Helen Mirren
Mirren at the 83rd Academy Awards in 2011.
Born	Helen Lydia Mironoff (1945-07-26) 26 July 1945 (age 66) Chiswick, Middlesex, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1965–present
Spouse	Taylor Hackford (1997–present)
Partner	Taylor Hackford (1986–1997)
Website
Official site

Dame Helen Mirren, DBE (born Helen Lydia Mironoff; 26 July 1945) is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.

Early life and family[link]

Mirren was born Helen Lydia Mironoff^[1][2] in Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Chiswick, West London.^[3] Her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov (1913–1980), was of Russian origin, and her mother, Kitty (née Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda Rogers; 1909–1996), was English.^[4] Mirren's paternal grandfather, Colonel Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, was in the Tsarist Army and fought in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War. He later became a diplomat, and was negotiating an arms deal in Britain, when he and his family were stranded during the Russian Revolution.^[5] The former diplomat became a London cab driver to support his family.

His son, Helen Mirren's father, changed the family name to the Scottish-sounding Mirren in the 1950s and became known as Basil Mirren. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II, and later drove a cab and was a driving-test examiner, before becoming a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport. Mirren's mother was from West Ham, East London, and was the 13th of 14 children born to a butcher whose father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria.^[4] Mirren considers her upbringing to have been "very anti-monarchist".^[6]

The first house she remembers living in was in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, when she was two or three years old, after the birth of her younger brother, who was named Peter Basil after his grandfather and great-great-grandfather. Mirren was the second of three children, born two years after her older sister Katherine ("Kate"; born 1942). She later lived in Leigh-on-Sea.

Education[link]

Mirren attended St Bernard's High School for Girls in Southend-on-Sea, where she acted in school productions, and subsequently a teaching college, the New College of Speech and Drama in London, "housed within Anna Pavlova's old home, Ivy House" on the North End Road – which leads from Golders Green to Hampstead, N. London. At age eighteen, she auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and was accepted. By the time she was 20, she was Cleopatra in the NYT production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic, which led to her signing with the agent Al Parker.^[7]

Theatre[link]

Early years[link]

Her work for the NYT led to Mirren joining the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), playing Castiza in Trevor Nunn's 1966 staging of The Revenger's Tragedy, Diana in All's Well That Ends Well in 1967, Cressida in Troilus and Cressida and Phebe^[8] in As You Like It in 1968, Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1970, and Tatiana in Gorky's Enemies at the Aldwych and the title role in Miss Julie at The Other Place in 1971. She also appeared in four productions, directed by Braham Murray for Century Theatre at the University Theatre in Manchester between 1965 and 1967.^[9]

In 1970 Director/producer John Goldschmidt made the documentary film Doing Her Own Thing about Mirren at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The film was made for ATV and shown on the ITV Network in the UK.

In 1972–73 Mirren worked with Peter Brook's International Centre for Theatre Research, and joined the group's tour in North Africa and the US which created The Conference of the Birds. Returning to the RSC she played Lady Macbeth at Stratford in 1974 and at the Aldwych Theatre in 1975.

As reported by Sally Beauman in her 1982 history of the RSC, Mirren, while appearing in Nunn's Macbeth (1974) and in a highly publicised letter to The Guardian newspaper, attacked both the National Theatre and the RSC for their lavish production expenditure, declaring it "unnecessary and destructive to the art of the Theatre," and adding, "The realms of truth, emotion and imagination reached for in acting a great play have become more and more remote, often totally unreachable across an abyss of costume and technicalities..." There were no discernible repercussions for this rebuke of the RSC.^[10]

West End and RSC[link]

At the Royal Court in September 1975 she notably played rock star Maggie in Teeth 'n' Smiles, a musical play by David Hare, which was revived at Wyndham's Theatre in May 1976 winning her the Plays & Players Best Actress award, voted by the London critics.

From November 1975 Mirren played in West End repertory with the Lyric Theatre Company as Nina in The Seagull and Ella in Ben Travers' new farce The Bed Before Yesterday ("Mirren is stirringly voluptuous as the Harlowesque good-time girl": Michael Billington, The Guardian, 10 December 1975). At the RSC in Stratford in 1977, and at the Aldwych the following year, she played a steely Queen Margaret in Terry Hands' production of the three parts of Henry VI, while 1979 saw her 'bursting with grace' with an acclaimed performance as Isabella in Peter Gill's otherwise unexceptional production of Measure for Measure at Riverside Studios.

In 1981 she returned to the Royal Court for the London premiere of Brian Friel's Faith Healer. In the same year she also received acclaim for her performance in the title role of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, a production of Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre which transferred to The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, London. Reviewing her portrayal for The Sunday Telegraph, Francis King wrote: "Miss Mirren never leaves it in doubt that even in her absences, this ardent, beautiful woman is the most important character of the story."

Her performance as Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in January 1983, and at the Barbican Theatre April 1983), "swaggered through the action with radiant singularity of purpose, filling in areas of light and shade that even Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker omitted." – Michael Coveney, Financial Times, April 1983.

After a relatively barren sojourn in the Hollywood Hills, she returned to England at the beginning of 1989 to co-star with Bob Peck at the Young Vic in the London premiere of the Arthur Miller double-bill, Two Way Mirror, performances which prompted Miller to remark: "What is so good about English actors is that they are not afraid of the open expression of large emotions" (interview by Sheridan Morley: The Times 11 January 1989). In Elegy for a Lady she played the svelte proprietress of a classy boutique, while as the blonde hooker in Some Kind of Love Story she was "clad in a Freudian slip and shifting easily from waif-like vulnerability to sexual aggression, giving the role a breathy Monroesque quality" (Michael Billington, The Guardian).

Broadway debut[link]

A further stage breakthrough came in 1994, in an Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production bound for the West End, when Bill Bryden cast her as Natalya Petrovna in Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Her co-stars were John Hurt as her aimless lover Rakitin and Joseph Fiennes in only his second professional stage appearance as the cocksure young tutor Belyaev. "Instead of a bored Natalya fretting the summer away in dull frocks, Mirren, dazzlingly gowned, is a woman almost wilfully allowing her heart's desire for her son's young tutor to rule her head and wreak domestic havoc....Creamy shoulders bared, she feels free to launch into a gloriously enchanted, dreamily comic self-confession of love." (John Thaxter, Richmond & Twickenham Times, 4 March 1994).

Mirren was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actress (Play): in 1995 for her Broadway debut in A Month in the Country, now directed by Scott Ellis ("Miss Mirren's performance is bigger and more animated than the one she gave last year in an entirely different London production", Vincent Canby in the NY Times, 26 April 1995). Then again in 2002 for August Strindberg's Dance of Death, co-starring with Sir Ian McKellen, their fraught rehearsal period coinciding with the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11, 2001 (as recorded in her In the Frame autobiography, September 2007).

National Theatre[link]

Mirren had an unhappy experience at the National Theatre in 1998 when she played Cleopatra to Alan Rickman's Antony. In 2000 Nicholas Hytner, who had worked with Mirren on the film version of The Madness of King George, cast her as Lady Torrance in his revival of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Michael Billington, reviewing for The Guardian, described her performance as "an exemplary study of an immigrant woman who has acquired a patina of resilient toughness but who slowly acknowledges her sensuality."

At the National Theatre in November 2003 she again won praise playing Christine Mannon ("defiantly cool, camp and skittish", Evening Standard; "glows with mature sexual allure", Daily Telegraph) in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra directed by Howard Davies.

“This production was one of the best experiences of my professional life, The play was four and a half hours long, and I have never known that kind of response from an audience ... It was the serendipity of a beautifully cast play, with great design and direction, It will be hard to be in anything better.” (In the Frame, September 2007).

She played the tragic title role in Jean Racine's Phèdre at the National in 2009, in a production directed by Nicholas Hytner. The production was also staged at the amphitheater of Epidaurus on 11 and 12 July 2009.

Selected stage credits[link]

