wales, UK
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1984–present
Spouse(s)	Michael Douglas (2000–present)

Catherine Zeta-Jones (pronounced /ˈziːtə/ "zeeta"; 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.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Personal life 4 In the media 5 Filmography 6 References 7 External links

Early life

Zeta-Jones was born Catherine Zeta Jones¹² 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.³⁴ Her name stems from those of her grandmothers — her maternal grandmother, Catherine Fair, and her paternal grandmother, Zeta Jones (1917 – 14 August 2008).⁵

Zeta-Jones was raised Catholic.²⁶ 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.

Career

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 Sawyer and the understudy fell ill. She also played Mae Jones in the Kurt Weill opera 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 1997, 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.⁷ 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.⁷ 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."⁸ 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".⁹ 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."¹⁰ 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.^{citation needed}

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.

Personal life

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."¹¹ 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.¹² 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.¹ 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 (3 km) further west along the Swansea coast, paid for by their daughter.

In the media

Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders parodied Zeta-Jones as a vacuous über-celebrity named Catherine Spartacus-Zeta-Douglas-Jones on their show French & Saunders in the series Back With a Vengeance. Catherine Spartacus-Zeta-Douglas-Jones alternates between a strong Welsh accent and a strong American accent and uses Welsh-language phrases when she speaks.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1990	Les 1001 nuits	Sheherazade
1991	Out of the Blue	Chirsty	BBC Television Play
1991-93	The Darling Buds of May	Mariette
1992	Christopher Columbus: The Discovery	Beatriz
	The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Daredevils of the Desert	Maya
1993	Splitting Heirs	Kitty
	The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles	Maya
1994	The Cinder Path	Victoria Chapman
	The Return of the Native	Eustacia Vye
1995	Catherine the Great	Catherine II
	Blue Juice	Chloe
1996	The Phantom	Sala
	Titanic	Isabella Paradine	TV mini-series
1998	The Mask of Zorro	Elena Montero / Elena Murrieta (Elena de la Vega)
1999	Entrapment	Virginia Baker
	The Haunting	Theo
2000	High Fidelity	Charlie Nicholson
	Traffic	Helena Ayala	Nominated - Golden Globe
2001	America's Sweethearts	Gwen Harrison
2002	Chicago	Velma Kelly	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Nominated - Golden Globe
2003	Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas	Marina	Voice role
	Intolerable Cruelty	Marylin Rexroth
2004	The Terminal	Amelia Warren
	Ocean's Twelve	Isabel Lahiri
2005	The Legend of Zorro	Elena de la Vega Murrieta
2007	No Reservations	Kate Armstrong
2008	Death Defying Acts	Mary McGarvie
2009	The Rebound	Sandy

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Catherine Zeta-Jones

• Catherine Zeta-Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• Catherine Zeta-Jones at People.com
• Catherine Zeta-Jones at TV.com

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v • d • e Screen Actors Guild Award - Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role Helen Mirren (2001) · Catherine Zeta-Jones (2002) · Renée Zellweger (2003) · Cate Blanchett (2004) · Rachel Weisz (2005) · Jennifer Hudson (2006) · Ruby Dee (2007) · Kate Winslet (2008) Complete list · (1994-2000) · (2001-present)

Persondata
NAME	Zeta-Jones, Catherine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Jones, Catherine Zeta
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Actress, singer
DATE OF BIRTH	25 September 1969
PLACE OF BIRTH	Swansea, Wales, UK
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH