| Ashley Tyler Ciminella was born April 19, 1968, in
Los Angeles, California. Ashley Judd, as she is known now, is an established,
well known and loved actresses. Ashley is the daughter of Naomi and sister of
Wynonna Judd, country music stars. When Ashley was four, her mom divorced Ashley's
father, Michael Ciminella. Two years later, her mother Naomi packed up, lock,
stock and barrel, took her kids out of L.A., and moved the family to central Kentucky.
Widely known in Hollywood as being extremely intelligent, Ashley has carefully
managed her career to become a critics darling. During
what her mom refers to as the "U-Haul-it years", Ashley attended a series
of twelve different schools in thirteen years, an experience which made her adept
at adapting. Ashley learned to play the fiddle when she was in the third grade,
and she has a beautiful voice, which she shares with family and friends. Naomi
and Wynonna were rocketed to fame as the country duo. Ashley was afforded the
chance to attend the University of Kentucky, where she studied French and graduated
with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1990. She toyed with the idea of volunteering with
the Peace Corps in Africa, but decided to move on to bigger and better things.
Following her singer-sister's advice, Ashley went directly to Los Angeles at age
23, where her impressive self-assurance got her an immediate agency contract.
In the early 90's, she was a drama student at Playhouse West School and Repertory
Theater in Los Angeles. This netted a movie part at her first
audition, in "Kuffs" and she went on to the title role in "Ruby
in Paradise", for which she received a New York Film Critics Circle award
for Best Actress and a Sundance Film Festival Independent Spirit award. Ashley
accepted recurring roles in the quality television shows "Star Trek: The
Next Generation", and "Sisters", and a part in the TV movie "Till
Death Do Us Part". She received both an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe
nomination for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in "Norma Jean and Marilyn". Ashley
has recently purchased her dream house, a hundred-year-old home in Tennessee.
She has big plans for its renovation, and states, “I'm modeling it after
C.S. Lewis’ ‘Chronicles of Narnia’, with cubbyholes and secret
passageways, old gun cabinets and medicine chests built of chestnut”. Ashley
wants her dream home to be this way all because it was the first book that was
ever read to her as a child. Ashley is very athletic and enjoys rock climbing,
hiking and running. Ashley has inherited beauty, brains and
talent, and her own unique rural-urban sophistication. This rags-to-riches fairy
tale heroine, has taken herself to the heights of the acting profession. Ashley
is poised for Hollywood greatness. |
