Biography And Filmography:

An actress known for her romantic comedies and for her friendly personality, Kate Hudson stayed away from the dangers of a Hollywood childhood and famous parents; instead earning her own success. At one point, she was Hollywood's Queen hip, an emotional response passed along from hippie mother Goldie Hawn and added to by her Oscar nominated part as a 1970's rock and roll star in “Almost Famous” (2000) and marriage to Black Crows musician Chris Robinson. She has been seen in major box office hits including “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” (2003), and “You, Me, and Dupree” (2006).

The daughter of Academy Award winning actress and producer Goldie Hawn and comedian musician Bill Hudson, she was born on April 19, 1979. Her parents divorced when she was only two years old, and grew up feeling as if her mothers boyfriend Kurt Russell was her dad. 

She spent a lot of time on film and television productions and sets with her parents, but Hawn and Russell kept a firm foundation for their children, one that valued family bonds and individual accountability and did not include sex and drugs. But it was clear the she had a talent for entertaining, so she enrolled in the Crossroads Performing Arts high school in Santa Monica and spent a summer training with the prominent Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts.

In 1996, she got her first television job in an episode of “Party of Five” (1994-2000), but turned down a job for a feature film in “Escape from L.A.” (1996). The following year, she enlisted to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts but dropped out to start an acting career, and was quickly hired for large roles. Her first was "Ricochet River" (1997), set in a Pacific Northwest timber town co-starring Jason James Richter. In "200 Cigarettes" (1998) starring Ben Affleck, she was cast as a young woman on a New Year's Eve date from hell with a group cast including Christina Ricci and Ben and Casey Affleck. Her next project was in Morgan J. Freeman's charming "Desert Blue", portraying a young actress traveling across the California desert with her dad and finding herself in a small town full of fascinating people. 

But she Hudson made her biggest splash in Hollywood in 2000 when she read the script of Cameron Crowe’s rock music story, “Almost Famous” featuring Jimmy Fallon, and was desperate to get a role. In this story of an young music writer on the road with a successful rock band and its ensemble of female rock maidens, she first took the small part of the runaway sister of lead character. Fortunately the other actress had to drop out of her role as head rocker Penny Lane and Hudson convinced Crowe that she could take on the large role. He gave her a shot, and she gave a perfect performance, showing Penny Lane’s glitzy, sexy rock star exterior with heart warming helplessness and anxiety just under the surface.

Next, she was hired for the role of Mary Jane Watson in “Spiderman” (2002) but was concerned she could not hold compete with young boy toy Tobey Maguire and other famous celebs like Kirsten Dunst and Lucy Lawless, deciding instead for a adaptation of the classic "The Four Feathers." In the movie, she starred as the fiancée of a British soldier played by Heath Ledger. The film did reasonably well at the box office. 

In 2003, she co-starred in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" (2003). The movie focused on an advice columnist and advertising executive (Matthew McConaughey) who meet and encounter every romantic comedy style of misfortune.  Later the same year, she teamed with Luke Wilson in the Rob Reiner romantic comedy "Alex and Emma", playing a narrow minded office clerk helping an under pressure writer finish his book. 

She then took a co-starring role in "Le Divorce" (2003) with Glenn Close, a revision of Diane Johnson's best selling book. Returning to her acting roots, she next portrayed an immature American girl who visits her unhappy, divorced sister (Naomi Watts) in Paris and becomes caught up up in a romantic love affair with an attractive, older married man. 

She started 2004 with the birth of her and Robinson’s son, Ryder. But she still found time to appear in director Garry Marshall's "Raising Helen" (2004) alongside Hayden Panettiere and Paris Hilton, where she appeared as a career woman who finds herself ill-equipped to become the adoptive mother of her late sister's children. The movie allowed her to show off her on-screen talents, as her character stretched into a more loving person. She then was hired and cast in “Two for the Money”, starring heavy hitters Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey and Rene Russo.

She then took a role in the action adventure thriller "The Skeleton Key" (2005). “You, Me, and Dupree” with Owen Wilson and Michael Douglas (2006), established that she was still adored by fans and loved for her comedy films, this time with houseguest (Owen Wilson) who overstays his welcome in the house of a newly married couple. The comedy relied on physical comedy and the usual problems that are the topics of the late night comedy world, the film earned over $150 million in box office receipts.

Fueling more media attention and publicity for the movie, she and Robinson announced their divorce and the tabloid media linked her to Owen Wilson.  But Wilson was not without a troubled side, and a few months after their second break up, when she was seen kissing new boyfriend Dax Shepard, he was rushed to the hospital in August of 2007 after attempting suicide at his home in Santa Monica, Calidornai. The press had a field day with gossip that her new romance was the cause for Wilson’s breakdown, though neither side confirmed this theory.

The gossip eased up by  2008, and she teamed with Matthew McConaughey in “Fool’s Gold,” an action adventure flick about a divorced couple who team up to find a sunken treasure. She next co-starred next to Dane Cook in another romantic comedy, “Bachelor No.2” (2008). The actress then starred with Alec Baldwin in the comedy flick "My Best Friend's Girl" (2008) about a man named Tank who faces the ultimate test of friendship when his best friend hires him to take his ex-girlfriend out on a lousy date in order to make her realize how great her former boyfriend is. 

She then starred alongside Candice Bergen and Anne Hathaway in the comedy "Bride Wars" (2009), about two best friends who become rivals when they schedule their respective weddings on the same day. She was then hired and cast in the dramatic "Big Eyes" (2009), a drama centered on the awakening of the painter Margaret Keane, her phenomenal success in the 1950s, and the subsequent legal difficulties she had with her husband, who claimed credit for her works in the 1960s. 

The actress then returned to the romantic comedy theme in "A Dream of Red Mansions" (2009), about an American photojournalist in China who falls for an idealistic revolutionary in 1949.