Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet on video

Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is an English actress and occasional singer. Winslet made her film debut starring in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994). She achieved recognition in a supporting role in Ang Lee's adaption of Sense and Sensibility (1995) and her role as Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic (1997).

About Kate Winslet

Winslet has appeared in films such as the Iris Murdoch biopic Iris (2001), the neosurrealistic indie film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2003), Todd Field's 2006 drama Little Children, the romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), and a screen adaption of Revolutionary Road (2008). Nominated for six Academy Awards, Winslet won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Reader. She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, as well as being nominated for an Emmy. At age 33, Winslet became the youngest actor to receive six Academy Award nominations. In 2009, David Edelstein of New York Magazine hailed her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation."

Early life Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, the daughter of Sally Anne (née Bridges), a barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming-pool contractor. Her parents were "jobbing actors", with Winslet commenting 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 sisters, Beth Winslet and Anna Winslet, are also actresses. Winslet, raised in an Anglican household, 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 and appeared in a television commercial for Sugar Puffs cereal, directed by Tim Pope.

Early work Winslet's career began on television, with a co-starring role in the BBC children's science fiction serial Dark Season in 1991. This was followed by appearances in the made-for-TV movie Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1992, the sitcom Get Back for ITV and an episode of medical drama Casualty in 1993, also for the BBC. Music Winslet has enjoyed a brief taste of success as a singer, with her single What If from the soundtrack of Christmas Carol: The Movie, which reached #1 in Ireland, #6 in the UK and won the 2002 OGAE Song Contest. She also filmed a music video for the song. She participated in a duet with "Weird Al" Yankovic on the Sandra Boynton CD Dog Train, and sang in the 2006 film Romance & Cigarettes. She also sang an aria from La Bohème, called "Sono Andati", in her film Heavenly Creatures, which is featured on the film's soundtrack. She was considered for the lead in Moulin Rouge! (which eventually went to Nicole Kidman); had she taken the part, she would have sung the full soundtrack. Personal life While on the set of Dark Season, Winslet met actor-writer Stephen Tredre, with whom she had a five-year relationship. He died of bone cancer soon after Winslet completed filming Titanic, so she missed the premiere because she was attending his funeral in London. She and Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio have remained good friends since the filming.

Winslet was later in a relationship with Rufus Sewell, but on 22 November 1998 she married director Jim Threapleton. They have a daughter, Mia Honey, who was born on 12 October 2000 in London. After divorcing Threapleton in 2001, Winslet began a relationship with Sam Mendes, whom she married on 24 May 2003 on the island of Anguilla in the Caribbean. Their son, Joe Alfie Winslet Mendes, was born on 22 December 2003 in New York City. Mendes and his production company, Neal Street Productions, purchased the film rights to the long-delayed biography of circus tiger tamer Mabel Stark. The couple's spokesperson said, "It's a great story, they have had their eyes on it for a while. If they can get the script right, it would make a great film." The media have documented her weight fluctuations over the years. Winslet has been outspoken about her refusal to allow Hollywood to dictate her weight. In February 2003, the British edition of Gentlemen's Quarterly magazine published photographs of Winslet which had been digitally enhanced to make her look dramatically thinner than she really was; Winslet issued a statement saying that the alterations were made without her consent. GQ issued an apology in the subsequent issue. Winslet and Mendes currently reside in Greenwich Village in New York City. They also own a manor house in the tiny village of Church Westcote in Gloucestershire, England. They spent £3 million on the secluded Westcote Manor, a rambling Grade II-listed house with eight bedrooms, set in 22 acres. They have reportedly spent more than £1 million on interior renovations, as well as restoring the original water garden, mulberry garden, and orchard, all of which fell into disrepair when the former owner, equestrian artist Raoul Millais, died in 1999. As a result of both being involved in aircraft incidents, and fearing leaving their children parentless, Winslet and Mendes never fly together on the same aircraft. He was scheduled to fly on American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked on 11 September 2001 and subsequently crashed into the Pentagon. In October 2001, Winslet was seven hours into a London-Dallas flight with daughter Mia when a passenger who claimed to be an terrorist, later charged with creating mischief, stood up and shouted "We are all going to die

Awards and nominations Winslet won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Reader, as well as two Golden Globe Awards, one in the category of Best Actress (Drama) for her performance in Revolutionary Road, the other in the Best Supporting Actress category for The Reader. She has won two BAFTA Awards: Best Actress for The Reader, and Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Sense and Sensibility (1995). She earned a total of six Academy Award nominations, seven Golden Globe nominations, and seven BAFTA nominations.

Winslet has received two Academy Award nominations for playing younger versions of another nominee in the same film the only two instances of different actors playing the same character in the same film both being nominated for an Oscar. She played the younger versions of the characters played by nominees Gloria Stuart in Titanic and Judi Dench in Iris. When she was not nominated for her work in Revolutionary Road, Winslet became only the second actress to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Drama) without getting an Oscar nomination for the same performance (Shirley MacLaine was the first for Madame Sousatzka [1988], and she won the Golden Globe in a three-way tie with Jodie Foster and Sigourney Weaver).

Academy rules allow an actor to receive no more than one nomination in a given category; as the Academy nominating process determined that Winslet's work in The Reader would be considered a lead performance unlike the Golden Globes, which considered it a supporting performance she could not be nominated for Best Actress for both films. Awards for noncinematic work In 2000, Winslet won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for Listen To the Storyteller. Winslet was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for playing herself in a 2005 episode of Extras.