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Catherine Zeta-Jones: Special Feature
Catherine Zeta-Jones: Snapshot
- Name
- Catherine Zeta-Jones
- Birth Date
- September 25, 1969
- Birth Place
- Swansea, Wales
A child performer in Wales, Zeta-Jones sang and danced as the lead in a London revival of 42nd Street and later became a U.K. sexpot in the Brit TV hit The Darling Buds of May. However, her sexy pairing with Antonio Banderas in Zorro turned her into a star in America. She has since acted with Julia Roberts and George Clooney and won an Oscar for playing Chicago murderess Velma Kelly. The stunning mother of two, who has made five appearances on PEOPLE's Most Beautiful list, can next be seen in the Harry Houdini film Death Defying Acts with Guy Pearce.
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Catherine Zeta-Jones: Five Fun Facts
- Catherine Zeta-Jones loves karaoke and keeps a machine in her trailer while on movie sets.
- At 12, Catherine Zeta-Jones won a British tap dancing championship, and on one of her first dates with Michael Douglas, he asked her to prove it. She granted his wish and danced in the actor's bathroom so she wouldn't scratch his newly refinished wood floors.
- When Catherine Zeta-Jones gave birth to Dylan in 2000, the people of her hometown of Swansea, Wales, put up Welsh flags over a local arcade, lined up to sign the town's book of congratulations, and popped champagne corks.
- Catherine Zeta-Jones says she's obsessed with smoked salmon sandwiches on brown bread with crushed potato chips in the middle. "I had it with each of my pregnancies," she said in 2007. "It's one of those comfort foods."
- Catherine Zeta-Jones is an avid golfer, playing at least twice a week at a golf course next door to her house in Bermuda. "I have a whole bunch of girlfriends who I play with," she told PEOPLE in 2007. "We have a girls' day which is always fun because it's like, 'Oh, we're not playing well. Let's go for lunch and have a glass of wine!'"
Catherine Zeta-Jones: Biography
- 1970s
A Performer is Born
As a child, Catherine Zeta-Jones, the middle child of David, who dealt in candy, and Patricia Jones, a seamstress and homemaker, has a love for movie-musicals. "I was really hyperactive as a kid and no one knew how or where I got all this energy," Zeta-Jones tells Newsday in 1999. "Anyway, they had to harness all this craziness, so I started taking lessons when I was four. And by the time I was 11, I was doing musicals on stage." By 12, she's a British national tap dance champ, and her parents let her live in London with a tutor and perform in shows like Annie and 42nd Street (left).
- mid 1980s
"15 Going on 25"
Zeta-Jones, 15, quits school and leaves home for London. "I remember growing up knowing I wanted to be on the stage," she tells the Ottawa Sun in 2002. "I wanted to get to London as soon as possible and start auditioning for theater." Zeta-Jones (pictured with her parents) adds to Harper's Bazaar in 2000, "My life was my work. I was 15 going on 25. [My parents] didn't want me turning around and pointing my finger saying, 'if only you'd let me go, maybe this or maybe that would have happened'. I always knew I could go back. But I never went back."
- 1991
A U.K. Sensation
Zeta-Jones plays a sexpot farm girl on the TV show The Darling Buds of May. "Within one hour of television, my whole life changed," she tells the Sunday Times in 1998. "After that, every person I had a cup of coffee with was the 'new love of my life.'" Some of her high-profile loves include: director Nick Hamm, actors John Leslie and Angus Macfadyen (who broke off their 15-month engagement in 1996), and Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall. Sick of the media hoopla surrounding her in the U.K., she packs up and moves to L.A. at 24.
Photo Credits
Top Left: Carlo AllegriGetty
BIOGRAPHY (top to bottom): John Evans/Retna; RexUSA
