Ashley Judd facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ashley Judd
Judd in 2023
Born	Ashley Tyler Ciminella (1968-04-19) April 19, 1968 (age 57) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Education	University of Kentucky (BA) Harvard University (MPA)
Occupation	Actress activist
Years active	1991–present
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Dario Franchitti ​ ​ (m. 2001; div. 2013)​
Parent(s)	Naomi Judd (mother)
Relatives	Wynonna Judd (half-sister)

Ashley Judd (born April 19, 1968) is an American actress. 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 Star Trek: The Next Generation and her film debut in 1992's Kuffs.

Early life

Judd was born 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. Ashley's elder half-sister, Wynonna Judd, is also a country music singer.

Ashley's paternal grandfather was of Sicilian (Italian) descent, and her paternal grandmother was a distant descendant of Mayflower pilgrim William Brewster.

When Ashley was born, her mother was still a housewife; she did not become well known as a singer until the early 1980s, after she had returned to Kentucky. Judd's parents divorced in 1972 when Ashley was four. The following year, Ashley's mother Naomi returned with Ashley to Kentucky, where Judd lived for most of her childhood.

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.

After college Judd drove across country 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

Judd at an ABC Missing event at The Paley Center in April 2012

Starting in 1991, Judd appeared as Ensign Robin Lefler, a Starfleet officer, in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Darmok" and "The Game". 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. This 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. She received rave 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."

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. 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. 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 2012, she starred as Rebecca Winstone on the ABC series Missing.

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 The Divergent Series: Insurgent and the 2016 penultimate film of the series The Divergent Series: Allegiant.

In 2014, Judd was the narrator of the documentary film about Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen, Love Is a Verb, directed by Terry Spencer Hesser. The following year she became the first woman to narrate the opening for the telecast of the Kentucky Derby.

Sponsorships

Starting in 2004, Judd was the advertising "face" of American Beauty, an Estée Lauder cosmetic brand sold at Kohl's department stores, and of H. Stern jewelers. In June 2007, Goody's Family Clothing launched three fashion clothing lines with Judd in the fall to be called "AJ", "Love Ashley", and "Ashley Judd". In 2008 they added an "Ashley Judd Plus" line.

Personal life

Judd at the second day of qualifications for the 2009 Indianapolis 500

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." They divorced in 2013.

Judd is an avid martial arts practitioner: She has practiced kickboxing, judo, and Tae Bo.

In February 2006, she entered a program at Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap, Texas and stayed for 47 days. She was there for treatment of depression, insomnia, and codependency.

In 2011, Judd released her memoir All That is Bitter and Sweet, in which she discusses her life from adolescence to adulthood. The memoir concentrates on her humanitarian work as an adult.

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

By May 2007, Judd completed a BA degree at the University of Kentucky. She was awarded an Honorary DHL degree from Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky, on May 9, 2009.

She returned to post-grad studies, earning a mid-career MPA degree (MC/MPA) from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2010.

In August 2016, Judd enrolled at UC Berkeley to pursue a PhD in Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy. She took a medical leave of absence two months later because she was suffering from siege migraines.

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.

Humanitarian work

Judd (upper left) on the cover of Ms. magazine's "This is what a feminist looks like" 2003 issue

Judd has conducted humanitarian work that focuses on gender equality and the rights of women and girls. In 2016, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for UNFPA, the United Nations agency with responsibilities including reproductive health. As of May 2018, she had visited UNFPA's projects for women and girls affected by humanitarian crises in Jordan, Turkey, Ukraine, and Bangladesh, and its development work in India and Sri Lanka.

Judd has travelled with YouthAIDS to places affected by illness and poverty, such as Cambodia, Kenya, and Rwanda. She has become an advocate for preventing poverty and promoting awareness internationally. She has met with political and religious leaders on behalf of the deprived about political and social change. Judd has narrated three documentaries for YouthAIDS that aired on the Discovery Channel, in National Geographic, and on VH1.

In 2011, she joined the Leadership Council of the International Center for Research on Women. Other organizations Judd has been involved with include Women for Women International and Equality Now. She is a member of the advisory board for Apne Aap Women Worldwide. Judd is active on the speakers' circuit, giving speeches about gender equality and humanitarian topics.

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. In 2010, Judd signed the Animal Legal Defense Fund's petition to urge Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to protect that state's homeless animals through tough enforcement of Kentucky's Humane Shelter Law.

Judd meeting with Senator Richard Lugar in 2005

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. 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 traveled with the Enough Project, a project to end genocide and crimes against humanity.

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 response, the conservative Super PAC American Crossroads released an attack ad against Judd in Kentucky.

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. However, she announced on March 27, 2013, that she would not run, citing her need to be focused on her family. Judd later endorsed Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.

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. The event, hosted by Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, also included actors Elizabeth Banks, Tim Daly, Josh Gad, William Baldwin, and David Schwimmer.

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. The Independent called it "a deeply personal and heartfelt op-ed".

Filmography

Film

Television

Documentaries

Accolades

Awards and nominations

Honors

• Kentucky Colonel
• Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Union College, Barbourville, Kentucky
• 2017 Time Person of the Year, as part of the "Silence Breakers"

See also

In Spanish: Ashley Judd para niños