Julia Roberts was born in Atlanta, Georgia at Crawford Long Hospital. Her father, Walter Thomas Roberts, was a vacuum cleaner salesman, and her Minneapolis, Minnesota-born mother, Betty Lou Motes (née Bredemus), was a one-time church secretary and real estate agent. Her parents, one-time actors and playwrights, met while performing theatrical productions for the armed forces and later co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia off Juniper Street in Midtown; the two divorced in 1971.