Helen Mirren

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Helen Mirren
Image:Primesuspect-Mirren-Greenwood.jpg
Birth name	Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov
Born	July 26 1945 (age 63) Ilford, Essex, England
Spouse(s)	Taylor Hackford (1997-)
Awards Academy Awards Best Actress 2006 The Queen Nominated: Best Supporting Actress 1994 The Madness of King George 2001 Gosford Park BAFTA Awards Best Actress in a leading role 2006 The Queen Best Actress (TV) 1994 Prime Suspect 3 1993 Prime Suspect 2 1992 Prime Suspect Emmy Awards Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie 1996 Prime Suspect 4: Scent of Darkness 1999 The Passion of Ayn Rand 2006 Elizabeth I Golden Globe Awards Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama 2007 The Queen Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television 2007 Elizabeth I 1997 Losing Chase

Dame Helen Mirren DBE (born on July 26 1945) is an Academy Award-winning English stage, television and film actress. She has also won four SAG Awards and assorted BAFTAs, Golden Globes and Emmy Awards during her career.

Contents 1 Personal life 2 Theatre 3 Film 4 Television 5 Awards and recognition 5.1 Film awards 5.2 Television awards 6 Filmography 7 Footnotes 8 Source 9 External links

Personal life

Mirren was born Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov^[1] in Ilford, Essex,^[2] now a part of Greater London. She was 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 Britain and was stranded there, along with his family, during the Russian Revolution. Her father, Vasily Petrovich Mironov, 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. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been "very anti-monarchist".^[3]

Mirren attended a Catholic girls' school, St. Bernard's High School, in Southend-on-Sea, and subsequently 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 director Taylor Hackford (her partner since 1986), in the Scottish Highlands on 31 December 1997, his 53rd birthday. It was her first marriage, and his second (he has two children from his previous marriage). Mirren doesn't have children and says she has "no maternal instinct whatsoever."^[4]

Her great-great-great-great-grandfather was the Russian field-marshal Mikhail Kamensky, one of the heroes of the Napoleonic wars.

On 5 December 2003, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the British Empire . When she received the honour, Mirren commented that Prince Charles was "very graceful" but forgot to give her half of the award, where another person had to remind him to give Mirren the star. She also stated that she felt wary about accepting the award and had to be persuaded by fellow comrades to accept the DBE. In 1996 she had previously declined a CBE.^[5]

Theatre

Following appearances on stage during her school years at St Bernard's High School for Girls in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, Mirren's 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 Mirren 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. Mirren was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actress (Play): in 1995 for Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country and in 2002 for August Strindberg's Dance of Death.

Film

Mirren has made numerous appearances in an array of films. Some of her earlier film appearances include Excalibur, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, The Long Good Friday, White Nights and The Mosquito Coast.

After those appearances she received roles 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, Painted Lady, The Prince of Egypt and The Madness of King George. One of Mirren's other film roles was in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, as the eponymous thief's wife, opposite Michael Gambon.

Mirren continued her successful film career when she starred more recently in Gosford Park with Maggie Smith and Calendar Girls where she starred with Julie Walters. Other more recent appearances include The Clearing, Pride, Raising Helen, and Shadowboxer. Mirren also provided the voice for the supercomputer "Deep Thought" in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

During her career, she has portrayed three British queens in different films and television series. These include Elizabeth I in the television series Elizabeth I (2005), Elizabeth II in the film The Queen (2006), and Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, in The Madness of King George (1994). The role as Queen Elizabeth II in the film The Queen gained her numerous awards including a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and an Oscar. During her acceptance speech at the Academy Award ceremony, Mirren praised and thanked Elizabeth II and stated that she had maintained her dignity and weathered many storms during her reign as Queen.^[6]

Mirren has frequently appeared nude on film as far back as her first film Age of Consent, and as a result has 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.

Television

Mirren is most often recognized for her role as detective Jane Tennison in the well-known Prime Suspect, a television drama that ran for many series. The role won her three consecutive BAFTA awards for Best Actress between 1992 to 1994. Other acclaimed television performances include Cousin Bette (1971), As You Like It (1979), Losing Chase (1996), The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999), Door to Door (2002), and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (2003).

