Ashley Judd, Smart & Sexy

When Ashley Judd packed her U-Haul emblazoned with a "Hollywood or Bust!" bumper sticker and left her Tennessee home for Los Angeles in the late '80s, she was determined to become all actress. Having spent the better part of her teenage years as the "nonsinging" Judd (her mother is Naomi Judd, and her sister, Wynonna), she decided it was time to strike out on her own.

It was typical Ashley. Beneath that luminous Southern belle exterior is a steely inner resolve--so it never occurred to her that she wouldn't succeed. "I like striving," she's often said. "I'm very moved by human endeavor."

An intriguing mix of plainspoken country girl and hyper-articulate intellectual, Judd is a relentless self-improver. She's been known to talk at breakneck speed about the four books she's reading simultaneously or enthusiastically recount the 18-mile hike she just completed at a fitness camp. There's no time to waste in her busy, lull life. No matter what the subject--food, books, God, and movies are just a few of her passions--Judd takes charge of the conversation. And she certainly seems to be in command of her career, too. Her latest project, the romantic comedy Someone Like You with Greg Kinnear, comes on the heels of several successful films that proved the Judd name could make movie producers sing with joy.

If she ever did bristle at the notion of being considered the "Other Judd," she's never let it show. "Mother worked hard, really hard, to get the chance to show her talent," she's said. "I think you could say from my grandmother to me, we're tough women." Judd also has said she knows both her roots and her wings are inherited gifts from her family. "I was always told I was different. I was always told I was special. I was also assured I had a gift and a purpose," she has said.

The young woman whose life seems so straightforward now had an unsettled early life. Ashley was born April 19, 1968, in Los Angeles to Diana Judd, who dreamed of being a singer, and Michael Ciminella, a salesman (and now a sports broadcasting producer). There also was a half sister, Christina. Ashley's parents divorced when she was very young and she moved with her mother and sister to Kentucky. By that point Diana Judd had renamed herself Naomi and Christina had become Wynonna. Over the next 13 years, Ashley attended a dozen different schools and became "an expert at adapting." The family survived on welfare checks and Naomi's modest salary from a variety of jobs, and often lived without electricity, running water, or a phone.

Judd, who has always been extremely self-reliant, received "fractured nurturing" during her childhood mostly from Wynonna (whom she calls "Sister") and her grandparents. She taught herself to cook in second grade because, as she explained, "When your mom is in nursing school and you live on top of a mountain, it's a necessity." Ashley was 15 when Naomi and Wynonna signed their first record deal with RCA. While they toured around the country in a bus they called Dreamchaser, Ashley earned $10 a day cleaning the vehicle--but has said she never felt like a latter-day Cinderella. "It was in my personal best interest to clean up-otherwise I would have been peacefully trying to read my book, with a pair of Sister's underpants hanging over my head."

While the singing duo set off in search of stardom, Judd found solace in books. "I think she felt left out--escaping into books made her feel protected," recalls Wynonna, who says there's never been any sibling rivalry between them. "I love her in a way no one else can. I kind of raised her and I'd do anything for her." Wynonna even bought Ashley the Tennessee Victorian farmhouse she lives in just a few miles down the road from her own home and that of Naomi and their stepfather Larry Strickland.

The girl who read the dictionary "for fun" went on to study at the University of Kentucky where she majored in French. In 1990, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and toyed with the idea of joining the Peace Corps. Later that year, at her sister's urging, Judd decided to pursue acting. "I didn't really pick it. It picked me. I think sometimes you are just born with the knowledge of what you want to do with yourself," she has said of her career choice. When she first arrived in Los Angeles, she lived with her best friend, took a job as a waitress at the chic Beverly Hills eatery The Ivy, and immersed herself in acting classes. Judd wouldn't consider trading on the show business connections of her family to further her ambitions. "It was important to her that she do things herself," says a childhood pal.

Judd's cool, self-assured demeanor helped set her apart from other young actresses from the very beginning. "I was amazed by how well she carried herself," recalls Swoosie Kurtz, who first met Judd in 1991 when she joined Sisters to play Kurtz's daughter on the television series. "She has always been wise beyond her years." During Judd's third season on the show (she left in 1994), she starred in the independent film Ruby in Paradise and her film career took off. "With Ruby everything changed," says Kurtz. "She would sit in her trailer reading a stack of film scripts. It was quite a sudden rise to stardom."

