name	Enid Blyton
pseudonym	Mary Pollock
birth name	Enid Blyton
birth date	August 11, 1897
birth place	East Dulwich, London, England, United Kingdom
death date	November 28, 1968
death place	Hampstead, London, England, United Kingdom
occupation	Novelist, poet, teacher
nationality	English/British
citizenship	British
alma mater	Ipswich High School
period	1922–1968
genre	Adventure, Mystery, Fantasy
subject	children's literature
language	English
notableworks	The Famous Five, Secret Seven, Noddy
spouse	Hugh Alexander Pollock (1924–42) Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters (1943–67)
children	Gillian BaverstockImogen Mary Smallwood
relatives	Carey Blyton, Hanly Blyton
signature	enidblytonsig..jpg
influences	Anna Sewell, Charles Kingsley, Louisa May Alcott, George MacDonald, Lewis Carroll
awards	Boys' Club of America for ''The Island of Adventure''
website	http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk }}

Enid Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer also known as Mary Pollock.

Noted for numerous series of books based on recurring characters and designed for different age groups, her books have enjoyed popular success in many parts of the world, and have sold over 600 million copies.

One of Blyton's most widely known characters is Noddy, intended for early years readers. However, her main work is the genre of young readers' novels in which children have their own adventures with minimal adult help. Series of this type include the Famous Five (21 novels, 1942–1963, based on four children and their dog), the Five Find-Outers and Dog, (15 novels, 1943–1961, where five children regularly outwit the local police) as well as The Secret Seven (15 novels, 1949–1963, a society of seven children who solve various mysteries).

Her work involves children's adventure stories, and fantasy, sometimes involving magic. Her books were and still are enormously popular throughout the Commonwealth; as translations in the former Yugoslavia, Japan; as adaptations in Arabic; and across most of the globe. Her work has been translated into nearly 90 languages.

Blyton's literary output was of an estimated 800 books over roughly 40 years. Chorion Limited of London now owns and handles the intellectual properties and character brands of Blyton's ''Noddy'' and the ''Famous Five''.

Personal life

Blyton was born on 11 August 1897 at 354 Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, London, England, the eldest child of Thomas Carey Blyton (1870–1920), a salesman of cutlery, and his wife, Theresa Mary Harrison Blyton (1874–1950). There were two younger brothers, Hanly (1899–1983) and Carey (1902–1976), who were born after the family had moved to the nearby suburb of Beckenham—in Oakwood Avenue.

From 1907 to 1915, Blyton was educated at St. Christopher's School in Beckenham, leaving as head girl. She enjoyed physical activities along with some academic work, but not maths.

Blyton was a talented pianist, but gave up her musical studies when she trained as a teacher at Ipswich High School. She taught for five years at Bickley, Surbiton and Chessington, writing in her spare time. Her first book, ''Child Whispers'', a collection of poems, was published in 1922. On 28 August 1924 Blyton married Major Hugh Alexander Pollock DSO (1888–1971), editor of the book department in the publishing firm of George Newnes, which published two of her books that year. The couple moved to Bourne End, Buckinghamshire (''Peterswood'' in her books). Eventually they moved to a house in Beaconsfield, named Green Hedges by Blyton's readers following a competition in ''Sunny Stories''. They had two children: Gillian Mary Baverstock (15 July 1931 – 24 June 2007) and Imogen Mary Smallwood (born 27 October 1935).

In the mid-1930s Blyton experienced a spiritual crisis, but she decided against converting to Roman Catholicism from the Church of England because she had felt it was "too restricting". Although she rarely attended church services, she saw that her two daughters were baptised into the Anglican faith and went to the local Sunday School.

Since her death in 1968 and the publication of her daughter Imogen's autobiography, ''A Childhood at Green Hedges'', Blyton has emerged as an emotionally unstable and often malicious figure. By 1939 her marriage to Pollock was in difficulties, and she began a series of affairs. In 1941 she met Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters, a London surgeon with whom she began a relationship. During her divorce, Blyton blackmailed Pollock into taking full blame for the failure of the marriage, knowing that exposure of her adultery would ruin her public image. She promised that if he admitted to charges of infidelity, she would allow him unlimited access to their daughters. However, after the divorce, Pollock was forbidden to contact his daughters, and Blyton ensured he was unable to find work in publishing afterward. He turned to drinking heavily and was forced to petition for bankruptcy.

