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Catherine Zeta-Jones

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Catherine Zeta-Jones (born 25 September, 1969) is an Academy Award-winning Welsh actress.

Biography

Early life

Born Catherine Jones, in Treboeth, in the parish of Llangyfelach, a working class area of Swansea, Wales, she was the middle child of three children born to Dai (or David) Jones, a Welsh sweet factory owner, and Patricia Fair, who is of Irish-Catholic extraction. Her father has no religious interests and Catherine and her siblings were raised as Roman Catholics.

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.

She attended Dumbarton House School, Swansea, where she was an average student. She left school early without obtaining O levels qualifications to further her acting ambition.

Her name stems from those of her grandmothers; one named Katherine Fair, and the other Zeta Jones, named after a ship which her great-grandfather had sailed on. As a child, she had a tracheotomy which left a scar.

One of her first performances to an audience was to friends and family at her great-aunt Faith O'Brien's house. Catherine used the living room table as her stage.

Career

Zeta-Jones' stage career began in childhood. She was a part of a Catholic congregation's performing troupe before she was 10, and by 1987 she was starring in 42nd Street as Peggy Sawyer 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 (also known as 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 briefly flirted with a musical career, having a part in Jeff Wayne's 1992 Spartacus. A single, "The Appian Way", featured her; it was released but failed to chart. In 1996, she was cast as the aviatrix "Sala" in Paramount's big budget action film, The Phantom, based on the famous comic created by Lee Falk.

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 CBS miniseries Titanic, which also stars Tim Curry and Peter Gallagher.

She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the movie Chicago in 2003. On 22 October, 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.

Private life

Zeta-Jones is married to actor Michael Douglas, with whom she has two children. They were married at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on 18 November, 2000.

Their son, Dylan Michael Douglas, was born 8 August, 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). Their daughter, Carys Zeta Douglas, was born April 20, 2003. Zeta-Jones has decided that her children will grow up aware of their Welsh heritage and has built a seaside home for her parents in her hometown of Swansea. She also wants her children to know the Welsh language (Cymraeg), although she, herself, is not a Welsh-speaker.

Her elder brother, David A. Jones (also known as Cameron Jones), is creative director for a film company, Initial Entertainment. He was an executive producer of Gangs of New York. Catherine's younger brother Lyndon Jones is her personal manager.

Catherine's parents recently moved from their Mayals property to a £2 million cliff top home two miles away, built for them by Catherine.

Filmography

Preceded by Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
2002
for Chicago 		Succeeded by

Trivia

  • Has the same birthday as her husband Michael Douglas, who 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.
  • Her shoe size is 6(UK)/8(US)/39(EUR)
  • Her father's cousin, Robert Sullivan, is married to singer Bonnie Tyler, who is also Welsh.
  • During her Darling Buds of May period, Catherine also helped her cousin promote his "Lazerzone" business in Swansea by appearing as a special guest at open days.
  • Once appeared on Welsh TV channel HTV teaching children how to tap dance.
  • She is a resident of Bermuda.
  • Was unable to attend the funeral of her grandfather, Billy Fair, as she was pregnant and unable to fly.
  • Does not attend many family functions such as weddings as she does not want her presence to take the focus off the event.
  • Her uncle Robert Jones owns Swansea's Škoda car dealership as well as Llanelli A.F.C. football club.
  • Has a niece named Jena Jones. (Daughter of Catherine's brother David Jones) When Jena passed her GCSE exams, Catherine placed an advert in Swansea's Evening Post newspaper to congratulate her on her multiple A* passes.
  • Catherine does not speak Welsh.
  • Is a former girlfriend of former Blue Peter presenter John Leslie, UK actor Angus MacFayden and Hollywood producer Jon Peters, ex-boyfriend of Barbra Streisand
  • A traditional Welsh choir sang at her wedding
  • Her wedding ring includes a Celtic motif and was bought in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth.
  • Showing an example of her 'down to earth' roots, at the 2005 All*Star Cup Golf Tournament held at the Celtic Manor in Newport, Catherine surpised fellow competitors and the media by arriving at the venue in her mother's Skoda car - driven by Michael Douglas.
  • She owns the film company "Milkwood Films" that will put out Coming Out in 2006 in which she will also act, besides having the producers role.
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