• Cleopatra, Anthony and Cleopatra, Old Vic Theatre, London, 1965
• Cathleen, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Century Theatre, Manchester,England 1965
• Kitty, Charley's Aunt, Century Theatre, Manchester, 1967
• Nerissa, The Merchant of Venice, Century Theatre,Manchester, 1967
• Castiza, The Revenger's Tragedy, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, 1967
• Diana, All's Well That Ends Well, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1967
• Cressida, Troilus and Cressida, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, London, 1968
• Hero, Much Ado about Nothing, Aldwych Theatre, 1968–1969
• Win-the-Fight Littlewit, Bartholomew Fair, Aldwych Theatre, 1969
• Lady Anne, Richard III, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970
• Ophelia, Hamlet, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970
• Julia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970
• Tatyana, Enemies, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
• Harriet, The Man of Mode, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
• Title role, Miss Julie, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
• Elayne, The Balcony, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
• Isabella, Measure for Measure, Riverside Studios Theatre, London,1974
• Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1974, then Aldwych Theatre, 1975
• Maggie, Teeth 'n' Smiles, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1975, then Wyndham's Theatre, London, 1976
• Nina, The Seagull, Lyric Theatre, London, 1975
• Ella, The Bed before Yesterday, Lyric Theatre, 1975
• Queen Margaret, Henry VI, Parts I, II and III, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1977, then Aldwych Theatre, 1978
• Title role, The Duchess of Malfi, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, England, 1980, then The Roundhouse, London, 1981
• Grace, Faith Healer, Royal Court Theatre, 1981
• Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra, Pit Theatre, London, 1983
• Moll Cutpurse, The Roaring Girl, Barbican Theatre, London, 1983
• Marjorie, Extremities, Duchess Theatre, London, 1984
• Madame Bovary, 1987
• Angela, "Some Kind of Love Story," and dying woman, "Elegy for a Lady," in Two-Way Mirror (double-bill), Young Vic Theatre, *London, 1989
• Sex Please We're Italian, 1991
• Natalya Petrovna, A Month in the Country, London, 1994, then Criterion Theatre, New York City, 1995
• Antony and Cleopatra, Royal National Theatre, London, 1998
• Collected Stories, London, 1999
• Lady Torrance, Orpheus Descending, Donmar Warehouse, London, 2000
• Alice, Dance of Death, Broadhurst Theatre, New York City, 2001–2002
• Mourning Becomes Electra, Lyttelton Stage, Royal National Theatre, 2003
• Phedre, National Theatre, 2009
• Also appeared as Susie Monmican, The Silver Lassie; in Woman in Mind, Los Angeles.

Film[link]

Mirren at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego, 22 July 2010

Mirren has also appeared in a large number of films throughout her career. Some of her earlier film roles include Age of Consent, O Lucky Man!, Caligula, Excalibur, 2010, The Long Good Friday, White Nights, When the Whales Came and The Mosquito Coast. She appeared in Some Mother's Son, Painted Lady, The Prince of Egypt and The Madness of King George. One of her 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. Her favourite film is Teaching Mrs. Tingle, in which she plays sadistic History teacher, Mrs Eve Tingle.^{[citation needed]}

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: Elizabeth I in the television series Elizabeth I (2005), Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006), and Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, in The Madness of King George (1994). She is the only actress ever to have portrayed both Queens Elizabeth on the screen.

Mirren's title role of The Queen earned her numerous acting awards including a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award, among many others. During her acceptance speech at the Academy Award ceremony, she praised and thanked Elizabeth II and stated that she had maintained her dignity and weathered many storms during her reign as Queen. Mirren later appeared in supporting roles in the films National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, Inkheart, State of Play, and The Last Station, for which she was nominated for an Oscar.^[11]

In preparation for her role as a retired Israeli Mossad agent in the film The Debt, Mirren reportedly immersed herself in studies of Hebrew language, Jewish history, and Holocaust writing, including the life of Simon Wiesenthal, while in Israel in 2009 for the filming of some of the movie's scenes. The film is a remake of a 2007 Israeli film of the same name (Hebrew: Ha-khov).^[12]

Television[link]

Mirren is known for her role as detective Jane Tennison in the widely viewed Prime Suspect, a multiple award-winning television drama that was noted for its high quality and popularity. Her portrayal of Tennison won her three consecutive BAFTA awards for Best Actress between 1992 and 1994.

Some of Mirren's other television performances include Cousin Bette (1971); As You Like It (1979); Blue Remembered Hills (1979); The Twilight Zone episode "Dead Woman's Shoes" (1985); Losing Chase (1996); The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999), where her performance won her both the Emmy and the Golden Globe; Door to Door (2002); and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (2003). In 1976, she appeared with Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates and Malcolm McDowell in a production of Harold Pinter's The Collection as part of the Laurence Olivier Presents series. She also played Elizabeth I in 2005, in the television serial Elizabeth I, for Channel 4 and HBO, for which she received an Emmy Award. Mirren won another Emmy Award on 16 September 2007 for her role in Prime Suspect: The Final Act on PBS in the same category as in 2006.

Mirren hosted Saturday Night Live on 9 April 2011.^[13]

Awards and recognition[link]

Film awards[link]

Mirren at the 69th Annual Golden Globe 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 1995, she had also been awarded for Best Actress once again in Cannes for playing Queen Charlotte in The Madness of King George.^[14] 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 three actresses (the first was Liza Minnelli in 1973 and then decades later 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.^[15] 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. Entertainment Weekly recently ranked her Number 2 for Entertainer of the Year for 2006 and also won the award for best actress in film at the new Greatest Britons Awards for her role in The Queen. In 2007, Mirren became an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society at Trinity College Dublin.

