Nicole Kidman Relationships and children what relationships did nicole have? Kidman has been married twice: previously to actor Tom Cruise, and to who after tom cruise? and currently to country singer Keith Urban. She has an adopted she has an adopted what? She has an adopted son and daughter with Cruise as well as two as well as two what? as well as two biological daughters with Urban. Kidman met
who did kidman meet?
Who did Nicole Kidman meet?
Kidman has been married twice: previously to actor Tom Cruise, and currently to country singer Keith Urban. She has an adopted son and daughter with Cruise as well as two biological daughters with Urban. Kidman met Cruise in November 1989, while filming Days of Thunder, they were married on Christmas Eve 1990 in Telluride, Colorado. The couple adopted a daughter, Isabella Jane (born 1992), and a son, Connor Anthony (born 1995). On 5 February 2001, the couple's spokesperson announced their separation. Cruise filed for divorce two days later, and the marriage was dissolved in August of that year, with Cruise citing irreconcilable differences. In a 2007 interview with Marie Claire, Kidman noted the incorrect reporting of the ectopic pregnancy early in her marriage. "It was wrongly reported as miscarriage, by everyone who picked up the story." "So it's huge news, and it didn't happen."  In the June 2006 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, she said she still loved Cruise: "He was huge; still is. To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was lovely to me and I loved him. I still love him." In addition, she has expressed shock about their divorce. In 2015, former Church of Scientology executive Mark Rathbun claimed in a documentary film that he was instructed to "facilitate [Cruise's] breakup with Nicole Kidman". Cruise's auditor further claimed Kidman had been wiretapped on Cruise's suggestion.  Prior to marrying Cruise, Kidman had been involved in relationships with Australian actor Marcus Graham and Windrider (1986) co-star Tom Burlinson. She was also said to be involved with Adrien Brody. The film Cold Mountain brought rumours that an affair between Kidman and co-star Jude Law was responsible for the break-up of his marriage. Both denied the allegations, and Kidman won an undisclosed sum from the British tabloids that published the story. She met musician Lenny Kravitz in 2003 and dated him into 2004. Robbie Williams confirmed he had a short romance with Kidman on her yacht in summer 2004.  In a 2007 Vanity Fair interview, Kidman revealed that she had been secretly engaged to someone prior to her present relationship to New Zealand-Australian country singer Keith Urban, whom she met at G'Day LA, an event honouring Australians, in January 2005. Kidman married Urban on 25 June 2006, at Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel in the grounds of St Patrick's Estate, Manly in Sydney. In an interview in 2015, Kidman said, "We didn't really know each other - we got to know each other during our marriage." They maintain homes in Sydney, Sutton Forest (New South Wales, Australia), Los Angeles, and Nashville (Tennessee, USA). The couple's first daughter was born in 2008, in Nashville. In 2010, Kidman and Urban had their second daughter via surrogacy at Nashville's Centennial Women's Hospital.  In an on-stage interview by Tina Brown at the 2015 Women in the World (WITW) conference, Kidman stated that she turned her attention to her career after her divorce from Tom Cruise: "Out of my divorce came work that was applauded so that was an interesting thing for me", and led to her Academy Award in 2002. CANNOTANSWER
Kidman met Cruise in November 1989, while filming Days of Thunder, they were
Nicole Mary Kidman  (born 20 June 1967) is an American and Australian actress and producer. Known for her work across various film and television productions from several genres, she has been continuously identified as one of the world's highest-paid actresses. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards.

Kidman began her acting career in Australia with the 1983 films Bush Christmas and BMX Bandits. Her breakthrough came in 1989 with the thriller film Dead Calm and the miniseries Bangkok Hilton. In 1990, she achieved international success with the action film Days of Thunder. She received greater recognition with lead roles in Far and Away (1992), Batman Forever (1995), To Die For (1995) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). In 2003, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of writer Virginia Woolf in the drama film The Hours (2002). She received additional Academy Award nominations for her roles in the musical Moulin Rouge! (2001) and the dramas Rabbit Hole (2010), Lion (2016) and Being the Ricardos (2021).

Kidman's television roles include Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), Big Little Lies (2017–2019), Top of the Lake: China Girl (2017), The Undoing (2020) and Nine Perfect Strangers (2021). For Big Little Lies, she received two Primetime Emmy Awards, one for Outstanding Lead Actress and the other for Outstanding Limited Series as an executive producer.

Kidman has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF since 1994 and for UNIFEM since 2006. In 2006, she was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia. She was married to actor Tom Cruise from 1990 to 2001 and has been married to country music singer Keith Urban since 2006. In 2010, she founded the production company Blossom Films. In 2004 and 2018, Time magazine included her on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2020, The New York Times named her one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.

Early life
Nicole Mary Kidman was born on 20 June 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were temporarily in the United States on student visas. Her mother, Janelle Ann (née Glenny), is a nursing instructor who edited her husband's books and was a member of the Women's Electoral Lobby; her father, Antony Kidman, was a biochemist, clinical psychologist and author. Having been born in the American state of Hawaii to Australian parents, Kidman holds dual citizenship of Australia and the United States. She also has Irish and Scottish ancestry. Being born in Hawaii, she was given the Hawaiian name "Hōkūlani" (), meaning "heavenly star". The inspiration came from a baby elephant born around the same time at the Honolulu Zoo.

When Kidman was born, her father was a graduate student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He became a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health of the United States. Opposed to the war in Vietnam, her parents participated in anti-war protests while living in Washington, D.C. The family returned to Australia when Kidman was four and her mother now lives on Sydney's North Shore. She has a younger sister, Antonia Kidman, who is a journalist and TV presenter.

Kidman grew up in Sydney, Australia, and attended Lane Cove Public School and North Sydney Girls' High School. She was enrolled in ballet at the age of three and showed her natural talent for acting during her primary and high school years. She has said she first aspired to become an actress upon watching Margaret Hamilton's performance as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. She revealed that she was timid as a child, saying, "I am very shy – really shy – I even had a stutter as a kid, which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness. So I don't like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don't like going to a party by myself."

