Just two years before her big break as Vivian in Pretty Woman, Roberts starred as the impulsive waitress Daisy. And while her unruly hair would become iconic, it almost cost her the role in Mystic Pizza.
“I had gone in for a reading and the casting director had said, ‘You can’t be blond when you see the director,'” she reflected in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I had never colored my hair before, so I went to Lamston’s [five-and-dime store] and bought black mousse.”
Roberts became one of the most successful and beloved actresses in Hollywood, starring in Steel Magnolias, Notting Hill, Stepmom, The Pelican Brief and My Best Friend’s Wedding. And in 2000, she won her first Oscar and became the first woman to earn a $20 million paycheck for her turn the titular heroine in Erin Brockovich.
Among her many other credits, the 52-year-old has also starred in Runaway Bride, Mona Lisa Smile, Closer, Ocean’s 11, Eat Pray Love and Ben Is Back. After fronting Ryan Murphy‘s TV movie The Normal Heart in 2018, Roberts made her first major foray into television in Amazon Prime Video’s Homecoming, earning a Golden Globe nomination.
After a string of high-profile romances—Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric Liam Neeson, Benjamin Bratt, Dylan McDermott and Matthew Perry—and a short marriage with country singer Lyle Lovett, Roberts married camerman Danny Moder in 2002. They have three children: twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, 15, and son Henry, 13.