She won the Best Actress award at the 2009 Rome International Film Festival for her performance as Tolstoy's wife in The Last Station.^[16]

Academy Award nominations[link]

• Best Actress
  • 2006 – The Queen
  • 2009 – The Last Station

• Best Supporting Actress
  • 1994 – The Madness of King George
  • 2001 – Gosford Park

Television awards[link]

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: The Final Act, where she only won the Golden Globe for her title role performance 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.^[17]

At the end of a triumphant year of awards for her acclaimed movie performance as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, Dame Helen also collected a 2007 Emmy Television award as Best Actress in a Mini-Series for her performance as Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect: The Final Act. She now has four Emmy awards. This seventh, and apparently concluding instalment, of the Prime Suspect saga portrayed Tennison as an alcoholic destined for retirement. It was screened in the US on the public service network PBS.

Emmy Awards[link]

Awards won are indicated by bold lettering.

• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie

• 1993 – Prime Suspect 2
• 1994 – Prime Suspect 3
• 1996 – Prime Suspect 4: "Scent of Darkness"
• 1997 – Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgment
• 1999 – The Passion of Ayn Rand
• 2003 – The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
• 2004 – Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness
• 2006 – Elizabeth I
• 2007 – Prime Suspect: The Final Act

• Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie

• 2003 – Door to Door

Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts[link]

Mirren at The Critics' Circle Awards Luncheon in April 2007

Each year, since 1988, The Critics' Circle has presented an award for Distinguished Service to the Arts voted for by all members of the Circle embracing: Dance, Drama, Film, Music, Visual Arts and Architecture. At a celebratory luncheon, on 10 April 2007 in the National Theatre's Terrace Restaurant, the award for 2006 was presented to Dame Helen Mirren.^[18] As David Gritten, chairman of the Film section made clear, the decision to make the award was voted on in November 2006, well in advance of the awards hubbub that surrounded her performance in The Queen. Accepting the award, an engraved crystal rose bowl, Mirren described it as the most useful she has ever received, while reflecting poignantly that this now "might be the last award I will win in my life. It has been a most incredible year. You do the work and then....." Previous recipients include Peter Hall (1988), Judi Dench (1997) and Ian McKellen (2003).

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire[link]

On 5 December 2003, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). When she received the honour, Mirren commented that Prince Charles was "very graceful" but forgot to give her half of the award. Another person had to remind him to give Mirren the star. She also said that she felt wary about accepting the award and had to be persuaded by fellow comrades to accept the DBE. In 1996, she had declined appointment as a Commander of the order (CBE).^[19]

Personal life[link]

Mirren married American director Taylor Hackford (her partner since 1986) on 31 December 1997, his 53rd birthday. The ceremony took place at the Ardersier Parish Church near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.^[20] The couple had met on the set of White Nights. It is her first marriage, and his third (he has two children from his previous marriages). Mirren has no children and says she has "no maternal instinct whatsoever."^[21]

In the August 2011 issue of Esquire magazine, Mirren said, "I am quite spiritual. I believed in fairies when I was a child. I still do sort of believe in the fairies. And the leprechauns. But I don't believe in God."^[22]

Mirren's autobiography, In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures, was published in the UK by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in September 2007. Reviewing for The Stage, John Thaxter wrote: "Sumptuously illustrated, at first sight it looks like another of those photo albums of the stars. But between the pictures there are almost 200 pages of densely printed text, an unusually frank story of her private and professional life, mainly in the theatre, the words clearly Mirren's own, delivered with forthright candour."^[23]

In 1990, Mirren stated in an interview that she is an atheist.^[24]

In a GQ interview in 2008, Mirren stated she had been date raped as a student and had often taken cocaine at parties during the 1980s.^[25][26] She stopped using the drug after reading that Klaus Barbie made a living from cocaine dealing.^{[25][26][27][28]}

On 11 May 2010, Mirren attended the unveiling of her waxwork at Madame Tussauds London. The figure reportedly cost £150,000 to make and took four months to complete.^[29]

Criticism[link]

In July 2010, during the Anglo-American BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Mirren declared herself to be "embarrassed and mortified at being British" had England defeated the US at football during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. "I was so relieved it was a draw because, you know, if Britain had beaten America, what with BP, which to my mind stands for bloody p***-poor."^[30][30]

