Trending:
On paper, a wealthy corporate raider hiring a plucky young sex worker to be his escort for a week might not sound like the recipe for something sweet. But when PEOPLE first reviewed Pretty Woman, the critic called it “a sweetheart of an old-fashioned romantic comedy” with “charm derived mostly from its cast.”
Starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, this Cinderella story of an unlikely couple saving each other against all odds premiered on March 23, 1990. The rom-com from director Garry Marshall went on to make more than $178 million at the worldwide box office.
A lasting hit with audiences and critics, the now-iconic Pretty Woman is a product of its time. In 2019, Roberts told The Guardian, “I don’t really think you could make that movie now, right? So many things you could poke a hole in, but I don’t think it takes away from people being able to enjoy it.”
On the movie’s 35th anniversary, see what the stars of Pretty Woman are up to now.
Julia Roberts as Vivian Ward
In her 2019 Guardian interview, Julia Roberts shared that she landed the role of Vivian Ward — a sex worker hired by Gere’s Edward Lewis as a companion during a business trip — after eight actresses turned it down.
“It really is not a measure of talent, particularly in the beginning,” she said. “It’s a measure of good fortune — and being able to have your wits about you enough to make something out of that good fortune.”
When asked on a CBS Mornings interview with Gayle King in December 2024 where Vivian and Edward would be now, Roberts said of Gere’s character, “I think he passed away peacefully in his sleep from a heart attack, smiling.” She added about Vivian, “And now she runs his business.”
Roberts was on a hot streak when she got the job, coming off her breakout in Mystic Pizza (1988) and her Oscar-nominated part in Steel Magnolias (1989). Pretty Woman earned the star her first Best Actress Oscar nod — a category she’d win 10 years later for Erin Brockovich.
In the years since Pretty Woman, Roberts has been everywhere, from popular ’90s dramas and comedies like Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), Hook (1991), The Pelican Brief (1993) and My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997). She reunited with Gere and Pretty Woman director Marshall for the 1999 rom-com Runaway Bride and worked again with Marshall on Valentine’s Day (2011) and Mother’s Day (2016). Roberts earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination in 2014 for the ensemble drama August: Osage County and returned to rom-coms alongside George Clooney in Ticket to Paradise (2022).
Roberts made her Broadway debut in the 2006 production of Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain, costarring Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper. She also hit the small screen in 2018 in the first season of Homecoming and played Martha Mitchell in the 2022 Starz limited series Gaslit.
Off-screen, Roberts has three teen children with husband Danny Moder.
Richard Gere as Edward Lewis
Richard Gere had been a movie mainstay since the 1970s when he signed on as the somewhat cold workaholic Edward Lewis, with films like American Gigolo (1980), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and Internal Affairs (1990) on his résumé. But Pretty Woman remains a high point.
“You can’t program it,” he told HuffPost Live (per ABC News) in 2015 of the film’s success. “If you could there’d be a thousand of them now. It had some magic in terms of her, me, the story, the director … it just happened.”
Something that couldn’t be replicated — Gere’s memorable piano playing in Pretty Woman. The moment was born out of a need for Edward to have something to do in the hotel while Vivian comes looking for him, leading into to a romantic sequence.
In a November 2024 episode of Today, Gere shared with host Savanah Guthrie that director Marshall asked him what he does when he stays in hotels. “I said, I find a piano, you know, and it’s late at night. No one’s there. It’s the guy sweeping the floor and me,” he explained. Marshall said they could work with that. As for the piece he plays in the film, Gere said, “I just improvised one right there. And then they gave me a “composed by” [credit]. People expect me to be able to play that again. I say, ‘I don’t know’ … I just played.”
Gere has been working non-stop in the years since, notably in the 1993 TV movie And the Band Played On, which earned him a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a miniseries or a special, and Chicago (2002), for which he won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of slick lawyer Billy Flynn.
He’s starred in movies such as Shall We Dance? (2004), Nights in Rodanthe (2008), Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009), Arbitrage (2012) and Longing (2024). He also leads Paramount+ with Showtime’s spy thriller series The Agency along with Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright and Jodie Turner-Smith.
Gere has one grown child with ex-wife Carey Lowell and two young children with wife Alejandra Silva.
Laura San Giacomo as Kit De Luca
PEOPLE’s review of Pretty Woman called Laura San Giacomo “likably crude, gaudy and gold-hearted” as Vivian’s roommate and colleague, Kit De Luca.
