Julia Roberts

Full Name - Julia Roberts
Born- 28 October 1967
Where- Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Awards- Won 1 Oscar, 3 Golden Globes, 1 BAFTA and 1 Emmy nomination
Height- 5' 9"

Julia Roberts Bio

Having snapped up a Best Actress Golden Globe award for her role in Erin Brockovich, Julia Roberts also repeated the feat at the 2001 Oscars. The award was well deserved. As the real-life self-made lawyer, remorselessly hunting down corporate polluters, she was exceptional, finally shaking off her reputation for shining only in the lightest of romantic comedies.

Julia was born Julie Fiona Roberts in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 28, 1967.Her father, Walter, was an actor and writer who'd run a touring theatre and founded the Atlanta Actors And Writers Workshop (aided by Julia's actress mother Betty).

Walter, also a vacuum cleaner salesman, was divorced from Betty when Julie was only 5, Betty quickly getting remarried to Michael Motes and moving the family to Smyrna, a suburb of Atlanta.

Here young Julie (she's left-handed, by the way) attended the Fitzhugh Lee Elementary School, Griffin Middle School and Campbell High School, in her free time working in a shoe store and an ice cream shop. Two events in this period left a deep and lasting mark. One was the death from cancer of her father, Walter when she was just ten. The other was the success of her actor brother, Eric, ten years her senior. Previous to this, Julia's love of animals had set her sights on becoming a vet. Now she decided to follow in her father and brother's footsteps.

After graduation, she took off for New York City, where she joined her older sister Lisa, herself an aspiring actress (Julia also has a younger half-sister, Nancy Motes). While attending acting classes, she signed on with the Click modelling agency, financing her dream by selling her extraordinary looks, and changed her name to Julia when, applying for a SAG card, she discovered there already was a Julie Roberts. Her first big break was engineered by brother Eric who got her a part in his movie Blood Red in 1986. Some break - the film was made, but shelved and not released till 1989. In the meantime, Julia struggled on, appearing in TV series Miami Vice and Crime Story (she'd later appear in both Sesame Street and Friends), and taking movie roles in Firehouse (a Police Academy-style farce), Baja Oklahoma (starring Lesley Ann Warren as a barmaid dreaming of singing her way to the Grand Ole Opry), and Satisfaction (the dubious tale of an all-girl high school rock band).

Now success came fast. Julia received great critical acclaim for her part in Mystic Pizza, a rites of passage drama set in small-town Connecticut. Then, as Sally Field's diabetic daughter in Steel Magnolias, starring alongside such luminaries as Dolly Parton and Shirley MacLaine, she won a Golden Globe and found herself Oscar-nominated for the first time. This must have felt like a career-peak, then suddenly her next movie turned her into a fully-fledged phenomenon.

As a harlot with a heart in Pretty Woman (she was described as "an Audrey Hepburn who gave head"), wooed by suave businessman Richard Gere , Roberts was innocent, fragile and funny, and an instant worldwide sensation. At the same time, as said earlier, she dug herself a hole it would take a decade to escape. Her problem was that her naturally winning smile, kooky laugh and gawky naivety had such an effect on the public they'd accept nothing else from her. And, still fairly inexperienced as an actress, she as yet had little else to offer. Pretty Woman did though win her another Golden Globe and another Oscar nomination.

She did stay close to the top of the heap. Director Joel Schumacher - in his earlier life a designer and shop-window dresser - made her look fantastic in Flatliners and Dying Young. But her roles in Hook, The Pelican Brief and I Love Trouble saw her popularity slowly decreasing (she actually turned down the Sharon Stone role in Basic Instinct, as she'd later refuse the Gwyneth Paltrow part in Shakespeare In Love). Now her love-life took centre-stage. Her much-publicized engagement to Keifer Sutherland was broken off in 1991, and she fled to Ireland with Sutherland's friend Jason Patric. Next came country star Lyle Lovett who she married in 1993 and divorced two years later. Trying out more serious roles - as Dr Jekyll's housemaid in Mary Reilly and a beleaguered Irish patriot in Michael Collins - she grew as an actress, but still failed to convince either the public or critics.