Julia Roberts tops actress power list

Julia Roberts has emerged as the most highly-paid film actress in a list of the 100 most powerful women in entertainment.

Photo: Julia Roberts commands over $20m a film

Photo: Cameron Diaz gets as much as $20m a film

The list is to be celebrated with a gala breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Tuesday morning. Speakers will include the writer of the hit film My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardolas, actress Salma Hayek and Rita Wilson, the wife of Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks. The list shows that 45% of Hollywood studios are now run by women, and that four of the top six US TV networks - CBS, Fox, ABC and UPN - also have women in charge. Julia Roberts, the highest-paid film actress in a list of the 100 most powerful women in entertainment, has a special place in the affections of cinema-goers and Hollywood studios alike.

 Roberts: Said to be the world's most bankable actress

As well as commanding a reported $20m (£13.1m) a movie, the A-list actress is said to be the world's most bankable female star. She cemented her status as a leading lady with her emotional Oscar acceptance speech in 2001 for Erin Brockovich - in which she declared "I love the world". It was applauded by an audience who cannot get enough of Roberts, who first won fame playing a prostitute who stole the heart of Richard Gere in 1990's Pretty Woman. Her popularity was originally based on her girl-next-door appeal, seen in films such as Flatliners, Notting Hill and Runaway Bride. But her reputation as an actress has grown, and her portrayal of the feisty single mother Erin Brockovich made the critics sit up and take notice.  Julia Roberts was born on 28 October 1967 in Smyrna, Georgia. Her parents ran an actors and writers workshop in their home so their young daughter grew up in the company of people who loved acting. It was natural that both she and her brother Eric would also be bitten by the performance bug. After finishing high school, Roberts moved to New York where she was quick to sign herself an agent. She made her first film alongside her brother in Blood Red, made in 1986 but not released until 1989. This was followed by an uneventful period in which she appeared in only a couple of made-for-TV movies and the low-budget Firehouse in 1987. Roberts's first break came in 1988 when she landed a role in Mystic Pizza playing a Portuguese waitress in a small-town pizzeria, for which she won critics' praise. She went on to win an Oscar nomination for Steel Magnolias the following year, playing opposite Hollywood heavyweights Shirley Maclaine and Sally Field. Then came Pretty Woman, which garnered her a second Oscar nod and propelled her to international fame. Two big hits followed, supernatural thriller Flatliners and the battered wife drama Sleeping With the Enemy. But her next movie, the weepie Dying Young in 1991, was a flop and Roberts's career seemed to take something of a nosedive. The actress's personal life was also in a slump following a much-publicized break-up from the actor Keifer Sutherland, who is currently starring in the hit BBC Two series 24. The couple split on the eve of their much-publicized wedding. After she finished her scenes as Tinkerbell in Steven Spielberg's Hook, Roberts decided to retreat from the scene. In this time, she made brief movie appearances such as in Robert Altman's Hollywood satire The Player in 1992. But her private life hit the headlines again when she married country singer Lyle Lovett in 1993. That same year, Roberts seemed also to regain her appetite for the movies but her career over the next few years went up and down. Success in The Pelican Brief was followed by an anti-climax in the panned I Love Trouble and Prêt-à-Porter and surprise flop Mary Reilly. But all was not lost and despite her divorce from Lovett, Roberts finally bagged two big winners in 1996 with Michael Collins and Conspiracy Theory.

MORE NEXT