Melbourne Sunday Magazine. November 2000.
by Caroline Graham
When Julia Roberts was 18, she left her hometown of Atlanta and went to live in New York with her brother Eric, at his invitation. There she struggled to make it in the world of modelling until Eric - 11 years her senior and already well established as a jobbing actor - stepped in and introduced her to some casting agents. Indeed, he even helped her land her first film role, as his sister in Blood Red in 1988. It wasn't a sucess but, afer that, she never looked back.
Today she is one of the world's most successful female box-office stars, the "girl next door" who earns $30 million a picture. Meanwhile, Eric, after initial movie success, is trapped on the B-movie circuit and is best known as "Julia's brother." The sibliings have not spoken for more than a decade in what is becoming one of Hollywood's most famous and enduring family feuds.
"I helped he, but she has never helped me," Eric sayw with undisguised bitterness. "I would love to have her film offers. I just don't get them. Hollywood has ny behaviour in the past. But hey, I'm 44 now. You would think they'd realise I've changed.
"Julia could help me and she hasn't. I helped her and when she was in a situation to help me she wanted nothing to do with me."
The star, tipped to win an Oscar for her performance in Erin Brockovich, guards her privacy intensely. When plugging her films, she grants interviews to "friendly" publicaitons. Journalists are told that if Eric's name is mentioned the interview will be terminated.
So is Eric envious of Julia's career and her string of blockbusters?
He pauses: "No, I saw Brockovich and I must say I wasn't that impressed. Everyone's going on about how great she was in it, but what did she do? Wear some push-up bras. It wasn't great acting."
The tabloid press and Hollywood gossips have had a field day speculation about the reason behind their bust-up. Eric has remained loyally silent for years. While he has acknowledged that he and Julia no longer speak, he has always refused to eleaborate - until now.
I meet him and his wife, Eliza, on a glorious day at a funky Portuguese restaurant in a Montreal backstreet. I was holding out little hope that he would shed new light on the matter.
Indeed, when I first raise the quistion he gives the wry smile of a seasoned pro and replies, "Hey, you know, I just don't talk about that stuff. There has been so much rubbish written over the years and it would get me into more trouble than it's worth. I'm sorry, but it's my policy not to talk about me and Julia."
Yet, just one hour later, as we discuss one of his pet causes, the organisation NoSpank, a pressure group campaigning to eliminate physical abuse of children, the floodgates open.
Eric begins to talk about his childhood and the shocking secrets of his family past, "in the knowledge," he says, "that this is probably going to send Julia absolutely nuts."
The story goes back to their troubled childhood in Atlanta, Georgia. Eric was 15 and Julia just fur when their mother, Betty, left their fathe, Walter. There is a silence before Eric reveals, "My mother beat the hell out of me for years. Julia is in denial...You have to understand there's 11 years between me and Julia, so it was almost over when she came along. all my childhood, beatings were an almost daily occurrence. A few years ago I tried to impart to Julia what went on, but she didn't want to hear it. And a part of me understands why."
Julia and her sster, Lisa, who is two years her senior, went to live with their mother, who remarried, while Eric stayed with his father.
"There's nothing for me and Julia to say. We don't talk. I tried talking to her about how I was abused and she just started screaming at me. She says it was my father who was abusive, but the man has been dead since 1977 and can't defend himself. He was intellectual and could mentally run you into the ground so, yeah, I guess that could be a form of abuse. But with my mother it was grab a stick and beat the shit out of somebody -- me. I grew up scared of everything. Julia told me to stop talking aout it or there would be hell to pay. So I said, 'Okay, you're no friend of mine.' That was the last time we spoke."
The rift is clearly a source of regret and resentment. "I got her out of the Deep South. I got her into her first job and then, when she got successful, I was old news. I can live with that. I've created my own life. I can deal with my world. I have a wonderful family. But, sure, I have to live with the problem of my sister on a daily basis."
Eric, who says he is still in "heavy shrinkdon" as a result of the alleged abuse, shakes his head. "You never get over violence. I am still affected at 44 by what my mother did to me at four."
Will he ever forgive her?
"My shrink and I are working on that. He goes on and on about having to let go of the anger. I doubt she thinks about it every day like I do. My mother is happy now. Julia has given her a new house with a nice big pool. She's doing great. Why should she think about the past?
Is he sure that Julia, now romancing actor Benjamin Bratt, was never unhappy as a child?