In a 2023 interview on the Two Dollar Late Fee podcast, San Giacomo said she hadn’t seen the movie since 1990. However, it “was really beautiful and fun to work on,” thanks in large part to director Marshall. “People loved him,” she added. “He was very fun and joyful.”
The actress had appeared in a handful of TV shows before her 1989 breakout in Sex, Lies and Videotape, and after Pretty Woman went on to a long list of films and, perhaps most notably, starring on series including Just Shoot Me and Saving Grace. Most recently she’s appeared in a four-episode arc in season 3 of Barry and has had a recurring role as Dr. Grace Confalone on NCIS since 2016.
San Giacomo has one adult child with ex-husband Cameron Dye. She is currently married to actor Matt Adler.
Héctor Elizondo as Barnard “Barney” Thompson
Longtime character actor Héctor Elizondo played kind hotel manager Barney Thompson, who helps Vivian modify her clothes (and attitude) for Edward’s engagements.
Though Elizondo got his start in theater and television, he forged a friendship with director Marshall in the 1980s and ended up appearing in 18 of his films over the years, with his 10 minutes of screen time in Pretty Woman bringing much attention.
“It’s a film that I was not interested in, quite frankly, when I saw the premiere,” Elizondo told The A.V. Club in 2021. “But for some reason it came by at the right time, touched the right chord, and became this thing that’s bigger than life, and all of a sudden I find out that I’m gonna get a [Golden Globe Award] nomination. It still turns my head.”
Post-Pretty Woman, Elizondo continued to collaborate with Marshall, including the 2001 Disney hit The Princess Diaries and its 2004 sequel. He also reunited with Gere and Roberts in 1999’s Runaway Bride, in addition to working extensively in television through the years, earning an Emmy for Chicago Hope and more recently starring on Last Man Standing, and having multi-episode arcs on Monk, Grey’s Anatomy and B Positive.
The actor has been married to Carolee Campbell since 1969, and has one son from a previous relationship.
Jason Alexander as Philip Stuckey
Jason Alexander was already a household name thanks to a little show called Seinfeld when he took his sleazy turn in Pretty Woman as Philip Stuckey, a colleague of Edward’s who figures out Vivian’s true profession and propositions her.
“I was not what [Garry Marshall] had in his head,” Alexander recalled on the Inside of You podcast in 2021. “He thought I was too young, too babyfaced and too small. He knew that there was this physical confrontation with Richard Gere’s role. So I was a non-starter for Garry. He knew who he wanted and they couldn’t make a deal with that guy, and now the movie was shooting and that role has to start and they don’t have anybody. And the casting director [Dianne Crittenden] loved me for this role.”
After the casting director got Gere and Alexander together to tape a scene — and Gere gave the recording to Marshall — the magic happened. “At the end of our first day, he went, ‘I was wrong, you’re terrific!’ He did a complete 180,” Alexander shared. “Because of Dianne Crittenden and Richard Gere that movie happened for me.”
Alexander would spend several more years on Seinfeld afterward — earning 7 Emmy nominations for playing George Constanza — in addition to numerous movie and TV roles, including playing himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm in seasons 2 and 7, as well as doing voice work on Kody Kapow, Harley Quinn and Star Trek: Prodigy. Having been in four Broadway shows in the 1980s — and winning a Tony for best actor in a musical for 1989’s Jerome Robbins’ Broadway — Alexander returned to Broadway in 2015’s Fish in the Dark. He made his Broadway directorial debut with 2023’s screwball comedy The Cottage.
Alexander has two children with wife Daena Title.
Ralph Bellamy as James Morse
Ralph Bellamy began acting in the 1930s, earning an Oscar nomination in 1938 for The Awful Truth (1937) and Emmy nods in 1956 for The United States Steel Hour, 1975 for The Missiles of October and 1983 for The Winds of War.
By the time he signed on to Pretty Woman as James Morse — the owner of a company Gere’s character hopes to acquire — Bellamy already had a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, an honorary Oscar and a Tony Award for Sunrise at Campobello, one of his many lauded plays.
PEOPLE’s review said he was “sturdy of voice and still a model of dignity” in the film, “elegantly” stepping into his role.
Pretty Woman would be his last film; Bellamy died in November 1991 following a hospitalization for a lung ailment. He was 87 years old.
Read the full article here
