Date of Birth: June 20, 1967
Place of Birth: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Sign: Sun in Gemini, Moon in Sagittarius
Relations: Father: Antony (biochemist); mother: Janelle (nursing instructor); sister: Antonia (TV reporter); husband: Tom Cruise; kids: Connor Anthony, Isabella Jane (both adopted)
Education: High school dropout
FROM THE BEGINNING, the feisty Nicole Kidman was determined to make a professional name for herself. Her resolve became even stronger when she married mega-star Tom Cruise in 1990, a personal event that could have easily obscured her hard work on stage and screen.
Born in Hawaii, Kidman grew up in Australia where she enrolled in drama school at the age of 10. She made her debut in the Australian film Bush Christmas at age 14, and soon began finding continuous work as an actress. The much-lauded 1985 Kennedy-Miller miniseries Vietnam made her a virtual star overnight in Australia. Only 17 years old at the time, Kidman was voted Best Actress of the year by the Australian public and the Australian Film Institute for her performance.
The actress met her future husband on the set of Days of Thunder. Despite the fact that Cruise was still married to Mimi Rogers, Kidman immediately won the actor's heart and sought-after body, marrying him within the year. As if to prove that landing her husband would not be her greatest accomplishment, Kidman quickly awed critics with a performance in Billy Bathgate, then proved herself Cruise's equal in the sweeping epic Far and Away.
It wasn't long before the leggy redhead was raking in awards from around the world. Her portrayal of a woman obsessed with the dream of being on TV in 1995's To Die For won her a Best Actress Golden Globe, along with Best Actress awards from the Boston Film Critics, the Seattle Film Festival, the Broadcast Film Critics and the London Film Critics. She was nominated both by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and by the American Comedy Awards. Nicole Kidman, Movie Star, had arrived.
Despite their hectic schedules, Kidman and Cruise find time to raise their two adopted children, occasionally moving the entire family in accordance with their film schedules. The most notable example of the family on the move came when the Kidman-Cruise clan relocated to London for nearly all of 1997 and 1998, to work on Stanley Kubrick's final film, the psychosexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut. In between the many re-shoots of Eyes, Kidman managed to squeeze in a lighthearted comedy, Practical Magic, co-starring Sandra Bullock.
Kidman is equally comfortable on stage as in front of cameras, appearing most recently in David Hare's The Blue Room on Broadway. Her theatrical credits also include the lead in Steel Magnolias at the Sydney Seymour Centre, for which she was nominated Best Newcomer by the Sydney Theatre Critics, and Spring Awakening at the Australian Theatre for Young People.
Movies:
2000 Berlin Diaries, 1940-45
2000 Moulin Rouge
1999 Eyes Wide Shut
1998 Practical Magic
1997 The Peacemaker
1996 The Portrait of a Lady
1995 To Die For
1995 Batman Forever
1993 Malace
1993 My Life
1992 Flirting
1992 Far and Away
1991 Billy Bathgate
1990 Days of Thunder
1989 Dead Calm
1989 Emerald City
1987 Windrider
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
