The Full Biography
Julia Roberts. Actress. The Smyrna girl whose smile became a decade, and who has spent the years since trying to keep the actor separate from the star.
This is her story.
The image most people still carry is a laugh on Rodeo Drive, a red dress, a businessman who has decided to be kind. The year was 1990. The picture was Pretty Woman. Vivian Ward is the civic object of a certain American afternoon: the fantasy the studio sweetened from a darker script, the grin that made a $3,000-a-week part into the face of a decade. What the still cannot show is Julia Fiona Roberts of Smyrna, Georgia, a workshop child whose father died when she was ten, and a working actress who has spent thirty years insisting that the movie star is a different job.
She was born on October 28, 1967, in Smyrna. Her parents, Walter Grady Roberts and Betty Lou Bredemus, ran an actors’ and writers’ workshop in Atlanta. The house knew marks and sides before it knew fame. Eric, the older brother, went first and farthest into the business; Lisa, the sister, followed. Walter died of cancer in 1977. Julia was ten. The workshop years are the first pressure: a family that treated acting as labor, then a hole in the middle of the labor. She finished school in Georgia and went to New York because that is where the next audition was.
The door was not Rodeo Drive. The door was Mystic Pizza (1988), a small Connecticut picture in which she is Daisy Arujo, a waitress with a jaw the camera already understood. Then Steel Magnolias (1989), as Shelby Eatenton, the diabetic bride in a circle of Southern women who do not waste a line. The Academy nominated her for Supporting Actress. She was twenty-two. The town had seen the smile. It had also seen that she could play a woman the plot is going to take away.
Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman (1990) was written, first, as 3000 — a cautionary story about a Hollywood sex worker and a man who pays three thousand a week, with an ending the audience was not meant to leave humming. Touchstone sweetened it. Richard Gere played Edward Lewis as a man who can be taught. Roberts played Vivian as a woman who can be surprised by her own luck. The picture made more than four hundred million dollars and made her, almost overnight, the face the 1990s hired when it wanted to feel generous. She was nominated for Best Actress. She did not win. She did not need the statue to become the highest-paid actress in the world before the decade was out.
The pictures that followed are a map of what a studio does with a new climate. Sleeping with the Enemy (1991). Dying Young. Hook, as Tinker Bell, a favor to Steven Spielberg and a reminder that the grin could be used as magic. The Pelican Brief (1993). Then a stretch of choices that did not all land, because a face that large attracts scripts that only want the face. In 1997 My Best Friend’s Wedding put her opposite Dermot Mulroney and Rupert Everett and proved the climate could survive a heroine who does not get the man. Notting Hill (1999), with Hugh Grant, is a movie star playing a movie star, which is a more dangerous joke than it looks. Runaway Bride, the same year, brought Gere back and closed the circle the public had been asking for.
Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich (2000) is the second monument. She plays a legal clerk in cheap clothes who talks a utility into a corner. The studio paid her twenty million dollars — the first time an actress had been paid that number for one picture. In March 2001 the Academy gave her Best Actress. The smile, for one night, had to sit still while the town admitted the work underneath it. The year around the statue is a map of what the town does with a new climate: The Mexican with Brad Pitt, America’s Sweethearts with Catherine Zeta-Jones, then Ocean’s Eleven as Tess Ocean, a grown woman in a room of charming thieves. Mona Lisa Smile (2003) paid her twenty-five million, another high-water number, to play a Wellesley art-history teacher. Ocean’s Twelve (2004) brought the ensemble back. Closer (2004), for Mike Nichols, took the charm away on purpose. Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), again with Nichols, put her opposite Tom Hanks as a Houston socialite who knew how to move money toward a war.
The 2010s are the actor looking for a different room and the star still willing to do the old generous joke when the joke still had blood in it. Eat Pray Love (2010) sent Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir around the world with her face on it. Larry Crowne (2011) with Hanks. Mirror Mirror (2012) as a wicked queen. August: Osage County (2013), from Tracy Letts, gave her a Plains daughter who has run out of patience, and another Academy nomination. Secret in Their Eyes (2015). Jodie Foster’s Money Monster (2016). Wonder (2017), as a mother beside a child the world stares at. Ben Is Back (2018). Sam Esmail’s Amazon series Homecoming (2018) is the coldest of those rooms: a caseworker in a wellness facility that is not well. Gaslit (2022) made her Martha Mitchell, the cabinet wife who would not stop talking, and earned an Emmy nomination. Ticket to Paradise (2022), with George Clooney, is the generous joke done in Bali light. Leave the World Behind (2023), again with Esmail, from Rumaan Alam’s novel, put her in a Long Island house while the country failed on the television. Barack and Michelle Obama were among the producers. The actor had found a streaming room that did not require the red dress.
I’m just an actor. The fact that I’m a movie star is a whole other thing that I don’t really take into consideration.Julia Roberts
That is the turn, and it is easy to miss because the public remembers the red dress. The turn is not Pretty Woman. The turn is the split she has named in public and then had to live: the actor who wants a part, and the movie star the culture will not stop hiring as a climate. Erin Brockovich is where the two jobs met and the statue went to both. Everything since has been a negotiation about which job is in the call sheet.
