Catherine Zeta Jones Biography

NAME: Catherine Zeta-Jones

OCCUPATION: Actress

BIRTH DATE: September 25, 1969 (Age: 42)

PLACE OF BIRTH: Swansea, Wales

Height : 5' 6½" (1.69 m)

Catherine Zeta-Jones was born on 25 September 1969, in Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales, UK, the daughter of Dai Jones, who formerly worked for a candy factory, and Pat Jones. Her brother David Jones (b. 1967) is a development executive and brother Lyndon Jones (b.1972) works at her production company. At 15 she had the lead in the British revival of "42nd Street". She was originally cast as the second understudy for the lead role in the musical but when the star and first understudy became sick the night the play's producer was in the audience, she was given the lead for the rest of the musical's production. She first made a name for herself in the early 1990s when she starred in the Yorkshire Television comedy/drama series "The Darling Buds of May" (1991). The show was a smash hit and made her one of the United Kingdom's most popular television actresses.

In 2002 Zeta-Jones starred as the homicidal entertainer Velma Kelly in the film adaptation of the popular Broadway musical Chicago. Her singing and dancing skills impressed critics and audiences and helped her win an Oscar. She subsequently appeared in several comedies, including Intolerable Cruelty (2003), in which she played a cunning gold digger opposite George Clooney, and The Terminal (2004), a film directed by Spielberg and featuring Tom Hanks. In 2004 she starred with Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon in Ocean's Twelve, a sequel to the blockbuster Ocean's Eleven (2001). Her later films include The Legend of Zorro (2005) and No Reservations (2007).

In 2008, starred alongside Guy Pearce and Saoirse Ronan in Death Defying Acts, a biopic about legendary escapologist Harry Houdini at the height of his career in the 1920s. The film was well received by many critics. View London noted that "Zeta Jones also pulls off an extremely impressive Edinburgh accent and it's great to see her in a decent role for once." In 2009, Zeta-Jones starred in romantic comedy The Rebound, in which she played a 40-year old mother of two who falls in love with a younger man, played by Justin Bartha. The film was released in cinemas in several countries throughout 2009. The film is set to be released in the United States on 25 December 2010.