British actress Julia Ormond had several solid years of tier work to her credit -- not to speak the starring part in the made-for-cable Catherine the Great biography Young Catherine (1991) -- when, at 27, she co-starred in the priceless HBO biopic Stalin (1992). Most of the publicity guns were aimed at Robert Duvall's heavily accented portrayal of the Soviet dictator, but at least single observer singled out Ormond's performance as the long-misery Mrs. Stalin as one of the highlights o... f the carbon copy.

That viewer was overseer Edward Zwick, then preparing his own brawny-budget theatrical be Legends of the Depreciation. Thanks to her excellent showing in the formidable company of Fall co-stars Anthony Hopkins, Brad Pitt, Aidan Quinn, and Henry Thomas, Ormond set up herself, on the verge of 30, as Hollywood's ing??nue du jour. Born in Epsom, Surrey, on January 4, 1965, Ormond was a toddler when her parents, a businessman and a laboratory technician, divorced. A self-admitted tomboy who excelled at field hockey, she became tortuous with the theater in school plays, and, following a sparing at art drill (both of her grandparents were abstract artists), she intentional drama at London's Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Following graduation, she landed her first professional fire up in TV commercials, and then acted in a series of plays until she had her breakthrough with Catherine the Great. Before 1995, her Hollywood breakthrough year, was all through, the graceful, silken-haired Ormond had played Guinevere opposite Sean Connery's King Arthur in First Knight and had been shipwreck throw off in the designate role of Sydney Pollack's ill-advised remake of Sabrina. When asked via Premiere armoury what her later plans were, Ormond replied, "Along with Godzilla and the rest of the acting community, I'd to be at the helm." But although she did list b ascribe up her own production company, the actress opted to stick with working in front of the camera, starring in Bille August's much-publicized filmization of Peter Hoeg's best-selling Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997).

Unfortunately, the film proved to be a accepted nonentity both at the lambaste office and amongst critics, and Ormond disappeared from the radars because of a couple of years, purely popping up to brilliant in Nikita Mikhalkov's Sibirsky Tsiryulnik (1999). In 2000, she reemerged in front of Hollywood cameras alongside Vince Vaughn in Prime Gig, a drama about the life, loves, and losses of a California telemarketer.