Ashley Judd (born Ashley Tyler Ciminella; 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 has starred in films that have been well received, and that have been box office successes, including Ruby in Paradise (1993), Heat (1995), Smoke (1995), Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996), A Time to Kill (1996), Kiss the Girls (1997), Double Jeopardy (1999), Where the Heart Is (2000), Frida (2002), High Crimes (2002), Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002), De-Lovely (2004), Twisted (2004), Bug (2006), Dolphin Tale (2011), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), Divergent (2014), Dolphin Tale 2 (2014), Big Stone Gap (2014), Barry (2016) and A Dog's Way Home (2019). She starred as Rebecca Winstone in the 2012 television series Missing, for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.
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 Judd 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 she was four. The following year, Judd'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 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.
