Catherine Zeta-Jones (born September 25, 1969) is an Oscar-winning Welsh actress. She shares same birthday with her husband Michael Douglas who is 25 years her senior.

Early Life

Born Catherine Jones, in a working class area of Swansea, Wales, she was one of three children born to Patrick Jones, a Welsh factory worker and Dia Fair, who was of Irish Catholic extraction; Catherine was raised a Catholic. She attended Dumbarton House School, Swansea, where she was an average student. 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. As a child, she had a tracheotomy which left a scar.

Acting Career

Catherine 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 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 briefly flirted with a musical career, having a part in Jeff Wayne's 1992 Spartacus. A single, "The Appian Way" featuring her was released but failed to chart. 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.

Controversially, 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.

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 November 18, 2000.

Their 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). 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 in her hometown of Swansea.

Filmography

Les 1001 nuits (1990)
The Darling Buds of May (1991) (TV series)
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)
Splitting Heirs (1993)
Blue Juice (1995)
The Phantom (1996)
Titanic (1996) (miniseries)
The Mask of Zorro (1998)
Entrapment (1999)
The Haunting (1999)
Traffic (2000)
High Fidelity (2000)
America's Sweethearts (2001)
Chicago (2002)
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) (voice)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
The Terminal (2004)
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
The Legend of Zorro (2005)
Coming Out (2006) (also producer)
Rachel's Holiday (2006)
Stompanato (2007)
Mostly Martha (2007)
Ocean's Thirteen (2007)