The 1990s pile the stills skip is how a new face learns the machine. Flatliners (1990) with Kiefer Sutherland. Sleeping with the Enemy (1991). Dying Young. Hook. The Pelican Brief (1993) with Denzel Washington. Something to Talk About (1995). Mary Reilly (1996), a Jekyll picture that did not land. Michael Collins and Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You the same year, bets on Ireland and a musical. Conspiracy Theory (1997) with Mel Gibson. Stepmom (1998) with Susan Sarandon. Then the 1997–99 cluster that proved the climate could survive a heroine who does not get the man — My Best Friend’s Wedding — and a movie star playing a movie star in Notting Hill. The town paid her as if the grin were a utility. She spent the next twenty years trying to keep a separate ledger for the parts.
Six things most people never knew
- The first school was a family workshop in Atlanta. Walter and Betty Lou taught acting as work. Walter died in 1977. She was ten. The grin did not come out of nowhere. It came out of a house that already knew sides.
- Eric Roberts went first. The older brother was an Oscar nominee before the sister was a climate. Lisa works in the business too. The family is a trade, not a fairy tale.
- Pretty Woman was 3000 before the studio sweetened it. The original script is a caution. The released picture is a Cinderella the 1990s could sell. Both are in the file. Only one is the still.
- She was the first actress paid twenty million dollars for a single role. Erin Brockovich, 2000. The number is not trivia. It is what the town decided the smile was worth once it also needed the work.
- The Lyle Lovett marriage was brief; the Daniel Moder marriage is the life. 1993 to 1995, then 2002 and counting. Twins Hazel and Phinnaeus in 2004. Henry in 2007. The star years had a headline wedding. The working years have a household.
- She has said the movie star is a different job. The quote is not modesty. It is a woman trying to keep one ledger for the parts and another for the climate.
She married the country singer Lyle Lovett in June 1993, after a courtship the magazines treated as a puzzle. They divorced in 1995. In 2002 she married Daniel Moder, a cameraman she met on a set, which is how a certain kind of Hollywood marriage actually starts. Hazel Patricia and Phinnaeus Walter, twins, arrived on November 28, 2004. Henry Daniel in 2007. Colleagues from the Soderbergh pictures describe a professional who knows the mark and does not confuse a premiere with the job. Colleagues from the 1990s describe a young woman the town would not leave alone. The children have grown up with a mother the grocery aisle already recognizes. That is a different kind of workshop.
The later years
The years since the Oscar are not a retirement and not a fade. They are a selection. Home has been California and, for long stretches, Taos, New Mexico, a household with Daniel Moder that the columns now treat as settled because it has lasted, which is the one trick the 1990s version of her was not supposed to manage. Hazel and Phinnaeus, the twins of 2004, and Henry, 2007, grew up with a mother the grocery aisle already recognizes. That is a different kind of workshop from the Atlanta rooms Walter and Betty Lou ran. She has taken the Clooney comedies when the old generous joke still had blood in it. She has taken Nichols, and Tracy Letts, and Esmail, when the actor needed a colder room. People’s “Most Beautiful” covers piled up until the pile itself became a kind of American joke. She has not made a career of explaining the smile. She has made a career of showing up, doing the scene, and going home.
UNICEF work and other field trips sat beside the call sheets. She has used the famous face for vaccine campaigns and for rooms that needed a celebrity the cameras would follow into a clinic. The humanitarian file is not a second statue. It is a woman who learned, young, that a workshop is a form of care, and then had more money than the workshop ever dreamed. Colleagues from the Soderbergh pictures still describe a professional who knows the mark. Colleagues from Homecoming and Leave the World Behind describe an actress willing to be unlikable on purpose. The 1990s version of her was not supposed to want that.
She is in her fifties. Vivian Ward is a clip. Erin Brockovich is the statue. Martha Mitchell and Amanda Sandford are the proof that the other job — the actor — is still the one she clocks in for. The movie star will not clock out. She has said so herself, and then gone back to the mark. The children are grown enough that the household is no longer a secret the magazines can invent. Eric still works. Lisa still works. The family remains a trade. The woman who said she is just an actor is still taking parts, still famous enough that the other job follows her into a Long Island house on Netflix, still a sister from Smyrna who learned sides before anyone paid twenty million to practice them.
The spotlight did not leave. It widened until she could walk to the edge of it and work from there. Taos and Malibu are addresses, not retirements. After the Hunt and whatever comes next are still a call sheet. She has not asked the country to retire the red dress. She has asked, by taking Martha Mitchell and a disaster picture produced by two former occupants of the White House, to be allowed a part that is not a grin. The grin remains available. The clerk in cheap clothes remains the statue. The woman between them is still living, still married to a cameraman, still drawing the line she named in public and then had to live.
After the spotlight moved
It has not moved. It has changed register. Every romantic comedy that wants a generous woman still pays her a tax. Every legal picture that wants a stubborn one still steals Erin’s walk. The red dress still sells a Sunday afternoon. The workshop in Atlanta, the father who died, the brother who went first, and the three children in California are the correction.
She came out of Smyrna, learned sides in a family school, lost her father at ten, took a waitress in Connecticut, took a bride in Louisiana, took a part the studio had rewritten into a fairy tale, became the highest-paid actress of her decade, won the statue for a clerk in cheap clothes, married a cameraman, raised three children, and kept drawing a line between the actor and the star. If you only remember the laugh on Rodeo Drive, you have the still. If you remember the workshop, 3000, the twenty million, the Oscar, and the line about the other job, you have her.
Portrait: KazLovesPinoe · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons