In the mid 1980’s, HTV Wales made a documentary series called "West End Girls". It told the stories of three young performers who’d won small parts in London musicals.

One programme revealed the thrilling song and dance talents of a 17 year-old from Swansea, then toiling in the chorus of "Forty Second Street" .In the finest traditions of show business, the smitten producers promoted her from second understudy to female lead.

But it would be a decade or so before the world caught up with what the West End- and Welsh television viewers- already knew: That Catherine Zeta Jones is a star of major proportions.

Her route to global fame was not the most direct possible. Her early career- especially as a would-be pop diva- included plenty of forgettable moments. Her big breaks were slow coming but also proof that talent will triumph in the end.

Catherine Zeta Jones – the exotically un-Welsh middle name comes from a ship with familial associations– was always destined for the stage. As a child she performed in countless amateur shows in Swansea before London beckoned.

The first taste of national recognition came as Mariette in the hugely popular television drama series "The Darling Buds of May". It made her name but failed to reveal the range of her abilities.

Some fallow years followed during which she was more of a tabloid plaything than an acclaimed performer. In the early nineties she relocated to Los Angeles and began her assault on America, eventually coming to the attention of Steven Spielberg.

It was Spielberg who teamed her up, in a glorious hands-across-Swansea- Bay sort of way, with Port Talbot’s Anthony Hopkins in "The Mask of Zorrow".

She followed it with Entrapment playing opposite Sean Connery while netting Michael Douglas along the way.

As Velma Kelly in the film version of Bob Fosse’s musical Chicago, Catherine

at last had a screen role to match her singing, dancing and acting talents. It won her an Oscar and nobody was a bit surprised.