While many of her roles capitalized on her striking looks and figure, Catherine Zeta-Jones has dramatic and comedic acting chops that she proves time and again. In frock flicks, she’s much more than the “exotic” seductress she was sometimes typecast as, playing pivotal roles in historical and literary adaptions. This Welsh actor started young in West End musicals, and has only slowed down recently due to family obligations, but I hope she has a few more costume dramas in her!
Sheherazade in Les 1001 Nuits (1990)
Mariette in The Darling Buds of May (1991-1993)
Beatriz in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)
Maya in “Palestine, October 1917,” The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1993)
Victoria Chapman in The Cinder Path (1994)
Eustacia Vye in The Return of the Native (1994)
Catherine in Catherine the Great (1995)
Isabella Paradine in Titanic (1996)
Elena in The Mask of Zorro (1998)
Velma Kelly in Chicago (2002)
Elena de la Vega in The Legend of Zorro (2005)
Mary McGarvie in Death Defying Acts (2007)
Rose Winters in Dad’s Army (2016)
Olivia de Havilland in Feud: Bette and Joan (2017)
What’s your favorite frock flick role by Catherine Zeta-Jones?
Has to be the Zorro movies, as I have seen too few of the others. But I did catch her latest as the slightly murderous doctor in the contemporary Prodigal Son.
Catherine looks so good in red!
Chicago. 100%, she blows everyone else out of the water.
This! A Thousand times this. Just the way she states her name on the record under oath during the trial scene is thrilling!
Definitely Chicago! I can’t imagine her as Roxie Hart, she absolutely nailed the role of Velma Kelly.
I’ve seen Mask of Zorro, but didn’t like it. I liked her as Olivia de Havilland, and really need to see her take on Catherine the Great.
Catherine would have killed to be so beautiful!
DANG, those cheekbones on the topmost photo. Is it her makeup, or did they get more prominent with age?
I think her face has gotten thinner with age, emphasizing her bone structure.
What about The Phantom (1996) with Billy Zane? Fun pulp adaption set in the 1930s. Other than that, definitely Zorro.
I’ve seen almost all of these, but Zorro and Eustacia Vye are my favorite of her parts. Though she was indeed amazing in Chicago.
Isn’t she beautiful? Anthony Hopkins joked with her about two Welsh actors playing Spaniards in Zorro.
I actually met her once when I was hostessing in a trendy Manhattan restaurant back in the day, in another life – she was plain-scrubbed and not dressed to kill, but what struck me was how beautiful her eyes are/were! She was polite and gracious and didn’t cause a scene or demand anything extra. She also dropped a gigantic tip!
(this was not meant to be a reply – I clicked the wrong box!)
I don’t mind. 😁