The gorgeous, raven-haired Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones first came to prominence in the United Kingdom with her co-starring role as the eldest daughter in a boisterous farm family in the British TV series “The Darling Buds of May” (Yorkshire TV, 1991-93). A head-turner who balanced her stately beauty with an appealing working class bluntness, Zeta-Jones had begun her career as a child performer on the musical stage, starring as the wholesome heroine “Annie” and as the most sophisticated Tallulah in the stage musical “Bugsy Malone”. Her biggest stage break came when she headlined the West End production of “42nd Street”, portraying chorus girl-turned-star Peggy Sawyer. French director Philippe de Broca tapped the exotic actress for the title role in “Sheherazade” (1990). Zeta-Jones subsequently portrayed the explorer’s wife in “Christopher Columbus: The Discovery” (1992) and a reckless young woman desperate to be a duchess in the comedy “Splitting Heirs” (1993). She was well-cast as Eustacia Vye, the willful woman thought to be a witch, in the “Hallmark Hall of Fame” adaptation of “The Return of the Native” (CBS, 1994), opposite Clive Owen and Ray Stevenson.