Blyton and Darrell Waters married at the City of Westminster Register Office on 20 October 1943, and she subsequently changed the surname of her two daughters to Darrell Waters. Pollock remarried thereafter. Blyton's second marriage was very happy and, as far as her public image was concerned, she moved smoothly into her role as a devoted doctor's wife, living with him and her two daughters at Green Hedges.

Blyton's husband died in 1967. During the following months, she became increasingly ill. Afflicted by Alzheimer's disease, Blyton was moved into a nursing home three months before her death; she died at the Greenways Nursing Home, London, on 28 November 1968, aged 71 years and was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium where her ashes remain.

Blyton's home, Green Hedges, was sold in 1971 and demolished in 1973. The area where Green Hedges once stood is now occupied by houses and a street called Blyton Close.

Her daughter Imogen has been quoted as saying "The truth is Enid Blyton was arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult or unpleasant things out of her mind, and without a trace of maternal instinct. As a child, I viewed her as a rather strict authority. As an adult I pitied her." Elder daughter, Gillian, did not hold the same view toward their mother, and Imogen's biography of Blyton contains a foreword by Gillian to the effect that her memories of childhood with Enid Blyton were mainly happy ones.

Most successful works

The Five Find-Outers( Also known as Enid Blyton's Mystery series)

The Famous Five series

The Adventure series

The Noddy books

The Secret Seven series

The Malory Towers series

The St. Clare's series

The Wishing-Chair series

The Magic Faraway Tree series

The Barney Mystery series

The Circus series

The Mistletoes Farm series

The Naughtiest Girl series

The Young Adventurers Series

The Adventurous Four Series

The Family Series

The Family Adventures Series

The Secret Series

Other works

Blyton wrote hundreds of other books for young and older children: novels, story collections and some non-fiction. She also filled a large number of magazine pages, particularly the long-running ''Sunny Stories'' which were immensely popular among younger children.

An estimate puts her total book publication at around 800 titles, not including decades of magazine writing. It is said that at one point in her career she regularly produced 10,000 words a day.

Such prolific output led many to believe that some of her work was ghost-written, but as yet, no ghost writers have come forward. She used a pseudonym Mary Pollock for a few titles (middle name plus first married name). The last volumes in her most famous series were published in 1963. Many books still appeared after that, but were mainly story books made up from re-cycled work.

Blyton also wrote numerous books on nature and Biblical themes. Her story ''The Land of Far-Beyond'' is a Christian parable along the lines of John Bunyan's ''Pilgrim's Progress'', with modern children as the central characters. She also produced retellings of Old Testament and New Testament stories.

Enid Blyton was a prolific author of short stories. These were first published, for the most part, in ''Sunny Stories'', an Enid Blyton magazine, or other children's papers.

She also used to explore the forests when she was a little girl and wrote of her dreams in a notebook kept by her bedside.

In February 2011, the manuscript of a previously unknown Blyton novel, ''Mr Tumpy's Caravan'', was discovered in a collection of her papers which had been auctioned in 2010 following the death of her elder daughter in 2007.

Subject matter

Blyton's books often mirrored the fantasies of younger children. Children are free to play and explore without adult interference, more clearly than in most authors before or since — although the children in E. Nesbit's turn of the century works, and those in the ''Swallows and Amazons series'' (mostly 1930s) were equally independent. Adult characters are usually either authority figures (such as policemen, teachers, or parents) or adversaries to be conquered by the children. Children are self-sufficient, spending days away from home. This theme is taken to its extreme in two books: ''Five Run Away Together'' and ''The Secret Island'': a group of children run away from unpleasant guardians to live on an island together, making a home and fending for themselves until their parents return.

Blyton's books are generally split into three types. One involves ordinary children in extraordinary situations, having adventures, solving crimes, or otherwise finding themselves in unusual circumstances. Examples include the ''Famous Five'' and ''Secret Seven'', and the ''Adventure'' series.

The second and more conventional type is the boarding school story; the plots of these have more emphasis on the day-to-day life at school. This is the world of the midnight feast, the practical joke, and the social interaction of the various types of character. Examples of this type are the ''Malory Towers'' stories, the ''St Clare's'' series, and the ''Naughtiest Girl'' books and are typical of the times — many comics of the day, for instance, also contained similar types of story.

The third type is the fantastical. Children are typically transported into a magical world in which they meet fairies, goblins, elves, or other fantasy creatures. Examples of this type are the ''Wishing-Chair'' books and ''The Faraway Tree''. Alternatively, in many of her short stories, toys are shown to come alive when humans are not around.

