Ashley Judd (born April 19, 1968)[1] 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.
Ashley's paternal grandfather was of Sicilian (Italian) descent, and her paternal grandmother was a distant descendant of Mayflower pilgrim William Brewster.[3]
When Judd was born, her mother was a homemaker. Judd's parents divorced in 1972 when she was four. The following year, Judd's mother Naomi returned with Ashley to Kentucky, where Judd lived for most of her childhood.[4]
After college Judd moved 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.[6]
Career
Judd at an ABC Missing event at The Paley Center in April 2012
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.[7] She received rave reviews in her role as Ruby Lee Gissing, a young woman trying to make a new life for herself.[citation needed]
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."[8]
In 1996, she co-starred with Mira Sorvino as Marilyn Monroe in Norma Jean and Marilyn, where she recreated the photo shoot for the centerfold for the first issue of Playboy. 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).[citation needed]
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.[12]
In 2014, Judd was the narrator of the documentary film about Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen, Love Is a Verb, directed by Terry Spencer Hesser.[15] The following year she became the first woman to narrate the opening for the telecast of the Kentucky Derby.[16][17]
Sponsorships
Starting in 2004, Judd was the advertising "face" of American Beauty,[18] 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.[19]
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.[20][21] 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."[21] They divorced in 2013.[22]
In February 2006, she entered a program at Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap, Texas and stayed for 47 days.[27] She was there for treatment of depression, insomnia, and codependency.[28]
In 2011, Judd released her memoir All That is Bitter and Sweet, in which she discusses her life from adolescence to adulthood.[29] 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.[30]
Judd is a Christian and cited her faith as why she went public against Harvey Weinstein.[31]
During the 2007 IndyCar season, Judd criticized allowing rookie Milka Duno to race. After the final race, Judd said to reporters "I know this is not very sportsmanlike, but they've got to get the 23 car (Duno) off the track. It's very dangerous. I'm tired of holding my tongue. She shouldn't be out there. When a car is 10 miles [an hour] off the pace, it's not appropriate to be racing. People's lives are at stake."[37][38]
Sexual harassment and assault
In October 2015, Judd told Variety that she had been sexually harassed by a studio mogul but did not name the person. In October 2017, she said the person was Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax, and said that the sexual harassment occurred during the filming of Kiss the Girls.[39]
On April 30, 2018, Judd filed a defamation and sexual harassment lawsuit against Weinstein, stating that he hurt her career by spreading lies about her after she rejected his sexual advances.[40] Weinstein filed a motion to dismiss in July.[41] In January 2019, a federal judge in California dismissed Judd's claim of sexual harassment against Weinstein but allowed Judd to pursue her defamation claim that Weinstein sabotaged her career.[42]
At the Women in the World summit in April 2019, Judd addressed Georgia's six-week abortion ban, which had been passed in March 2019. She said that she had been raped three times, and became pregnant once. She said, "As everyone knows, and I'm very open about it, I'm a three-time rape survivor. One of the times that I was raped there was conception and I'm very thankful I was able to access safe and legal abortion. Because the rapist, who is a Kentuckian, as am I, and I reside in Tennessee, has paternity rights in Kentucky and Tennessee, I would've had to co-parent with my rapist."[43]
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, pro abortion causes and the rights of women and girls. In 2016, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for UNFPA, the United Nations agency with responsibilities including sexual and reproductive health. As of May 2018, she had visited UNFPA's projects for women and girls affected by humanitarian crises in Jordan,[44] Turkey, Ukraine,[45] and Bangladesh,[46] and its development work in India[47] and Sri Lanka.[48]
Judd has travelled with YouthAIDS to places affected by illness and poverty, such as Cambodia, Kenya, and Rwanda.[49] 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.[49] 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.[50] Other organizations Judd has been involved with include Women for Women International and Equality Now.[49] She is a member of the advisory board for Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an organization fighting sex-trafficking and inter-generational prostitution in India.[51] Judd is active on the speakers' circuit, giving speeches about gender equality, abuse and humanitarian topics.[52]
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 GovernorSarah Palin for supporting aerial wolf hunting.[53] In response, Palin stated the reason these wolves are killed is to protect the caribou population in Alaska. Palin called the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund an "extreme fringe group".[54] In 2010, Judd signed the Animal Legal Defense Fund's petition to urge Kentucky GovernorSteve Beshear to protect that state's homeless animals through tough enforcement of Kentucky's Humane Shelter Law.[55]
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.[56] 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.[57] Judd traveled with the Enough Project, a project to end genocide and crimes against humanity. In the interview, Judd discussed her efforts to raise awareness about how conflict minerals fuel sexual violence in Congo. During her trip, Judd visited hospitals for victims of sexual violence, camps for displaced persons, mines, and civil society organizations. On September 30, 2010, CNN published an op-ed titled "Ashley Judd: Electronics fuel unspeakable violence"[58] by Judd and Enough Project co-founder John Prendergast regarding the continued violence in Congo. On November 26, 2010, she published a subsequent op-ed, "Costs of Convenience",[59] excerpted from her trip diary from eastern Congo. These pieces discussed the recent provision in the Dodd-Frank Reform bill that requires companies to prove where their minerals originated, and the link between modern electronics (which rely on those minerals) and mining camps plagued by such violence.
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.[62] However, she announced on March 27, 2013, that she would not run, citing her need to be focused on her family.[63] Judd later endorsed Kentucky Secretary of StateAlison Lundergan Grimes.[64][65]
^Kentucky Colonels, Honorable Order of. "Colonels website". Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. Archived from the original on October 12, 2007. Retrieved December 21, 2009.
