Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia at Crawford Long Hospital (now Emory University Hospital Midtown), the daughter of Betty Lou and Walter Grady Roberts. Her parents were Baptist and Catholic, and she was raised Roman Catholic. Her older brother, Eric Roberts (from whom she was once estranged, but reconciled with in 2004), and sister, Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors. Julia's parents, one-time actors and playwrights, met while performing theatrical productions for the armed forces and later co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia, off Juniper Street in Midtown. While her mother was pregnant with Julia, she and her husband ran an acting school for children in Decatur, Georgia. The children of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King attended the school. As a thank-you for their service, Mrs. King paid the hospital bill when Julia's mother gave birth to Julia.
Her mother filed for divorce in 1971, with the divorce being finalized early in 1972. The family moved to Smyrna, Georgia in 1972, where Julia attended Fitzhugh Lee Elementary School, Griffin Middle School and Campbell High School. Her mother re-married to Michael Motes and had another daughter, Nancy Motes, who was born in 1976. Julia's father died of cancer when she was ten.
In school, Julia played clarinet in the band. She wanted to be a veterinarian as a child. After graduating from Smyrna's Campbell High School, she headed to New York to join her brother and sister Lisa Roberts Gillan and pursue a career in acting. Once there, she signed with the Click modeling agency and enrolled in acting classes. She reverted to her original name "Julia Roberts" when she discovered that a "Julie Roberts" was already registered with the Screen Actors Guild. Her niece Emma Roberts, whom Julia used to take to movie sets when she was a young girl, has joined her father and aunts in the acting business.
Julia made her first big screen appearance in the film Satisfaction, released on February 12, 1988. She had previously performed a small role opposite her brother, Eric, in Blood Red (she has just two words of dialogue), filmed in 1987 and released in 1989. Her first television appearance was as a juvenile rape victim in the initial season of the series Crime Story with Dennis Farina, in the episode titled "The Survivor", broadcast on February 13, 1987. Her first critical success with moviegoers was her performance in the independent film Mystic Pizza in 1988; that same year, she had a role in the fourth season finale of Miami Vice. The following year, she was featured in Steel Magnolias as a young bride with diabetes and got her first Academy Award nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) for her performance.
She became a Hollywood star after headlining the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman, which grossed $464 million worldwide. After receiving Academy Award nominations for Steel Magnolias in 1990 and Pretty Woman in 1991, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2001 for her performance in Erin Brockovich. Her films My Best Friend's Wedding, Mystic Pizza, Notting Hill, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, The Pelican Brief, Ocean's Eleven and Twelve have collectively brought box office receipts of over $2.4 billion, making her one of the most successful actors in terms of box office receipts.
Julia had become one of the highest-paid actresses in the world, topping the Hollywood Reporter's annual "power list" of top-earning female stars from 2002 to 2006. Her fee for 1990's Pretty Woman was $300,000; in 2003, she was paid an unprecedented $25 million for her role in Mona Lisa Smile. As of 2007, Julia's net worth was estimated to be $140 million.
Julia's personal life has been in the spotlight. She has had reported romantic relationships with numerous famous men, including Liam Neeson, Dylan McDermott, Kiefer Sutherland, Lyle Lovett, Matthew Perry, and Benjamin Bratt. She was briefly engaged to McDermott, her Steel Magnolias co-star. She met Kiefer Sutherland in 1990, when he was her co-star in Flatliners. In August 1990, Julia and Kiefer announced their engagement, with an elaborate studio-planned wedding scheduled for June 14, 1991. Julia broke the engagement three days before the wedding.
On June 27, 1993, she married country singer Lyle Lovett. The wedding took place at St. James Lutheran Church in Marion, Indiana, near where Lovett was appearing on tour with his band. In March 1995, the couple separated, and subsequently divorced.
Julia met her current husband, cameraman Daniel Moder, on the set of her movie The Mexican in 2001. At the time, Daniel was married to Vera Steimberg Moder. He filed for divorce a little over a year later, and after it was finalized, he and Julia wed on July 4, 2002, at her ranch in Taos, New Mexico. Together, they have three children, twins Hazel Patricia Moder and Phinnaeus "Finn" Walter Moder (born November 28, 2004) and Henry Daniel Moder (born June 18, 2007).
Roberts disclosed in an 2010 interview for Elle magazine that she is practicing Hinduism. Julia Roberts is a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji). A picture of Neem Karoli Baba drew Julia to Hinduism. We know that Hinduism is a lure of the evil one away from the true Savior, Jesus Christ. Please pray for Julia this week, that God will show her the truth and draw her (and her family) to the foot of the cross for an eternal relationship with Himself!
-Heidi