This provoked an angry response in the UK, where the tabloid The Daily Mail accused her of being disloyal and cynically playing up to her American audience.^[31]

References in pop culture[link]

• The Mars Volta on their 2008 album The Bedlam in Goliath have a song called "Ilyena" that is named after Mirren.^[32] Mars Volta lyricist/singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala has stated an affinity for Mirren.^[33]

Filmography[link]

Further reading[link]

• Command Performance, a profile of Helen Mirren written by John Lahr in The New Yorker magazine, 2 October 2006
• In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures (autobiography) by Helen Mirren, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2007 ISBN 978-0-297-85197-4.
  • Rather than writing an autobiography Helen Mirren was commissioned by Alan Samson at Orion Books to write about her life in a series of chapters based on pictures from her extensive personal collection of photography and memorabilia. Edited by Chris Worwood, with whom she worked on the Award-winning HBO series Elizabeth, the book covers every aspect of her life from her aristocratic Russian heritage to her days with Peter Hall's RSC company to her Academy Award for The Queen.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Helen Mirren

• Official website
• Helen Mirren at the Internet Movie Database
• Helen Mirren at the TCM Movie Database
• Helen Mirren at the Internet Broadway Database
• Helen Mirren at the MBC Encyclopedia of Television
• Helen Mirren Biography at Tiscali
• The Helen Mirren Appreciation Society, official fan club
• Helen Mirren on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Helen Mirren in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Helen Mirren collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Helen Mirren collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Arifa Akbar, "Helen Mirren: The good, the bad and The Queen", (interview), The Independent (London), 27 May 2007
• Kevin Maher, Dame Helen Mirren: I'm an Essex Girl (interview), The Times (London), 12 February 2010
• Morley Safer profile of Helen Mirren on CBS 60 Minutes, 7 January 2007

Malcolm McDowell
McDowell at the 2007 Jules Verne Adventure Film Special Awards Presentation
Born	Malcolm John Taylor (1943-06-13) 13 June 1943 (age 69) Horsforth, Yorkshire, England, UK
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1968–present
Spouse	Margot Bennett (1975–1980) Mary Steenburgen (1980–1990) Kelley Kuhr (1991–present)

Malcolm McDowell (born 13 June 1943) is an English actor, whose career spans more than four decades.

McDowell is known for his early roles in the controversial films If...., O Lucky Man!, A Clockwork Orange, and Caligula. Since then, his versatility as an actor has led to varied roles in films and television series of different genres, including Tank Girl, Star Trek Generations, the TV serial Our Friends in the North, Entourage, Heroes, Metalocalypse, the animated movie Bolt, the 2007 remake of Halloween and its sequel, and Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness.^[1] He is also well known for his narration of the seminal 1982 documentary The Compleat Beatles.

Early life[link]

McDowell was born Malcolm John Taylor in Horsforth, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, now a part of the City of Leeds, the son of Edna (née McDowell), a hotelier, and Charles Taylor, a publican.^[2][3][4] His family later moved to Bridlington, since his father was in the Royal Air Force. McDowell trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).^[5]

Career[link]

McDowell began his professional life serving drinks in his parents' pub and then as a coffee salesman (the latter job providing inspiration for the movie O Lucky Man!). While enrolled in Cannock House School, he began taking acting classes, and eventually secured work as an extra with the Royal Shakespeare Company. McDowell made his screen debut as school rebel Mick Travis in If.... (1968) by British director Lindsay Anderson. This was followed by Figures in a Landscape (1970) and The Raging Moon (1971). His performance in If.... caught the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who cast McDowell as the lead in A Clockwork Orange, adapted from the novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess. He won great acclaim (nominated for a Golden Globe and an award by the New York Film Critics Circle in the category of Best Actor) as Alex, a young hoodlum brainwashed by a dystopian British government of the near future.

