Catherine Zeta Jones stage career began in childhood. Catherine Zeta Jones often performed at friends and family functions when Catherine Zeta Jones was younger. Catherine Zeta Jones was a part of a Catholic congregation's performing troupe before she was 10. Catherine Zeta Jones also starred in a London production of Annie, as well as a version of Bugsy Malone. By 1987 Catherine Zeta Jones was starring in 42nd Street as Peggy Sawyer in the West End. Once the show closed, Catherine Zeta Jones travelled to France, where Catherine Zeta Jones received the lead role in French director Phillippe De Broca's 1001 Nights (also known as Sheherazade), her feature film debut.
Catherine Zeta Jones exotic looks, along with her singing and dancing ability, suggested a promising future, but it was in a straight acting role, as Mariette in the successful television adaptation of H. E. Bates' The Darling Buds of May (1991-93), that she made her name. Catherine Zeta Jones briefly flirted with a musical career, beginning with a part in the 1992 album: Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of Spartacus, from which the single "For All Time" was released in 1989. It failed to chart. She went on to release the singles "In the Arms of Love", "I Can't Help Myself", and a duet with David Essex, "True Love Ways". The Duet was her only chart single, reaching #38 in the UK singles chart in 1994. Catherine Zeta Jones also starred in an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, as well as in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.