Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman won the Academy Award as best actress for her portrayal of writer Virginia Woolf in the film The Hours (2002). Kidman was born in Hawaii but grew up in Australia, where she began acting in her teens. She married screen heartthrob Tom Cruise after they met while filming the race-car soap opera Days of Thunder (1990), and they were one of Hollywood's most talked-about couples throughout the '90s. Her films during that era included Gus Van Sant's To Die For (1995, based on the Pamela Smart case) and Stanley Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), in which she starred with Cruise. After a decade of marriage, Cruise and Kidman divorced, but her career soared as she continued to star in both mainstream Hollywood films and smaller, independent features. In 2001 she turned in an Oscar-nominated performance in Moulin Rouge and appeared in two other highly-acclaimed movies, Birthday Girl and The Others. Her other films include Far and Away (1992, with Cruise); Dogville (2003); Cold Mountain (2003, with Renee Zellweger); The Interpreter (2005, starring Sean Penn); Bewitched (2005, co-starring Will Ferrell); Fur (2006, about photographer Diane Arbus); and The Golden Compass (2007, based on the book by Philip Pullman).

Extra credit: Kidman married country singer Keith Urban on 25 June 2006... She had a daughter, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, on 7 July 2008... Kidman and Cruise adopted two children while they were married: Isabella (in 1993) and Connor (in 1995).