Controversies and revisions

Blyton's status as a bestselling author is in spite of disapproval of her works from various perspectives, which has led to altered reprints of the books and withdrawals or “bans” from libraries. In the 1990s, Chorion, the owners of Blyton's works, edited her books to remove passages that were deemed racist or sexist. The children’s author Anne Fine presented an overview of the concerns about Blyton's work and responses to them on BBC Radio 4 in November 2008, in which she noted the “drip, drip, drip of disapproval” associated with the books.

"Blyton bans"

It was frequently reported (in the 1950s and also from the 1980s onwards) that various children's libraries removed some of Blyton's works from the shelves. The history of such "Blyton bans" is confused. Some librarians certainly at times felt that Blyton's restricted use of language, a conscious product of her teaching background, militated against appreciation of more literary qualities. There was some precedent in the treatment of L. Frank Baum's ''Oz'' books (and the many sequels by others) by librarians in the United States in the 1930s. There were numerous critical comments about Blyton: claiming that her vocabulary was too limited, that she presented too rosy a view of the world, even suggestions that little Noddy's relationship with Big Ears was "suspect", that he was a poor role model for boys because he sometimes wept when frustrated and the laws were politically incorrect.

A careful account of anti-Blyton attacks is given in Chapter 4 of Robert Druce's ''This Day Our Daily Fictions''. The ''British Journal of Education'' in 1955 carried a piece by Janice Dohn, an American children's librarian, considering Blyton's writing together with authors of formula fiction, and making negative comments about Blyton's devices and tone. A 1958 article in ''Encounter'' by Colin Welch, directed against the Noddy character, was reprinted in a New Zealand librarians' periodical. This gave rise to the first rumour of a New Zealand "library ban" on Blyton's books, a recurrent press canard. Policy on buying and stocking Blyton's books by British public libraries drew attention in newspaper reports from the early 1960s to the end of the 1970s, as local decisions were made by a London borough, Birmingham, Nottingham and other central libraries.

There is no evidence that her books' popularity ever suffered. She was defended by populist journalists, and others. Her response is said to be that she was not interested in the views of critics aged over 12.

BBC bans

In November 2009 it was revealed in the British press that the BBC had a longstanding ban on dramatising Blyton's books on the radio from the 1930s to the 1950s. Letters and memos from the BBC Archive show that producers and executives at the time described Blyton as a "tenacious second-rater" who wrote "stilted and longwinded" books which were not suitable to be broadcast. In 1936 Blyton wrote to the BBC suggesting herself as a broadcaster, pointing out that she had "written probably more books than any other writer." She was turned down. In 1938, Blyton's husband, Hugh Pollock, wrote to Sir John Reith, the then Director General of the BBC, pointing out that his wife was receiving letters from children from all parts of the British Empire, and that she should be allowed to speak to them via the radio. Jean E. Sutcliffe, of the BBC's schools broadcast department wrote, "Her stories...haven't much literary value. There is rather a lot of the Pink-winky-Doodle-doodle Dum-dumm type of name (and lots of pixies) in the original tales."

Blyton tried to get her work on the radio again in 1940, but her manuscript was once more turned down, the BBC employee who reviewed it writing, "This is really not good enough. Very little happens and the dialogue is so stilted and long-winded...It really is odd to think that this woman is a bestseller." Eventually, in 1954, Blyton's works appeared on air for the first time. Jean Sutcliffe wrote of Blyton's ability to churn out "mediocre material", and that "Her capacity to do so, amounts to genius...anyone else would have died of boredom long ago." Michael Rosen, the former Children's Laureate, said of the BBC's ban on Blyton, "...the quality of the writing itself was poor...it was felt that there was a lot of snobbery and racism in the writing...There is all sorts of stuff about oiks and lower orders."

Dated attitudes and altered reprints

The books are very much of their time, particularly the titles published in the 1950s. They present the UK's class system — that is to say, "rough" versus "decent". Many of Blyton's children's books similarly reflected negative stereotypes regarding gender, race, and class.

One incidence of altering this type of dated material might be the altering of a statement like "black as a nigger with soot" appearing in ''Five Go off to Camp''. At the time, "Negro" was the standard formal term and "nigger" a relatively common colloquialism. This is one of the most obvious targets for alteration in modern reprints, along with the replacement of golliwogs with teddy bears or goblins. Some of these responses by publishers to contemporary attitudes on racial stereotypes has itself drawn criticism from some who view it as tampering with an important piece of the history of children's literature. The Druce book brings up the case of ''The Little Black Doll'' (who wanted to be pink), which was turned on its head in a reprint. Also removed in deference to modern ethical attitudes are many casual references to slaves and to corporal punishment - The Faraway Tree's ''Dame Slap'' was changed to ''Dame Snap'' and several references to characters in the Malory Towers and St. Clare's series being spanked were changed to them being "scolded". Blyton's attitudes came under criticism during her working lifetime; a publisher rejected a story of hers in 1960, taking a negative literary view of it but also saying that "There is a faint but unattractive touch of old-fashioned xenophobia in the author's attitude to the thieves; they are 'foreign'...and this seems to be regarded as sufficient to explain their criminality."

