Catherine Zeta Jones BiographyIt seems like a twist of fate that pulled together Catherine Zeta Jones and her husband Michael Douglas. Not only were they born on the same day, twenty-five years apart, but she appeared in the musical Spartacus, thirty-two years after Douglas’s father, Kirk Douglas, appeared in the movie.
Born Catherine Jones on September 25, 1969, in Swansea, West Glamorgan in Wales, United Kingdom. She was named after her two grandmothers. She was the middle of three children to be born to her father, Dai Jones, and her mother, Patricia Fair. When she was young, Zeta Jones became ill with a virus, which gave her breathing difficulties, leading to a tracheotomy which left her with a small scar to her throat area. Her father’s cousin is married to singer Bonnie Tyler, who hails from the same area of Wales, and her uncle owns a Škoda car dealership and the Llanelli A.F.C. football club. As a child she was always putting on plays for the neighborhood, and eventually she quit school to attend a three year course in musical theater, and then starred onstage in Annie and Bugsy Malone.
Originally cast as the second understudy to the lead in 42nd Street, the lead and first understudy actually became ill on the same night, and Zeta Jones was able to permanently take over the role. Next, she traveled to to star in her first film, 1001 Nights. Her career took off, as she starred in The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Daredevils of the Desert with Sean Patrick Flannery in the title role. The movie Christopher Columbus: The Discovery came next, as she starred alongside Marlon Brando, Tom Selleck, and Rachel Ward, and then she starred in the British television series, The Darling Buds of May. She also starred in Jeff Wayne's 1992 musical project, Spartacus,which allowed her to release her own single, “The Appian Way.” Trying her hand at comedy, Zeta Jones starred in the movie Splitting Heirs with Eric Idle, Rick Moranis, and John Cleese. Several TV roles then came along for Zeta Jones, including the miniseries Catherine the Great, with her in the title role. It was back to movies after this, as she tried action this time, appearing in The Phantom with Billy Zane and Treat Williams. Soon after, she starred in another mini-series, Titanic, with Peter Gallagher and George C. Scott. It was Steven Spielberg that mentioned Zeta Jones to the director of The Mask of Zorro, starring Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins, and she eventually won the role. She continued with movies, starring in Entrapment, starring Sean Connery; The Haunting, starring Lili Taylor, Liam Neeson, Owen Wilson, and Bruce Dern; and High Fidelity, starring John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Jack Black, and Tim Robbins.
Zeta Jones was engaged to Michael Douglas and pregnant with their baby at the time they filmed Traffic together, causing the role to be rewritten to feature Zeta Jones’s character as a pregnant woman. The nepotism continued, as it was her brother, David A. Jones, who worked for the company that financed Traffic. Starring with John Cusack in the title roles in America’s Sweethearts, Zeta Jones followed this up starring in the musical Chicago with Renée Zellweger. Zeta Jones donned a bob haircut for this role and wanted viewers to know she was doing all of her own dancing. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. This success was followed with voiceover work in the movie Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, with Brad Pitt providing the voice of the title character. Then it was back to live action movies, starring with George Clooney in Intolerable Cruelty, and with both Clooney and Pitt in Ocean’s Twelve.
Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas were married on November 18, 2000, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, backed by a traditional Welsh choir. They have two children; a son, Dylan Michael Douglas, and a daughter, Carys Zeta Douglas. There were photos published of Zeta Jones smoking while pregnant with her daughter and she received a lot of critisim from the anti-smoking and child welfare groups. Zeta Jones and Douglas built a home for her parents in Swansea, and Zeta Jones is also a resident of Bermuda. YUDDY |