McDowell worked with Anderson again for O Lucky Man! (1973), which was based on his own idea, and Britannia Hospital (1982). McDowell regularly turned up on British television productions in the 1970s in adaptations of theatre classics, one example being with Laurence Olivier in The Collection (1976), as part of the series Laurence Olivier Presents. He starred in Aces High (1975) and co-starred in Voyage of the Damned (1976), and as Dornford Yates' gentleman hero Richard Chandos in She Fell Among Thieves (1977). He made his Hollywood debut as H. G. Wells in Time After Time (1979). He often portrayed antagonists in the late 1970s and 1980s, including the title character in Caligula (1979). He later remarked upon his career playing film villains: "I suppose I'm primarily known for that but in fact, that would only be half of my career if I was to tot it all up."^[6]

In his biography Anthony Burgess: A Life, author Roger Lewis commented on McDowell's later career; "his pretty-boy looks faded and he was condemned to playing villains in straight-to-video movies that turn up on Channel 5."^[7]

McDowell appeared in the 1983 action film Blue Thunder as F.E. Cochrane, and the 1982 remake of Cat People. In 1983, he starred in Get Crazy as Reggie Wanker, a parody of Mick Jagger. Also in 1983, McDowell starred as The Wolf (Reginald von Lupen) in Faerie Tale Theatre's rendition of "Little Red Riding Hood" (his wife at that time, Mary Steenburgen, played Little Red Riding Hood). In 1984, he narrated the documentary The Compleat Beatles. He is known in Star Trek circles as "the man who killed Captain Kirk"^{[citation needed]} in the 1994 film Star Trek Generations, in which he played the mad scientist Dr. Tolian Soran. McDowell appeared in several computer games, most notably as Admiral Tolwyn in the Wing Commander series of computer games. His appearance in Wing Commander III marked the series transition from 2D pre-rendered cutscenes to live-action cutscenes. His appearance in Wing Commander IV was during the final days of video game live action cutscenes.

In 1995, he co-starred with actress and artist Lori Petty in the action/science fiction/comedy film Tank Girl. Here, he played the villain Dr. Kesslee, the evil director of the global Water and Power Company, whose main goal in the story was to control the planet's entire water supply on a future desert-like, post-apocalyptic Earth.

McDowell appeared in a unique episode of the animated series South Park, which provided a comedic retelling of the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations. In the episode, McDowell played the real-life narrator of the story in live action, introducing himself simply as "a British person", in a parody of Masterpiece Theatre, and its ex-host, Alistair Cooke.^[8]

McDowell played himself in Robert Altman's The Player, in which he chastises protagonist Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) for badmouthing him behind his back. He worked with Altman once again in 2003 for The Company as "Mr. A.", the fictional director of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. His character was based on real-life director Gerald Arpino. In the 2003 film, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, he played a straight married man who rapes a young drug dealer to "teach him a lesson". The film also starred Clive Owen as the victim's older brother.

McDowell at "The Genius of Stanley Kubrick" at the 2006 Traverse City Film Festival.

In 2006, McDowell portrayed radio mogul Jonas Slaughter on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. The following year he portrayed the villainous Mr. Linderman on the first season of the NBC series Heroes, a role he reprised in the third season premiere. He starred in Jerry Was a Man, which appeared as an episode of Masters of Science Fiction on Sky.^[9] He portrayed Terrence McQuewick on Entourage and Julian Hodge on Monk.

McDowell appeared as Dr. Sam Loomis in Rob Zombie's remakes of Halloween and Halloween II (in 2007 and 2009, respectively).^[10] He also played Desmond LaRochette in Robert Whitlow's The List, and Irish patriarch Enda Doyle in Red Roses and Petrol (2008).^[11] His next film is the Canadian vampire comedy rock and roll movie Suck with actor/director Rob Stefaniuk and the upcoming Alex Wright film Two Wolves.^[12] In December 2009, he made an appearance in the music video "Snuff" by the band Slipknot.^[13] He appears, uncredited, as Lombardi, the curator, in the 2010 film, The Book of Eli. McDowell portrayed Satan in the upcoming Christian comedy thriller film Suing the Devil.^[14]

McDowell is set to appear in the upcoming films Vamps and Silent Hill: Revelation 3D as Leonard Wolf, an insane cult leader.

In 2011 McwDowell was cast in the role of Stanton Infeld on the TNT original series Franklin & Bash.

Voice acting[link]

McDowell was the featured narrator in the documentary, The Compleat Beatles released in 1982.

Malcolm McDowell at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

McDowell has lent his voice to Lord Maliss in Happily Ever After, the Superman villain Metallo in Superman: The Animated Series, Mad Mod in Teen Titans, Merlyn in DC Showcase: Green Arrow, Arkady Duvall (son of Ra's Al Ghul) in Batman: The Animated Series and as the voice of a Death Star commander in a Robot Chicken episode parodying Star Wars. He is also a regular on the second season of the Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse as Vater Orlaag and other characters. McDowell also voiced Dr. Calico in Disney's Bolt. McDowell also lent his voice to the henchman Reeses II in the animated series Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys, a show laced with references to many movies including his own break-out role in A Clockwork Orange. He also has a similar voice style to the voice of Zippy in the Children's Programme 'Rainbow'. Some may Disagree.

