Julia Roberts Is Lucky to Still Be So Lovable

By Jo Piazza Posted Aug 13th 2010 01:00PM

For women of a certain age, Julia Roberts is like a dinner of cotton candy and macaroni and cheese. She is comfort food for the soul. So lovely is she today that it is easy to forget that Julia has dodged many an image bullet, and the lovable actress is lucky that her personal drama played out before the advent of the 24/7 gossip news cycle.

What gets us so jazzed about Julia's movies today is that her time promoting a film is a rare moment that we get a glimpse into her private life. This isn't a woman who features regularly in the celebrity weeklies or is overplayed in ads for makeup or perfume. There's very little of Julia to go around, so when she speaks (as she is doing right now to promote 'Eat Pray Love') we listen.

I wasn't delighted about 'Eat Pray Love' being adapted into a movie since I was entirely lukewarm on the book. But from the moment this spring when I watched Julia in the movie's trailer, talking about her "no carb left behind" moment and nuzzling an elephant's trunk, I knew I would see this film again and again, my personal annoyance at Elizabeth Gilbert and her a-little-too-needy tome aside.

Julia's small part in the blockbuster 'Valentine's Day' ($110 million at the box office) was the one vignette that made that overdone movie palatable, and her turn as an Iraqi war servicewoman trying to return home to her son for Valentine's Day, though brief, was the one part of the film that made me tear up.

Julia Roberts is like a warm hug to some of us. As we grew up with her movies ('Mystic Pizza,' 'Pretty Woman') she became like a best friend or a cool older sister.

"In the same way guys find zone-out comfort in Adam Sandler and Will Farrell movies, I think women find comfort in Julia Roberts romantic comedies. They're like chicken soup," says Fashionista associate editor Leah Chernikoff.

The ardor for Julia is a generational thing. My baby boomer mother has no soft spot for Jules.

"Doesn't she always seem to be doing the same thing? Playing the same role? Laughing the same way with her big mouth?" my mom, Tracey Piazza, said when I told her I was writing this post. "And didn't she steal someone's husband?"

Ah, here is the reason Julia is lucky to still be so lovable, since only women my mother's age have kept this bit of Julia trivia at the forefront of their minds.

"Ten years ago this woman would have been on the cover of every gossip magazine if there were as many magazines, not to mention blogs, as there are today. She would have had an entirely different career and she may not have won an Oscar," says US Weekly photo editor Peter Grossman.

Back in the nineties, Julia was kind of a jerk. She broke off her engagement with Kiefer Sutherland just three days before the couple's wedding and then ran off to Ireland for a romantic vacay with his best friend, Jason Patric.

The man she chose as her future husband and the father of her three adorable children was, unfortunately, already married when Julia set her sights on him. Roberts met cameraman Danny Moder on the set of 'The Mexican' in 2000 and subsequently broke up his marriage with his wife Vera.

"Ten years ago she was leaving men at the altar and cheating with a married man. If that happened today, the stories would be dissected over and over in the gossip press and there is no way she would still be America's sweetheart. Sure, we all like her now, but that's because we didn't have the institutional memory of her misdeeds drilled into our minds by the media," Grossman said.

Nice timing, Julia. We still love you.

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Tags: Eat Pray Love, julia roberts

Comments

(34)

Friday 13 August

By tammie

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lame & pointless article. was there no one else to pick on today?

By Jessie

That's VERY true...Julia's NOW husband was married when they started messing around and he left his wife for her and people RARELY mention that when talking about Julia...in today's press--she'd have been chewed up and spit out...

By Hap

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Xcellent critique, macrobio on the indefatigable Julia R- and so spot-on regarding her personal relationship 'indiscretions'. What isn't so amazing is how she finally landed herself- on all fours. Catlike. And- in a nutshell- that- defines JR. Catlike. Nine lives, and then some. I think the key to her success- is her ability to just say- to hell with what others think, but minus (thank god) the usual disrespectful antisocial behaviors of modern (younger) Hollywood actors. Good for her- for knowing when and how- to keep the press- at arms length- but warm and bubbly- when necessary.