She initially studied at the Phillip Street Theatre in Sydney, alongside fellow actress Naomi Watts who had attended the same high school. She also attended the Australian Theatre for Young People. Here, during her teenage years, she took up drama and mime, finding acting to be a refuge. Owing to her fair skin and naturally red hair, the Australian sun forced the young Kidman to rehearse in the halls of the theatre. A regular at the Phillip Street Theatre, she received praise and encouragement to pursue acting full-time, which she did after dropping out of high school.

Career

Early work and breakthrough (1983–1994)
In 1983, 16-year-old Kidman made her film debut in a remake of the Australian holiday classic Bush Christmas. By the end of that year, she had a supporting role in the television series Five Mile Creek. In 1984, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, which caused Kidman to halt her acting work temporarily while she studied massage therapy in order to help her mother with physical therapy. She began gaining recognition during this decade after appearing in several Australian films, such as the action comedy BMX Bandits (1983) and the romantic comedy Windrider (1986). Throughout the rest of the 1980s, she appeared in various Australian television programs, including the 1987 miniseries Vietnam, for which she won her first Australian Film Institute Award.

In 1988, Kidman next appeared in the Australian film Emerald City, based on the play of the same name, which earned her a second Australian Film Institute Award. She then starred alongside Sam Neill in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm as Rae Ingram, the wife of a naval officer who is menaced by a former lover, played by Billy Zane. The film proved to be her breakthrough role, and was one of the first films for which she gained international recognition. Regarding her performance, Variety commented how "throughout the film, Kidman is excellent. She gives the character of Rae real tenacity and energy." Meanwhile, critic Roger Ebert noted the excellent chemistry between the leads, stating, "Kidman and Zane do generate real, palpable hatred in their scenes together." She followed that up with the Australian miniseries Bangkok Hilton before moving on to star alongside her then-boyfriend and future ex-husband, Tom Cruise, in the 1990 sports action film Days of Thunder, as a young doctor who falls in love with a NASCAR driver. Considered to be her international breakout film, it was among the highest-grossing films of the year.

In 1991, Kidman co-starred alongside Thandiwe Newton and former classmate Naomi Watts in the Australian independent film Flirting. They portrayed high school girls in this coming of age story, which won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film. That same year, her work in the film Billy Bathgate earned Kidman her first Golden Globe Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. The New York Times, in its film review, called her "a beauty with, it seems, a sense of humor". The following year, she and Cruise re-teamed for Ron Howard's Irish epic Far and Away (1992), which was a modest critical and commercial success. In 1993, she starred in the thriller Malice opposite Alec Baldwin and the drama My Life opposite Michael Keaton.

Worldwide recognition and critical acclaim (1995–2003)
In 1995, Kidman played Dr. Chase Meridian, the damsel in distress, in the superhero film Batman Forever, opposite Val Kilmer as the film's title character. The same year, she starred in Gus Van Sant's critically acclaimed dark comedy To Die For, in which she played the murderous newscaster Suzanne Stone. Regarding Kidman's Golden Globe Award-winning performance, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said "[she] brings to the role layers of meaning, intention and impulse. Telling her story in close-up – as she does throughout the film – Kidman lets you see the calculation, the wheels turning, the transparent efforts to charm that succeed in charming all the same." Kidman next appeared alongside Barbara Hershey and John Malkovich in The Portrait of a Lady (1996), based on the novel of the same name, and starred in The Peacemaker (1997) as White House nuclear expert Dr. Julia Kelly, opposite George Clooney. The latter film grossed US$110 million worldwide. In 1998, Kidman starred in the comedy Practical Magic alongside Sandra Bullock as two witch sisters who face a threatening curse that prevents them from ever finding lasting love. While the film opened atop the charts on its North American opening weekend, it flopped at the box office. She returned to her work on the stage that same year in the David Hare play The Blue Room, which opened in London. For her performance, she received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress.

In 1999, Kidman reunited with then-husband Tom Cruise to portray a Manhattan couple on a sexual odyssey in Eyes Wide Shut, their third film together and the final film of director Stanley Kubrick. It was subject to censorship controversies due to the explicit nature of its sex scenes. After a brief hiatus and a highly publicised divorce from Cruise, Kidman returned to the screen to play a mail-order bride in the British-American drama Birthday Girl. In 2001, Kidman played the cabaret actress and courtesan Satine in Baz Luhrmann's musical Moulin Rouge!, opposite Ewan McGregor. Her performance and her singing received positive reviews; Paul Clinton of CNN called it her best work since To Die For, and wrote "[she] is smoldering and stunning as Satine. She moves with total confidence throughout the film [...] Kidman seems to specialize in 'ice queen' characters, but with Satine, she allows herself to thaw, just a bit." Subsequently, Kidman received her second Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, among several other awards and nominations, including her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

Kidman also starred in Alejandro Amenábar's horror film The Others (2001) as Grace Stewart, a mother living in the Channel Islands during World War II who suspects her house is haunted. Grossing over US$210 million worldwide, the film also earned several Goya Award nominations, including a Best Actress nomination for Kidman. She received her second BAFTA Award and fifth Golden Globe Award nominations. Roger Ebert commented that "Alejandro Amenábar has the patience to create a languorous, dreamy atmosphere, and Nicole Kidman succeeds in convincing us that she is a normal person in a disturbing situation, and not just a standard-issue horror movie hysteric."

In 2002, Kidman garnered critical acclaim for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in Stephen Daldry's The Hours, co-starring alongside Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. Kidman famously wore prosthetics, which were applied to her nose, in order to portray the author during 1920s England, making her look almost unrecognisable. The film was a critical success, earning several awards and nominations, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The New York Times wrote that "Ms. Kidman, in a performance of astounding bravery, evokes the savage inner war waged by a brilliant mind against a system of faulty wiring that transmits a searing, crazy static into her brain". Kidman won numerous critic and industry awards for her performance, including her first BAFTA Award, third Golden Globe Award, and the Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first Australian to win the award. During her Oscar's acceptance speech, she referenced the Iraq War which was occurring at the time when speaking about the importance of art saying, "Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important. And because you believe in what you do and you want to honour that, and it is a tradition that needs to be upheld." Also in 2002, Kidman was named the World's Most Beautiful Person by People magazine.

