Actress. Born on October 28, 1967, in Smyrna, Georgia. Tall, willowy star of Hollywood films. The younger sister of Eric Roberts, she began acting in her teens, at her parents' theater workshop in Atlanta. A soft, all-American beauty, her film career took off meteorically within a year of her 1988 screen debut. She was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role as Sally Field's troubled diabetic daughter in Steel Magnolias (1989) and as Best Actress for Pretty Woman (1990), in which she was perfectly cast as a kooky hooker with a strong business sensibility. Much newsprint has been devoted to her romantic escapades, including the last-minute cancellation of her 1991 wedding to actor Kiefer Sutherland and her subsequent affair with actor Jason Patric. During this period, and while she was filming Steven Spielberg's Hook, Roberts shunned the press. She left the business for a year, then resurfaced with a starring role in The Pelican Brief (1993) and a new, candid outlook toward interviews. Her surprise 1993 marriage to high-haired rocker Lyle Lovett came after a brief courtship.