She also played Elizabeth I in 2005, in the television series Elizabeth I, for Channel 4 and HBO, where she received an Emmy for her performance.

Awards and recognition

Film awards

In 1984, Mirren won Best Actress for her role in the film Cal at the Cannes Film Festival and the 1985 Evening Standard British Film Awards. In 1994 and 2001, she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her roles in The Madness of King George and Gosford Park, respectively. In 2002, she received the SAG Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for Gosford Park.

Mirren is the first female actress to be nominated for three acting performances at the Golden Globe Awards in the same year. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role in the movie drama category for Stephen Frears' The Queen in 2006 (along with two nominations in the Actress in a Mini-series or TV Movie category for Elizabeth I, and Prime Suspect: Final Act). She won both Golden Globes for The Queen and Elizabeth I and also won two SAG awards the same year for the same roles. Mirren is the third actor to win two Golden Globes in the same year, and the first ever to win for both leading roles in TV and film in the same year. She is one of only two actresses (the other is Helen Hunt) to win a Golden Globe, an Oscar and an Emmy for performances given in the same year.

Along with the Golden Globe, Mirren's acclaimed performance in The Queen won her the 2007 Academy Award for Best Actress.^[7] She also received Best Actress awards from the Venice Film Festival, Broadcast Film Critics, National Board of Review, Satellite Awards, Screen Actors Guild and a BAFTA, as well as critics awards from all over the world.

As a result of her success from this film, the Queen herself has conveyed congratulations and extended an invitation to Dame Helen to visit Buckingham Palace sometime in 2007.

Entertainment Weekly recently ranked her No. 2 for Entertainer of the Year for 2006.

Television awards

Mirren won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Mini-series or TV Movie in 1997 for her role in Losing Chase. She received two nominations in the Actress in a Mini-series or TV Movie category for Elizabeth I, and Prime Suspect: Final Act, where she only won the Golden Globe for her portrayal of the The Queen in Elizabeth I. In that same year she won an SAG award for that same role.

Mirren also won an Emmy for her role in Elizabeth I in category Lead Actress in a Mini-Series or a Movie in 2006. She had previously won an Emmy twice before, in that same category, in 1996 for her role in Prime Suspect: Scent of Darkness and in 1999 for The Passion of Ayn Rand.^[8]

Filmography

• Herostratus (1967)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968)
• Red Hot Shot (1969)
• Age of Consent (1969)
• Miss Julie (1972)
• Savage Messiah (1972)
• O Lucky Man! (1973)
• Hamlet (1976)
• The Quiz Kid (1979)
• Caligula (1979)
• Hussy (1980)
• The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980)
• The Long Good Friday (1980)
• Excalibur (1981)
• Cal (1984)
• 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
• Heavenly Pursuits (1985)
• Coming Through (1985)
• White Nights (1985)
• The Mosquito Coast (1986)
• Pascali's Island (1988)
• When the Whales Came (1989)
• The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
• Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990)
• The Comfort of Strangers (1990)
• Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991)
• The Hawk (1993)
• Royal Deceit (1994)
• The Madness of King George (1994)
• The Snow Queen (1995) (voice)
• Some Mother's Son (1996)
• Critical Care (1997)
• Sidoglio Smithee (1998)
• The Prince of Egypt (1998) (voice)
• The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999)
• Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999)
• Greenfingers (2000)
• The Pledge (2001)
• No Such Thing (2001)
• Happy Birthday (2001)
• Last Orders (2001)
• Gosford Park (2001)
• Calendar Girls (2003)
• The Clearing (2004)
• Raising Helen (2004)
• Shadowboxer (2005)
• The Queen (2006)
• National Treasure: The Book of Secrets (2007)
• Inkheart (2008)
• Angel Makers (2008)

Footnotes

Source

• Command Performance, a profile of Helen Mirren written by John Lahr in The New Yorker magazine, October 2, 2006

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