Following her Oscar win, Kidman appeared in three very different films in 2003. The first of those, a leading role in director Lars von Trier's Dogville, was an experimental film set on a bare soundstage. Though the film divided critics in the United States, Kidman still earned praise for her performance. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone stated, "Kidman gives the most emotionally bruising performance of her career in Dogville, a movie that never met a cliche it didn't stomp on." The second film was an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain, opposite Anthony Hopkins. Her third film that year was Anthony Minghella's war drama Cold Mountain, where she starred opposite Jude Law and Renée Zellweger, playing Southerner Ada Monroe, a woman who falls in love with Law's character and become separated by the Civil War. Regarding her performance, Time magazine wrote, "Kidman takes strength from Ada's plight and grows steadily, literally luminous. Her sculptural pallor gives way to warm radiance in the firelight". The film garnered several awards and nominations, most notably for the performances of the cast, with Kidman receiving her sixth Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress.

Established actress (2004–2009)
In 2004, Kidman starred in the film Birth, which sparked controversy over a scene in which she shares a bath with her co-star Cameron Bright, then aged ten. During a press conference at the 61st Venice International Film Festival, Kidman addressed the controversy saying, "It wasn't that I wanted to make a film where I kiss a 10-year-old boy. I wanted to make a film where you understand love". She received her seventh Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama. That same year, she appeared as a successful producer in the black comedy science-fiction film The Stepford Wives, a remake of the 1975 film of the same name, directed by Frank Oz. In 2005, Kidman appeared opposite Sean Penn in the Sydney Pollack thriller The Interpreter, playing UN translator Silvia Broome, and with Will Ferrell in the romantic comedy Bewitched, based on the 1960s TV sitcom of the same name. While neither film fared well in the United States, both were international successes. For the latter film, Kidman and Ferrell earned the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple.

In conjunction with her success within the film industry, Kidman became the face of the Chanel No. 5 perfume brand. She starred in a campaign of television and print ads with Rodrigo Santoro, directed by Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann, to promote the fragrance during the holiday seasons of 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2008. The three-minute commercial produced for Chanel No. 5 made Kidman the record holder for the most money paid per minute to an actor after she reportedly earned US$12 million for the three-minute advert. During this time, Kidman was also featured as the 45th Most Powerful Celebrity on the 2005 Forbes Celebrity 100 List. She made a reported US$14.5 million in 2004–2005. On People magazine's list of 2005's highest-paid actresses, Kidman came in second behind Julia Roberts, with a US$16–17 million per-film price tag.

In 2006, Kidman portrayed photographer Diane Arbus in the biographical film Fur opposite Robert Downey Jr., and lent her voice to the animated film Happy Feet, which grossed over US$384 million worldwide. In 2007, she starred in the science-fiction film The Invasion directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, a remake of the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and starred opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black in Noah Baumbach's comedy-drama Margot at the Wedding, which earned her a Satellite Award nomination for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy. She also starred in the fantasy-adventure, The Golden Compass (2007), playing the villainous Marisa Coulter.

In 2008, she reunited with Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann for the Australian period film Australia, set in the remote Northern Territory during the Japanese attack on Darwin during World War II, starring opposite Hugh Jackman as an Englishwoman feeling overwhelmed by the continent. The acting was praised and the film was a box office success worldwide. In 2009, Kidman appeared in the Rob Marshall musical Nine, portraying the Federico Fellini-like character's muse, Claudia Jenssen, alongside an ensemble cast consisting of Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Fergie, Kate Hudson and Sophia Loren. Kidman, whose screen time was brief in comparison to the other actresses, performed the musical number "Unusual Way" alongside Day-Lewis. The film received several Golden Globe Award and Academy Award nominations, with Kidman earning her fourth Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as part of the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture award.

Biographical and independent films (2010–2015)
In 2010, Kidman produced and starred in the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole, alongside Aaron Eckhart, for which she vacated her role in the Woody Allen picture You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Her portrayal as a grieving mother in the film earned her critical acclaim, and received nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. She also subsequently lent her voice to a promotional video that Australia used to support its bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup. In 2011, she starred alongside Nicolas Cage in director Joel Schumacher's action-thriller Trespass, with the stars playing a married couple taken hostage, and appeared with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in Dennis Dugan's romantic comedy Just Go with It, as a trophy wife.

In 2012, Kidman and Clive Owen starred in the HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn, which depicted the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn. In Lee Daniels' adaptation of the Pete Dexter novel, The Paperboy (2012), she portrayed death row groupie Charlotte Bless. The film competed at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, and Kidman's performance garnered nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, in addition to her second Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, her tenth nomination overall. In 2012, Kidman's audiobook recording of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse was released through Audible. Kidman starred as an unstable mother in Park Chan-wook's Stoker (2013), to a positive response and a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In April 2013, she was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2014, Kidman starred as the titular character in the biographical film Grace of Monaco, which chronicles the 1962 crisis in which Charles de Gaulle blockaded the tiny principality, angered by Monaco's status as a tax haven for wealthy French subjects and Kelly's contemplative Hollywood return to star in Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie. Opening out of competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, the film received largely negative reviews. Kidman also starred in two films with Colin Firth that year, the first being the British-Australian historical drama The Railway Man, in which Kidman played an officer's wife. Katherine Monk of the Montreal Gazette said of Kidman's performance, "It's a truly masterful piece of acting that transcends Teplitzky's store-bought framing, but it's Kidman who delivers the biggest surprise: For the first time since her eyebrows turned into solid marble arches, the Australian Oscar winner is truly terrific". Her second film with Firth was the British thriller film Before I Go To Sleep, portraying a car crash survivor with brain damage. Also in 2014, she appeared in the live-action animated comedy film Paddington as the film's main antagonist.

