Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader (2008). Winslet has been acclaimed for both dramatic and comedic work in projects ranging from period to contemporary films, and from major Hollywood productions to less publicised indie films. She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association among others, and has been nominated twice for an Emmy Award for television acting.
Born in Reading, Berkshire, Winslet is the middle of three daughters of Sally Anne (née Bridges), a barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming pool contractor. Her parents were "jobbing actors", which led Winslet to comment that she "didn't have a privileged upbringing" and that their daily life was "very hand to mouth". Her maternal grandparents, Linda (née Plumb) and Archibald Oliver Bridges, founded and operated the Reading Repertory Theatre, and her uncle, Robert Bridges, appeared in the original West End production of Oliver!. Her older sister, Anna, and younger sister, Beth, are also actresses.
Raised in an Anglican household, Winslet began studying drama at the age of 11 at the Redroofs Theatre School, a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl. At the age of 12, Winslet appeared in a television advertisement directed by filmmaker Tim Pope for Sugar Puffs cereal. Pope said her naturalism was "there from the start
Winslet was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2000. She has been included as a vocalist on some soundtracks of works she has performed in, and the single "What If" from the soundtrack for Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001), was a hit single in several European countries. Winslet has a daughter with her former husband, Jim Threapleton, and a son with her second husband, Sam Mendes, from whom she is separated. She lives in New York City.
Kate Winslet St. John FW 2011 Advertisements |
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