American screen actress who spent much of the early 1990s in supporting roles while gaining industry respect and a huge fan following. During the latter half of the decade, Judd became one of the most in-demand actresses in Hollywood, starring in numerous high-profile films including A Time to Kill (1996), Kiss The Girls (1997), Double Jeopardy (1999) and Where The Heart Is (2000). 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.
The daughter of country-music star Naomi Judd and Michael Ciminella, a marketing specialist, Ashley grew up in near-poverty after her parents divorced in 1972. Her older sister, Wynonna, a singer like their mother, absorbed herself in her music while Ashley read books and retreated into a fantasy world where she pretended to be various characters from the stories she loved. Their mother supported the family by working odd jobs, which resulted in frequent moves. As a consequence, Ashley attended 12 different schools by the time she was 13 years old. After her mother and sister became big-name country-music stars, Ashley attended the University of Kentucky. In 1990, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in French.
Beauty, brains and talent, combined with an outgoing nature and self-assured attitude, proved invaluable when Ashley headed for Hollywood where she marched into an agent’s office and was signed immediately. In 1987 she won a part on Star Trek: The Next Generation and went on to a recurring role in Sisters from 1991-1994. Although she was originally cast in a much larger role in Kuffs (1992), she turned it down due to a nude scene, saying her “mother had worked too hard for me to take my clothes off in my first movie.” Her first major role was in the independent film, Ruby in Paradise (1993), and she followed that success with a critically acclaimed appearance in Smoke (1995).
On 23 November 1993, Judd broke her right ankle after being thrown from her horse; as a result, she was hospitalized for two days. She is a vegetarian who enjoys running, rock climbing and mountain hiking to stay in shape. She injured her left foot on 17 February 2004 during a stage performance of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” on Broadway. Because she needed surgery for torn ligaments, she could not return to the show.
On 6 May 2007, the actress received her baccalaureate degree from the University of Kentucky with a major in French. The degree was given 17 years after she left the program with one course shy of fulfulling the requirements.
Although romantically linked to various men over the years, she accepted a wedding proposal from her Scottish boyfriend, racecar driver Dario Franchitti, in December 1999 and they exchanged their vows on 12 December 2001 in Scotland, the first marriage for both. They had no children together. Judd is an antinatalist: “It’s unconscionable to breed with the number of children who are starving to death in impoverished countries.” They divorced in 2013.
In February 2021, while hiking in the jungle in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Judd shattered her leg. African porters transported her for 55 hours to reach a hospital for surgery in South Africa.
On 30 April 2022, her mother Naomi committed suicide by firearm at her home in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee; she was 76.
Link to Wikipedia biography