In 2015, Kidman starred in the drama Strangerland, which opened at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and the Jason Bateman-directed The Family Fang, produced by Kidman's production company, Blossom Films, which premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. In her other 2015 film release, the biographical drama Queen of the Desert, she portrayed writer, traveller, political officer, administrator and archaeologist Gertrude Bell. That same year, she played a district attorney, opposite Julia Roberts and Chiwetel Ejiofor, in the little-seen film Secret in Their Eyes, a remake of the 2009 Argentine film of the same name, both based on the novel La pregunta de sus ojos by author Eduardo Sacheri. After more than 15 years, Kidman returned to the West End in the UK premiere of Photograph 51 at the Noël Coward Theatre. She starred as British scientist Rosalind Franklin, working for the discovery of the structure of DNA, in the production from 5 September to 21 November 2015, directed by Michael Grandage. The production was met with considerable praise from critics, particularly for Kidman, and her return to the West End was hailed a success. For her performance, she won an Evening Standard Theatre Award and received a second Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress.

Lion, Big Little Lies and continued acclaim (2016–present)

In 2016's Lion, Kidman portrayed Sue, the adoptive mother of Saroo Brierley, an Indian boy who was separated from his birth family, a role she felt connected to as she herself is the mother of adopted children. She received positive reviews for her performance, in addition to her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, her fourth nomination overall, and her eleventh Golden Globe Award nomination, among several others. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times thought that "Kidman gives a powerful and moving performance as Saroo's adoptive mother, who loves her son with every molecule of her being, but comes to understand his quest. It's as good as anything she's done in the last decade." Budgeted at US$12 million, Lion earned over US$140 million globally. She also gave a voice-over performance for the English version of the animated film The Guardian Brothers.

In 2017, Kidman returned to television for Big Little Lies, a drama series based on Liane Moriarty's novel of the same name, which premiered on HBO. She also served as executive producer alongside her co-star, Reese Witherspoon, and the show's director, Jean-Marc Vallée. She played Celeste Wright, a former lawyer and housewife, who conceals an abusive relationship with her husband, played by Alexander Skarsgård. Matthew Jacobs of The Huffington Post considered that she "delivered a career-defining performance", while Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post wrote that "Kidman belongs in the pantheon of great actresses". She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her performance, as well as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series as a producer. She also received a Critics' Choice Television Award, Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award.

Kidman next played Martha Farnsworth, the headmistress of an all-girls school during the American Civil War, in Sofia Coppola's drama The Beguiled, a remake of the 1971 film of the same name, which premiered at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, competing for the Palme d'Or. Both films were adaptations of a novel by Thomas P. Cullinan. The film was an arthouse success, and Katie Walsh of the Tribune News Service found Kidman "particularly, unsurprisingly excellent in her performance as the steely Miss Martha. She is controlled and in control, unflappable. Her genteel manners and femininity co-exist easily with her toughness." Kidman had two other films premiere at the festival: the science-fiction romantic comedy How to Talk to Girls at Parties, reuniting her with director John Cameron Mitchell, and the psychological thriller The Killing of a Sacred Deer, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, which also competed for the Palme d'Or. Also in 2017, Kidman played supporting roles in the BBC Two television series Top of the Lake: China Girl and in the comedy-drama The Upside, a remake of the 2011 French comedy The Intouchables, starring Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart.

In 2018, Kidman starred in two dramasDestroyer and Boy Erased. In the former, she played a detective troubled by a case for two decades. Peter Debruge of Variety and Brooke Marine of W both found her "unrecognizable" in the role and Debruge added that "she disappears into an entirely new skin, rearranging her insides to fit the character's tough hide", whereas Marine highlighted Kidman's method acting. The latter film is based on Garrard Conley's Boy Erased: A Memoir, and features Russell Crowe and Kidman as socially conservative parents who send their son (played by Lucas Hedges) to a gay conversion program. Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair credited all three performers for "elevating the fairly standard-issue material to poignant highs". That same year, Kidman played Queen Atlanna, the mother of the title character, in the DC Extended Universe superhero film Aquaman. Also in 2018, Nicole was interviewed for BAFTA A Life in Pictures, where she reflected on her extensive film career.

Forbes ranked her as the fourth highest-paid actress in the world in 2019, with an annual income of $34 million. She took on the supporting part of a rich socialite in John Crowley's drama The Goldfinch, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Donna Tartt, starring Ansel Elgort. Although it was poorly received, Owen Gleiberman commended Kidman for playing her part with "elegant affection". She next co-starred alongside Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie in the drama Bombshell, a film depicting the scandal concerning the sexual harassment accusations against former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, in which she portrayed journalist Gretchen Carlson. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that despite lesser screen time than her two co-protagonists, Kidman successfully made Carlson "ever-so-slightly ridiculous, adding a sharp sliver of comedy that underscores how self-serving and futile her rebellious gestures at the network are". For her performance, Kidman received another nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.

In 2020, Kidman played Grace Fraser, a successful New York therapist, in the HBO psychological thriller miniseries The Undoing, based on the novel You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz. Kidman served as executive producer alongside the show's director, Susanne Bier, and David E. Kelley, who previously adapted and produced Big Little Lies. For her performance, Kidman received additional Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. Kidman's only film release of 2020 was the musical comedy film The Prom, based on the Broadway musical of the same name, starring alongside Meryl Streep, James Corden and Keegan-Michael Key.

In 2021, Kidman starred in and executive produced the Hulu miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers, based on the novel of the same name by Liane Moriarty. She also starred as actress-comedian Lucille Ball alongside Javier Bardem as Ball's husband, Desi Arnaz, in the biographical drama film Being the Ricardos, directed by Aaron Sorkin. Despite unfavourable reactions in response to her casting as Ball, her portrayal was met with critical acclaim. She subsequently won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her performance, in addition to receiving nominations for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, as well as her fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, her fifth overall.

Upcoming projects
Kidman will next star alongside Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Björk in the thriller film The Northman, directed by Robert Eggers. She will also reprise her role of Queen Atlanna in the sequel to the 2018 superhero film Aquaman, titled Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. She will be starring and serving as executive producer on four upcoming television series: the drama miniseries Expats, which is currently in production, the thriller miniseries Pretty Things, based on the upcoming novel of the same name by Janelle Brown, the anthology series Roar, based on Cecelia Ahern's 2018 book of short stories, and the family-drama series Things I Know To Be True, based on the Australian play of the same name. Unlike her other television projects, Things I Know To Be True is envisioned as an ongoing series with multiple seasons rather than a miniseries.

