Julia Roberts first hit the big time as the streetwalking Cinderella who wins the heart of millionaire Richard Gere in 1990's Pretty Woman. Two big hits followed: the death-fetish flick Flatliners and the battered-wife thriller Sleeping With the Enemy. She reclaimed her former box-office glory in 1997: The summer release My Best Friend's Wedding opened to the highest-ever single weekend ticket sales for a romantic comedy and earned her a Golden Globe nomination. Two years later, she starred in two successful romantic comedies (Notting Hill, Runaway Bride). Numerous critics judged her performance as a working single mom in Steven Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich (2000) to be her finest performance to date, and it surprised few when she was awarded the Best Actress Golden Globe in January 2001, and then the Best Actress Oscar the following March. Since her big Oscar win, she's been involved in an Oscar-winning drama (2004's Closer) and co-starred in both Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Twelve.



She wanted to be a veterinarian as a child.
Roberts was the first actress to receive a $20 million-dollar paycheck, a feat eventually matched by Cameron Diaz and Angelina Jolie.
She has been selected by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world a record-breaking eight times.


"The first time I felt I was famous was when I went to the movies with my mom. I had gone to the loo, and someone in the bathroom said in a very loud voice, 'Girl in stall No. 1, were you in Mystic Pizza? I paused and I said, 'Yeah, that was me.'"
— People, Aug. 22, 1999