By colleen

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By Jessica

So she was basically the Angelina Jolie of the 90's.

By suzie q

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I SEE THEY STOPPED HER FROM SHOOTING OFF HER MOUTH ABOUT THINGS SHE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT....POLITICS...LOL

By Ray Staar

It's a pity no one has done you the same favor.

By Robin Feltner

I still love Julia. I think she was perfectly casted for this role.

By Lauren

So....what's your point? I don't hear a plug for the movie, I just hear you trashing Julia Roberts for her past. Who were you in the '90s?

By sunny

Julia is a tramp! She had affairs with most of h er leading men, then started on the camera men which is how she stole her current man from his wife who just had a baby two months before. While the divorce was going on Julia wore t-shirts with terrible sayings about the wife printed on them. Beyond that she parks in handi-capped spaces and then yells at the people who caught her. Not to mention you never see her with her children unless she is pushing a movie. She can't open a movie, I live in the Seattle area and her movies sit empty time after time. They counldn't pay me to buy a ticket to her shows. I won't give her a dime.

The book was good the movie with Julia as the lead will never fly. Hollywood doesn't get it that the public is sick of this woman and all of her affairs with every man she has worked with. Does the word Trashy fit?? yes it does. The counrty is just plain of her behavior. She said all she really wants to do is retire and raise veggies. Julia do us all a favor and disapear.

By Tex

Actually, the same time Roberts was sinking her hooks into Moder is
around the same time Jolie was sinking her hooks into Thornton (who
was engaged to be married at the time). The whole premise that it
happened before invasive gossip reporting is flawed.

By jellybean22

Just a couple of things (Danny and his first wife have no children). I have many friends who think Eat, Pray, Love is their own personal guide to recovering from divorce. I was going through a divorce when some well meaning friend gave me a copy of this book. I forced myself to finish it. I kept saying to myself "can she really be this self absorbed?" When she rereads chapters, doesn't she see just the tiniest pieces of "poor me" written all over. I told a friend "I'll see the movie because Julia is in it and I already know I won't be saying 'the book was so much better.'"

Thursday 16 September

By Arielle

So what if they didn't have any kids? What's your point? It's not as "bad" if you break up a marriage as long as there are no kids involved? I don't have any kids, but if someone tried to steal my husband and succeeded I would be quite devastated. Even though in YOUR opinion we aren't a "real" family.

By Jeannie

I'm too young to be a Boomer, but I agree more with the author's mother.

By Lila

I'm sorry but I do not see anything beautiful about this woman, who can't act by the way. I try to like everyone but this person rubs me the wrong way, like she's hiding something. Oh! maybe the fact she can't act and getting paid tons for doing nothing. Her laugh is hideous and no one will tell her.

By susan

Never liked Julia. I failed to see, in this generation, such phenomenal actors/actresses as in years past. As for her looks, way to heavy in the snooz department. Not a pretty face at all.

Friday 20 August

By reymagea

If their current relationship is good, a person won't be open to other "offers". You can't steal someone if they don't want to be stolen.

It wasn't Julia's timing that swatted those gossip bullets aside, it was Julia - pure Julia. Need proof?

Ask your mama about Liz and Eddie. When Elizabeth Taylor broke up Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (you know, Princess Leia's parents?), the guys who created 24/7, wall-to-wall gossip were still in pre-school, yet Liz got her rear end roasted. America turned on her like she was Hitler's evil step-sister. Why? Liz ain't Julia, that's why.

Julia is all those things you said she is and more; she's smart, sophisticated, suave and straight-up. And not only do girls like her, so do guys. Ask me. I am one.

Like you said, Julia is one of a kind and, 24/7, wall-to-wall gossip or no, unless she takes up intramural baby butchering, as far as I'm concerned she's Teflon coated.