Nicole Mary Kidman AC (born June 20, 1967), is an Australian Academy Award winning actress. In 2006, she became the highest paid actress in the film industry. That same year, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia(AC), Australia's highest civilian honour.
After making various appearances in film and television, Kidman received her breakthrough role in the thriller Dead Calm. Since then, Kidman's acting career has developed greatly. Her performances in several films, such as To Die For, Moulin Rouge!, and The Hours, have won her not only critical acclaim but also many film awards. In 2003, Kidman received her Star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California. Kidman is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, a singer and a successful recording artist.
She is also well-known for her former marriage to Tom Cruise, as well as her current marriage to singer Keith Urban. Because she was born to Australian parents in Honolulu, Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship of Australia and the United States.
Nicole Mary Kidman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Janelle Ann MacNeille Kidman and Dr. Anthony David Kidman. Her father is a biochemist and a clinical psychologist in Lane Cove, Sydney and author, who is also heavily involved with the labour movement. Her mother is a nursing instructor and edits her husband's books. At the time Nicole Kidman was born, her father was a Visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C. The family returned to Australia when Kidman was four years old, when her father took on a lectureship at the University of Technology, Sydney. She attended Lane Cove Public School in her primary years.
Kidman has a younger sister, Antonia, born in 1970. Kidman's parents and sister both reside in Greenwich, a suburb on Sydney's North Shore. Kidman, a Catholic,attended Mary Mackillop Chapel in North Sydney with her sister and attended North Sydney Girls' High School, also on the North Shore.
Kidman started taking ballet lessons when she was four. This led to studies at Sydney's Australian Theatre for Young People, where she is now Patron, then at the Phillip Street Theatre, where she majored in voice production and theatre history. Living in Longueville she studied at St Marys, but dropped out when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer; Kidman concentrated on her family responsibilities until her mother's recovery.
Kidman met Tom Cruise on the set of their 1990 movie, Days of Thunder. Cruise was married to actress Mimi Rogers at the time, and later divorced her. Kidman and Cruise were married on Christmas Eve 1990 in Telluride, Colorado. The couple adopted two children, daughter Isabella Jane Cruise (b. December 22, 1992) and son Connor Anthony Cruise (b. January 17, 1995), and lived in Los Angeles, Australia, Colorado, and New York City. They separated just before their 10th wedding anniversary. At the time she was 3 months pregnant and subsequently had a miscarriage.[14] Tom Cruise filed for divorce in February 2001. The marriage was dissolved in 2001, with Cruise citing irreconcilable differences as the cause of the divorce. The reasons for the dissolution have never been made public. In an interview in the June 2006 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, Kidman reported that she still loved Tom Cruise. Kidman told the magazine: "He was huge; still is. To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was lovely to me. And I loved him. I still love him." In addition, she has expressed shock about their divorce.
The 2003 film Cold Mountain was plagued by rumours that an on-set affair between Kidman and co-star Jude Law was responsible for the breakup of his marriage. Both vehemently denied the allegations, and Kidman eventually won an undisclosed sum from the British tabloids that published the story. She donated the money to a Romanian orphanage in the town where the movie was filmed.. There were also rumours of her and Jim Carrey going out after the two were spotted at restaurants together, but they both denied it explaining they are just the best of friends. Shortly after her Oscar win, there were unconfirmed rumours of a relationship between her and fellow Oscar winner Adrien Brody. She met musician Lenny Kravitz in 2003 and dated him into 2004.
Kidman met country singer Keith Urban at G'Day USA an event honouring Australians in January 2005. Kidman and Urban were married on Sunday June 25, 2006, at the Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel in the grounds of St Patrick's Estate, Manly in Sydney. They maintain homes in Sydney and Nashville, Tennessee.