Reception and legacy
Kidman is often regarded to be among the finest actresses of her generation. She has been noted for seeking erratic roles in risky projects helmed by auteurs, as well as for her versatile performances and expansive range of material, having appeared in a variety of eclectic films from several genres throughout her extensive career spanning over nearly four decades. Vanity Fair stated that, despite struggling with her personal life being publicly scrutinised by the media during the early years of her career, "[Kidman] has shown herself to be a major talent, a remarkable actress who can get in there with the best of them, go toe-to-toe, and come out with her credibility intact. What's more, she's proved herself to be a star with a capital S, the one-in-a-generation kind who, like Elizabeth Taylor, is bigger than the Hollywood system, and is also unafraid to be human and real, which only makes her more popular." According to The New York Times, "the plucky, disciplined indomitability she brings to her performances, even more than the artistry she displays within them, may be the secret of her appeal, the source of her bond with the audience." Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker commented how "in each role, there is something waxen and watchful and self-possessed about Kidman, so that, even when she's smiling, she never seems liberated. While other actors specialize in transparency, Kidman has a different gift: she can wear a mask and simultaneously let you feel what it's like to hide behind it." In 2004 and 2018, Time magazine named Kidman one of the 100 most influential people in the world on their annual Time 100 list. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her fifth on its list of the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century up to that point.

Kidman is known to use method acting for many of her roles. It has been noted that she often times transforms herself physically, mentally and emotionally in order to resemble her characters, to the point where it has affected her health. Mark Caro from the Los Angeles Times stated that "to Nicole Kidman, acting isn't a mere technical feat; it's the art of transformation. To hear her tell it, the change can be as dramatic as a caterpillar-into-butterfly metamorphosis. She'll be working and working to get under the skin of a character." W Magazine described her as a "cipher", and pointed out how "she gets under her character's skin so thoroughly, it's nearly impossible to distinguish the actress from the role. It's why she has become so synonymous with a few key roles [...] and why those films are so defined by Kidman's presence in them."

Critics have also commented on her acting style and approach to roles. Sharon Marie Carnicke, a professor of critical studies and acting at the USC School of Dramatic Arts, mentioned that "Kidman's [acting] choices are believable and natural as reactions to the specific circumstances in her world" and described her work as "kinetic". Dennis Bingham, a professor of English and director of film studies at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, stated that "Kidman acts always a step or two outside the character, telegraphing her reactions, elongating the time she takes to articulate her decisions and conclusions. Even her emotional responses are presented as signs." Pam Cook, a professor of film at the University of Southampton, suggests in her biography of Kidman that "her emphasis on artifice and technique points to a conception of screen acting that looks to cinematic expression rather than to the actor's body and intentions for the realisation of character." Mary Luckhurst, a professor and head of the University of Bristol School of Arts with credentials in theatre and performance, stated how "she has strategically pursued a high-risk mutability and versatility, and regularly traverses between naturalist and non-naturalist roles and artforms." She continues saying that "she can continually test her own emotional limits, physical skills, politics, values and frames of reference" and mentions how "her conception of character acting involves metamorphosing gradually into something that she feels is so 'other' that she frequently speaks of losing herself or getting lost in the role, and her preparedness to challenge herself in this respect has continually surprised other actors, directors and producers."

Kidman has also been described as a fashion icon. The chartreuse Dior gown she wore to the 1997 Academy Awards is regarded as one of the greatest dresses in Oscar history and has been credited with changing red carpet fashion forever. Vogue described how "from her embroidered chartreuse John Galliano for Christian Dior gown in 1997, at the side of then-husband Tom Cruise, to that impeccable red Balenciaga moment at the 2007 Oscars, to the unforgettable Calvin Klein ballerina dress she wore to the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, the Australian native has mastered the art of red carpet dressing, always piquing our [interest] and taking risks while never overdoing it." Insider stated that "over the years, Kidman has experimented with all sorts of trends, including bold colors, statement jewelry, and everything in between, making herself one of the most iconic celebrities when it comes to her fashion choices." In 2003, she received the Fashion Icon Award, which was awarded to her by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Regarding her bestowal, Peter Arnold, executive director of the CFDA, said in a statement, "Nicole Kidman's style, both on and off the screen, has had an undeniable impact on fashion. As an actress, she has developed her many memorable characters with an innate understanding of the artistry of clothes. At the same time, she has elegantly established her personal style and own iconic presence worldwide."

Personal life

Relationships and family 

Kidman has been married twice: first to actor Tom Cruise, and later to country singer Keith Urban. Kidman met Cruise in 1989 while working on the set of Days of Thunder, a film in which they both starred, and they married on Christmas Eve of 1990. While married, the former couple adopted a daughter, Isabella Jane Cruise (born 1992), and a son, Connor Antony Cruise (born 1995). On 5 February 2001, the couple's spokesperson announced their separation. Cruise filed for divorce two days later, and their marriage was dissolved later that year, with Cruise citing irreconcilable differences. In a 2007 interview with Marie Claire, Kidman noted the incorrect reporting of an ectopic pregnancy early in her marriage. "It was wrongly reported as miscarriage by everyone who picked up the story. So it's huge news, and it didn't happen."

In the June 2006 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, Kidman revealed that she still loved Cruise despite their divorce: "He was huge; still is. To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was lovely to me and I loved him. I still love him." In addition, she expressed shock about the divorce. In 2015, former Church of Scientology executive Mark Rathbun claimed in a documentary film that he was instructed to "facilitate [Cruise's] break-up with Nicole Kidman". Cruise's auditor further claimed Kidman had been wiretapped on Cruise's suggestion. In an interview with Tina Brown at the 2015 Women in the World conference, she expressed that the attention surrounding her at the time turned to her career after the divorce from Cruise: "Out of my divorce came work that was applauded, so that was an interesting thing for me." She went on to receive an Academy Award in 2003, shortly after her divorce.

