It’s been no secret for a while now that glamorous Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is one of Hollywood’s hottest stars. And her rise to the top of the Tinseltown ladder has just been confirmed in financial terms by the news that she reportedly landed a £54 million, nine-picture deal.
The £6 million-a-movie package would make her the best-paid British actress on the other side of the pond. It would also make her the busiest. The contract would see the 32-year-old Swansea-born actress, who is already earning 5 million for her role opposite Richard Gere in the movie of the musical Chicago, sharing the screen with some of cinema’s most lucrative stars.
Possible projects include teaming up with former ER hunk George Clooney in the black comedy Intolerable Cruelty and playing Maria Callas to Russell Crowe’s Aristotle Onassis in Greek Fire. Other ventures in the pipeline are a sequel to The Mask Of Zoro, reuniting her with co-stars Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas, and a turn as the young Elizabeth Taylor in Monty a tale of US movie icon Montgomery Clift.
On the cards, but still in the very early stages of development, is a role in Coming Out, a low-budget movie about a gay Welsh rugby coach scheduled to be made by Catherine’s own production company Milkwood. There are also plans for her to share the screen with her husband Michael Douglas in a courtroom drama.
All in all a pretty packed schedule for the former Darling Buds Of May actress. Catherine, who already has an 18-month-old son, Dylan, with the Fatal Attraction star, has made no secret of her desire to have more children with her 57-year-old husband. But it looks like any plans for future motherhood will have to be put on ice for the next three years. The new deal would put Catherine way ahead of fellow British actress Jane Leeves, who reportedly landed her own hefty £20 million package for another three series of the hit TV show Frasier.
Photo: © Alphapress.
The reported new deal marks a high point in Catherine's remarkable success story. The Mumbles-born actress left the UK in her mid-twenties to seek fame in Hollywood, where she has found it in spades
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Her appearance in The Mask Of Zorro (above) cemented her status as a rising star
