Catherine Zeta Jones Hot Pics And Videos

Catherine Zeta-Jones is an Academy Award-winning Welsh actress, a classic beauty, and now Hollywood royalty, courtesy of her marriage to Michael Douglas. She and Michael have 2 children. Her son, Dylan Michael Douglas was born August 8, 2000. Her daughter, Carys Zeta Douglas was born April 20, 2003. She is also an advertising spokesperson for the mobile phone company T-Mobile and she is currently the global spokeswoman for cosmetics giant, Elizabeth Arden.

Catherine was born on September 25, 1969 in Swansea, Wales to parents Dai (Welsh factory worker) and Pat (Irish seamstress). She is the middle child, surrounded by older brother David (born 1967) and younger brother Lyndon (born 1972). Lyndon works at Catherine's production company, Milkwood Films. Her name stems from two different grandmothers; one grandmother is named Catherine, while the other is "Zeta," named after a ship that Catherine's grandfather sailed on.

Although Catherine was not known in the U.S. until her role in The Mask of Zorro in 1998, she was a well-known star in her native UK. Catherine played the lead in a production of the musical Annie at age 11, and starred in a West End production of Bugsy Malone two years later.

At age 17, Catherine nabbed the lead role in 42nd Street after having moved to London in order to pursue an acting career. Once the show closed, Zeta-Jones traveled to France, where she received the lead role in French director Phillippe De Broca's 1001 Nights (1990), her feature film debut.

Catherine's big break came upon her return to England in 1991, when she became a regular on the hugely popular British television series The Darling Buds of May. Her role as the eldest daughter of a farm family increased her star status in the UK, which of course, led to her becoming a tabloid favorite, becoming constantly hounded by the paparazzi. Once the intrusiveness of the media became unbearable, Catherine decided to take her life and career across the Atlantic.

Her next two films were not the instant success that she had hoped for, having become a major sex symbol in the UK, and her performance in Blue Juice (1995) and The Phantom (1996) went unnoticed by viewers, casting agents and producers alike. In fact, it wasn't until she played the role of Isabella Paradine in the TV mini-series Titanic in 1996 that she was spotted by Steven Spielberg who recommended her to director Martin Campbell for the female lead in The Mask of Zorro (1998).

America was enchanted by the dark-haired actress' charisma and beauty, and she began to be offered better and better roles in American film. She starred in films like Entrapment, The Haunting, and High Fidelity, before taking the prominent role of a white-collar drug kingpin's wife in 2000, in Steven Soderbergh's treatise on the drug war, Traffic. Her performance was impressive to critics and audiences, many of whom felt that she deserved an Oscar nomination.

Her next major project would be the one to cement her as Hollywood royalty: a starring role in the Broadway adaptation Chicago. Few fans were aware of the singing and dancing skills that she'd honed on the musical stage at the beginning of her career, much less that she had sometimes performed with the English National Opera. Her performance blew audiences away, and won her the 2002 Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Zeta-Jones lightened things up in 2003, making audiences laugh alongside George Clooney in the Cohen Brothers' movie Intolerable Cruelty, then as an airport employee who falls for stranded immigrant Tom Hanks in The Terminal (2004).

Present Day

Catherine has certainly not retired but she has her priorities absolutely right and she concentrates hard on bringing up her young family.

She is sometimes referred to as a prima donna but, a hometown girl who enjoys rugby, boxing and a few beers, she has her head screwed on far too tightly to care about petty bickering. As well as sinking her money into her production company, Milkwood, she also uses her fame and funds - like her husband - to help worthy causes, including young adults with cerebral palsy and the International Centre For Missing And Exploited Children. With Douglas taking on a public role as Hollywood Ambassador For Worldwide Decency, Catherine is right by his side. She's that kind of girl.

• Les Mille et une nuits (1990)

• Out of the Blue (1991)

• The Darling Buds of May (1991) (TV)

• Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)

• The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones (1992) (voice)

• Splitting Heirs (1993)

• The Return of the Native (1994) (TV)

• The Cinder Path (1994) (TV)

• Blue Juice (1995)

• Katharina die Gro? (1995) (TV)

• The Phantom (1996)''

• Titanic (1996) (TV)

• The Mask of Zorro (1998)

• Entrapment (1999)

• The Haunting (1999)

• High Fidelity (2000)

• Traffic (2000)

• America's Sweethearts (2001)

• Chicago (2002)

• ''Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) (voice)

• Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

• Terminal (2004)