The gasps heard ’round the theaters in summer 1998 sprang from the moment Catherine Zeta-Jones peeked from around the corner and fixed her chocolate eyes on Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro.
Although she was already a media fixture in England, with a successful career in musical theater and television, frankly we’d never seen her before (unless you were one of the few to watch the Titanic miniseries in 1996 or the Billy Zane flop The Phantom).
So there she was — the dark-brown mane, which she once said she washes with beer to keep it shiny, the impeccably lined eyes and an exotic beauty that screams “guess where I’m from?” (surprising answer: Wales), hitting us from left field and establishing a new screen presence, not to mention a bona fide sex symbol.
But 31-year-old Zeta-Jones (pronounced ZEETA) is the kind of sexy that puts her in a higher class than the buxom blond world of Playmates and Baywatch babes. She’s refined, classy, and more likely to be seen in the full-skirted Versace gown she wore to the Oscars instead of some see-through getup with two flaps instead of a skirt and well, you get the picture.
Plus Miss Thang can act. Sure, she could melt the screen by just
bending (which she did in Entrapment), but playing the unsuspecting wife of a drug lord in Traffic – and getting Steven
Soderbergh to write her pregnancy into the role – gave Zeta-Jones the shot she was looking for.
“I think you’re always looking for something to break the image,” Zeta-Jones told Hollywood.com in December. “If you’re successful doing one type of film or in a specific kind of role, when you read a script and [this] alive, beautiful, chic woman comes into a room, you think, ‘Oh, I guess that’s my character.’ And this movie would’ve broken the mold even if I wasn’t pregnant.” Her suspicions were confirmed with a Golden Globe nomination this year for supporting actress.
And while we’re discussing the magnetism of Ms. Zeta-Jones, it has to be mentioned that when she was smirking through her Zorro sword fight, one audience member became so fascinated that he asked her out to dinner and promptly blurted, “I want to father your children.” His name? Michael Douglas. The two were married last November and are the proud parents of 7-month-old Dylan.
Sexiest Quote:
“I love having the back of my neck stroked when I’m driving. I love a man who takes the tiniest details of your body and makes them really provocative.” – Details, May 1999
Sexiest Role:
As Elena, the feisty Spanish aristocrat who is drawn to Antonio Banderas in Mask of Zorro but is not so blinded that she won’t clink blades with him.
Sexiest Scene:
It’s close, between her seductive tango with Banderas in Zorro, so tight you couldn’t put Saran Wrap between them and Entrapment, when she’s slinking around security lasers in a tight catsuit.
Sexiest Feature:
It’s kind of an “overall package” kind of thing, but we would like to point out her womanly curves, Latin-Asian-looking face and the thick, tumbling hair.
In Her Future:
July’s America’s Sweethearts, in which she plays one half of everyone’s favorite Hollywood couple (John Cusack is her husband) who have to promote their latest film together even though they’re splitting up. Julia Roberts plays her sister, Billy Crystal the publicist who tries to keep everything happy on the outside. After that, it’s more babies.
