Catherine Zeta Jones Biography

Catherine showed an early interest in the entertainment industry. She began to sing, dance and act in several local theater productions while still a child, and a few years later won the lead role in a new version of the musical 42nd Street. In 1990 she travelled to France to debut in the movies as an actress in Philippe de Broca's "Les mille et une nuits". When she returned to England she was offered work on the television series The Darling Buds of May: the huge success of the programme turned Zeta-Jones in one of the most popular actresses in the UK. In an attempt to succeed in Hollywood, Catherine then moved across the Atlantic, and for a time was involved in several telefilms and miniseries for television. In 1996 she starred in a television version of Titanic before the famous film by James Cameron. She was then discovered by Steven Spielberg, who thought that Zeta-Jones was perfect for the female protagonist in The Mask of Zorro (1998), a movie he was producing. The film, which also featured Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins, raised the British actress to the international level. Thereafter, Catherine began to get prominent roles in other titles like a action film Entrapment, alongside Sean Copnnery, or The Haunting with Liam Neeson and Lili Taylor. Other movies worth mentioning from that time are Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, High Fidelity, The phantom, Traffic and America's Sweethearts. In 2002, Zeta-Jones won her first Oscar as a supporting actress for her work in the musical Chicago, where in addition to acting she could demonstrate her talents in singing and dancing. She has recently starred with George Clooney in Intolerable Cruelty, a comedy from the Coen brothers, The Terminal, where she heads the cast alongside Tom Hanks and Ocean's Twelve, the second part of a saga. In recent years, Catherine has been often surrounded by big names in her films, many of them Spaniards, like in the 2005 sequel "The Legend of the Zorro" where she once again appeared with Antonio Banderas. The year 2007 witnessed the release of No Reservations, an American-Australian co-production starring Aaron Eckhart, where also appeared a young, but already Oscared nominated actress Abigail Breslin. Happy in her marriage with Michael Douglas, the actress of Wales has among her future projects Death Defying Acts, where she appears with Guy Pearce. The great news is that she is negotiating her appearance in Nine, a film in which such actors as Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Sophia Loren have their roles confirmed. Another project in the air is Rachel's Holiday.