Catherine Zeta Jones — Biography
Catherine Zeta-Jones is a Welsh performer who has earned recognition for her diverse acting abilities and has won numerous prestigious honours, including an Oscar, a BAFTA, and a Tony. The British honours system granted her the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2010 in recognition of her accomplishments in cinema and charitable endeavours. During her childhood, Zeta-Jones performed in London's West End, appearing in the musicals Annie and Bugsy Malone. She attended the Arts Educational Schools in London where she trained in musical theatre, and achieved major stage recognition through a leading part in a 1987 staging of 42nd Street. Her initial film appearance came in the unsuccessful 1990 French-Italian production 1001 Nights, though she subsequently found stronger prominence through regular television work in the British programme The Darling Buds of May between 1991 and 1993. Frustrated by limited roles in British cinema that pigeonholed her appearance, Zeta-Jones moved to Los Angeles to advance her career. She became established in the American film industry by taking on characters that emphasised her attractiveness, notably in the adventure picture The Mask of Zorro from 1998 and the theft thriller Entrapment from 1999. Her work in Traffic from 2000, where she played a bitter expectant mother, and her part as a homicidal performer in the song-and-dance film Chicago from 2002 earned her significant critical praise, leading to an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the latter role. Throughout the 2000s, she appeared in many commercially successful films, among them the dark comedy Intolerable Cruelty from 2003, the theft thriller Ocean's Twelve from 2004, the comedy The Terminal also from 2004, and the lighthearted romance No Reservations from 2007. After featuring in lower-budget productions and taking on fewer assignments, she returned to theatrical performance, portraying a mature actress in a 2009 Broadway revival of A Little Night Music, earning a Tony Award for this performance. In subsequent years, Zeta-Jones has had a selective approach to her work, appearing in the films Side Effects, Red 2, and Dad's Army across 2013 to 2016. She has accepted secondary television roles, including playing Olivia de Havilland in the 2017 programme Feud: Bette & Joan and Morticia Addams in Wednesday, which began in 2022 and continues to the present. Zeta-Jones has both Irish and Welsh heritage. Her spouse is fellow actor Michael Douglas.
