Birth
Name: Julie Fiona
Roberts
Place
of Birth: Smyrna,
Georgia, USA
Date
of Birth: October
28, 1967
Horoscope
Sign: Scorpio
Born during the late '60s, Georgia
native Julia Roberts was raised
in a fervently pro-theater environment.
Her parents regularly hosted acting
and writing workshops, and both
of the Roberts children (Julia and
her brother Eric) showed an interest
in the performing arts at an early
age. Ironically enough, Eric was
the first to break into film; in
1978, one year after their father
died of lung cancer at 47, Eric
Roberts starred in director Frank
Pierson's psychological drama King
of the Gypsies. Though her older
brother would go on to have a solid
acting career, it was, of course,
Julia Roberts who earned a spot
among Hollywood's elite.
After making her film debut in
Blood Red -- which wouldn't be released
until 1989, despite having been
completed in 1986 -- and appearing
in several late '80s television
features, Roberts got her first
real break in the 1988 made-for-cable
drama Satisfaction. That role, consequently,
led to her first significant supporting
role -- a feisty pizza parlor waitress
in 1989's Mystic Pizza with Annabeth
Gish, Lili Taylor, and a then 19-year-old
Matt Damon. While Mystic Pizza was
not a star-making film for Roberts,
it certainly helped earn her the
credentials she needed to land the
part of Shelby, an ill-fated would-be
mother in Steel Magnolias. The 1989
tearjerker found her acting alongside
Sally Field and Shirley MacLaine,
and culminated in an Oscar nomination
for Roberts.
While the success of Steel Magnolias
played no small part in launching
Roberts' career, and undoubtedly
secured her role in the mediocre
Flatliners (1990) with former flame
Kiefer Sutherland, it was director
Garry Marshall's romantic comedy
Pretty Woman with Richard Gere that
served as her true breakthrough
role. Roberts' part in Pretty Woman
(a good-hearted prostitute who falls
in love with a millionaire client)
made the young actress a household
name and cemented what would become
a permanent spot in tabloid fodder.
Roberts broke off her engagement
with Sutherland in 1991, just three
days before they were scheduled
to be married, and surprised the
American public in 1993, when she
began her two-year marriage to country
singer Lyle Lovett. Roberts' personal
life kept her name in the spotlight
despite a host of uneven performances
throughout the early '90s (neither
1991's Dying Young or Sleeping With
the Enemy garnered much acclaim),
as did a reputed feud with Steven
Spielberg during the filming of
Hook (1991).
Luckily, Roberts made decidedly
less embarrassing headlines in 1993,
when her role alongside future Oscar
winner Denzel Washington in The
Pelican Brief reaffirmed her status
as a dramatic actress. Her career,
however, took a turn back to the
mediocre throughout the following
year; both Prêt-à-Porter
and I Love Trouble proved commercial
flops, and Mary Reilly (1996) fizzled
at the box office as well. The downward
spiral reversed directions once
again with 1996's Michael Collins
and Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson,
and led to several successful comic
roles including Notting Hill with
Hugh Grant, Runaway Bride, and most
notably, My Best Friend's Wedding
with Rupert Everett and a then virtually
unknown Cameron Diaz.
Roberts' biggest success didn't
present itself until 2000, though,
when she delivered an Oscar-winning
performance playing the title role
in Steven Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich.
The film, based on the true story
of Erin Brockovich, a single mother
who, against all odds, won a heated
battle against corporate environmental
offenders, earned Roberts a staggering
20-million-dollar salary. Officially
the highest paid actress in Hollywood,
Roberts went on to star in 2001's
America's Sweethearts with Billy
Crystal, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and
John Cusack, as well as The Mexican
with Brad Pitt. While on the set
of The Mexican, Roberts met cameraman
Danny Moder, whom she would marry
in 2001 almost immediately after
ending a four-year relationship
with fellow actor Benjamin Bratt.
Indeed, 2001 was a banner year for
Roberts; in addition to America's
Sweethearts and The Mexican, Roberts
starred in the crime caper Ocean's
Eleven, in which she rejoined former
co-stars Brad Pitt and Matt Damon,
and acted for the first time with
George Clooney and Don Cheadle.
Julia Roberts worked with Soderbergh
once again in 2002's Full Frontal,
which, despite a solid cast including
Mary McCormack and Catherine Keener,
among others, did not even begin
to fare as well as Erin Brockovich.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
(2002), which featured Roberts as
a femme fatale alongside George
Clooney, Sam Rockwell, and Drew
Barrymore did much better, and preceded
2003's Mona Lisa Smile with young
Hollywood's Julia Stiles, Kirsten
Dunst, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. In
2004, Roberts is slated to film
the sequel to Ocean's Eleven --
the aptly titled Ocean's Twelve.
~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
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