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JULIA ROBERTS BIOGRAPHY

Born: 28 October 1967

Where: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Awards: Won 1 Oscar, 3 Golden Globes, 1 BAFTA and 1 Emmy nomination

Height: 5' 9"

When Julia Roberts won the 2001 Best Actress Oscar for her performance as self-made lawyer and Woman Of The People Erin Brokovich, the award seemed to reflect a popular acceptance that she had finally arrived as a "serious" actress. Due to the outrageous success of Pretty Woman, eleven years before, people had considered her to be most at home being charming in romantic comedies (and, by God, was she charming). For long periods her love life was scrutinised more avidly than her films. And then there were the ever-increasing wage-packets that saw her not only as Hollywood's most sought-after female headliner but also a major rival to the likes of Cruise, Gibson and Schwarzenegger. Throughout the Nineties, for all her efforts to widen her scope, she was seen primarily as a movie star, hardly as an actress at all. It was forgotten that actually, as the doomed Shelby in Steel Magnolias, she'd been Oscar-nominated for a dramatic role before the Pretty Woman explosion blinded us all.

She was born Julie Fiona Roberts in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 28, 1967, into a very large extended family of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish extraction (Roberts legend has it that some Cherokee also crept into the gene pool at some point). Her father, Walter, was a genuine outsider, not sharing the conservative, macho values of his farming-stock family. Instead, he was artistic and sensitive, wearing tight clothes with a European cut, even daring to become a drama student. Having joined the air force to take advantage of the recent GI Bill that gave a free education to those in the armed forces, he wound up at the Keesler base at Biloxi, Mississippi. Here, in 1955 auditioning for a stage production of George Washington Slept Here, he won both a role and the heart of the play's vivacious blonde ingenue, Betty Lou Bredemus.

Betty Lou, born in Minneapolis and partly of Swedish blood, had studied drama and worked in stock companies before, like Walter, making use of the GI Bill. She and Walter would marry and move back to Atlanta, where they'd have three kids - Eric, Lisa and Julie. They'd also establish and run a children's theatre at their home and, being amongst the first whites to defy Georgia's colour lines, their pupils would include the children of Martin Luther King. It's rumoured that, given the theatre was not profitable, the Kings not only sponsored it but actually paid the costs of young Julie's birth at the Crawford Long Hospital. Sadly, she would never speak to the great peacemaker, who was assassinated in Memphis before she was 6 months old.

Julie's first years were spent in a 2-storey house in middle-class midtown Atlanta. Here, she'd watch the theatre workshops while Eric and Lisa would join in (she'd later claim the only acting advice she got from her father was "Don't ever say anything unless it means something"). Unfortunately, the financial situation exerted so much pressure on Walter and Betty Lou that their marriage began to crack. Usually charming and charismatic, he became occasionally abusive. She, in turn, was not faithful. They'd split when Julie was just 4. Walter would remain in Atlanta with Eric (then 16), taking a job selling vacuum cleaners in a department store to make ends meet. Betty Lou would move with the girls to Smyrna, a suburb just out of town to the north-west. Here Betty would become a church secretary, then a real estate agent, quickly getting married to Michael Motes (in 1976, the union would provide Julie with a half-sister, Nancy).

In Smyrna, Julie would attend the Fitzhugh Lee Elementary School, Griffin Middle School and Campbell High School. She learned to ride at the riding school opened by her paternal grandfather on his retirement, and loved animals in general, following the local vet on his rounds and often returning home with stray or injured creatures. At school, she would be teased for her big mouth and glasses and, according to Eric, would be given a hard time at home by her step-father (though Julia herself would never mention the subject). Though she would occasionally take part in Shakespeare plays put on by English teacher David Boyd (she'd also play Elizabeth Dole in an election skit), there were no official drama classes that would encourage her to follow in her parents' footsteps. There was, though, tennis - she was on the school team -and poetry. An insecure girl, she became convinced that one of her teachers disliked her and asked if, as she wasn't going to pass in that subject anyway, she might spend the class-time in the library. She was given permission and spent the time reading, making several important discoveries, in particular Walt Whitman's classic collection of poetry, Leaves Of Grass. She would read this every day for months, later growing to love the works of Faulkner, Hardy, Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Betty Lou, born in Minneapolis and partly of Swedish blood, had studied drama and worked in stock companies before, like Walter, making use of the GI Bill. She and Walter would marry and move back to Atlanta, where they'd have three kids - Eric, Lisa and Julie. They'd also establish and run a children's theatre at their home and, being amongst the first whites to defy Georgia's colour lines, their pupils would include the children of Martin Luther King. It's rumoured that, given the theatre was not profitable, the Kings not only sponsored it but actually paid the costs of young Julie's birth at the Crawford Long Hospital. Sadly, she would never speak to the great peacemaker, who was assassinated in Memphis before she was 6 months old.