Similarly, some have suggested the depictions of boys and girls in her books were sexist. For example, a 2005 ''Guardian'' article suggested that the Famous Five depicts a power struggle between Julian, Dick and George (Georgina), with the female characters either acting like boys or being heavily put-upon. Although the issues are more subjective than with some of the racial issues, it has been suggested that a new edition of the book will "address" these issues through alterations, which has led to the expression of nostalgia for the books and their lack of political correctness. In the Secret Seven books, the girls are deliberately excluded from tasks such as investigating the villains' hideouts — in ''Go Ahead, Secret Seven'', it is directly stated "'Certainly not,' said Peter, sounding very grown-up all of a sudden. 'This is a man's job, exploring that coal-hole'". In the Famous Five this is less often the case, but in ''Five on a Hike Together'', Julian gives similar orders to George: "You may look like a boy and behave like a boy, but you're a girl all the same. And like it or not, girls have got to be taken care of."

Film

The story of Blyton's life was turned into a BBC film in 2009 with Helena Bonham Carter in the title role. Filming began in March 2009 and first aired in the United Kingdom on BBC Four on 16 November 2009, followed by a documentary on Enid Blyton. Matthew Macfadyen and Denis Lawson played Blyton's first husband, Hugh Pollock, and Blyton's second husband, Kenneth Darrell Waters, respectively.

Statistics

Blyton's books have sold more than 600 million copies In the decade from 2000 she was still in the Top Ten authors, selling 7,910,758 copies worth £31.2m in the UK alone. More than a million Famous Five books are sold worldwide each year Her books have been translated into more than 90 different languages ''The Magic Faraway Tree'' was voted no. 66 in the BBC's Big Read.. In the 2008 Costa Book Awards, Enid Blyton was voted the best-loved author, ahead of Roald Dahl, JK Rowling and Shakespeare 753 titles credited to her over a 45 year career with an average of 16 titles published per year

See also

Enid Blyton Society

Enid Blyton's illustrators

References

Further reading

Enid Blyton (1952) ''The Story of My Life''

Barbara Stoney (1974) ''Enid Blyton'', 1992 ''The Enid Blyton Biography'', Hodder, London ISBN 0-340-58348-7 (paperback) ISBN 0-340-16514-6

Mason Willey (1993) ''Enid Blyton: A Bibliography of First Editions and Other Collectible Books'' ISBN 0-9521284-0-3

S. G. Ray (1982) ''The Blyton Phenomenon''

Bob Mullan (1987) ''The Enid Blyton Story''

George Greenfield (1998) ''Enid Blyton''

Robert Druce (1992) ''This Day Our Daily Fictions: An Enquiry into the Multi-Million Bestseller Status of Enid Blyton and Ian Fleming''

External links

Watch & Listen to BBC archive programmes about Enid Blyton

Enid Blyton letters from the BBC archive

Enid Blyton Society

Newsreel footage of Enid Blyton at home with her family, 1946

Seven Stories Enid Blyton Blog - behind the scenes with the Collection team at Seven Stories

Enid Blyton Net

Enid Blyton en español

Category:1897 births Category:1968 deaths Category:British children's writers Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease Category:People from East Dulwich Category:People from Hampstead Category:English children's writers Category:People educated at Ipswich High School

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Blyton is a village and civil parish within the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is north-east of Gainsborough. From Blyton the village of Laughton lies to the north, and Pilham to the south-east, while the course of the River Trent is nearby to the west.

Blyton had a population of 1,086 in the 2001 census.

History

The name Blyton is thought to be from a combination of the Old Norse and Old English ''Bligr+ton'', meaning "farmstead of a man called Bligr". It appeared in the Domesday Book as ''Blitone''.

Great Central Railway's heavy rail line between Gainsborough and Grimsby came to Blyton around 1848, whereby Blyton railway station was established within the parish. Although the line is still operational, the station has closed.

During the Second World War Blyton was home to the bomber airfield RAF Blyton, just north-east of the village. It was abandoned in 1954. The B1205 road skirts the southern border of the old airfield, and the A159 runs through its western edge. Today the airfield has been converted into Blyton Raceway for motor sports and karting.

