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Helena Bonham Carter (born on
May 26,
1966) is a
Biography
Helena Bonham Carter
was born in Golders Green, in
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Minister of the United Kingdom, Herbert Henry Asquith, and members
of her family are Life Peers. Her maternal grandfather was a Spanish
ambassador and a Catholic; her maternal grandmother came from a rich
Austrian-based Jewish family, and had converted to Catholicism upon marrying
her ambassador husband. She is a great-niece of the late Baroness Liliane de
Rothschild (1916-2003) of the Rothschild banking family, as her maternal
grandmother's sister married a member of the Rothschild family.
It is a matter of interpretation what her film debut was. Strictly speaking,
her first role was in a small part in an obscure film A Pattern of Roses,
but this is little remembered. Her first starring role to be filmed was in
Lady Jane, which was eventually released to somewhat mixed reviews. Her
breakthrough was A Room with a View, which was filmed later but released
earlier. These films led to her being typecast as a "corset queen", an
"English rose" in costume dramas, but eventually she expanded her range.
For a few years she was in a relationship with Kenneth Branagh (costing
Branagh his own marriage to Emma Thompson) and they appeared in a number of
films together, but they split up. Since 2001 she has been engaged to Tim
Burton whom she met while filming Planet of the Apes. They have one son,
Billy-Ray Burton, born on October 4, 2003.
Extra:
Perhaps the actress most widely identified with corsets and men named Cecil, Helena Bonham Carter was for a long time typecast as an antiquated heroine, no doubt helped by her own brand of Pre-Raphaelite beauty. With a tumble of brown curls (which were, in fact, hair extensions), huge dark eyes, and translucent pale skin, Bonham Carter's looks made her a natural for movies that took place when the sun still shone over the British Empire and the sight of a bare ankle could induce convulsions. However, the actress, once dubbed by critic Richard Corliss "our modern antique goddess," managed to escape from planet Merchant/Ivory and, while still performing in a number of period pieces, eventually became recognized as an actress capable of portraying thoroughly modern characters.
Befitting her double-barreled family name, Bonham Carter is a descendant
of the British aristocracy, both social and cinematic. The
great-granddaughter of P.M. Lord Herbert Asquith and the grandniece of
director Anthony Asquith, she was born to a banker father and a Spanish
psychotherapist mother in
She made her screen debut in 1985, playing the ill-fated title character of
Trevor Nunn's Lady Jane. Starring opposite Cary Elwes as her equally
ill-fated lover, Bonham Carter made enough of an impression as the 16th
century teen queen to catch the attention of director James Ivory and
producer Ismail Merchant, who cast her as the protagonist of their 1986
adaptation of E.M. Forster's A Room With a View. The film proved a great
critical success, winning eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture
and Best Director. The adulation surrounding it provided its young star with
her first real taste of fame, as well as steady work; deciding to
concentrate on her acting career, Bonham Carter dropped out of Cambridge
University, where she had been enrolled.
Unfortunately, although Helena Bonham Carter did indeed work steadily and was able to enhance
her reputation as a talented actress, Bonham Carter also became a study in
typecasting, going from one period piece to the next. Despite the quality of
many of these films, including Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (
Things began to change for Helena Bonham Carter in 1995, when she appeared as Woody
Allen's wife in Mighty Aphrodite and then had the title role in Margaret's
Museum, in which she gave a powerful performance as a coal miner's wife
driven to madness by various tragedies visited upon her. Bonham Carter's
work in the film prompted observers to note that she seemed to be moving
away from her previous roles, and although she still appeared in corset
movies -- such as Trevor Nunn's lush 1996 adaptation of Twelfth Night -- she
began to enhance her reputation as a thoroughly modern actress. In 1997, she
won acclaim for her performance in Iain Softley's adaptation of The Wings of
the Dove, scoring a Best Actress Oscar nomination in the process.
After playing a woman stricken with
Lou Gehrig's disease opposite offscreen
partner Kenneth Branagh in the poorly received The Theory of Flight (1998)
and appearing with Richard E. Grant in A Merry War (1998), Bonham Carter
landed one of her most talked-about roles in David Fincher's 1999
Fight Club. As the object of Brad Pitt's and
Edward Norton's desires, the
actress exchanged hair extensions and English mannerisms for a shock of
spiky hair and American dysfunction, prompting some critics to call her one
of the most shocking aspects of a shocking movie.
After a brief turn in the romantic comedy Women Talking Dirty in
Selected filmography
This Helena Bonham Carter Biography Page is Copyright © 2004 - 2009 Chuck Ayoub