JULIA F. ROBERTS, ONE OF THE MOST BANKABLE STARS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Julia Roberts, the American actress who was born on a day like today in 1967.

Julia Fiona Roberts (born October 28, 1967) is an American actress. 

Known for her leading roles in films encompassing a variety of genres, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Awards.

The films in which she has starred have collectively grossed over $3.9 billion globally, making her one of Hollywood's most bankable stars.

After an early breakthrough with appearances in Mystic Pizza (1988) and Steel Magnolias (1989), Roberts established herself as a leading actress when she headlined the romantic comedy Pretty Woman (1990), which grossed $464 million worldwide.

She starred in numerous commercially successful films throughout the 1990s, including the cult romantic comedies My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Notting Hill (1999) and Runaway Bride (1999), before winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the biographical drama Erin Brockovich (2000).

She achieved further film success in the following decades with Ocean's Eleven (2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004), Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Valentine's Day (2010), Eat Pray Love (2010), August: Osage County (2013), Wonder (2017), and Ticket to Paradise (2022).

Roberts also received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the HBO television film The Normal Heart (2014), had her first regular television role in the first season of the Amazon Prime Video psychological thriller series Homecoming (2018), and portrayed Martha Mitchell in the Starz political limited series Gaslit (2022).

In addition to acting, Roberts runs the production company Red Om Films, through which she has served as an executive producer for various projects she has starred in, as well as for the first four films of the American Girl franchise (2004-2008).

She has acted as the global ambassador for Lancôme since 2009. She was the world's highest-paid actress throughout the majority of the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s. She was paid $300,000 for Pretty Woman (1990), and received then-unprecedented fees of $20 million and $25 million for her roles in Erin Brockovich (2000) and Mona Lisa Smile (2003), respectively. As of 2020, Roberts' net worth was estimated to be $250 million. People magazine has named her the most beautiful woman in the world a record five times.

More information: Instagram-Julia Roberts

Roberts was born on October 28, 1967, in Smyrna, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, to Betty Lou Bredemus and Walter Grady Roberts. She is of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. Her father was a Baptist, her mother a Catholic, and she was raised Catholic. Her older brother Eric Roberts (born 1956), from whom she was estranged for several years until 2004, older sister Lisa Roberts Gillan (born 1965), and niece Emma Roberts, are also actors. She also had a younger half-sister named Nancy Motes.

Roberts wanted to be a veterinarian as a child. She played the clarinet in her school band. After graduating from Smyrna's Campbell High School, she attended Georgia State University but did not graduate. She later headed to New York City to pursue a career in acting. Once there, she signed with the Click Modeling Agency and enrolled in acting classes.

Following her first television appearance as a juvenile rape victim in the first season of the series Crime Story, with Dennis Farina, in the episode The Survivor, broadcast on February 13, 1987, Roberts made her big screen debut with an appearance in the dramedy Satisfaction (1988), alongside Liam Neeson and Justine Bateman, as a band member looking for a summer gig.

Roberts has contributed to UNICEF as well as other charitable organizations. Her six-day visit to Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1995, as she said, to educate myself, was expected to trigger an outburst of donations -$10 million in aid was sought at the time- by UNICEF officials.

In 2006, she became a spokeswoman for Earth Biofuels as well as chair of the company's newly formed advisory board promoting the use of renewable fuels.

In 2013, she was part of a Gucci campaign, Chime for Change, that aims to spread female empowerment.

In 2000, Roberts narrated a documentary about Rett syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder, designed to help raise public awareness about the disease, and in 2014, she was the voice of Mother Nature in a short film for Conservation International intended to raise awareness about climate change.

More information: Oprah

You can be true to the character all you want
but you've got to go home with yourself.

Julia Roberts