Nicole Kidman is a highly successful Academy Award-winning actress. In 2006, she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia for her contributions to charity, health care and film. This is Australia’s highest civilian honour. Kidman is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and in 2004, was honoured as a "Citizen of the World" by the UN.

 

Kidman was born in Hawaii in 1967. Her family returned to Australia permanently when she was four years old. She grew up and went to school in Sydney. After high school, she studied at several Sydney theatres to realize her ambitions to become an actress. Throughout the 1980s she appeared in music videos and TV dramas, including the popular Bangkok Hilton in 1989.

 

Her breakthrough came in 1990 when she starred opposite Tom Cruise in ‘Days of Thunder’. She was now one of Hollywood’s top stars and landed the lead in many blockbuster movies. She won an Oscar for Best Actress in 2002 for her role in ‘Hours’. Also in 2002, Kidman starred on stage in London and New York in the play ‘The Blue Room’. She got rave reviews.

 

Kidman’s private life has rarely been out of the headlines. She fell in love with and married Tom Cruise in 1990. For a decade they were Hollywood’s hottest romance, until their divorce just after their tenth wedding anniversary. She married country singer Keith Urvan in 2006. The couple have mansions in Australia and the USA. She holds passports for both countries.