Biography & Facts
Name: Julia Fiona Roberts (Married name Moder)
Born: October 28, 1967
Sign: Scorpio
Birth Place: Atlanta, Georgia, USA (Raised in Smyrna, Georgia)
Lives: House in Malibu, CA, apartment in New York City. Also owns a ranch near Taos, New Mexico.
Family: Husband Danny Moder, twins Hazel and Phinnaeus (born November 28, 2004). Mother Betty Lou, siblings Eric, Lisa & Nancy
Pets: A number of dogs and horses, eg. the dogs, Diego & Louie
Hidden talent: Julia knitts and does needlepoint.
Needless knowledge: Julia is lefthanded, and when she’s nervous, she tears out of her left eye.
Famous misconception: That her real name is Julie. (A nickname from school, one she never fancied herself.)
Julia Fiona Roberts first saw daylight on the 28th of october, 1967. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but grew up in the small town Smyrna, Georgia, USA, along with her mother Betty-Lou, an actress and a church secretary, her father Walter who worked as a vacuum cleaner salesman, writer and an actor. She was the youngest of three siblings, with older brother Eric and sister Lisa.
Julia had a tragic childhood. When she was only four years old, her parents got divorced because of financial difficulties. Betty-Lou stayed in Smyrna with her two daughters, while Walter decided to move back to Atlanta together with sixteen year old Eric.. When Julia was ten years old, March 1978, her father died of cancer. In school, the children teased her because of her thick glasses and her big mouth. At first she took it pretty hard but then she decided to take advantage of her looks. She accepted her big mouth and instead made it her trademark. She showed her beautiful, hazel eyes by using contact lenses instead of hiding them behind thick glasses. She had never tried to hide the fact that she was tall, her height only made her more grand.
Early-on, Julia had planned on becoming a veterinarian and had little interest in acting. After graduating from Campbell High School in Smyrna, Julia joined her sister Lisa and brother Eric in New York to go to theater school. Before she got into acting she worked at Baskin-Robbins and at Athlete’s Foot. Later on, she signed with the modeling agency “Click” and she stayed with them until her brother Eric who was already into acting, landed her her first film role in the movie “Blood Red”. The movie didn’t go well at all but people started talking about her in Hollywood. In 1988 she played a pizza waitress in “Mystic Pizza” and then she co-starred with Liam Neeson in “Satisfaction”. Things started to get hot behind the camera as well between Julia and Liam. One year later she starred in “Steel Magnolias” opposite her fiancé at that time, Dylan McDermott. Just before “Steel Magnolias” Julia got sick and she was still recovering from her illness when the shooting started. This didn’t stop the director Herbert Ross from saying bad things about her acting, mostly in front of people, but he got quiet when Julia was Oscar-nominated for her part.
The year after, Julia became a huge star basically over night when she became the whole world’s “Pretty Woman”. Suddenly, everybody wanted her. The papers wrote about her every day and the whole world talked about her. She couldn’t leave the house without reporters and photographers throwing themselves at her. This was very hard on her, she got thinner and the rumors spread that she was doing drugs and had anorexia.
The rescue came when she met Kiefer Sutherland, her co-star in “Flatliners” from 1990. He left his wife and children and moved in with Julia. The scandal was a fact and the relationship of the year started. In August 1990, Julia and Kiefer announced their engagement and in October he gave Julia a tattoo for her birthday, a chinese symbol for “Eternal love” on her left shoulder. Julia and Kiefers wedding was set to June 14th 1991. The dream was torn apart when Julia found out that Kiefer had had an affair with the stripper Amanda Rice. The wedding was cancelled and Julia sought comfort in Ireland. Meanwhile, “Sleeping with the enemy” had opened in the movie-theatres in USA with great success.
In 1991, Julia decided to take a break. For two long years she totally disappeared from the big screen with a small exception and “The Player” (1992), and everybody was asking, where did Pretty Woman go? In 1993, she came back with a bang, this time in the thriller “The Pelican Brief”, based on the book by John Grisham which he wrote with Julia in mind as the main character Darby Shaw. The movie was a comeback for Julia and it went well in the cinemas. During filming of the movie (June ’93), Julia surprised the world by marrying ten year older country singer, Lyle Lovett. After only have known each other for a few weeks they went to the preacher and said “I do”. Julia was barefoot and without makeup.
Two years later, in March 1995, the couple announced that they were separating. After 21 months of marriage they were getting a divorce but they were still very good friends.
Over the next few years, a huge hit was not to be found amongst Julia’s movies and rumours started circulating that Julia’s career was over. There was talk about a “new Julia Roberts” and amongst the candidates were Sandra Bullock, Julia Ormond and Julianne Moore. But in the summer of 1997, Julia shut everyone up and showed that she was still box office material with “Conspiracy Theory” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding”. She was back the way the public wanted her, with big hair and that smile on her face.
For the Christmas ’98 premiere of “Stepmom”, Julia showed up with a new man on her arm. Television actor Benjamin Bratt from “Law and Order”. Julia gushed like never before and went on Oprah saying she was “drunk with joy” all the time. Talk of marriage and babies was consistent during their four years of dating, but Julia said she was content the way they were, she didn’t want to rush anything.
In 2000, Julia started her filmmaking love affair with Steven Soderbergh in “Erin Brockovich”. It was to be her first in a line of four movies with the director. (Erin Brockovich, Full Frontal, Ocean’s 11 and Ocean’s 12). In her acceptance speech after winning the Golden Globe in 2001 (for Erin B), she honored Soderbergh by clamining he was so genius that she would read the phonebook to him if he asked her to.
A month later, Benjamin Bratt was by her side for the last time at the Academy Awards when she accepted her first Oscar for “Erin Brockovich”. In her speech, which lasted over five minutes she thanked everyone she’d ever met in her life and shouted “I love it up here!” from the stage. She ended her speech with “I love the world, I’m so happy, thank you!”
In late June 2001, Julia and Ben announced they were breaking up. ”It’s come to a kind and tender-hearted end,” she said of their relationship. She had only complimentary words for Ben. ”OK, here’s the thing: I love Benjamin. He’s a good man; he’s a fine man. He is, to the exultation of the female single population, not my man anymore,” she said.
After the Oscar win, Julia slowed down, taking smaller roles in films like “Full Frontal” and “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” while instead focusing on her personal life. During the filming of “The Mexican” she had met cameraman Daniel Moder and they had become close friends. There had been speculation of a romance for a long time, and at the afterparty of the premiere of “Ocean’s 11″ in December 2001, the first official photo was taken of the couple. Julia looked radiant and happy, with a new blond look.
The couple married in a midnight ceremony on Independence day, July 4, 2002 at Julia’s ranch in New Mexico. The world was stunned. In her first interview after the wedding, she spoke of Danny as ” a man among men, unselfish and all-encompassing”. In June 2004, after two years of marriage, Julia and Danny announced that they were expecting their first children. The twins are due to arrive early 2005. After the birth of her children, Julia isn’t planning anything. She currently has two movies on the slate, set for release in December: “Closer,” directed by Mike Nichols and also starring Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen, and “Ocean’s 12,” the Steven Soderbergh-directed sequel to 2001′s star-studded heist caper. After that, it’s all about family.
“I’m not planning anything. I can’t imagine how big I’m going to get in the next three months, but … you just kind of play it as it comes,” Roberts tells Newsweek magazine. “I’m allowed to do that, aren’t I?”