Julie's first years were spent in a 2-storey house in middle-class midtown Atlanta. Here, she'd watch the theatre workshops while Eric and Lisa would join in (she'd later claim the only acting advice she got from her father was "Don't ever say anything unless it means something"). Unfortunately, the financial situation exerted so much pressure on Walter and Betty Lou that their marriage began to crack. Usually charming and charismatic, he became occasionally abusive. She, in turn, was not faithful. They'd split when Julie was just 4. Walter would remain in Atlanta with Eric (then 16), taking a job selling vacuum cleaners in a department store to make ends meet. Betty Lou would move with the girls to Smyrna, a suburb just out of town to the north-west. Here Betty would become a church secretary, then a real estate agent, quickly getting married to Michael Motes (in 1976, the union would provide Julie with a half-sister, Nancy).

In Smyrna, Julie would attend the Fitzhugh Lee Elementary School, Griffin Middle School and Campbell High School. She learned to ride at the riding school opened by her paternal grandfather on his retirement, and loved animals in general, following the local vet on his rounds and often returning home with stray or injured creatures. At school, she would be teased for her big mouth and glasses and, according to Eric, would be given a hard time at home by her step-father (though Julia herself would never mention the subject). Though she would occasionally take part in Shakespeare plays put on by English teacher David Boyd (she'd also play Elizabeth Dole in an election skit), there were no official drama classes that would encourage her to follow in her parents' footsteps. There was, though, tennis - she was on the school team -and poetry. An insecure girl, she became convinced that one of her teachers disliked her and asked if, as she wasn't going to pass in that subject anyway, she might spend the class-time in the library. She was given permission and spent the time reading, making several important discoveries, in particular Walt Whitman's classic collection of poetry, Leaves Of Grass. She would read this every day for months, later growing to love the works of Faulkner, Hardy, Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Next she made her TV movie debut in Baja Oklahoma where wannabe singer Lesley Ann Warren, a waitress in Fort Worth suffering terrible luck with her career and her men, is inspired by ex-flame Peter Coyote to attempt to make the Grand Ole Oprey. Roberts would appear as Warren's wayward daughter, adding to her woes by running off to Aspen with a dope-dealing boyfriend.

The year would end with her first critical hit, Mystic Pizza. Set in a Connecticut fishing town, this saw three poor Portuguese-American friends (Lili Taylor and sisters Julia and Annabeth Gish) working in a pizza joint and tasting the first fruits of adult life and love. Here seductive, hot-headed Roberts would fall for another preppie, this one having been kicked out of college for cheating, her street-smartness proving far more effective than his high education. As said, the movie (featuring a young Matt Damon) was well-received, with Roberts in particular earning high praise. But she nearly didn't get it. At her first reading she was told that she wasn't physically right for the part - they needed someone darker, more Portuguese. So she slapped on some black hair mousse and nabbed the part, despite the fact that, during her audition, as her "boyfriend" stroked her hair, the dye was coming off all over his hands.

Though Mystic Pizza brought her to the attention of critics and public, her career still needed another boost. This was provided by Sally Field, the double Oscar winner and author of the notorious acceptance speech beginning "You like me! You really like me!" At this point, Field was married to Alan Greisman, the producer of Satisfaction, and had taken young Julia under her wing, acting as a form of mentor. Now she pushed to get her protegee involved in her next project, to be titled Steel Magnolias, even performing Julia's final audition with her. Her efforts would pay off - Roberts would be hired to play her daughter, Shelby. Again, it might never have happened as, after filming Mystic Pizza, Roberts had been struck down by a mysterious, never-identified disease. After several weeks in hospital, then several more convalescing at home, her visiting mother offered to read with her a script that had been sat there for ages. Julia had refused then, only later picking up Steel Magnolias and realising the opportunity it offered.

Source: tiscali.co.uk