Governance

From a very early time, Blyton was part of an ancient parish, ''Blyton cum Wharton'', within the historic county boundaries of the Parts of Lindsey in Lincolnshire

In March 1886 a part of Pilham parish, known as Pilham Carr, was transferred to Blyton. Some records refer to it simply as "Carr".

For governance, Blyton parish was in the Corringham Wapentake in the West Lindsey district of the Parts of Lindsey. From 1894 until 1974 it lay within Gainsborough Rural District in the administrative county of Lindsey.

Since 1974 Blyton has been within the shire district of West Lindsey.

Churches

The Grade I listed Anglican church, established in the 11th century, is dedicated to St Martin. The lower parts of the tower are Norman and parts of the aisle are Early English. The chancel was rebuilt in 1877, but retains a ca.1300 window. The font is of Perpendicular style. The north wall of the chancel holds an inscription to the children (d.1613 and 1615) of Sir John Wray.

There is also a Primitive Methodist chapel built in 1851.

References

External links

"Blyton", genuki.org.uk; retrieved 29 June 2011

Photographs of former RAF Blyton airfield

Category:Villages in Lincolnshire Category:Civil parishes in Lincolnshire Category:Grade I listed buildings in Lincolnshire nl:Blyton pl:Blyton

name	Helena Bonham Carter
birth date	May 26, 1966
birth place	Golders Green, London, England, United Kingdom
other names	Helena Bonham-Carter
years active	1983–present
occupation	Actress, voice actress, singer
boyfriend	Kenneth Branagh (1994–99)Tim Burton (2001–present)
parents	Raymond Bonham Carter (deceased)Elena (née Propper de Callejón)
partner	Tim Burton (2001–present; 2 children) }}

Helena Bonham Carter (born 26 May 1966) is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's ''A Pattern of Roses'' before winning her first film role as the titular character in ''Lady Jane''. She is known for her roles in films such as ''A Room with a View'', ''Fight Club'', and the ''Harry Potter'' series, as well as for frequently collaborating with director and domestic partner Tim Burton.

A two-time Academy Award nominee for her performances in ''The Wings of the Dove'' and ''The King's Speech'', Bonham Carter's acting has been further recognised with six Golden Globe nominations, an International Emmy Award, and a BAFTA Award.

Early life and family background

Bonham Carter was born in Golders Green, London. Her mother, Elena (née Propper de Callejón), is a psychotherapist. Her father, Raymond Bonham Carter, was a merchant banker, and served as the alternative British director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. during the 1960s. He came from a famous British political family, being the son of British Liberal politician Sir Maurice Bonham Carter and renowned politician and orator Violet Bonham Carter. Helena's great-grandfather was Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, Prime Minister of Britain from 1908–1916. Helena's maternal grandfather, Spanish diplomat Eduardo Propper de Callejón, saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust during World War II, for which he was recognised as Righteous among the Nations (his own father had been Jewish). He later served as Minister-Counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Helena's maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was from an upper-class Jewish family; she was the daughter of Baron Eugène Fould-Springer (a French banker, who was descended from the Ephrussi family and the Fould dynasty) and Marie Cecile von Springer (whose father was Austrian-born industrialist Baron Gustav von Springer, and whose mother was from the de Koenigswarter family). Hélène Fould-Springer's sister was the French philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (1916–2003), the wife of Baron Élie de Rothschild, of the prominent Rothschild family (who had also married within the von Springer family in the 19th century); her other sister, Therese Fould-Springer, was the mother of British writer David Pryce-Jones.

Bonham Carter has two brothers, Edward and Thomas, and is a distant cousin of fellow actor Crispin Bonham-Carter, who played Mr. Bingley in the 1995 BBC production of ''Pride and Prejudice'', and politician Jane Bonham Carter. Bonham Carter is also distantly related to Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels (through marriage), as well as pioneering English nurse Florence Nightingale, and is the grand-niece of Anthony Asquith, legendary English director of such classics as ''Carrington V.C.'' and ''The Importance of Being Earnest''. Other distant relatives include Lothian Bonham Carter, who played first-class cricket for Hampshire, and his son, Admiral Sir Stuart Bonham Carter, who served in the Royal Navy in both World Wars and rose to the rank of Vice Admiral.

She was educated at South Hampstead High School, an independent girls' school in Hampstead, London, and later at Westminster School, a co-educational independent school near the Palace of Westminster. Bonham Carter was denied admission to King's College, Cambridge, not because of her grades and her test scores but because school officials were afraid that she would leave mid-term to pursue her acting career.

