In her role as the eponymous heroine in Steven Soderbergh’s gripping Erin Brockovich which earned her a Golden Globe and an Oscar, Tinseltown’s First Lady kept Hollywood buzzing. Born Julia Fiona Roberts in Smyrna, Georgia on October 28, 1967, the actress emerged as everyone’s favourite pretty woman aged 21. With two Oscar nominations to her name (a supporting nod for the 1989 tearjerker Steel Magnolias and a leading lady bid for Pretty Woman), she was forced to mature in public under the Hollywood spotlight. In 1991 she removed herself from the limelight, surfacing briefly as herself in Robert Altman’s 1992 film The Prayer , and emerged focused and triumphant with the 1993 blockbuster The Pelican Brief. Despite well-reviewed performances in Michael Collins, alongside one-time boyfriend Liam Neeson, and Something To Talk About, it was 1997\'s quirky My Best Friend’s Wedding that reminded audiences why they first fell in love with the stunning actress. In 2000, Julia won the ultimate accolade when she received the Oscar award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the unstoppable legal secretary Erin Brockovich in the eponymously named title. In 2014, she received another Oscar nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actress’, for her role in August: Osage County. Julia grew up around actors. Her father Walter and mother Betty were professional local actors, who divorced when Julia was three-years-old. Though she lived with her mother and three siblings, she remained close to her father, who tragically passed away from cancer when she was ten-years-old. The Notting Hill star was estranged from her older brother, Academy Award-nominee Eric Roberts (Runaway Train), until 2004. Since grabbing the public’s attention in 1988’s Mystic Pizza, Julia’s relationships became a source of media frenzy. In 1993, the public was shocked when she married country singer Lyle Lovett, but the pair divorced in June of 1995. Other romances involved Liam Neeson, Kiefer Sutherland and Matthew Perry. From 1998 to 2001, Julia dated actor Benjamin Bratt, however three-and-a-half years later, the couple decided to split. While working on The Mexican, in which she co-starred with Brad Pitt, Julia met cameraman Danny Moder. The couple married in an ultra-secret midnight ceremony at her New Mexican ranch in 2002. Since then, they have come proud parents to twins Hazel and Phinnaeus in 2004, as well as welcoming a third child, Henry Daniel in 2007.