Prior to marrying Cruise, Kidman had been involved in relationships with Australian actor Marcus Graham and Windrider co-star Tom Burlinson. The film Cold Mountain brought rumours that an affair between Kidman and co-star Jude Law was responsible for the break-up of his marriage. Both denied the allegations, and Kidman won an undisclosed sum from the British tabloids that published the story. She began dating musician Lenny Kravitz in 2003 before becoming engaged to him, but they ultimately decided to break off their engagement. She was also romantically involved with rapper Q-Tip.

During an interview for Vanity Fair in 2007, Kidman mentioned that she had been secretly engaged to someone, later revealed to have been Lenny Kravitz, prior to her present relationship with New Zealand-Australian country singer Keith Urban, whom she met at G'Day LA, an event honouring Australians, in 2005. Kidman married Urban on 25 June 2006 at Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel on the grounds of St Patrick's Estate, Manly, in Sydney. In a 2015 interview, regarding her relationship with Urban, Kidman said, "We didn't really know each other – we got to know each other during our marriage." They maintain homes in Nashville (Tennessee, U.S.), Beverly Hills (California, U.S.), two apartments in Sydney (New South Wales, Australia), a farmhouse in Sutton Forest (New South Wales, Australia) and an apartment in Manhattan (New York, U.S.) purchased for US$10 million. The couple's first daughter, Sunday Rose, was born in 2008, in Nashville. In 2010, Kidman and Urban welcomed their second daughter, Faith Margaret, via gestational surrogacy at Nashville's Centennial Women's Hospital.

Religious and political views 
Kidman was brought up in an Irish Catholic family and remains practising. She attended Mary Mackillop Chapel in North Sydney. Following criticism by Catholic leaders regarding her role in The Golden Compass as anti-Catholic, Kidman told Entertainment Weekly that the Catholic Church is part of her "essence", and that her religious beliefs would prevent her from taking a role in a film she perceived as anti-Catholic. Since her divorce from Tom Cruise, she has been reluctant to discuss Scientology.

A supporter of women's rights, Kidman testified before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs to support the International Violence Against Women Act in 2009. In January 2017, she stated her support for the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Australia. Kidman has also donated to U.S. Democratic party candidates.

Wealth, philanthropy and honours 
Kidman has featured in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actors multiple times, including the top spot for a woman in 2006. In 2002, she first appeared on the Australian rich list published annually in the Business Review Weekly with an estimated net worth of A$122 million. In the 2011 published list, Kidman's wealth was estimated at A$304 million, down from A$329 million in 2010. In 2015, her wealth was estimated to have risen up to A$331 million.

Kidman has raised money for, and drawn attention to, disadvantaged children around the world. In 1994, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. She also joined the Little Tee Campaign for breast cancer care to design T-shirts or vests to raise money to fight the disease; motivated by her mother's own battle with breast cancer in 1984. Kidman was also appointed Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in 2006. She visited Kosovo in 2006 to learn about women's experiences of conflict and UNIFEM's support efforts. She is also the international spokesperson for UNIFEM's Say NO – UNiTE to End Violence against Women initiative. Kidman and the UNIFEM executive director presented over five million signatures collected during the first phase of this to the UN Secretary-General on 25 November 2008. On 8 January 2010, alongside Nancy Pelosi, Joan Chen and Joe Torre, Kidman attended the ceremony to help the Family Violence Prevention Fund break ground on a new international centre located in the Presidio of San Francisco. In 2016, she donated $50,000 to UN Women.

In 2004, Kidman was honoured as a "Citizen of the World" by the United Nations. During the 2006 Australia Day Honours, she was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for "service to the performing arts as an acclaimed motion picture performer, to health care through contributions to improve medical treatment for women and children and advocacy for cancer research, to youth as a principal supporter of young performing artists, and to humanitarian causes in Australia and internationally". However, due to film commitments and her wedding to Urban, it was not until 13 April 2007 that she was presented with the honour. It was presented by the Governor-General of Australia, Major General Michael Jeffery, in a ceremony at Government House, Canberra. At the beginning of 2009, Kidman appeared in a series of postage stamps featuring Australian actors. She, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, and Cate Blanchett each appear twice in the series: once as themselves and once as their Academy Award-nominated characters, with Kidman appearing as Satine from Moulin Rouge!.

Other work 
Kidman has taken part in several endorsement deals representing various companies. In 2003, she served as the face of the Chanel No. 5 perfume. She has also served as an ambassador for Omega watches since 2005. In 2007, Nintendo announced that she would be the new face of Nintendo's advertising campaign for the Nintendo DS game More Brain Training in its European market. In 2013, she served as the face of Jimmy Choo shoes. In 2015, she became the brand ambassador for Etihad Airways. In 2017, she was announced as the new face of Neutrogena. In 2020, she joined SeraLabs as their global brand ambassador.

Kidman supports the Nashville Predators, being seen and photographed almost nightly throughout the season. Additionally, she supports the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League and once served as a club ambassador.

Acting credits and awards 

According to the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, which assigns film scores based on critic reviews and audience reception, some of Kidman's highest-scoring films include Paddington (2014), Flirting (1990), To Die For (1995), Rabbit Hole (2010), Lion (2016), The Others (2001), The Family Fang (2015), Dead Calm (1989), Boy Erased (2018) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017). Her most financially successful films include Aquaman (2018), Happy Feet (2006), The Golden Compass (2008), Batman Forever (1995) and Paddington (2014), as listed by the box office tracking website The Numbers as her highest-grossing films. Her other screen credits include:

In 2003, Kidman received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her achievements in the motion picture industry. In addition to her Academy Award for Best Actress win, she has received many other awards and nominations for her performances on the screen and stage, including four additional Academy Award nominations, one BAFTA Award from five nominations, two Laurence Olivier Award nominations, two Primetime Emmy Awards from three nominations, a Screen Actors Guild Award from fifteen nominations, three Critics' Choice Awards from fifteen nominations and six Golden Globe Awards from seventeen nominations, among various others.

