Ashley Tyler Ciminella, known professionally as Ashley Judd[ is an American actress and activist. She grew up in a family of performing artists, the daughter of country music singer Naomi Judd and the half-sister of country music singer Wynonna Judd. Her acting career has spanned more than three decades, and she has become heavily involved in global humanitarian efforts and political activism. Judd made her television debut in 1991 with a guest role on and her film debut in 1992's Kuffs.
]
Early life
Judd was born Ashley Tyler Ciminella,[ in 1968 in Granada Hills, Los Angeles. Her parents are Naomi Judd, who later became a country music singer and motivational speaker, and Michael Charles Ciminella, a marketing analyst for the horse racing industry.][ MICHAEL CIMINELLA, 83, JUDD GRANDFATHER, DIES , Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) – May 9, 1997]
Ashley's paternal grandfather was of Sicilians (Italian) descent, and her paternal grandmother was a descendant of Mayflower pilgrim William Brewster.[ Judd's Ancestors are found on Who Do You Think You Are?|Entertainment.gather.com (November 9, 2010). Retrieved on April 11, 2011.]
When Judd was born, her mother was a homemaker. Judd's parents divorced in 1972 when she was four. The following year, Judd's mother Naomi returned with Ashley to Kentucky, where Judd lived for most of her childhood.[ Actress of the Week AskMen.com (2006)] Judd has stated that even if she professionally uses her mother's maiden name, her legal surname is still the Ciminella of her father, as "I loved both my last names and the branches of the family they represented", and the one time she tried to legally change it the judge refused it.
Judd attended 13 schools before college, including the Sayre School (Lexington, Kentucky), Paul G. Blazer High School (Ashland, Kentucky), and Franklin High School in Tennessee. She briefly tried modeling in Japan during a school break. At the University of Kentucky, she majored in French and minored in anthropology, art history, theater, and women's studies. She joined the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma. Judd spent a semester studying in France as part of her major. She graduated from the University of Kentucky Honors Program and was nominated to Phi Beta Kappa.[Newman, Judith. "We are Family", Ladies' Home Journal (March 1998, pp. 152–55, 213–14)]
After college Judd moved to Hollywood, where she studied with acting teacher Robert Carnegie at Playhouse West. During this time, she worked as a hostess at The Ivy restaurant and lived in a Malibu rental house. Around that time, she returned East to Williamson County, Tennessee, where she lived near her mother and sister.
Career
Starting in 1991, Judd appeared as Ensign Robin Lefler, a Starfleet officer, in two episodes of , "Darmok" and "". From 1991 to 1994, she had a recurring role as Reed, the daughter of Alex (Swoosie Kurtz), on the NBC drama Sisters.
She made her feature film debut with a small role in 1992's Kuffs. In 1993, she was cast in her first starring role playing the title character in Victor Nuñez's Ruby in Paradise. The latter film won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. Believing that this role would shape the rest of her career, Judd was extremely nervous before the audition, nearly getting into a car accident en route. "From the first three sentences, I knew it was written for me", she told the San Jose Mercury News.[Lovell, Glenn. San Jose Mercury News, November 8, 1993] She received positive reviews in her role as Ruby Lee Gissing, a young woman trying to make a new life for herself.
Nuñez told biographer James L. Dickerson that Judd created the resonance of this character: "The resonance, those moments, was not contrived. It was just a matter of creating the scene and trusting that it was worth telling."[Dickerson, James L. Ashley Judd: Crying on the Inside, Schirmer Trade Books, 2002, p. 75]
Oliver Stone, who had seen Judd in Nuñez's film, cast her in Natural Born Killers (1994), but her scenes were cut from the version of the film released theatrically. The following year, she gained critical acclaim for her role as Harvey Keitel's estranged daughter in Wayne Wang's Smoke and as Val Kilmer's wife in Michael Mann's Heat. That same year she played the role of Callie in Philip Ridley's dark adult fairy tale The Passion of Darkly Noon.
In 1996, she co-starred with Mira Sorvino as Marilyn Monroe in Norma Jean and Marilyn, where she recreated the photo shoot for the centerfold for the first issue of Playboy. The same year she had a supporting role in the thriller film A Time to Kill. It received positive reviews and was a major box office success. By the end of the 1990s, Judd had achieved considerable success as a leading actress, having lead roles in additional thrillers that performed well at the box office, including Kiss the Girls (1997) and Double Jeopardy (1999).