When Bonham Carter was five, her mother had a serious nervous breakdown, from which it took her three years to recover. Upon her recovery, her experience in therapy led her to become a psychotherapist herself – Bonham Carter now pays her to read her scripts and deliver her opinion of the characters' psychological motivations. Five years after her mother's recovery, her father was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma. He suffered complications during an operation to remove the tumour which led to a stroke that left him half-paralysed and using a wheelchair. With her two older brothers at college, Bonham Carter was left to help her mother cope. She would later study her father's movements and mannerisms for her role in ''The Theory of Flight'', before his death in January 2004.

Career

Bonham Carter has not received any formal training in acting. In 1979, she won a national writing contest and used the money to pay for her entry into the actors directory ''Spotlight''. She made her professional acting début at the age of 16 in a television commercial. She also had a part in a minor TV film ''A Pattern of Roses''.

Her first starring film role was as Lady Jane Grey in ''Lady Jane'' (1986), which was given mixed reviews by critics. Her breakthrough role was Lucy Honeychurch in ''A Room with a View'', which was filmed after ''Lady Jane'', but released beforehand. Bonham Carter also appeared in episodes of ''Miami Vice'' as Don Johnson's love interest during the 1986–87 season and then, in 1987 opposite Dirk Bogarde in ''The Vision'' and Stewart Granger in ''A Hazard of Hearts''. Bonham Carter was originally cast in the role of Bess McNeill in ''Breaking the Waves'', but backed out during production due to, "...the character's painful psychic and physical exposure," according to Roger Ebert. The role went to Emily Watson, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the role.. She appeared in a dream sequence during season 2 of the UK comedy series Absolutely Fabulous, playing Edina Monsoon's daughter Saffron (Saffie) (throughout the series, references to physical similarities between Bonham Carter and the character of Saffie were made).

These early films led to her to being typecast as a "corset queen", and "English rose", playing pre- and early 20th century characters, particularly in Merchant-Ivory films. She played Olivia in Trevor Nunn's film version of ''Twelfth Night'' in 1996. She has since expanded her range, with her more recent films being ''Fight Club'', ''Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit'', and Tim Burton's ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'', ''Corpse Bride'', ''Big Fish'', ''Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'' and ''Alice in Wonderland''. Bonham Carter speaks French fluently, starring in a 1996 French film ''Portraits chinois''. In August 2001, she was featured in ''Maxim''. She played her second Queen of England when she was cast as Anne Boleyn in the ITV1 mini-series ''Henry VIII''; however her role was restricted, as she was pregnant with her first child at the time of filming. Bonham Carter was a member of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival jury that unanimously selected ''The Wind That Shakes the Barley'' as best film.

Bonham Carter played Bellatrix Lestrange in 2007's ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'', 2009's ''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'', 2010's ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1'', and 2011's ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2''. Bonham Carter received positive reviews as Lestrange, described as a "shining but underused talent". She then played Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney Todd's (Johnny Depp) amorous accomplice in the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical, ''Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street''. The film was released on 21 December 2007 in the US and 25 January 2008 in the UK. Directed by Tim Burton, Bonham Carter received a nomination for the Golden Globe for Best Actress for her performance. She won the Best Actress award in the 2007 Evening Standard British Film Awards for her performances in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''Conversations With Other Women'', along with another Best Actress award at the 2009 Empire Awards. Bonham Carter also appeared in the fourth ''Terminator'' film entitled ''Terminator Salvation'', playing a small but pivotal role.

In May 2006, Bonham Carter launched her own fashion line, "The Pantaloonies", with swimwear designer Samantha Sage. Their first collection, called Bloomin' Bloomers, is a Victorian style selection of camisoles, mop caps and bloomers. The duo are now working on Pantaloonies customised jeans, which Bonham Carter describes as "a kind of scrapbook on the bum".

Bonham Carter joined the cast of partner Tim Burton's 2010 film, ''Alice in Wonderland'' as The Red Queen. Bonham Carter appears alongside Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska, Christopher Lee and Alan Rickman. Bonham Carter's role was an amalgamation of two roles, The Queen of Hearts, and The Red Queen. In early 2009, Bonham Carter was named one of ''The Times'' newspaper's top 10 British Actresses of all time. Bonham Carter appeared on the list with fellow actresses Julie Andrews, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Audrey Hepburn.

