Helen Mirren - Biography

Last Editor: kalasmom				Helen Mirren Biography -   Name : Helen Mirren Birth Date : July 26, 1945 Birth Place : Chiswick, London, England, UK Birth Name : Ilyena Lydia Mironoff Nickname : Popper Height : 5'4 Nationality : British Profession : Actress Spouse : Taylor Hackford (producer; married on December 31, 1997)

Helen Mirren Trivia -

Her grandfather Piotr Vasilievich Mironoff was a Tsarist (White Russian) aristocrat who was in London negotiating an arms deal for the World War I when the 1917 Russian Revolution stranded him there. His wife and son (Helen's father) joined him in London. Before marrying director Taylor Hackford in 1997, she had lived with him in Los Angeles since 1986. Used to work in Southend on Sea; Essex; UK at an amusement park "The Kursaal" as a "blagger" to attract customers on to rides. She was awarded the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama. John Boorman said he cast her opposite Nicol Williamson in Excalibur (1981), against both of their protests, because he felt their dislike of each other made them perfect as rivals Morgana and Merlin. Measurements: 36C-25-36 (starlet days), 38C-26-37 (on Prime Suspect (1991) (TV) - 1996), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine). She allegedly refused the C.B.E. (Commander of Order of the British Empire) in 1996. Nominated for Best Actress, Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for her performance of "Orpheus Descending" at the Donmar Warehouse in 2001. Nominated for Best Actress, Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for her performance in "Mourning Becomes Electra" at the Royal National Theatre: Lyttelton Stage in 2004. Became an Associate Member of RADA. Nominated for Best Actress, Tony Award for "Dance of Death" by August Strindberg in 2002. Despite her Russian birth name and ancestry, she is not fluent in Russian. Her great-great-great-great-grandfather was field-marshal Kamensky, one of the Russian heroes of the Napoleonic wars. She is the only actress to play both Queen Elizabeth I (in "Elizabeth I" (2005)) and Queen Elizabeth II (The Queen (2006)). At the premiere of The Queen (2006) at the Venice Film Festival, her performance received a 5 minute standing ovation. Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 2004. Played a Queen a total of six times: The Queen (2006), "Elizabeth I" (2005), The Prince of Egypt (1998), The Snow Queen (1995), The Madness of King George (1994), and Caligola (1979). Became the third person, after Sigourney Weaver and Joan Plowright, to win two Golden Globes for acting in the same year. The characters she played were both Queens of England, Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Elizabeth II. She dedicated her BAFTA win for The Queen (2006) (for Best Actress in a Leading Role) to Ian Richardson for playing a huge part in her success story. She said (in her acceptance speech) that Richardson was very supportive towards her when she started out acting, and without him she may not have been so successful. She dedicated this award two days after Richardson died. [2007] Nominated for Best Actress, Tony Award for "A Month in the Country" by Ivan Turgenev in 1995. She and her husband Taylor Hackford are both Oscar-winners. Is fluent in French. She owns houses in Los Angeles, London, and the south of France. According to the April 2007 issue of Architectural Digest, She and her husband have sold their estate in New Orleans, which still remains her favorite American city. She won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006), making her the most recent of eleven actors to win the Award for playing a real person who was still alive at the evening of the Award ceremony (as of 2007). The other ten actors and their respective performances are: Spencer Tracy for playing Father Edward Flanagan in Boys Town (1938), Gary Cooper for playing Alvin C. York in Sergeant York (1941), Patty Duke for playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1962), Jason Robards for playing Benjamin Bradlee in All the President's Men (1976), Robert De Niro for playing Jake La Motta in Raging Bull (1980), Sissy Spacek for playing Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Susan Sarandon for playing Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking (1995), Geoffrey Rush for playing David Helfgott in Shine (1996), Julia Roberts for playing Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich (2000) and Jim Broadbent for playing John Bayley in Iris (2001/I). Was voted 2nd in Entertainment Weekly's Entertainers of the Year in December 2006. Won Film Achievement, Greatest Britons. [2007] Won 29 major awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006), including all the awards that are considered the biggest (except Cannes). She was also nominated for 3 more awards for the same film. Stepmother of Rio Hackford and Alexander Hackford. Sister of Peter Basil Mironoff and Katherine Mironoff. Daughter of Vasily Mironoff and Kathleen Rogers. Is one of six actresses to have won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award. The others in chronological order are Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich (2000), Renée Zellweger for Cold Mountain (2003), Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line (2005), Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls (2006) and Kate Winslet for The Reader (2008). Has a tattoo of a star on her left hand, acquired at a Native American reservation in Minnesota. Met husband-to-be Taylor Hackford when he directed her in White Nights (1985). When the couple married in the Scottish Highlands, Hackford was dressed in a traditional Scottish tartan kilt. According to an article in People Weekly (November 3, 1980) her tattoo is an American Indian symbol meaning "equal but opposite". Nominated for the 2002 Tony Award (New York City) for Actress in a Drama for "Dance of Death". Was in consideration for the part of Sarah/Anna in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) but Meryl Streep, who went on to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, was cast instead.

Helen Mirren Detailed Biography -

Born Ilynea Lydia Mironoff in 1945, Chiswick, London, Helen Mirren is the daughter of an English mother; her father was a Russian aristocrat stranded in London after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Mirren realised she wanted to become an actress from a very early age. She joined the National Youth Theatre, where she first made her mark at the age of eighteen playing Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra (1965) at the Old Vic. This led to her joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967. Mirren made her screen debut in the forgettable Herostratus (1968). That same year, she made a more favourable appearance as Hermia in Peter Hall's adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968). She next starred opposite James Mason as a teenage seductress in Michael Powell's Age of Consent (1969). In 1972 she joined Peter Brook's experimental International Centre of Theatre Research, touring in Africa and America. She appeared on screen in an early raunchy role in Ken Russell's Savage Messiah (1972), and the Lindsay Anderson musical drama O Lucky Man! (1974). After a short spell in television appearing in the likes of Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills (1979), she returned to the big screen in the controversial Penthouse film Caligula (1979). The 1980s saw Mirren come of age as an actress and earn her first acclaimed role when cast opposite Bob Hoskins in the British gangster film The Long Good Friday (1979). During the subsequent decade, Mirren continued to work on stage and screen, broadening her appeal with such roles as the seductively evil Morgana in John Boorman's Excalibur (1981), and playing the widow of a British officer who unwittingly falls in love with the man responsible for her husband’s death in Pat O'Connor's Cal (1984). Her accurate portrayal of strong feminine characters continued in Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast (1986), as Harrison Ford’s loyal wife, and as the adulterous wife of a gangster in Peter Greenaway's controversial The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989). The 1990s saw Mirren tackling varying roles, ranging from a fragile wife in the thriller The Comfort of Strangers (1991), to a headstrong widow in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991). Mirren also began appearing on television as the hard-bitten DCI Jane Tennison in Lynda La Plante's Prime Suspect, the ITV series proving immensely popular with viewers. She achieved her biggest international success to date and earned an Oscar nomination for her part in Nicholas Hytner's The Madness of King George (1994), playing the devoted queen whose husband, George III (Nigel Hawthorne), is suffering from declining mental health. The following year she earned further acclaim for her work in Some Mother's Son (1996), in which she played the mother of a Belfast hunger striker. She has more recently played a titular teacher in Kevin Williamson's disappointing Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999) and Georgina Woodhouse in the comedy Greenfingers (2000). She earned her second Oscar nomination for Robert Altman's acclaimed ensemble comedy Gosford Park (2001). Mirren followed with another choice part as the widow of deceased butcher Michael Caine in the sentimental drama Last Orders (2002).