About Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones (; born 25 September 1969) is a Welsh actress. She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Tony Award. In 2010, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her film and humanitarian work. Born and raised in Swansea, Zeta-Jones aspired to be an actress from a young age. As a child, she played roles in the West End productions of the musicals Annie and Bugsy Malone. She studied musical theatre at the Arts Educational Schools, London, and made her stage breakthrough with a leading role in a 1987 production of 42nd Street. Her screen debut came in the unsuccessful French-Italian film 1001 Nights (1990), and went on to find greater success as a regular in the British television series The Darling Buds of May (1991–1993). Dismayed at being typecast as the token pretty girl in British films, Zeta-Jones relocated to Los Angeles. She established herself in Hollywood with roles that highlighted her sex appeal, such as in the action film The Mask of Zorro (1998) and the heist film Entrapment (1999). Zeta-Jones received critical acclaim for her performances as a vengeful pregnant woman in Traffic (2000) and Velma Kelly in the musical Chicago (2002), winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the latter. She starred in high-profile films for much of the decade, including the black comedy Intolerable Cruelty (2003), the heist film Ocean's Twelve (2004), the comedy The Terminal (2004), and the romantic comedy No Reservations (2007). Parts in smaller-scale features were followed by a decrease in workload, during which she returned to the stage and played an aging actress in a Broadway production of A Little Night Music (2009), winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Zeta-Jones worked intermittently in the subsequent decades, starring in the films Side Effects (2013), Red 2 (2013), and Dad's Army (2016). She took on supporting roles in television, portraying Olivia de Havilland in Feud: Bette & Joan (2017) and Morticia Addams in Wednesday (2022–present). Aside from acting, Zeta-Jones is a brand endorser and supports various charitable causes. Her experience with depression and bipolar II disorder has been well documented by the media. She is married to actor Michael Douglas, with whom she has two children. Zeta-Jones participated in school stage shows from a young age and gained local media attention when her rendition of a Shirley Bassey song won a Junior Star Trail talent competition. At age nine, Zeta-Jones was selected to play July, one of the orphan girls in the original West End production of the musical Annie, and in her early teens, she became a national tap-dancing champion. During one of the performances, both the star and the first understudy were unavailable, and Zeta-Jones was asked to play the role of Peggy Sawyer—a chorus girl who becomes a star. Zeta-Jones's first release of 1999 was the heist film Entrapment, in which she starred opposite Sean Connery as a seductive insurance agent on the lookout for an art thief. She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Tony Award.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.