Discography 

Kidman's discography consists of several audio recordings, including one spoken word album, one extended play and three singles, among others. Kidman, primarily known for her acting career, entered the music industry during the early 2000s after recording a number of tracks for the original motion picture soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's 2001 musical film Moulin Rouge!, which she starred in. Her duet with Ewan McGregor entitled "Come What May" was released as her debut single and the second single off of the film's original soundtrack album through Interscope Records on 24 September 2001. The composition became the eighth-highest selling single by an Australian artist that year, being certified Gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association, while peaking at number twenty-seven on the UK Singles Chart. In addition, the song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 59th Golden Globe Awards and was listed at eighty-fifth within AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs by the American Film Institute.

"Somethin' Stupid", a cover version of Frank and Nancy Sinatra's version, followed soon after. The track, recorded as a duet with English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams, was issued on 14 December 2001 by Chrysalis Records as the lead single off his fourth studio album, Swing When You're Winning. Kidman's second single topped the official music charts in New Zealand, Portugal, and the UK, in addition to reaching top ten placings all over Europe, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland, as well as Australia. Apart from being certified either Gold or Silver in a number of countries, it was ranked as the thirteenth best-selling single of 2002 in the UK, the fifty-ninth in Australia and the ninety-third in France, respectively. The song peaked at No. 8 on the Australian ARIAnet Singles Chart and at No. 1, for three weeks, in the UK.

On 5 April 2002, Kidman released through Interscope Records her third single, a cover of Randy Crawford's "One Day I'll Fly Away". The song, a Tony Philips remix, was promoted as the pilot single for the follow-up to the Moulin Rouge! original soundtrack, titled Moulin Rouge! Vol. 2. In 2006, she contributed to the original motion picture soundtrack of Happy Feet, recording a rendition of the Prince song "Kiss" for the film. In 2009, she was featured on the original soundtrack of Rob Marshall's 2009 musical film Nine, recording the song
"Unusual Way". In 2012, she narrated an audiobook and in 2017, she contributed with background vocals to her husband's, country music singer Keith Urban, song titled "Female".

See also

References

Further reading

External links 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
1967 births
20th-century Australian actresses
21st-century Australian actresses
21st-century Australian singers
21st-century Australian women singers
Actresses from Honolulu
Actresses from Sydney
Audiobook narrators
Australian company founders
Australian film actresses
Australian expatriate actresses in the United States
Australian film producers
Australian models
Australian people of Irish descent
Australian people of Scottish descent
Australian Roman Catholics
Australian television actresses
Australian women ambassadors
Australian women chief executives
Australian women company founders
Australian women film producers
Best Actress Academy Award winners
Best Actress BAFTA Award winners
Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (film) winners
Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actress Golden Globe winners
Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (film) winners
Best Supporting Actress AACTA Award winners
Best Supporting Actress AACTA International Award winners
Businesspeople from Hawaii
Catholics from Hawaii
Companions of the Order of Australia
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Living people
Logie Award winners
Models from Sydney
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Screen Actors Guild Award winners
Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Primetime Emmy Award winners
People educated at North Sydney Girls High School
People named in the Paradise Papers
Silver Bear for Best Actress winners
Theatre World Award winners
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
Kidman may refer to:

People
 Antonia Kidman (born 1970), Australian journalist, daughter of Antony Kidman
 Antony Kidman (1938–2014), Australian biochemist and psychologist
 Fiona Kidman (born 1940), New Zealand novelist, poet, and scriptwriter
 Jens Kidman (born 1966), Swedish musician and vocalist
 Nicole Kidman (born 1967), Australian actress, daughter of Antony Kidman
 Sidney Kidman (1857–1935), Australian pastoralist who owned more than 3% of territory of Australia
 Billy Kidman (born 1974), or Kidman, ring names of American professional wrestler Peter Gruner

Other uses
 Kidman Park, Adelaide, South Australia
 Kidman Way, State Highway 87 in New South Wales, Australia, named for Sidney Kidman Kidman's Tree of Knowledge is a heritage-listed tree at Glengyle Station, Bedourie, Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Tree of Knowledge. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.

History 

Kidman's Tree of Knowledge is located on Glengyle Station in Queensland's Diamantina district and has become associated with Sir Sidney Kidman and the vast pastoral empire he established in the Australian interior in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The mature coolibah (Eucalyptus coolibah) is reputedly the tree under which Sidney Kidman camped when contemplating the development of his pastoral empire in Western Queensland. Glengyle Station on which the tree is situated subsequently proved to be the most important in Kidman's chain of properties that eventually stretched from the Barkly Tableland through to the Barrier Range in South Australia. However, while Kidman visited and purchased stock from Glengyle he did not acquire the leasehold until 1913.

Although European explorers had passed through the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s, pastoralists did not occupy this semi-arid region until the mid-1870s. In 1876 Patrick Drinan took up Annandale Station and Duncan McGregor took up Glengyle. Also taken up at this period were Sandringham and Carcory in 1877 and Dubbo Downs in 1878. The towns of Birdsville and Bedourie developed in the late 1870s/early 1880s to service these newly established Channel Country runs. The Diamantina and Georgina rivers, Cooper and Eyre creeks are part of a network of western Queensland waterways known as the Channel Country. They draw water from an area of 566,000 square kilometres. These systems contain innumerable waterholes of various depth and length that generally last throughout the dry season, however, after rain, the network of rivers, creeks and channels links together, stretching out over a vast floodplain like fingers, hence the name Channel Country. While some of the properties such as Glengyle border the Simpson Desert and have many square kilometres of sand dunes, the natural irrigation following the tropical north wet season means the land is ideal for grazing cattle.

Sidney Kidman was born on 9 May 1857 at Athelstone near Adelaide, the son of English immigrants. At about 13 years of age he left home and made his way north to Poolamacca Station in the Barrier Range where he met up with his brother, George. He acquired work with George Raines, a landless bushman who travelled the countryside taking advantage of unfenced lands where there was good feeding for his stock. It was at this time that Kidman learnt numerous bush survival skills and came to appreciate the knowledge and skills of the Aboriginal people.