In 2010, Bonham Carter played Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in the film ''The King's Speech''. As of January 2011, Bonham Carter had received numerous plaudits for her performance, including nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Bonham Carter won her first BAFTA Award, but lost the Academy Award to Melissa Leo for ''The Fighter''.

Bonham Carter signed to play author Enid Blyton in the BBC Four television biopic, ''Enid''. It was the first depiction of Blyton's life on the screen, and Bonham Carter starred with Matthew Macfadyen and Denis Lawson. Bonham Carter also received her first Television BAFTA Nomination for Best Actress, for ''Enid''. In 2010, she starred with Freddie Highmore in the Nigel Slater biopic ''Toast'', which was filmed in the West Midlands and received a gala at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival. She has now been confirmed to be taking on the role of Miss Havisham in Mike Newell's adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, ''Great Expectations''. She will receive the Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year from BAFTA LA in November 2011.

Personal life

In 2001, Carter began her current relationship with director Tim Burton, whom she met while filming ''Planet of the Apes''. Burton has taken to casting Bonham Carter in his movies, including ''Big Fish'', ''Corpse Bride'', ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'', ''Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'', and ''Alice in Wonderland''. They live in Belsize Park, London, in neighbouring houses with a connecting doorway because they both agreed that they needed their own personal space, and though living next door to each other, they still have a happy and healthy loving relationship.

Bonham Carter owned one of the houses, Burton later purchased the other and they then connected the two. Their son Billy Raymond Burton was born on 4 October 2003. The couple maintain a close relationship with Johnny Depp, who appears in many of Burton's films. Depp is godfather to both of Burton and Bonham Carter's children, accepting the role after Burton persuaded Bonham Carter to ask him. At age 41, she gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Nell Burton, on 15 December 2007 in Central London. She says she named her daughter Nell after all the "Helens" in her family.

In August 2008, four of her relatives were killed in a safari bus crash in South Africa, and she was given indefinite leave from filming ''Terminator Salvation'', returning later to complete filming.

In 2008, Bonham Carter and Burton put their American apartments up for sale. The apartments are in the Greenwich Village area, in New York City. The couple sold them for a collective $8.75 million. In early October 2008, it was reported that Bonham Carter had become a patron of the charity Action Duchenne, the national charity established to support parents and sufferers of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

On 5 January 2011, a photo was released of Bonham Carter and Burton walking on Coombe Hill, the Chilterns, with British Prime Minister David Cameron and his family. It has been suggested that the two couples were introduced through Nick Clegg whom Bonham Carter had performed alongside in a play while attending Westminster School.

Bonham Carter is known for her unconventional sense of fashion, which has been described as "shabby chic". Despite her often controversial fashion choices, ''Vanity Fair'' named her on its 2010 Best-Dressed List and she was selected by Marc Jacobs to be the face of his autumn/winter 2011 advertising campaign. She cites Vivienne Westwood and Marie Antoinette as her main style influences.

