Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones CBE (/ˈziːtə/; born 25 September 1969)[a] is a Welsh actress. Recognised for her versatility, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Tony Award. In 2010, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her film and humanitarian work.
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Actress
1981–present
2
Born and raised in Swansea, Zeta-Jones aspired to be an actress from a young age. As a child, she played roles in the West End productions of the musicals Annie and Bugsy Malone. She studied musical theatre at the Arts Educational Schools, London, and made her stage breakthrough with a leading role in a 1987 production of 42nd Street. Her screen debut came in the unsuccessful French-Italian film 1001 Nights (1990), and she went on to find greater success as a regular in the British television series The Darling Buds of May (1991–1993). Dismayed at being typecast as the token pretty girl in British films, Zeta-Jones relocated to Los Angeles. She established herself in Hollywood with roles that highlighted her sex appeal, such as in the action film The Mask of Zorro (1998) and the heist film Entrapment (1999).
Zeta-Jones received critical acclaim for her performances as a vengeful pregnant woman in Traffic (2000) and a murderous singer in the musical Chicago (2002), winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the latter. She starred in high-profile films for much of the decade, including the black comedy Intolerable Cruelty (2003), the heist film Ocean's Twelve (2004), the comedy The Terminal (2004), and the romantic comedy No Reservations (2007). Parts in smaller-scale features were followed by a decrease in workload, during which she returned to the stage and played an ageing actress in a Broadway production of A Little Night Music (2009), winning a Tony Award. Zeta-Jones worked intermittently in the subsequent decades, starring in the films Side Effects (2013), Red 2 (2013) and Dad's Army (2016). She took on supporting roles in television, portraying Olivia de Havilland in Feud: Bette & Joan (2017) and Morticia Addams in Wednesday (2022–present).
Aside from acting, Zeta-Jones is a brand endorser and supports various charitable causes. Her struggle with depression and bipolar II disorder has been well documented by the media. She is married to actor Michael Douglas, with whom she has two children.
Career
1990–1996: Screen debut and career struggles
In 1990, Zeta-Jones made her film debut in the director Philippe de Broca's film 1001 Nights. An adaptation of the Persian fable One Thousand and One Nights, the French-Italian production recounts the tale from the perspective of Scheherazade (Zeta-Jones), one of the brides of King Sharir (Thierry Lhermitte).[19] 1001 Nights did not perform well at the box office, and according to de Broca's obituary in The Daily Telegraph, the film "is best remembered for its enjoyable nude scenes."[20] Greater success followed when she starred opposite David Jason and Pam Ferris in the ITV period comedy-drama television series The Darling Buds of May from 1991 to 1993. Adapted from H. E. Bates' novel of the same name, Zeta-Jones played the role of the eldest daughter of a family living in the countryside in 1950s Britain.[4][21] The series was the highest-rated television show in the country at the time, and Zeta-Jones gained wide public recognition for it. "Literally, with one hour of television my life completely changed. I couldn't go anywhere", she remarked.[12][22]
Following a brief appearance as Beatriz Enríquez de Arana in the unsuccessful adventure film Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992),[23] Zeta-Jones featured as a belly dancer in disguise in a 1992 episode of George Lucas' television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.[24] She next took on the part of an aspiring duchess in Splitting Heirs (1993), a farcical period drama from the director Robert Young about two children (Eric Idle and Rick Moranis) who are separated at birth. Reviews of the film were negative, though the critic Vincent Canby of The New York Times found her to be "very funny".[25][26] In 1994, Zeta-Jones played the melancholic Eustacia Vye in the television film The Return of the Native, an adaptation of the 1878 novel of the same name by Thomas Hardy, and the wife of Lloyd Owen's character in the television war drama The Cinder Path.[27][28] She was then cast as the eponymous protagonist of the 1995 television biopic Catherine the Great. In a mixed review, critic Lisa Nesselson of Variety found the miniseries to be "brightly colored" but "wooden and hollow", though thought that Zeta-Jones "imparts a certain grace and resolve to her sovereign-in-the-making".[29] She next appeared as the pragmatic girlfriend of Sean Pertwee's character in Blue Juice (1995), publicised as Britain's first surf film, which the critic Leonard Maltin dismissed as a "superficial and predictable" production.[30][31]
Dismayed at being typecast as the token pretty girl in British films, Zeta-Jones relocated to Los Angeles, stating: "There was all this fuss about who I was and wasn't dating. I was a pretty face and a big bust and nothing else. People in the business believed what they read about me. So I decided to move away and start again."[32] She believed that her anonymity in America helped her obtain roles on merit and not due to her public image.[12][32] She earned the part of Sala, the henchwoman to the villainous Drax (Treat Williams) in the superhero film The Phantom (1996), starring Billy Zane in the titular role.[33] A reviewer for Variety considered Zeta-Jones to be a standout in her part, but the film received a negative critical reception and earned little at the box office.[33][34] The CBS television miniseries Titanic (1996), however, was better received.[32] Starring opposite Peter Gallagher and George C. Scott, she played the lead role of Isabella Paradine, a young mother who engages in an extramarital affair aboard the ill-fated RMS Titanic.[35]
