Everything about Helen Mirren totally explained
Dame Helen Mirren,
DBE (born
26 July 1945) is an
English stage, film and television
actress. She has won an
Oscar, four
SAG Awards, four
BAFTAs, three
Golden Globes and four
Emmy Awards during her career.
Early life
Family
Mirren was born
Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov in a corridor of the maternity wing of
Queen Charlotte's Hospital,
Chiswick in West London. Her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov (1913-1980), was of
Russian origin, and her mother, Kathleen (
née Rogers; 1909-1980), was
English. Mirren's paternal grandfather, Pyotr Vassilievich Mironov, a Russian nobleman,
tsarist colonel and diplomat, was negotiating an arms deal in Britain and was stranded there, along with his family, during the
Russian Revolution. Mirren's great-great-great-great-grandfather was the
Russian
field-marshal Mikhail Kamensky, one of the heroes of the
Napoleonic wars.
Her father called himself Basil and changed the family name to Mirren in the 1950s. He played the
viola with the
London Philharmonic before
World War II and 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,
London and was the thirteenth of fourteen children born to a butcher whose father had been the butcher to
Queen Victoria. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been "very anti-monarchist".
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").
Mirren once famously remarked of her time in
Southend as "relentlessly dull," stating that Southend was at most "the armpit of the country."
Education
Mirren attended a Catholic girls' school,
St. Bernard's High School, in
Southend-on-Sea, 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 Hampstead Road.
At age eighteen, she auditioned for the
National Youth Theatre and was accepted. By age 20 she was starring as Cleopatra in the NYT production of
Antony and Cleopatra at the
Old Vic, which led to her signing with the agent Al Parker.
Theatre
Early years
Following appearances on stage during her school years at St Bernard's High School for Girls in
Westcliff-on-Sea, Mirren's first starring role was in 1965 as
Cleopatra for the
National Youth Theatre. This led to her joining the
Royal Shakespeare Company, playing 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 in
As You Like It in 1968, Julia in
The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1970 and the title role in
Miss Julie at
The Other Place in 1971.
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.
Controversy
As reported by
Sally Beaumann 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..." But Mirren was only stating publicly what many RSC actors had been saying in private for some years. There were no discernible repercussions for this mild rebuke from the RSC.
West End and RSC
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
Royal Exchange Theatre production at the
Round House in 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're 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).
Stage career breakthrough
A stage career 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
Ralph 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 willfully 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
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,
April 26,
1995). Then again in 2002 for
August Strindberg's
Dance of Death, co-starring with
Ian McKellen, their fraught rehearsal period coinciding with New York's '9/11' (2001, as recorded in her
In the Frame autobiography, September 2007).
National Theatre
She had an unhappy experience at the
National Theatre in 1998 when she played Cleopatra to
Alan Rickman's Antony. But 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've 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).
Film
Mirren has made numerous appearances in an array of films. Some of her earlier film appearances include
O Lucky Man!,
Caligula,
Excalibur,
2010 (in which she speaks Russian),
The Long Good Friday,
White Nights and
The Mosquito Coast. After those appearances she received roles in Belfast-born director
Terry George's film
Some Mother's Son, which was about the
1981 Hunger Strikes in
Northern Ireland, opposite
Irish actress
Fionnuala Flanagan,
Painted Lady,
The Prince of Egypt and
The Madness of King George. One of Mirren's other film roles was in
Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, as the eponymous thief's wife, opposite
Michael Gambon.
Mirren continued her successful film career when she starred more recently in
Gosford Park with
Maggie Smith and
Calendar Girls where she starred with
Julie Walters. Other more recent appearances include
The Clearing,
Pride,
Raising Helen, and
Shadowboxer. Mirren also provided the voice for the supercomputer "
Deep Thought" in the film adaptation of
Douglas Adams'
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. During her career, she's portrayed three British queens in different films and television series. These include
Elizabeth I in the television series
Elizabeth I (2005),
Elizabeth II in the film
The Queen (2006), and
Queen Charlotte, the wife of
George III, in
The Madness of King George (1994). Her role in
The Queen gained her numerous awards including a
BAFTA, a
Golden Globe, and an
Oscar. During her acceptance speech at the Academy Award ceremony, Mirren praised and thanked Elizabeth II and stated that she'd maintained her dignity and weathered many storms during her reign as Queen.
Mirren has frequently appeared nude on film as far back as her first film
Age of Consent, and was over 50 when she appeared nude in the film
Calendar Girls and on the cover of the
Radio Times October 5-11 issue in 1996.
Television
Mirren is most often recognized for her role as
detective Jane Tennison in the well-known
Prime Suspect, a television
drama that ran for seven series. The role won her three consecutive BAFTA awards for Best Actress between 1992 to 1994. Other acclaimed television performances include
Cousin Bette (1971),
As You Like It (1979),
Blue Remembered Hills (1979),
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 Mirren appeared opposite
Laurence Olivier,
Alan Bates and
Malcolm McDowell in the episode
The Collection of the Granada television series
Laurence Olivier Presents. She also played
Elizabeth I in 2005, in the television series
Elizabeth I, for
Channel 4 and
HBO, where she received an
Emmy for her performance. Mirren won another Emmy on
September 16,
2007 for her role in
Prime Suspect: The Final Act on PBS in the same category as in 2006.
Awards and recognition
Film awards
In 1984, Mirren won Best Actress for her role in the film
Cal at the
Cannes Film Festival and the 1985
Evening Standard British Film Awards. In 1994 and 2001, she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her roles in
The Madness of King George and
Gosford Park, respectively. In 1995, she'd also been awarded for Best Actress once again in
Cannes for playing
Queen Charlotte in
The Madness of King George. 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. 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.
Academy Award Nominations
2006 - The Queen
Best Supporting Actress
1994 - The Madness of King George
2001 - Gosford Park
Television awards
Mirren won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Mini-series or TV Movie in 1997 for her role in Losing Chase. She received two nominations in the Actress in a Mini-series or TV Movie category for Elizabeth I, and Prime Suspect: 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.
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, and was screened in the US on the public service network PBS.
Emmy Nominations
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie
1994 - Prime Suspect 2
1995 - 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
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. 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's ever received, while reflecting poignantly that this now "might be the last award I'll win in my life. It has been a most incredible year. You do the work and then....." Previous recipients include Sir Peter Hall (1988), Dame Judi Dench (1997) and Ian McKellen (2003).
Personal life
Mirren married American director Taylor Hackford whom she met on the set of White Nights (her partner since 1986), in the Scottish Highlands on 31 December 1997, his 53rd birthday. It was her first marriage, and his third (he has two children from his previous marriage). Mirren has no children and says she's "no maternal instinct whatsoever."
On 5 December 2003, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the British Empire. When she received the honour, Mirren commented that Prince Charles was "very graceful" but forgot to give her half of the award, where another person had to remind him to give Mirren the star. She also stated that she felt wary about accepting the award and had to be persuaded by fellow comrades to accept the DBE. In 1996 she'd previously declined a CBE.
Mirren's autobiography was published in the UK by Weidenfeld and Nicholson in September 2007, under the title In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures. 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."
References in pop culture
The Mars Volta have a song called "Ilyena" that's named after Mirren. Mars Volta lyricist/singer Cedric Bixler has stated an affinity for Mirren.
Filmography
Further Information
Get more info on 'Helen Mirren'.
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