Ashley Judd

Ashley Tyler Ciminella (born April 19, 1968), known professionally as Ashley Judd, is an American actress. She grew up in a family of performing artists, and is a daughter of singer Naomi Judd and the half-sister of singer Wynonna Judd. Her acting career has spanned more than three decades, and she has been involved in global humanitarian efforts and political activism. Judd made her television debut in 1991 with a guest role on two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and her film debut in 1992's Kuffs.

Ashley Tyler Ciminella was born on April 19, 1968 in Granada Hills, Los Angeles. Her parents are Naomi Judd, who later became a 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 descendant of Mayflower pilgrim William Brewster.

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. Judd has stated that even if she professionally uses her mother's maiden name, her legal surname is still the Ciminella of her father, as "I loved both my last names and the branches of the family they represented", and the one time she tried to legally change it the judge refused it.

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.

Starting in 1991, Judd appeared as Ensign Robin Lefler, a Starfleet officer, in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Darmok" and "The Game". From 1991 to 1994, she had a recurring role as Reed, the daughter of Alex (Swoosie Kurtz), on the NBC drama Sisters.

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. The latter film 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. She received positive reviews in her role as Ruby Lee Gissing, a young woman trying to make a new life for herself.

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."

Oliver Stone, who had seen Judd in Nuñez's film, cast her in Natural Born Killers (1994), but her scenes were cut from the version of the film released theatrically. The following year, she gained critical acclaim for her role as Harvey Keitel's estranged daughter in Wayne Wang's Smoke and as Val Kilmer's wife in Michael Mann's Heat. That same year she played the role of Callie in Philip Ridley's dark adult fairy tale The Passion of Darkly Noon.

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).

Starting in 2004, Judd was the advertising "face" of American Beauty, 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.

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. 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." They divorced in 2013.

Judd is an avid martial arts practitioner: she has practiced kickboxing, judo, and Tae Bo.

In May 2007, Judd received a B.A. in French at the University of Kentucky. She was awarded an Honorary DHL degree from Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky, on May 9, 2009. Judd undertook postgraduate study, earning a mid-career MPA degree from Harvard Kennedy School in 2010.

In August 2016, Judd enrolled at UC Berkeley to pursue a PhD in Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy. She took a medical leave of absence two months later because she was suffering from migraines.

Judd follows sports at her alma mater, and has attended many University of Kentucky basketball games.

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."

Judd has conducted humanitarian work that focuses on gender equality, pro choice 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, Turkey, Ukraine, and Bangladesh, and its development work in India and Sri Lanka.

Judd has travelled with YouthAIDS to places affected by illness and poverty, such as Cambodia, Kenya, and Rwanda. 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. 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. Other organizations Judd has been involved with include Women for Women International and Equality Now. She is a member of the advisory board for Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an organization fighting sex-trafficking and inter-generational prostitution in India. Judd is active on the speakers' circuit, giving speeches about gender equality, abuse and humanitarian topics.

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 Governor Sarah Palin for supporting aerial wolf hunting. 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". In 2010, Judd signed the Animal Legal Defense Fund's petition to urge Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to protect that state's homeless animals through tough enforcement of Kentucky's Humane Shelter Law.

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. 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. 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" 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", 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.

Judd represented Tennessee as a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. She also considered returning to Kentucky and challenging Senator Mitch McConnell in 2014. In response, the conservative Super PAC American Crossroads released an attack ad against Judd in Kentucky.

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. However, she announced on March 27, 2013, that she would not run, citing her need to be focused on her family. Judd later endorsed Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Judd, Ashley with Maryanne Vollers (2011). All That Is Bitter & Sweet: A Memoir. Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-52361-7.

Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Union College, Barbourville, Kentucky

2017 Time Person of the Year, as part of the "Silence Breakers"

2023 Dr. Maria Montessori Ambassador Award from the American Montessori Society