LINDA FANG

Nicole Kidman
Kidman at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
Birth name	Nicole Mary Kidman
Born	June 20, 1967 (age 39) Honolulu, Hawaii
Years active	1983 - present
Spouse(s)	Tom Cruise (1990-2001) Keith Urban (2006 - present)
Notable roles	Suzanne Stone Maretto in To Die For Virginia Woolf in The Hours Satine in Moulin Rouge!
Best Actress 2003 The Hours
Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 1996 To Die For 2002 Moulin Rouge! Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama 2003 The Hours
Best Actress in a Leading Role 2003 The Hours

Nicole Mary Kidman AC (born June 20, 1967) is an Academy Award-winning Australian^[2] actress. In addition to her Academy Award, she is a three-time Golden Globe winner for Best Actress. In 2006, Kidman became the highest paid actress in the film industry.^[3]

After making various appearances in film and television, Kidman received her breakthrough role in the thriller Dead Calm. Since then, Kidman's acting career has developed greatly. Her performances in several films, such as To Die For, Moulin Rouge!, and The Hours, have won her not only critical acclaim but also many film awards. In 2003, Kidman received her Star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California, certifying her as one of the most successful actresses of her time. Kidman is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, a singer and a successful recording artist.

She is also well-known for her former relationship with Tom Cruise, as well as her current marriage to singer Keith Urban. Because she was born to Australian parents in Honolulu, Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship of Australia and the United States.

Kidman's parents are Janelle MacNeille and Dr Antony Kidman. Dr Kidman is a clinical psychologist in Lane Cove and author, who is also heavily involved with the labour movement. MacNeille is a nursing instructor^[4] and edits her husband's books.^[5] At the time Nicole Kidman was born, her father was a Visiting Fellow at the National Institute for Mental Health in Washington, D.C. The family returned to Australia when Kidman was four years old, when her father took on a lectureship at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Kidman has a younger sister, Antonia, born in 1970. Kidman's parents and sister both reside in Greenwich, a suburb on Sydney's North Shore. Kidman, a Catholic, attended Mary Mackillop Chapel in North Sydney with her sister.

Kidman started taking ballet lessons when she was four. This led to studies at Sydney's Australian Theatre for Young People, where she is now Patron, then at the Philip Street Theatre, where she majored in voice production and theatre history. Living in Longueville she studied at North Sydney Girls High School, but dropped out when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer; Kidman concentrated on her family responsibilities until her mother's recovery.

Kidman's first appearance in film came in 1983 when, as a fifteen year-old, she appeared in the Pat Wilson music video for the song Bop Girl. By the end of the year she had secured a supporting role in the television series Five Mile Creek and four film roles, including BMX Bandits and Bush Christmas. During the 1980s she appeared in several Australian movies and TV series, notably including the soap opera A Country Practice, the mini-series Vietnam (1986), Emerald City (1988), and Bangkok Hilton (1989).

In 1989, Kidman starred in the thriller Dead Calm as Rae Ingram, the wife of naval officer John Ingram (Sam Neill), held captive on a Pacific Ocean yacht trip by the psychotic Hughie Warriner (Billy Zane). The horror film received generally positive reviews; the staff of Variety.com commented: "Throughout the film, Kidman is excellent. She gives the character of Rae real tenacity and energy."^[6] Meanwhile, critic Roger Ebert noted the excellent chemistry between the leads, stating, "...Kidman and Zane do generate real, palpable hatred in their scenes together."^[7] In 1990, she appeared opposite Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, a stock car racing movie. After this, Kidman starred with Cruise in Ron Howard's Far and Away (1992). In 1995, Kidman featured in the ensemble cast of Batman Forever. On November 20, 1993 she hosted Saturday Night Live.^{[citation needed]}

Kidman (with a prosthetic nose) in her Academy Award-winning role as Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002).

Her second film in 1995, To Die For was a satirical comedy that earned her praise from critics. She won a Golden Globe Award, and five other best actress awards for her portrayal of the murderous newscaster Suzanne Stone Maretto. Kidman and Cruise portrayed a married couple in Eyes Wide Shut in 1999, Stanley Kubrick's final film.

In 2002, Kidman received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, in which she played the courtesan Satine opposite Ewan McGregor. Consequently, Kidman received her second Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. The same year, she had a well-received starring role in the horror film The Others. While in Australia filming Moulin Rouge!, Kidman injured her knee, so that Jodie Foster had to replace her in the film Panic Room.

The following year, Kidman won critical praise for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours, in which the prosthetics applied to her made her almost unrecognizable. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role, along with a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and numerous critics awards. During her Academy Award acceptance speech, after tearing, Kidman made a statement about the importance of art, even during times of war: "Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important. And because you believe in what you do and you want to honor that, and it is a tradition that needs to be upheld."^[8]

In the same year, Kidman took a hand at film production in the film In the Cut. In 2003, Kidman starred in three very different films. Dogville, by Danish director Lars von Trier, an experimental film set on a bare soundstage. Secondly, she co-starred alongside Anthony Hopkins in the film adaptation of Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain. Many critics felt that both Kidman and Hopkins were miscast. Cold Mountain, a love story of two Southerners separated by the Civil War, was her final release that year, and garnered her a Golden Globe Award nomination.

