Julia Roberts, the one time Oscar winner and multiple nominee, has never won an Emmy but this year she is a strong contender for an acting nomination with Amazon’s Homecoming.
Roberts made her first appearance on television in 1987 as a juvenile survivor of sexual assault on NBC’s Michael Mann-produced Crime Story. She was 19.
The series became something of a surprise hit for NBC. The plot involved two men, one a cop (Dennis Farina) and the other a mafioso (Anthony Denison), who stalk each other in early 1960s Las Vegas.
Crime Story was given the slot after Miami Vice on Friday nights and thrived there. But it got whacked when it shifted to Tuesday and went up against Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis on ABC’s Moonlighting.
Within a few years, she’d made Mystic Pizza, Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman, earning tow back-to-back Oscar nominations.
Crime Story lasted only two seasons, but by then, Roberts was well on her way to major stardom.
Her Oscar winning performance in Erin Brockovich is a true star turn, one that made the movie a blockbuster, earning $126 million ($185 million today).