In 2006–07, he contributed spoken word to two Pink Floyd tribute albums produced by Billy Sherwood: Back Against the Wall, and Return to the Dark Side of the Moon. In 2008, McDowell began a recurring role as Grandpa Fletcher on Phineas and Ferb. He also narrated the award-winning documentary Blue Gold: World Water Wars.

McDowell reprised his role of Metallo in the video game Superman: Shadow of Apokolips and an episode of Justice League Unlimited. He also provided his voice for the character President John Henry Eden in the video game Fallout 3, Rupert Pelham in the game WET, King Solomon in the Word of Promise Audio Bible, and the CEO of Stahl Arms in Killzone 3, Jorhan Stahl.^[15] He also voiced Daedalus in God of War III.

McDowell portrays the role of "Caiaphas" in "The Truth & Life Dramatized audio New Testament Bible," a 22-hour, celebrity-voiced, fully dramatized audio New Testament which uses the RSV-CE translation.

McDowell is the host of "Fangoria's Dreadtime Stories", a monthly series of fully dramatised radio dramas with a mystery, horror, science fiction and dark humor theme. Written by top writers of today, including Dennis Etchison and Max Allan Collins, these stories are creepy, cutting edge and not for the faint of heart. The series is produced by Carl Amari, who also produces The Twilight Zone radio dramas. The executive producer is Thomas DeFeo (CEO of Fangoria magazine) with Chris Roe as the associate producer. Original music for each episode is by Chris Alexander, an established composer and Fangoria editor-in-chief. Each month, a new episode is available for free streaming worldwide at Fangoria's website www.fangoria.com. All episodes, current and past, are available for digital download. The radio drama scripts, which are used by McDowell and the supporting actors, are also available to print in PDF at the Fangoria website for free.

Personal life[link]

McDowell's first wife (1975–80) was extra Margot Bennett. His second wife (1980-90) was actress Mary Steenburgen, whom he met and fell in love with while filming Time After Time, with whom he has two children: Lily Amanda (b. 21 January 1981) and Charles Malcolm (b. 10 July 1983). They divorced in 1990. His third wife (1991-present) is Kelley Kuhr, 24 years his junior, with whom he has three children: Beckett Taylor (b. 29 January 2004), Finnian Anderson (b. 23 December 2006), and Seamus Hudson (born 7 January 2009). He is the maternal uncle of actor Alexander Siddig, who has appeared in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Kingdom of Heaven, Syriana, 24, and the fourth season of the BBC series Primeval. He and his nephew both appeared in the movie Doomsday by director Neil Marshall. The McDowells currently reside in Ojai, California.

He became a grandfather in January 2012 when daughter Lilly McDowell Walton gave birth to a girl, Clementine Mae.

Filmography, Voice-overs and TV work[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Malcolm McDowell

References[link]

External links[link]

• Malcolm McDowell at the Internet Movie Database
• Malcolm McDowell at AllRovi
• Malcolm McDowell at TV Tropes
• Malcolm McDowell at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Malcolm McDowell at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• N.P. Thompson's interview with Malcolm McDowell for Slant/The House Next Door
• An in-depth interview with Malcolm McDowell covering his entire career from HoboTrashcan.com
• Interactive video talk by McDowell on the British "Free Cinema" movement of the 50s, made for the British Film Institute
• "What if..." – The Guardian, 24 April 2004. In-depth profile and interview.
• "O Lucky Man! Malcolm McDowell's journey from coffee salesman to movie star" – The Times, 17 May 2008
• "Audiobook read by Malcolm McDowell" – The Bobbything, 2010

Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt at the Toronto International Film Festival (2011)
Born	Emily Olivia Leah Blunt (1983-02-23) 23 February 1983 (age 29) London, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2003–present
Spouse	John Krasinski (2010–present)
Relatives	Crispin Blunt (uncle) Peter Blunt (grandfather)

Emily Olivia Leah Blunt (born 23 February 1983) is an English actress best known for her roles in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Young Victoria (2009), and The Adjustment Bureau (2011). She has been nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, two London Film Critics' Circle Awards, and one BAFTA Award. She won a Golden Globe Award for her work in the BBC television drama Gideon's Daughter (2007).^[1]

Early life[link]

