Zeta-Jones, Catherine (1969- )

Welsh actor. She started her career on stage as a singer and dancer, and she used these talents for her role in the film musical Chicago (2002), which won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

She is known for her exotic beauty and strong characterizations. Other films include The Mask of Zorro (1998), Entrapment (1999), Traffic (2000), High Fidelity (2000), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), The Terminal (2004), Ocean's Twelve (2004), and Smoke and Mirrors (2004).

She was born in Swansea and started singing and dancing as a young child, performing with a local Catholic congregation's amateur troupe by the age of ten. As a young teenager she appeared on stage in adaptations of Annie, Bugsy Malone, and The Pajama Game. At the age of 15 she won the lead stage role in the British revival of 42nd Street. Her first major television role was in the early 1990s series Darling Buds of May (1991-93), which she followed with several TV roles during the mid-1990s, including the made-for-TV movie Titanic, which drew the attention of Steven Spielberg who cast her in her breakthrough film The Mask of Zorro. She married US actor Michael Douglas in 2000.