Biography
This page uses content from the Helen Mirren biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE (born Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov on 26 July 1945) is an Emmy Award-winning English stage, television and movie actress. She has the distinction of being the only actress to play both Elizabeth I of England (Elizabeth I, 2005) and Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (The Queen, 2006), as well as Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III in The Madness of King George.
Personal life
Helen Mirren was born in Ilford, which was at that time part of Essex, the second of three children of a father of Russian origin and an English mother. Mirren's paternal grandfather, a Russian nobleman, tsarist colonel and diplomat, was negotiating an arms deal in England and was stranded there, along with his family, during the Russian Revolution. Her father, Vasily Petrov Mironoff, called himself Basil and changed the family name to Mirren in the 1950s. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II and, after it, drove a cab and was a driving-test examiner. Mirren's mother, Kathleen Rogers, was the thirteenth of fourteen children born to a butcher whose father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria.
Helen Mirren attended a convent school, St. Bernard's High School, in Southend-on-Sea, and then a teaching college in London. At age 18 she auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and was accepted. By age 20 she was a star at the Old Vic.
Mirren married American film director Taylor Hackford, her domestic partner since 1986, on his 53rd birthday on 31 December 1997, in the Scottish Highlands. It was her first (and only) marriage and his third. He had two children by his previous marriages. She has none.
Career
Theatre
Following appearances on stage during her school years at St Bernard's high school for girls in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, her first starring role was in 1965 as Cleopatra for the National Youth Theatre. This led to her joining the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Cressida in Troilus and Cressida, and Lady Macbeth in the production by Trevor Nunn.
In 1972 she joined Peter Brook's International Centre for Theatre Research, and joined the group's tour across North Africa which created The Conference of the Birds.
Film
Mirren has made numerous appearances in film, including 2010: The Year We Make Contact, The Long Good Friday, The Madness of King George and Calendar Girls.
One of her film roles was in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, in the title role as the thief's wife, opposite Michael Gambon.
Mirren also appeared in Belfast-born director Terry George's film Some Mother's Son, which was about the 1981 Hunger Strikes in Northern Ireland, opposite Irish actress Fionnuala Flanagan.
She provided the voice for the supercomputer "Deep Thought" in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Television
Mirren is most often recognized for her role as detective Jane Tennison in the Prime Suspect series of television dramas.
She also played Elizabeth I in 2005 in a television movie for Channel 4 and HBO, receiving an Emmy for her performance.
Image
Mirren frequently appeared nude in films, and as a result gained a "sexy" image. This image has not been diminished by age, as she appeared nude in the film Calendar Girls, and on the cover of the Radio Times October 5-11 issue in 1996.
Awards and other recognition
In 1984 Mirren received Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in the film Cal, and Best Actress for the same film in the 1985 Evening Standard British Film Awards. Mirren is a two-time Academy Award nominee, for The Madness of King Georgein 1994 and Gosford Park in 2001. In 2006, Mirren was awarded best actress at the Venice Film Festival for her role in The Queen, with her portrayal as Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom following the events of the Death of Princess Diana.
She was invested as a Dame Commander of the British Empire on 5 December 2003. In 1996 she had declined a CBE.
Partial filmography
- Age of Consent (1969)
- Savage Messiah (1972)
- O Lucky Man! (1973)
- Blue Remembered Hills (1979)
- Caligula (1979)
- The Long Good Friday (1980)
- Excalibur (1981)
- 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
- Cal (1984)
- White Nights (1985)
- The Mosquito Coast (1986)
- The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
- Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991)
- Prime Suspect (1991–2006)
- The Madness of King George (1994)
- Some Mother's Son (1996)
- Painted Lady (1997)
- The Prince of Egypt (1998)
- Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999)
- Greenfingers (2000)
- Last Orders (2001)
- Gosford Park (2001)
- No Such Thing (2001)
- Calendar Girls (2003)
- The Clearing (2004)
- Pride (2004)
- Raising Helen (2004)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
- Elizabeth I (2005) (2 two-hour TV dramas)
- Shadowboxer (2006)
- The Queen (2006)
Footnotes
Source
- Command Performance, a profile of Helen Mirren written by John Lahr in The New Yorker magazine, October 2, 2006
External links
- Helen Mirren Biography
- The Helen Mirren Appreciation Society, Official fan club
- Helen Mirren at the MBC Encyclopedia of Television
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
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