Filmography

+ Films
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
	''''	Netty Bellinger
	''''	Lucy Honeychurch
		Lady Jane Grey
		Lady at Cricket Match	(cameo role)
	''''	Serena Staverley
	''''	Iris
	''Six Minutes with Ludwig''	The Star
		Chiara Offreduccio
		Lady Minerva Munday
		Ophelia
	''''	Beatrix Potter
		Caroline Abbott
	''Brown Bear's Wedding''	White Bear (voice)
		Helen Schlegel	Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
		Pandora/Julie	aka ''Rik Mayall Presents Dancing Queen''
		Elizabeth Frankenstein	Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actress
	''Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald''	Marina Oswald	Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
	''''	Faith Severn (adult)
	''Butter''	Dorothy
	''Mighty Aphrodite''	Amanda Weinrib
	''Margaret's Museum''	Margaret MacNeil	Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading RoleChlotrudis Award for Best Actress (also for ''The Wings of the Dove (1997 film)
	''[[Jeremy Hardy Gives Good Sex''	Herself (voice)
		Olivia
	''Portraits chinois''	Ada
	''''	Narrator (voice)
		Rosemary	aka ''A Merry War''
	''''	Kate Croy	Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best ActressBroadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressChlotrudis Award for Best Actress (also for ''Margaret's Museum'')Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressLas Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressLondon Film Critics' Circle
		[[Morgan le Fay
		Karen Knightly
	''''	Jane Thatchard	Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
		Marla Singer
	''Women Talking Dirty''	Cora
	''''	Lily
	''Carnivale''	Milly (voice)
		Ari
		Susan Ivey
	''Football''	Mum
	''''	Dinah
		Ingrid Formanek
		Ruby
	''Big Fish''	Jennifer Hill/The Witch
		Anne Boleyn
	''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events''	Beatrice Baudelaire	Uncredited cameo
	''Conversations with Other Women''	Woman	Evening Standard British Film Awards
	''[[Magnificent 7''	Maggi Jackson
	''Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit''
	''Corpse Bride''
		Mrs. Bucket
		Esther Reubens
		Bellatrix Lestrange	Nominated—Fantasporto
		[[Mrs. Lovett	Empire Award for Best ActressEvening Standard British Film Award for Best ActressNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated—Italian Online Movie Award for Best Actress in a Supporting RoleNominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the YearNominated—National Movie Award for Best Performance – FemaleNominated—Saturn Award for Best ActressNominated—Scream Award for Best Actress in a Horror Movie or Show
		Bellatrix Lestrange
	''Terminator Salvation''	Dr. Serena Kogan
		Enid Blyton	International Emmy Award for Best Performance by an ActressNominated—BAFTA TV Award for Best ActressNominated—Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actress
	''''	Mother Squirrel (voice)
			Nominated—Comedy Film Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actress of the Year in a Supporting RoleNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best VillainNominated—National Movie Award for Performance of the Year
	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1''	Bellatrix Lestrange
	''''		American Film Institute Award – A Year of Excellence AwardBAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting RoleBritish Independent Film Award for Best Supporting ActressBritish Independent Film Award – The Richard Harris AwardHollywood Award for Best Supporting ActressItalian Online Movie Award for Best Actress in a Supporting RoleSanta Barbara International Film Festival Award for Best Ensemble CastScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion PictureNominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Ensemble CastNominated—Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Acting EnsembleNominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Denver Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Empire Award for Best ActressNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion PictureNominated—Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Iowa Film Critics Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the YearNominated—National Movie Award for Performance of the YearNominated—North Texas Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Acting EnsembleNominated—Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress in a Supporting RoleNominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting RoleNominated—St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
		Joan Potter
	''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2''	Bellatrix Lestrange
		Dr. Julia Hoffman	Filming

+ Television
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
	''Miami Vice''	Dr. Theresa Lyons	Multiple Guest Arc- "List of Miami Vice episodes#Season 3: 1986–1987
		Jo Marriner
		Raina Petkoff	Episode: "[[Arms and the Man"
	''Jackanory''	Reader	Multiple Guest Arc- "The Way to Sattin Shore: Part 1"- "The Way to Sattin Shore: Part 2"- "The Way to Sattin Shore: Part 3"- "The Way to Sattin Shore: Part 4"- "The Way to Sattin Shore: Part 5"
	''Absolutely Fabulous''	Dream Saffron
	''''	Herself	Episode: "Episode #2.1"
	''''	Vera Brittain	Multiple Guest Arc- "The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century
	''[[Life's Too Short''	Herself	Cameo

+ Stage and radio
! Year	! Production	! Role	Notes
	''''	Unknown	Performed on BBC Radio 4
	''''	Unknown	Performed at Oxford Playhouse
	''''		Performed at Greenwich Theatre, London
	''''	Unknown	Performed on BBC Radio 4
	''''	Unknown	Performed at Windsor/Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford
	''''		Performed at Nottingham Playhouse
	''''
		Imogen Parrot	Performed at Comedy Theatre, London
	''''	Narrator
	''''	Narrator	by Dyan Sheldon
	''''		Performed on BBC Radio 4
	''''	Narrator	by Philippa Pearce
	''''	Narrator	by Philippa Pearce
	''Song of Love''	Unknown	Performed on BBC Radio 4
	''Remember Me''	Narrator
	''''	Rose	Performed on BBC Radio 4
	''''	Unknown	Performed on BBC Radio 4
	''''	Narrator
	''Lantern Slides''		Performed on BBC Radio 4
	''As You Like It''		Performed on BBC Radio 4
	''''	Unknown	Postponed
	''Private Lives''	Amanda	Performed on BBC Radio 4

References

External links

Helena Bonham Carter at Contact Music

Category:1966 births Category:Asquith family Category:Audio book narrators Category:BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress Category:English film actors Category:English Jews Category:English people of Spanish descent Category:English people of French descent Category:English people of Austrian descent Category:English radio actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Genie Award winners for Best Actress Category:Actors from London Category:Jewish actors Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Old Westminsters Category:Living people Category:People from Golders Green Category:People from Sutton Courtenay Category:Shakespearean actors Category:People educated at South Hampstead High School

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