In the early 1870s Kidman obtained work on various stations, drove cattle and bullocks, carted goods, opened a butcher's shop at Cobar shortly after the rush started and soon after went into business with his brother droving, buying stock and dealing. They took on mail contracts, ran a butchery in Broken Hill and in the 1890s started buying pastoral leaseholds as Kidman Brothers.

As a young man Sidney Kidman had talked widely with cattlemen about the Australian interior and in his travels buying and selling stock, realised the value of Channel Country land. His aim was to acquire a chain of properties so that in times of drought cattle could be moved from properties badly affected to areas with good grass. Eventually Kidman acquired two strings of properties. The first or "main chain" stretched from the Barkly Tablelands near the Gulf of Carpentaria down through the Channel Country of western Queensland and along the Birdsville Track to the rail head at Maree in South Australia. The second chain of stations followed the Overland Telegraph line from the Fitzroy River and Victoria River Downs Station in the north to Wilpena Station in the Flinders Ranges near Adelaide. The development of the Kidman empire in Queensland stems from Kidman Brothers' acquisition of Annandale in the Channel Country in 1896.

As result of his acquisitions, his knowledge of the bush and his business acumen Kidman's empire was able to survive the depression of the 1890s and the drought of 1899-1902.

The Pastoralists' Review of 16 September 1903 featured an interview with Sidney Kidman, the "Cattle King". It included biographical information about his life and detailed the properties he then owned: In the Northern Territory: Victoria Downs, with its 45,000 head of cattle, Newcastle Waters, Austral Downs; South Australia: Lake Albert, Eringa, Peake, Macumba, Mount Nor'-West, Clayton, Coongy on the cooper, Pandie Pandyie on the Diamantina, Alton Downs; and Queensland: Annandale, Collegwairi, Dubbo, Cartrey, Rocklands, Monkira, Bulla Downs; in New South Wales: Wompah and Tickelara. Kidman continued to buy properties, buy and sell cattle and horses and manage his properties while almost continuously on the move. He kept abreast of market fluctuations, weather conditions and what was happening on his properties, via the telegraph.

While Kidman abhorred wastefulness and was known to sack employees who exhibited such traits, he was also known to be generous to deserving causes. He gained a reputation for munificence to the war effort, his World War I donations including wool, meat, horses, ambulances and warplanes. In monetary terms this patriotic generosity amounted to hundreds of thousands of pounds. In 1921 he was knighted for his contribution to the war effort.

The leasehold to Glengyle Station was transferred several times after Duncan McGregor took up the run in 1876. The London Bank of Australia held the lease until William Frederick Buchanan had purchased the Glengyle holding by October 1907. Following the death of this Narrabri grazier in 1911 the lease was transferred to William Buchanan and Charles Henry Buchanan.

The 1008 square mile Glengyle leasehold became part of the Kidman empire in 1913 when he purchased the lease from the Buchanans for . Kidman had long wanted Glengyle Station for its size and its permanent deep waterholes on the Georgina River, its plains and flats of lignum and saltbush, and its strategic position adjoining his Queensland properties of Sandringham, Kaliduwarry, Dubbo Downs and Annandale. Moreover, Glengyle, between Eyre Creek and the sand hills of the Simpson Desert, did not always need to rely on local rainfall. In good seasons it is drained by channels fed by the northern monsoon. The property proved pivotal to the Kidman holdings in the Lake Eyre Basin and is still held by the family firm S Kidman and Company.

Kidman had married in 1885 and raised a family of 3 daughters and one son in Adelaide. Kidman retired in 1927 but his children continued to run the family business empire from Adelaide. On 2 September 1935, aged 78 years, Sir Sidney Kidman passed away in Adelaide and his only son, Walter Sidney Palethorpe (b.1900) took over as chairman of the Kidman empire.

The Kidman Tree of Knowledge has been described as "one of the state's most famous living monuments to the king". It is valued by both the local community and visitors as a tangible link with Sir Sidney Kidman, a pioneer who successfully created a pastoral empire in the vast remote interior of Australia, encompassing approximately 3.5% of the Australian continent.

Description 
Kidman's Tree of Knowledge is situated on Glengyle Station on the western bank of Eyre Creek, about  south of Bedourie.

It is located in the centre of a grassed square formed by Glengyle homestead and associated buildings and is healthy and mature.

Heritage listing 
Kidman's Tree of Knowledge was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria.

The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history.

For the many people who worked for Sir Sidney Kidman and for those who continue to be associated with Kidman Holdings, Kidman's Tree of Knowledge on Glengyle Station is significant for its association with Sir Sidney Kidman.For local people and visitors alike Kidman's tree of Knowledge is a tangible link with Sir Sidney Kidman, a pioneer who is recognised as having created a successful pastoral empire in the vast remote interior of Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Tree of Knowledge is significant for its association with prominent Australian pastoralist Sir Sidney Kidman, who through business acumen, knowledge of the land he traversed and hard work, acquired a string of pastoral runs in the Australian interior (in Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory and Western Australia), where his stock could be moved from property to property to withstand the impact of drought. Whether Sir Sidney Kidman sat under this Coolibah tree near the Glengyle homestead is not known. It is, however, the perception or mythology of Kidman's association with this tree that is significant.

The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.

For the many people who worked for Sir Sidney Kidman and for those who continue to be associated with Kidman Holdings, Kidman's Tree of Knowledge on Glengyle Station is significant for its association with Sir Sidney Kidman.For local people and visitors alike Kidman's tree of Knowledge is a tangible link with Sir Sidney Kidman, a pioneer who is recognised as having created a successful pastoral empire in the vast remote interior of Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.

The Tree of Knowledge is significant for its association with prominent Australian pastoralist Sir Sidney Kidman, who through business acumen, knowledge of the land he traversed and hard work, acquired a string of pastoral runs in the Australian interior (in Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory and Western Australia), where his stock could be moved from property to property to withstand the impact of drought. Whether Sir Sidney Kidman sat under this Coolibah tree near the Glengyle homestead is not known. It is, however, the perception or mythology of Kidman's association with this tree that is significant.

References

Attribution

External links 

Queensland Heritage Register
Bedourie, Queensland
Individual trees in Queensland
Articles incorporating text from the Queensland Heritage Register