Julia: Her Life

This is a very good biography on Julia. Packed with tons of info and good pictures. If you're a fan of Roberts, this is the book for you. Definitely worth it!

When I read this book I realized that her life was very complicated. Julia's father died at an early age, when she was about 9. Her only brother Eric, did not get along and still does not talk with their mother. Her mother remarried a man who abused them, especially Eric. There is one sister, Lisa and they have a step sister Nancy, (Motes). Neither of them were interviewed for this book. Eric Roberts was interviewed and expressed his anger about his mother. Julia seemed to be looking for a father figure, with many of her relationships being with actors. If you are a fan of Julia's, I would recommend this book. Hopefully, her happiness will last with her present husband. Good luck and best wishes to you, Julia.

As the author of this book, I would like to respond to the "review" below. It seems to me that when someone purports to review a book, they should do so based on more than one caption. Yes, the caption incorrectly says that Julia's character suffered an epileptic fit, but the text of the book goes into great detail about the character's diabetes. I viewed every one of Julia's movies several times. I welcome serious, thoughtful criticism of my work. but I don't feel that someone who can't bother to read more than the captions has a right to lambast my work.

I had no idea that Julia Roberts had such an interesting life. Her parents ran a children's acting workshop in Atlanta in the 1960s; among its students were the four children of Dr. Martin Luther King. Coretta Scott King was one of the workshop's sponsors, and rumors were that the Robertes were so poor the Kings paid the expenses of Julia's birth. Her parents are fascinating; her father was a Renaissance man who, people who knew him told Spada, had a dark side to go along with his talents as a teacher, writer, director, and actor. Spada paints a fascinating picture of what was an extremely dysfunctional family (helped by information he got from Julia's estranged brother, the actor Eric Roberts), and he does a credible job in making the connection between Julia's lack of good role models for male-female relationships and her string of failed romances, engagements, and marriage. While it's clear that Spada didn't get cooperation from Julia or those closest to her, he did speak to enough relatives, high school classmates, friends and co-workers to write a substantial and credible book about Julia Roberts. This is by far the best of the Roberts books--the only one, really, with any claim to serious biography--and I recommend it highly.

James Spada has written biographies of some of the real heavyweights in Hollywood, and at first glance Julia Roberts might seem out of that league. But as Spada points out in this fascinating and well-written book, Roberts is probably the only female around today who has the potential to leave a legacy approaching some of the greats that have preceded her. The book is relatively short and moves at a good clip--just the right approach to Roberts, I think. Spada offers up the requisite revelations, especially about Roberts's wildly dysfunctional family, but one never gets the impression he's simply dishing dirt, and he has solid sources for the more incendiary material, including a number of Julia's aunts and cousins, and--most intriguingly--her estranged brother Eric, who corresponded with Spada in e-mails. Spada has a witty and knowledgeable take on Roberts's films as well; he describes her first film. "Firehouse," as a "Grade Z sexploitation comedy" and her thriller with Mel Gibson, "Conspiracy Theory," he says, was "akin to a Monty Python spoof of 'The X Files.'" Anyone vaguely interested in Ms. Roberts will find this book entertaining and enlightening, and her fans will love the nearly seventy photos, most in color.