In 2004, Kidman appeared in the critically panned remake of The Stepford Wives alongside Glenn Close, Faith Hill and Bette Midler. In September of the same year, Birth, in which the 37-year-old actress' character has an encounter with a 10-year-old boy (played by Cameron Bright) who attempts to convince her that he is a reincarnation of her dead husband, was met with a mixed reception primarily due to a scene where the boy strips and joins Kidman in the bathtub. Despite this, the film was nominated for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and Kidman was nominated for another Golden Globe Award. Kidman's two movies in 2005 were The Interpreter, directed by Sydney Pollack, and Bewitched, co-starring Will Ferrell, based on the 1960s TV sitcom of the same name; the latter fared abysmally with critics and at the box office.

In conjunction with her success in the film industry, Kidman became the face of the Chanel No. 5 perfume brand. She starred in a campaign of television and print ads with Rodrigo Santoro, directed by Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann to promote the fragrance during the holiday season in 2004, 2005, and 2006. The three-minute commercial produced for Chanel No. 5 perfume made Kidman the record holder for the most money paid per minute to an actor after she reportedly earned $US3.71 million.^[9] During this time, Kidman was also listed as the 45th Most Powerful Celebrity on the 2005 Forbes Celebrity 100 List. She made a reported US$14.5 million in 2004-2005. On People magazine's list of 2005's highest paid actresses, Kidman was second behind Julia Roberts with a US$16 million to US$17 million per-film price tag.^[10] She has since passed Roberts as the highest paid actress, due in no small part to Roberts's recent devotion to parenting and broadway theatre acting rather than film work.

Kidman has at least five movies in production over the next two years. She has completed filming the Diane Arbus bio-pic Fur, director Oliver Hirschbiegel's science fiction movie The Visiting and Noah Baumbach's comedy-drama Margot at the Wedding. She has also provided her voice for the animated movie Happy Feet. She is currently working on the film adaptation of the first part of the His Dark Materials trilogy in which she plays the villainous Mrs. Coulter. She is also set to star in director Wong Kar-wai's next film, The Lady from Shanghai and Baz Luhrmann's Australian period film titled Australia!, which is set in the remote Northern Territory during the Japanese attack on Darwin during World War II. Kidman will play an English woman feeling overwhelmed by the continent, opposite Hugh Jackman.

Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams in the "Somethin' Stupid" music video

Not known as a singer prior to Moulin Rouge!, Kidman had several well received vocal performances in the film. Her collaboration with Ewan McGregor on the song "Come What May" from the film's soundtrack debuted and peaked at 27 in the UK Singles Chart. Later she collaborated with Robbie Williams on the song "Somethin' Stupid", a cover of the old swing song on Williams' swing covers album Swing When You're Winning. It debuted and peaked at 8 in the Australian ARIAnet Singles Chart, and at number 1 for three weeks in the UK. It was the UK Christmas number 1 Single for 2001.

In 2006, she provided her voice for the animated movie Happy Feet, along with her vocals for her character Norma Jean's 'heartsong', which was a slightly altered version of "Kiss" by Prince.

Kidman met Tom Cruise on the set of their 1990 movie, Days of Thunder. Cruise was married to actress Mimi Rogers at the time, and later divorced her. Kidman and Cruise were married on Christmas Eve 1990 in Telluride, Colorado. The couple adopted two children, daughter Isabella Jane (b. December 22, 1993) and son Connor Anthony (b. January 17, 1995), and lived in Los Angeles, Australia, Colorado, and New York City. They separated just before their 10th wedding anniversary. At the time she was 3 months pregnant and subsequently had a miscarriage.^[11] The marriage was dissolved in 2001, with Cruise citing irreconcilable differences as the cause of the divorce.^[12] The reasons for the dissolution have never been made public. In an interview in the June 2006 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, Kidman reported that she still loved Tom Cruise. Kidman told the magazine: "He was huge; still is. To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was lovely to me. And I loved him. I still love him." In addition, she has expressed shock about their divorce.^[12]

The 2003 film Cold Mountain was plagued by rumours that an on-set affair between Kidman and co-star Jude Law was responsible for the breakup of his marriage. Both vehemently denied the allegations, and Kidman eventually won an undisclosed sum from the British tabloids that published the story.^[13] She donated the money to a Romanian orphanage in the town where the movie was filmed.^[14] Shortly after her Oscar win, there were unconfirmed rumours of a relationship between her and fellow Oscar winner Adrien Brody.^[15] She met musician Lenny Kravitz in 2003 and dated him into 2004^[16]

Kidman met country singer Keith Urban at a Hollywood event honouring Australians in January 2005. Kidman and Urban were married on Sunday June 25, 2006, at the Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel in the grounds of St Patrick's Estate, Manly in Sydney. They maintain homes in Sydney and Nashville, Tennessee.

Kidman's name was included an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times (August 17, 2006) that condemned organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, and supported Israel's efforts in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. The full-page advertisement was signed by 84 other Hollywood professionals and reads "We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die. We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs." Others who signed include actors Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny DeVito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton and William Hurt; directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Richard Donner and Sam Raimi; as well as tennis player Serena Williams.^[17]

Kidman has made numerous donations to U.S. Democratic party candidates and endorsed John Kerry in the 2004 presidental election.^[18]

Kidman publicly supports a variety of charities and causes. She has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF Australia since 1994. She has worked to help raise money for and draw attention to the plight of the most disadvantaged children in Australia and around the world. In 2004, she was honoured as a "Citizen of the World" by the United Nations.

On January 26, 2006 Kidman received Australia's highest civilian honour when she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, both for her service to performing arts and for her charitable work. She was also nominated goodwill ambassador for UNIFEM.^[19]

Kidman joined the 'Little Tee Campaign' for Breast Cancer Care to design T-shirts or vests to raise money for breast cancer.^[20] Kidman's mother, Janelle, is a breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed in 1984.^[21]