In the early 2000s she starred in Where the Heart Is (2000), Someone Like You (2001), and High Crimes (2002). These were moderate box office successes.[Susman, Gary. (February 27, 2004) You Be the Judd | Movies. EW.com. Retrieved on April 11, 2011. ] In 2002, Judd starred in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which performed well, and acted in the critically acclaimed film Frida.
Judd played the role of Maggie the Cat in the 2003 Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
In 2004 she received praise and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, for her performance in De-Lovely, opposite Kevin Kline, who played Cole Porter. She also starred in Twisted (2004). This was widely panned.
In 2010, Judd was Janet Tamaro's original choice for the role of Detective Jane Rizzoli in the TV series Rizzoli & Isles but she declined. Angie Harmon took the role. In 2011, she co-starred in the family film Dolphin Tale and its 2014 sequel, Dolphin Tale 2. Also in 2011, Judd co-starred with Patrick Dempsey in the film Flypaper.
In 2013, Judd played First Lady Margaret Asher in the action thriller Olympus Has Fallen. In 2014, she appeared as Natalie Prior in Divergent, which she reprised in the 2015 sequel and the 2016 penultimate film of the series .
In 2014, Judd was the narrator of the documentary film about Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen, Love Is a Verb, directed by Terry Spencer Hesser.
Sponsorships
Starting in 2004, Judd was the advertising "face" of American Beauty,
Personal life
In December 1999, Judd became engaged to Dario Franchitti, a Scottish racing driver who competed in Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART). They married in December 2001 at Skibo Castle in Scotland.[ They did not have any children, as she is known to have said: "It's unconscionable to breed with the number of children who are starving to death in impoverished countries."]
Judd is an avid martial arts practitioner:
In February 2006, she entered a program at Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap, Texas and stayed for 47 days.[ Ashley Judd | Judd Lashes Out At Eating Disorder Claims. Contactmusic. Retrieved on April 11, 2011.] She was there for treatment of depression, insomnia, and codependency.[ The Star Online eCentral – Movies – Malaysia Entertainment. Star-ecentral.com (July 7, 2006). Retrieved on April 11, 2011.]
In 2011, Judd released her memoir All That is Bitter and Sweet, in which she discusses her life from adolescence to adulthood.
In February 2021, while hiking in the jungle in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Judd shattered her leg. Porters transported her for 55 hours to reach a hospital for surgery in South Africa.
Judd is a Christian and cited her faith as why she went public against Harvey Weinstein.
Education
In May 2007, Judd received a BA in French at the University of Kentucky.
In August 2016, Judd enrolled at UC Berkeley to pursue a PhD in Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy.
Interests
Judd follows sports at her alma mater, and has attended many University of Kentucky basketball games.
During the 2007 IndyCar season, Judd criticized allowing rookie Milka Duno to race. After the final race, Judd said to reporters "I know this is not very sportsmanlike, but they've got to get the 23 car (Duno) off the track. It's very dangerous. I'm tired of holding my tongue. She shouldn't be out there. When a car is 10 miles an off the pace, it's not appropriate to be racing. People's lives are at stake."
Sexual harassment and assault
In October 2015, Judd told Variety that she had been sexually harassed by a studio mogul but did not name the person. In October 2017, she said the person was Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax, and said that the sexual harassment occurred during the filming of Kiss the Girls.
On April 30, 2018, Judd filed a defamation and sexual harassment lawsuit against Weinstein, stating that he hurt her career by spreading lies about her after she rejected his sexual advances.
