Ashley Judd was born on April 19, 1968 in Los Angeles. She considers her birthplace of California as "an accident." She proudly notes that she is an "eighth-generation Kentuckian."

Ashley Judd began life on the move, literally attended 12 schools in 13 years, living at times in Kentucky back-woods surroundings with her single mother and sister. She turned to reading and the rest of her family, Naomi and Wynonna, turned to singing.

They rocketed to fame as the country duo, The Judds, and little sister Ashley was afforded the chance to attended the University of Kentucky, from which she graduated with honours in 1990 Judd, then, on her singer-sisters advice, went directly to Los Angeles at age 23, where her impressive self-assurance got her an immediate agency contract.

She netted a movie part at her first audition, in Kuffs (1992). Her refusal to do a nude scene for that film didnt hurt her career at all -- she went on to the title role in Ruby in Paradise (1993), for which she received a New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress and a Sundance Film Festival Independent Spirit award. In the meantime, she accepted recurring roles in the quality television shows Star Trek: The Next Generation (episodes 102 and 106, 1991), and Sisters (1991 - 1994), and a part in the TV movie Til Death Do Us Part (1992). Judds next performance, in the movie Natural Born Killers(1994), was too good -- it was cut for being too intense for a general audience. Judd, as the only character left alive in the scene, was the sole reason for that intensity.

Further quality films followed for the actor, deemed an intellectual pin-up moke (1995), Heat (1995),The Passion of Darkly Noon(1995), A Time To Kill (1996), and Normal Life(1996). She received both an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroein Norma Jean and Marilyn Judd star status has been since cemented with Kiss The Girls(1997), The Simon Birch (1998), Double Jeopardy (1999), and Eye of the Beholder(2000). The popular actor shuns the celebrity side of stardom for her confessed... fear of fans and fear of intrusiveness... stalker incident in September, 1999, further reinforced those fears. Scary or not, though, her fan base continues to grow with each role, and includes not only audiences, but critics and industry peers as well.

Ashley Judd was a Phi Beta Kappa and Honors Program student at the University of Kentucky where she majored in French and held four minors.