Not quite the English Rose
Tipped for an Oscar this year, feisty actress Catherine Zeta Jones is no overnight sensation
By Susan Granger
With her raven hair, almond-shaped eyes and voluptuous curves, Welsh-born Catherine Zeta-Jones has become a genuine Hollywood princess. Quick with a quip and gorgeous to look at, she came to worldwide attention duelling with Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro, followed by playing an insurance investigator on the trail of an art thief, Sean Connery, in The Entrapment. Her subsequent films - The Haunting and High Fidelity - fared less well, but she scored as the pregnant wife of a drug dealer in Traffic. Her salary for Traffic was $3 million. She also recently starred in America's Sweetheart, opposite Julia Roberts. But it is her role in the film musical adaptation of the Broadway production of Chicago that has everybody whispering Oscar.

LOVES:
1) Michael Douglas: "The night we met at the Deauville Film Festival in France, he said, 'I want to father your children.' The balls of someone who could sit there and say that! We dated for a long time and then, in June of 1998, we were in Majorca and that was it. We realized this was serious. On the millennium New Year's Eve, he proposed. We both had the flu at the time and we were honking and blowing our noses. I had snot dribbling down my face but he gave me a beautiful antique diamond engagement ring (10 carats) and we decided to get married. I do love him, and I know it's a real long road ahead, this relationship. I want him to be proud of me."

2) Dylan Michael Douglas: "His birth was probably the best day of my life! He's this chubby angel. He's got about four pounds on each cheek, and he's got the Douglas dimple. He has his grandfather's - we call him Pappy - dimple."

3) Children: "Ideally, I'd like to have three."

4) Her family: "We're very close, a big Irish-Catholic/Welsh family. My mother is a seamstress and my father is a financial manager."

5) Motherly advice: "My mum always said, 'Don't show them everything', so when I met Michael, it was a flirtation dance, which I found very flattering, but I didn't know how much he meant it. I didn't want to jump into bed. I didn't want to start something where distance would make it a fling. I didn't want him to be part of my list or me to be part of his list... so this scared love dance went on for nine months. He only got a kiss on the cheek, maybe three times a real kiss."

6) Her double-barrelled name: "One of my grandmothers was Catherine and the other is called Zeta. She was named after a ship that my great-grandfather took to Greece."

7) Getting back to work: "I relish the fact that Michael and I have had this time together, but I'm ready to work. My work in Traffic opened up a different sort of work for me, and I'm ready to go out there and do more stuff. Fortunately, there's not one ounce of animosity about my career."

8) Giving sentimental gifts: "For Michael's birthday, I surprised him with a photo portrait of his two sons - Cameron (from his first wife Diandra) and Dylan. It's hanging in his office. It was very intimate and he loved it."

9) Movies: "I like the fact they're on celluloid forever, unlike the theatre."

10) Dancing: "I'm a hoofer. I once starred in 42nd Street on London's West End. I started studying dance at the age of four. At the local Catholic church around the corner from my house, there was a lady who teaches dancing. She's a lifelong friend of mine. As a child, I was so hyperactive that it was the easiest way for me to exert myself so that I would at least sleep at night."

11) Make-up: "I think I came out of the womb loving make-up. I never leave home without my eyelash curler. On the set, I'm always asking the make-up artists if I need to have my lashes curled again, and they're usually like, 'Uh, let's get this big muddy stain off your face first.'"

12) Skin care: "I rub a mixture of honey and salt all over my body to moisturize and exfoliate. You come out and your skin is gorgeous!"

13) Her glossy hair: "I condition my hair with honey and beer. I smell like the bottom of a beer barrel for days afterward, but it's very good for the hair."

14) Mumbles: "That's the wonderful fishing village where I was raised. It's outside of Swansea, a city in the south of Wales in the U.K."

15) Small towns: "I love small towns. I went to the same school from the age of five until I left, with the same teachers, in a big house."

16) Dylan Thomas: "I was very lucky to be born in the same hometown as Dylan Thomas, so there was a Dylan Thomas theatre group that I belonged to. Tom Jones was in a production of Thomas's 'Under Milk Wood' with me. Anthony Hopkins directed it, and I had to sing in it."

17) Fencing: "It's a great work-out for women because you knees are bent all the time. It's great for your thighs."

18) Her energy: "I have this frenetic energy that's unbelievable."

19) "Titanic": "The TV mini-series, not the movie. It was lucky for me. I made the mini-series in 1996 and, when Steven Spielberg saw it, he asked me to do Zorro."

20) America: "The best thing I ever did was take time out to move to Los Angeles. It changed everything for me."

21) "Cabaret": "My dream role would be Sally Bowles."

22) Tennessee Williams: "When I was growing up, he as the only person that I associated with America. When I moved to the United States, I was looking for Blanche DuBois everywhere."

23) A fire: "I love a fire because the smell reminds me of coming home from school as a girl and smelling the sooty coal fire."

24) Quiet darkness: "I like quiet and I like the dark. I have this weird thing: I don't realize it's gone dark outside. Michael will come home and say, 'Why no lights? No TV? No music? Are you OK?' And I'm just quite happy in that space without any stuff. I like that peace."

25) Eating: "I ate for Wales when I was pregnant, and I enjoyed everything. I was like, 'Oh, who cares? I'll have another burger'."

26) Carbs: "I'm a peasant - I could eat bread and cheese for the rest of my life! Michael can't believe it - he'll take me to a beautiful restaurant and I'll eat a whole loaf of bread and then I don't eat my meal. I'm a bread girl."