At the Women in the World summit in April 2019, Judd addressed Georgia's six-week abortion ban, which had been passed in March 2019. She said that she had been raped three times, and became pregnant once. She said, "As everyone knows, and I'm very open about it, I'm a three-time rape survivor. One of the times that I was raped there was conception and I'm very thankful I was able to access safe and legal abortion. Because the rapist, who is a Kentuckian, as am I, and I reside in Tennessee, has paternity rights in Kentucky and Tennessee, I would've had to co-parent with my rapist."[ Ashley Judd: 'I would have had to co-parent with my rapist', Megan Palin, News.com.au, April 13, 2019]
Activism
Judd has conducted humanitarian work that focuses on gender equality, pro abortion causes and the rights of women and girls. In 2016, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for UNFPA, the United Nations agency with responsibilities including sexual and reproductive health. As of May 2018, she had visited UNFPA's projects for women and girls affected by humanitarian crises in Jordan,
Judd has travelled with YouthAIDS to places affected by illness and poverty, such as Cambodia, Kenya, and Rwanda.
In 2011, she joined the Leadership Council of the International Center for Research on Women.[ "Ashley Judd" . All American Speakers. Retrieved January 17, 2014.]
Political activities
In 2008, Judd supported Barack Obama's presidential campaign. In 2009, she appeared in a one-minute video advertisement for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, in which Judd condemned Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for supporting aerial wolf hunting.[ Animal Legal Defense Fund: Ashley Judd Petitions Kentucky Governor to Help Homeless Animals . Aldf.org (May 11, 2010). Retrieved on April 11, 2011.]
She was appointed Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS, an education and prevention program of the international NGO Population Services International (PSI), promoting AIDS prevention and treatment. Judd was honored November 10, 2009, as the recipient of the fourth annual USA Today Hollywood Hero, awarded for her work with PSI.[ Hero Award honors Ashley Judd for her work with Global Health Organization PSI September 16, 2009. USA Today. Retrieved on April 11, 2011.] On October 29, 2006, Judd appeared at a "Women for Ford" event for Democratic Tennessee Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. She has also campaigned extensively both locally and nationally for a variety of Democratic candidates, including President Barack Obama in critical swing states.
On September 8, 2010, CNN interviewed Judd about her second humanitarian mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Judd represented Tennessee as a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. She also considered returning to Kentucky and challenging Senator Mitch McConnell in 2014.
In February 2013, she invited her Twitter followers to join a mailing list, hinting that she might ultimately announce a run for the Senate to those on the list.
On July 26, 2016, Judd attended a Creative Coalition luncheon in support of DC Statehood that took place during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
In January 2020, Judd endorsed Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren in her run for the presidency.
On July 12, 2024, Judd wrote an op-ed for USA Today calling on President Joe Biden to suspend his 2024 reelection campaign. She wrote Biden was "incapable of countering Trump, while he, unchecked, gushed a firehose of galling lies" at the first presidential debate of the cycle in late June, 2024.
Filmography
Film
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| Released as Animal Attraction in the United Kingdom |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
Television
|
|
| Episodes: "Darmok", "" |
| Recurring role (season 2–4), 32 episodes |
Television film;[Film based on The Judds' life. Megan Ward portrays Ashley in the film.] Voice role |
| Episode: "Elevator" |
| Television film |
| 2012 | Missing | Becca Winstone | Main role |
| 2013 | | Unknown | Directed "Maggie" segment |
| 2017 | Twin Peaks | Beverly Paige | 4 episodes |
| 2017–2019 | Berlin Station | B.B. Yates | Main role (season 2); |
| 2022 | Naomi Judd: A River of Time Celebration | Herself | Naomi's memorial |
Documentaries
Book
Accolades
Awards and nominations
|
|
| 1993 | Ruby in Paradise | Chicago Film Critics Association Award | Most Promising Actress | |
| Independent Spirit Award | Best Lead Female | |
| National Society of Film Critics Award | Best Actress | |
| New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Actress | |
| 1995 | Norma Jean & Marilyn | Golden Globe Award | Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film | |
| 1996 | Norma Jean & Marilyn | Primetime Emmy Award | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie | |
| 1998 | Kiss the Girls | Blockbuster Entertainment Award | Favorite Actress – Video | |
| Favorite Actress – Suspense | |
| Satellite Award | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | |
| 2000 | Double Jeopardy | Blockbuster Entertainment Award | Favorite Actress – Suspense | |
| MTV Movie Award | Best Female Performance | |
| 2004 | De-Lovely | Golden Globe Award | Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy | |
| 2007 | Bug | Saturn Award | Best Actress | |
| 2012 | Missing | Primetime Emmy Award | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie | |
Honors
Notes
External links
