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Julia Fiona Roberts (born October 28, 1967) is an American film actress and former fashion model. She shot to fame during the early 1990s after starring in the romantic comedy, Pretty Woman, opposite Richard Gere. Her career includes films such as Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, and Ocean's Eleven, which have collectively earned box office receipts well over $2 billion. She won the Best Actress Academy Award in 2001 for her critically praised turn as the title character in Erin Brockovich after two previous nominations during the 1990s.
Since then, Roberts has become the highest-paid actress in the world, topping the Hollywood Reporter's annual power list of top-earning female stars for four consecutive years (2002-2005). An unprecedented $25 million was paid to Roberts for her role in 2003's Mona Lisa Smile. As of 2007, Roberts' net worth was estimated around US$140,000,000.
Roberts was also the first actress to appear on the cover of Vogue and the first woman to land on the cover of GQ. She has been named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" a record-setting eleven times, tied with Halle Berry. In 2001 Ladies Home Journal ranked her as the 11th most powerful woman in America, beating out then national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and first lady Laura Bush.[

Biography

Early life
It is commonly mistaken that Julia's birth name is "Julie," however, Julia has said in interviews that "Julie" was a nickname given to her by classmates in elementary school, and she never took well to it. Roberts was born in Smyrna, Georgia. Her father, Walter Grady Roberts, was a vacuum cleaner salesman of Irish, Scottish, English and Welsh ancestry, and her Minneapolis, Minnesota-born mother, Betty Lou Bredemus, was a one-time church secretary and a real estate agent of Swedish, German and Norwegian ancestry.[4] Her 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 Georgia; the two divorced in 1971. Her mother later re-married to Michael Motes and had another daughter, named Nancy Motes who was born in 1976. Roberts' father died of cancer when she was ten. Her older brother and sister, Eric Roberts (from whom she was estranged for a while) and Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors. Roberts wanted to be a veterinarian as a child, but soon after graduating from Smyrna's Campbell High School,[5] and after attending Georgia State University, she headed to New York to join her 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 found that there was already a "Julie Roberts" registered with the Screen Actors Guild.
Her niece Emma Roberts, who she used to take to the sets when she was younger, has joined her father and aunts in the acting business. Recently, she gained a starring role on the Nickelodeon series Unfabulous and has appeared in the films Blow (2001), Aquamarine (2006) and Nancy Drew (2007).

Career

1986—1989, Early career
Roberts made her film debut playing a supporting role opposite her brother, Eric, in Blood Red (she gets just two words of dialogue), which, although completed in 1986, was not released until 1989. She once appeared on Sesame Street opposite the character Elmo, demonstrating her ability to change emotions. Roberts first caught the attention of moviegoers with her performance in the independent film Mystic Pizza in 1988; the same year she had a role in the last episode of season four of Miami Vice. The following year she was featured in Steel Magnolias as a young bride battling diabetes and garnered her first Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) for her performance.

1990—2000, Breakout role and eventual success
Roberts first catapulted to worldwide fame when she co-starred with Richard Gere in the Cinderella story Pretty Woman in 1990. Roberts was able to win the role after the first two choices for the part, Molly Ringwald and Meg Ryan turned it down. The role also earned her a second Oscar nod, this time as Best Actress. Her next box office success was the thriller Sleeping with the Enemy, playing a battered wife who escapes her demented husband and starts a new life in Iowa. She played Tinkerbell in Steven Spielberg's Hook in 1991, which was followed by a two-year period of no acting roles other than a cameo appearance in Robert Altman's The Player (1992). In early 1993, she was the subject of a People magazine cover story asking, "What Happened to Julia Roberts?"
In 1993, she co-starred with Denzel Washington in the successful The Pelican Brief, based on the John Grisham novel. She also starred alongside Liam Neeson in the 1996 film Michael Collins. Over the next few years, she starred in a series of films that were critical and commercial failures, primarily because she was cast in roles that strayed too far from her film persona. She broke her losing streak with the hugely popular comedy My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), and eventually regained her earlier reputation as an actress who could open a movie and guarantee box office success. She then starred with Hugh Grant in the popular 1999 film Notting Hill. In that same year she also starred in Runaway Bride, another movie with the famous Julia Roberts-Richard Gere duo.

2001—2006, continued success
In 2001, she won critical acclaim and finally received a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Erin Brockovich, who helped wage a successful lawsuit against energy giant Pacific Gas & Electric. Whilst presenting the Best Actor Award to Denzel Washington the following year she made a gaff when she said she was glad Tom Conti wasn't there. She meant the conductor Bill Conti who tried to hasten the conclusion of her speech the previous year but named the British actor instead.[6] Subsequently, Roberts would team up with Erin Brockovich director Steven Soderbergh for three more films: Ocean's Eleven, Full Frontal, and Ocean's Twelve.

2006—present, hiatus
Roberts recently enjoyed her Broadway debut as Nan in Three Days of Rain opposite Alias and Kitchen Confidential star Bradley Cooper, and The 40 Year Old Virgin star, Paul Rudd, at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Although the play grossed nearly one million dollars in ticket sales its first week out and continued to be a commercial success throughout its limited run, most critics have heavily criticized Roberts' performance and the play itself. The New York Times' critic Ben Brantly, a self proclaimed 'Juliaholic', described her as being fraught with "self-consciousness (especially in the first act) [and] only glancingly acquainted with the two characters she plays." Three Days of Rain received two Tony Award nominations in stage design categories, but took home neither prize. Julia Roberts did, however, receive a Broadway.com audience award (a minor theatrical prize) for her performance.

Influence
As of February 25, 2007, Roberts's films have grossed $2,203,765,451 at the American box office making her the biggest female movie star in history and reaching this feat with only thirty films to her name. She was also placed at the pinnacle of the Ulmer Scale, a comprehensive guide to the global star power of actors and directors in independent and studio films created by James Ulmer, ahead of such other luminaries as Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. This was partly owing to her ability to attract filmgoers solely on the basis of her name's appearance above the title and without the support of a male co-star, something few other actresses are able to do.