Emily Blunt was born 23 February 1983 in Roehampton, London, England. She is the second of four children born to Joanna, an English teacher and former actress, and barrister Oliver Simon Peter Blunt, QC, one of the highest-profile barristers in the United Kingdom, earning an estimated £1million annually.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Her siblings are Felicity, Sebastian, and Suzanna. Her grandfather was Major-General Peter Blunt and one of her paternal uncles is Crispin Blunt, Conservative Member of Parliament for Reigate.^[7][8]

Blunt attended Ibstock Place School and, at the age of 16, went to Hurtwood House, a private sixth-form college known for its performing arts programme.^{[citation needed]} There, she was discovered by an agent.^{[citation needed]} Blunt made her professional debut in Bliss, a musical written by Paul Sellar, at the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe while she was still an A-level student.^{[citation needed]} She went on to perform at the National Theatre and at Chichester Festival Theatre.^{[citation needed]}

Film career[link]

In 2003, Blunt made her screen debut in the British television drama Boudica, about the life of the ancient Celtic warrior-queen who fought the Romans. That same year, she was praised for her performance as the 16th century queen Catherine Howard in the two-part British television drama Henry VIII.

In 2004, Blunt delivered her breakout performance as Tamsin in the dark British film, My Summer of Love, a story of deception and lesbian love in the English countryside. She shared an Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer with co-star Natalie Press.

In 2005, Blunt co-starred with Bill Nighy and Miranda Richardson in the British television drama Gideon's Daughter, an original screenplay written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff, in which she played the troubled only child of New Labour spin doctor Gideon Warner, played by Nighy. Blunt won a Golden Globe for her performance.

Blunt at the British Academy Film Awards in February 2007

In 2006, Blunt appeared opposite Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in the box-office success The Devil Wears Prada. Streep and Hathaway received most of the critical attention initially, but Blunt proved to be equally memorable, with Entertainment Weekly naming her the Best Female Scene-Stealer in their end-of-summer special issue. She appeared at the 79th Academy Awards where she co-presented the award for best costume design with her Prada co-star Hathaway. Blunt spoke about the weight loss, claiming she had to go "painfully thin".^[9] That same year, Blunt co-starred with Susan Sarandon in the independent drama Irresistible. Following production, Sarandon strongly suggested to director David Auburn that he cast Blunt in his next film, The Girl in the Park— a role she did not accept.

In 2007, Blunt appeared in four films: Wind Chill, The Jane Austen Book Club, Dan in Real Life, and Charlie Wilson's War. In 2008, Blunt appeared in two films, Sunshine Cleaning in the role of Norah Lorkowski, and The Great Buck Howard as Valerie Brennan.

In 2009, Blunt played Queen Victoria in The Young Victoria, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and written by Julian Fellowes. She also starred in the Toby Spanton-directed short film Curiosity. She was director Jon Favreau's first choice to play the Black Widow in Iron Man 2 but scheduling conflicts with Gulliver's Travels forced her to cede the role to Scarlett Johansson.^[10] She voiced Angelina's mother, Matilda Mouseling, in the television series, Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps.

In 2010, Blunt co-starred with Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins in the big-budget movie The Wolfman, which was released on 12 February. She also starred in Gulliver's Travels and in The Adjustment Bureau, alongside Matt Damon, as a ballet dancer "being mysteriously kept apart" from Damon's character.^[11][12] Blunt was offered the female lead in the Captain America: The First Avenger film but turned it down.^[13]

In January 2011, Blunt began filming an American science-fiction film Looper, directed by Rian Johnson and co-starring Bruce Willis. She appeared in the British comedy film Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, directed by Lasse Hallström and co-starring Ewan McGregor and Kristin Scott Thomas.^[14] She briefly appeared in The Muppets as Miss Piggy's receptionist. She also starred in the 2012 film The Five-Year Engagement, directed by Nicholas Stoller and co-starring Jason Segel. She is scheduled to star in Arthur Newman, Golf Pro with Colin Firth in 2012.^[15]

Personal life[link]

Blunt had a three-year relationship with Canadian singer Michael Bublé. They met in Melbourne backstage at the Australian television Logie Awards in 2005 and later shared a home in Vancouver, Canada. They broke up in 2008.^[16]

In November 2008, Blunt began dating American actor John Krasinski. On 10 July 2010, they married in Como, Italy.^[17]

Her sister Felicity, who works as a literary agent, became engaged to actor Stanley Tucci in 2011 after the pair were introduced by Emily.^[18] Her brother Sebastian is an actor.^[19]

Filmography[link]