Judd became a hot property in Hollywood. She received good notices in 1995 for Smoke (as the drug-addicted daughter of Harvey Keitel) and Heat (where she reportedly had a brief romance with Robert De Niro). In 1996, Judd starred opposite Matthew McConaughey in A Time to Kill (the two were also briefly involved) and with Mira Sorvino in HBO's Norma Jean and Marilyn (which contained Judd's first nude scene).

In 1997 Judd was diagnosed with "mild, anxious depression." With intensive therapy she unearthed "unresolved childhood grief" and decided to take a year off to reconcile her differences with her mother. "Ashley and Mother have a really complicated relationship," says Wynonna. "When the three of us are in a room, it can be very sweet or very explosive because we're all so different."

Today, Judd has made peace with her past. "I understand very well what happened when I was growing up--the good and the bad," she told GQ in 1999. "I grieved it." But the steel magnolia emerged stronger than ever. "I recommend being sad for a season," she said. "Because God can't be faithful to you if you don't give Him a chance to see you through something."

Judd is drawn to roles that showcase her hard-won emotional and physical strengths. In 1997's Kiss the Girls she convincingly played a doctor who matched wits with a psychotic killer. "She ran every day to stay in shape and didn't shy away from the physical stuff," says co-star Morgan Freeman, who is currently working with her on a second film, the legal drama High Crimes. "She is incredibly disciplined and extremely willing to do whatever the role calls for." As a wife wrongly convicted of murder in 1999's Double Jeopardy, she starred in one of the most commercially successful films of the year. In a town that loves labels, the back-to-back hits earned Judd the title of "Action Girl." But she refused to be pigeonholed, preferring to use her star power to make the films that intrigue her most. Last year she followed up another action film, Eye of the Beholder, with the sensitive drama Where the Heart Is, playing a sympathetic maternity nurse in a small Oklahoma town opposite Natalie Portman.

While she's never worried about her career, Judd once confided to good friend Salma Hayek that she feared she'd never find "the right guy"--then she met Scottish racecar driver Dario Franchitti at a friend's wedding in May 1999. The couple announced their engagement in April of last year (no wedding date has been set). According to Wynonna (who's been asked to perform at the ceremony), her sister wants an intimate wedding. Judd calls her fiance "the greatest person I know" and has become a pit stop fixture (and even taken up the sport herself). Having endured the scrutiny of high-profile romances (most notably with singer Michael Bolton), the usually forthright actress has vowed to keep her relationship with Franchitti private.

Judd's Someone Like You co-star Hugh Jackman says the couple (and the actress's two cockapoos, Buttermilk and Shug) was inseparable on the set and loved to spend free time playing games with the cast ("running charades" is a favorite). "Ashley is addicted to games. I'm sure the two of them will have competing treadmills in their basement someday," he says. "They're just a very fun couple."

Being an actress allows Judd to indulge in one of her favorite childhood pastimes-playing dress-up. Growing up, she frequently raided her mother's closet ("I loved trying on her secondhand '40s dresses"). These days she finds there is no shortage of fashionable frocks at her disposal. Judd's chiseled 5'7" frame (from yoga and running) has earned her a top spot on many designers' wish lists of actresses they most want to dress. Richard Tyler, Giorgio Armani, and Badgley Mischka are among her favorites.

But Judd considers the whirlwind world of glamorous premieres and award shows her "imaginary life." She's most comfortable at home on her farm. She rarely wears makeup offscreen and lives in button-fly Levi's, J.Crew T-shirts, and tennis shoes. When she's not cooking up a storm (she makes a mean butterscotch pie), she's likely to be found in Wynonna's backyard playing with her nephew, Elijah, 6, and niece, Grace, 4 1/2. At the end of the day, she loves to unwind in a warm tub surrounded by candles before heading off to bed (for nine hours of sleep). "The most important lesson I've learned in life is that I have to take care of myself," she has declared.

It's a lesson she has learned well. Ashley is no longer the odd Judd out--she's a woman firmly in charge of her life and loving every minute of it.

Biography 04/2001

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