He glances downn at his plate. "I don't know, honey. All you have to do is look at her life. She has had sic fiances. Just look at how she was raised and see what she's doing now. I don't think she's happy. I don't know if she'll ever be happy. She needs to face up to the truth. It all goes back to childhood."
His soured relationship with Julia first made news when Eric became embroiled in a bitter court fight with ex-girlfriend Kelly Cunningham over their infant daughter, Emma. He claimed Kelly had been violent towards him, even biting him during one row. She fought for custody and she had a very powerful ally -- Julia Roberts.
Privately, friends say Julia's decisio to side with Kelly was "the final nail in the coffin" for the siblings' rocky relationship.
It made matters worse that Kelly won custody of Emma. The child, now nine, has developed a close bond with her superstar aunt, but Eric and Eliza see Emma when they are in Los Angeles.
Because of her link with Julia, little Emma Roberts has been swamped with film offiers. She recently completed filming her first big movie, Blow, playing the daughter of Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz.
Sitting with Eric, one is struck by how different the siblings are. While Julia is famed for her stunning smile, designer clothes and ipeccable image, her brother has fought addictions to cocaine and alcohol -- as well as his own violent outbursts -- and has spent much of his career in the doldrums. His features are as rough as his sister's are perfect. Eric's broken nose is permanently skewed and he wears two rings in one ear. He is fit, though, with a lean, toned body under the biker's jacket and jeans. He has sometimes been accused by journalists of being rude and brash, yet I find him completely charming. 
Eliza, his wife of eight years, is a beautiful redhaired actress whom he met on a plane. Not so charmingly, he was once arrested for allegedly beating her. Police droppped the case after she refused to press charges.
Eric talks slowly and deliberately. Until two years ago he suffered from stutter, an impediment he cured through counselling and speech therapy. He appears gentle. Eliza fusses over him constantly. When she leaves the table briefly, he breaks into a smile and confides, "Eliza is my rock, my everything. Without her I honestly don't think I would be here today. I've done some crazy things in my time and I've had some major problems. But she is by far the best thing that ever happended in my life. Eliza and my daughter. The two of them helped me to turn my life around. I've been thought periods when no one has stuck by me, including family. I learnt that you can't rely on anyone. Eliza is my family now."
Eric says he "worships" his late father, an acting coach who founded the Actors' and Writers' Workshop in Atlanta, which Eric attended before winning a two-year scholarship to the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Indeed, it was Eric who was hailed as the great acting talent of the family.
At 21 he travelled to New York. With his unconventional looks and raw talent, he quickly landed a series of film roles -- ncluding Star 80, about the doomed Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratton, and The Pope of Greenwich Village -- wich earned him rave reviews. In 1985, he was nominated for an Oscar as best supporting actor for The Runaway Train. But, when he lost to the late Don Ameche for his role in Cocoon, he reassessed his life. "I lost that Oscar to a man who was not a great talent, who had named names back in the McCarthy era. He won for a performance that was mearely adequate. So I said to myself, 'Okay, it's not about quality, it's about whose turn it is that year.' and I decided to go for quantity. I told my agent I wanted to do anything that involved travel and making money. I decided to get rich. I used to live and die for acting, now it's just work. I make films, make money and go home. Success does not make you happy."
If success does not bring happiness, neither do drugs. Eric was introduced to cocaine in New York by an actors' manager who, he says, fed him the drug for free. Within months he wa hooked.
"Cocaine made me feel better at the start -- for a couple of weeks. And then, suddenly, it was 10 years later and I realised I had a problem."
When he was 24 Eric Roberts drove his car head-on into a tree. The crash left him temporarily paralysed and he admits he contemplated suidide. His body healed but menally he was "screwed up." He had several run-ins with the law including one incident when he wa charged wwith attempted assault on a police officer. He does not deny his past, but adds, "People change, they grow up -- I've changed."
One senses that Eric is still a little boy lost. At times he treats his wife ore like a mother than a lover. He asks her permission before answering questions. He seeks her reassurance at all times. It is very sweet, but also slightly pathetic.
I ask if he is worried that he will go from being famous as Julia's brother to being faous as Emma's dad? "Hey," he says, "if that happens, so be it. There would be no one happier than me if my daughter was to become a huge success. She could be the next Julia. It could happen. Nothing would surprise me any more. Hey, I can live with that. I really can."
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