27) Her miracle diet: "The secret was cutting carbohydrates out of my diet, walking and getting lots of sleep. Now, I never eat carbs after five o'clock. It's really helped me. And I need more than eight hours of sleep for me to be sensible."

28) Alfa Romeo: "I'm their 'face'. I did this amusing commercial for them in which I climbed into the rear door of the 156 Sportswagon model in a low-cut black evening gown."

LOATHES:
1) Separations: "It's really difficult when Michael and I are in different places. We don't look forward to it. But we both know it's very hard to be on a film set when you have nothing to do there. I think the computer's the answer - e-mails and sending photographs of Dylan back and forth. We've talked about the difficulty of separations a lot."

2) Being fat: "I was, like, 180 pounds when I was pregnant. Huge. I gained 50 pounds. It takes some time to get it off but there's nothing like a wedding to get a bride in shape."

3) Prolonged breast-feeding: "After a couple of months I realized you're just a milking machine. You're exhausted."

4) Frenzied photographers: "In two years' time, I want to be able to take my son to the park and not have to explain why 20 people with cameras are running after us. I'd hate to have him sacrifice the good things just because photographers are documenting his every move."

5) Dylan's burden: "Think about it. He's the son of a famous mum, dad and grandfather. His self-identity could be knocked constantly because he may have to work harder to make a name for himself as a lot of people will have the attitude, 'Oh, he's from that family - everything is an easy ride for him.' Kids are at their most vulnerable when they're like that. It terrifies me."

6) Threats to her marriage: "I know there's going to be a point when everyone will have their knives out, looking to photograph or write something that is detrimental to us or how we feel about each other. The media has an insatiable appetite for information, truth, lies or plain old gossip."

7) Lies about her labour: "It was NOT induced. Dylan was born right on schedule - August 8th."

8) Eric Douglas's influence on Dylan: "Michael's brother has had drug problems and I don't want him picking up or holding Dylan. He's a menace."

9) Being dubbed "an overnight sensation": "I wasn't just dragged off the streets! I've been working in theatre since I was 15. I put a lot of sweat and homework in my career."

10) Her flaws: "I have a piggy nose and puffy eyes."

11) Being a Bond girl: "There's no way I'm going to play Pierce Brosnan's sidekick, thank you. I'll play Bond, Jane Bond."

12) Concealing her scar: "I have a one-and-a-half-inch tracheotomy scar I got as an infant, the result of a virus that hindered my breathing. Make-up artists are always trying to cover it up, but I hate hiding it. I wouldn't be here today if I didn't have that scar."

13) Being accused of smirking: "I think my lips are nice the way they curl up at the ends but, at school, my teachers would think I was smirking because of the way my lips curl up at the ends. I got a lot of, 'Zeta Jones, take that smile off your face!"

14) British stereotype: "People can't believe I'm from the U.K. They think I'm Asian or Latina. They're always expecting that English rose thing."

15) Damsels in distress: "That's why I loved playing Zorro's daughter. She's a ballsy woman who will go out there and do as much as any man to get what she wants. I hate being the kind of woman who just sits and waits for some man to come and fetch me and save me."

16) People who expect her to look luminous off-screen: "On-screen, I've got a great director of photography and fantastic lighting. I'm sorry to disappoint people but I don't look like that all the time."

17) Smoking: "I used to smoke Marlboro Lights. I just stopped. Now I hate it."

18) Jealousy: "The only time I have ever experienced it was with somebody on the set who was not an actor who I couldn't possibly do anything right for. Jealousy is loathsome."

19) Fluff roles: "It's very easy for me to play girls who are just pretty. That's no challenge. My looks may be the first thing you see of me, but I can use what's inside of me now."

20) Gossip: "Before I left England, I was this creature of the British tabloids, a national obsession. I was hurt and disgusted."

21) "Perfect!": "I've heard that enough! When I was doing this British television series, 'The Darling Buds of May', my character, Mariette Larkin, said that in reply to almost everything."

22) Rumours about the pre-nup agreement: "There was a load of rubbish written about it, but there was no argument, no malicious feud. If I was marrying someone of lesser fortune who was 25 years younger, I'd have done the exact same thing. I think pre-nups are brilliant, because it's all sorted out. It wasn't a nasty experience for me; it was like, 'Thank God that's done - let's get on with it!' It as signed and put in the bottom of a drawer, hopefully never to be seen again. I get taken care of very well."

23) The concept of being a gold-digger: "That's what really upsets me. But there are gold-digging women out there and, in a divorce, everyone turns green. Money can create such animosity. I'm lucky. I have my own money. I'm self-sufficient, which is good for a relationship. I've never had a cent from any guy, and I'm very proud of that."

24) Failure: "I still feel terrified sometimes that I'll go home a failure."

25) Emotional vulnerability: "It used to scare me to open up, to be emotional in front of other people."

26) Being stultified: "People who knew me on British television still want to see me every Sunday night in that same role. That's why I knew I would never have the career I wanted over there. I never wanted to be an English rose. Now I know I'm not."

27) Boot camp: "That's what I called the gruelling four-week period that director Martin Campbell made us go through to prepare for Zorro. We did horse-back riding, voice, dancing, choreography, and sword stuff. It was really a glorified boot camp that I shudder to remember."

28) Interior decorating: "I don't do houses. I'm not the kind of person who worries about which couch goes with this or that. I don't really care. I don't have to make my stamp with material things."

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