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Actress well-known for portrayal of 'Detective Jane Tennison' and 'The Queen'
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Helen Lydia Mironoff was born on 26 July 1945 in Hammersmith, London, England. Her parents were Vasily (later Basil) Mironoff and Kathleen Rogers. [1]
Her ancestry is very mixed. Her mother came from a very large family, with the children being born in various parts of London plus Forest Gate in Essex (now in the London Borough of Newham). Kathleen's paternal grandfather, Henry Rogers, came from Widcombe in Somerset, England. He was a master butcher who became the butcher for Queen Victoria.
Helen's father, Vasily Petrovich Mironoff, was born in Russia in 1913, but was brought to England when he was only two years old, just prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. He came from Russian nobility; his father, Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, was an aristocrat, as was his grandmother (whose name, Lydia, became Helen's middle name). Pyotr had served as a colonel in the Imperial Russian Army and was descended from Count Mikhail Fedotovich Kamensky, who had been a general in the Napoleonic Wars. Vasily changed his name to Basil then, in 1951, changed the family name from Mironoff to Mirren by deed poll. [2] Vasily (now Basil) played viola with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, but during World War II he worked as an ambulance driver and served during the Blitz in the East End of London. After the war, he worked as a cab-driver, then a driving-test examiner, then became a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport.
His daughter, Helen, was raised in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex in a very 'anti-monarchist' environment. [3] She acted in school plays and later auditioned for the National Youth Theatre. As a result of her work with the NYT, she was able to join the Royal Shakespeare Company, in association with which she played many parts, including leading roles such as Lady Macbeth in 1974 and 1975.
Mirren has played a number of vastly different roles during her acting career: a rock star named Maggie, the tragi-comic Nina in Chekhov's The Seagull, a 'good-time girl', Isabella in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, together with queens, duchesses - and a cross-dressing thief, Moll Cutpurse.
"Miss Mirren never leaves it in doubt that even in her absences, this ardent, beautiful woman is the most important character of the story."
Francis King, The Sunday Telegraph
Multiple stage, television, and film roles have garnered multiple awards for Helen Mirren, and in 2003 she was appointed a Dame (DBE) for services to drama. [4] In 2013 she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. [5] In 2014 She received a Lifetime Achievement BAFTA award (British Academy of Film and Television Arts). [6] In 2017, Mirren received her 15th Golden Globe nomination. She also received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2021. [7] She gained more awards for The Queen, where she portrayed Queen Elizabeth II. She is the only actress to have played both Queens Elizabeth (I and II) on the screen.
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Dame Helen Mirren Toronto, Canada |
One of her most well-known roles is that of no-nonsense Detective Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, a British police television drama/thriller series, showing not only police procedures, but how a woman has to battle discrimination in her job. Mirren describes her as "extremely directed, ambitious, talented and very uncompromising. Therefore she is deeply frustrated by her job; the way her sex is a barrier." [8]
Also in 2017, Mirren became a US citizen, and has voted there. [9]
Mirren is currently portraying Golda Meir in a biopic entitled Golda (release date yet to be announced).
For complete listing of theatre work, please see freespace page
For complete filmography, please see freespace page
For complete list of awards, please see Wikipedia article
See Also:
Connections to Super Bowl halftime show performers: Helen is 33 degrees from Prince Nelson, 29 degrees from Dan Aykroyd, 25 degrees from Garth Brooks, 37 degrees from Chubby Checker, 31 degrees from Ella Fitzgerald, 26 degrees from Dusty Hill, 39 degrees from Whitney Houston, 25 degrees from Mick Jagger, 30 degrees from Paul McCartney, 27 degrees from Tom Petty, 20 degrees from Chris Stapleton and 31 degrees from Shania Twain on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
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