Helena Bonham Carter Biography

Helena Bonham Carter, (born 26 May 1966) is an English actress. She is known for her roles in low-budget arthouse and independent films to large-scale Hollywood productions. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Kate Croy in The Wings of the Dove (1997). For her role as Queen Elizabeth in The King's Speech (2010), she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She also won the 2010 International Emmy Award for Best Actress for her role as British author Enid Blyton in the TV film Enid (2009).

Bonham Carter began her film career playing the title character in Lady Jane (1986), and playing Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View (1985). Her other film roles include Ophelia in Hamlet (1990), Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991), Howards End (1992), Elizabeth Lavenza in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Fight Club (1999), Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter series (2007-11), Skynet in Terminator Salvation (2009), Miss Havisham in Great Expectations (2012), Madame Thnardier in Les Misrables (2012), and The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella (2015). She has frequently collaborated with director Tim Burton; in Planet of the Apes (2001), Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Dark Shadows (2012), and playing the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and its sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016). Her other television films include A Pattern of Roses (1983), Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald (1993), Live from Baghdad (2002), Toast (2010), and Burton & Taylor (2013).

She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours list for services to drama, and in January 2014, the British prime minister, David Cameron, announced that Bonham Carter had been appointed to Britain's new national Holocaust Commission.

Early life

Bonham Carter was born in Islington, London. Her father, Raymond Bonham Carter, who came from a prominent British political family, was a merchant banker and served as the alternative British director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., during the 1960s (see also Ancestry). Her mother, Elena (ne Propper de Callejn), is a psychotherapist who is of 3/4 Jewish background, and whose own parents were diplomats Eduardo Propper de Callejn and Baroness Hlne Fould-Springer. Her paternal grandmother was a politician and feminist icon Violet Asquith, daughter of H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the first half of World War I.

Bonham Carter is the youngest of three children, with two brothers, Edward and Thomas. They were brought up in Golders Green and she was educated at South Hampstead High School, and completed her A-levels at Westminster School. Bonham Carter was denied admission to King's College, Cambridge, not because of her academic performance, but because college officials were afraid that she would leave during the course to pursue her acting career.

When Bonham Carter was five, her mother had a serious nervous breakdown, from which it took her three years to recover. Upon her recovery, her experience in therapy led her to become a psychotherapist herself - Bonham Carter now pays her to read her scripts and deliver her opinion of the characters' psychological motivations. Five years after her mother's recovery, her father was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma. He suffered complications during an operation to remove the tumour which led to a stroke that left him half-paralysed and using a wheelchair. With her brothers at college, Bonham Carter was left to help her mother cope. She later studied her father's movements and mannerisms for her role in The Theory of Flight. He died in January 2004.

Career

Early career

Bonham Carter, who has no formal acting training, entered the field winning a national writing contest (1979) and used the money to pay for her entry into the actors' Spotlight directory. She made her professional acting dbut at the age of 16 in a television commercial. She also had a part in a minor TV film, A Pattern of Roses.

Her first lead film role was as Lady Jane Grey in Lady Jane (1986), which was given mixed reviews by critics. Her breakthrough role was Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View (1985), which was filmed after Lady Jane but released two months earlier. Bonham Carter also appeared in episodes of Miami Vice as Don Johnson's love interest during the 1986-87 season and then, in 1987 opposite Dirk Bogarde in The Vision, Stewart Granger in A Hazard of Hearts and John Gielgud in Getting It Right. Bonham Carter was originally cast in the role of Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves, but backed out during production due to "the character's painful psychic and physical exposure", according to Roger Ebert. The role went to Emily Watson, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.

In 1994, Bonham Carter appeared in a dream sequence during the second series of the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, as Edina Monsoon's daughter Saffron, who was normally played by Julia Sawalha. Throughout the series, references were made to Saffron's resemblance to Bonham Carter.

Her early films led to her being typecast as a "corset queen", and "English rose", playing pre- and early 20th century characters, particularly in Merchant-Ivory films. She played Olivia in Trevor Nunn's film version of Twelfth Night in 1996. One of the high points of her early career was her performance as the scheming Kate Croy in the 1997 film adaption of The Wings of the Dove which was highly acclaimed internationally and netted her first Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. She has since expanded her range, with her more recent films being Fight Club, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and her then-partner Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Big Fish, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Alice in Wonderland.

Later career

Bonham Carter speaks French fluently, and starred in a 1996 French film Portraits chinois. In August 2001, she was featured in Maxim. She played her second Queen of England when she was cast as Anne Boleyn in the ITV1 mini-series Henry VIII; however, her role was restricted, as she was pregnant with her first child at the time of filming. Bonham Carter was a member of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival jury that unanimously selected The Wind That Shakes the Barley as best film.

In May 2006, Bonham Carter launched her own fashion line, "The Pantaloonies", with swimwear designer Samantha Sage. Their first collection, called Bloomin' Bloomers, is a Victorian style selection of camisoles, mob caps, and bloomers. The duo are now working on Pantaloonies customised jeans, which Bonham Carter describes as "a kind of scrapbook on the bum".

Bonham Carter played Bellatrix Lestrange in the final four Harry Potter films (2007-2011). While filming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, she accidentally ruptured the eardrum of Matthew Lewis (playing Neville Longbottom) when she stuck her wand in his ear. Bonham Carter received positive reviews as Bellatrix, described as a "shining but underused talent". She played Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney Todd's (Johnny Depp) amorous accomplice in the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Tim Burton. Bonham Carter received a nomination for the Golden Globe for Best Actress for her performance. She won the Best Actress award in the 2007 Evening Standard British Film Awards for her performances in Sweeney Todd and Conversations With Other Women, along with another Best Actress award at the 2009 Empire Awards. Bonham Carter also appeared in the fourth Terminator film entitled Terminator Salvation, playing a small but pivotal role.

Bonham Carter joined the cast of Tim Burton's 2010 film, Alice in Wonderland as The Red Queen. She appears alongside Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska, Crispin Glover and Harry Potter co-star Alan Rickman. Her role was an amalgamation of The Queen of Hearts and The Red Queen. In early 2009, Bonham Carter was named one of The Times"?s top 10 British Actresses of all time. She appeared on the list with fellow actresses Julie Andrews, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Audrey Hepburn.

In 2010, Bonham Carter played Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in the film The King's Speech. As of January 2011, she had received numerous plaudits for her performance, including nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won her first BAFTA Award, but lost the Academy Award to Melissa Leo for The Fighter.

Bonham Carter signed to play author Enid Blyton in the BBC Four television biopic, Enid. It was the first depiction of Blyton's life on the screen, and Bonham Carter starred with Matthew Macfadyen and Denis Lawson. She received her first Television BAFTA Nomination for Best Actress, for Enid. In 2010, she starred with Freddie Highmore in the Nigel Slater biopic Toast, which was filmed in the West Midlands and received a gala at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival. She received the Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year from BAFTA LA in 2011.

In 2012, Bonham Carter appeared as Miss Havisham in Mike Newell's adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations. In April 2012, she appeared in Rufus Wainwright's music video for his single "Out of the Game", featured on the album of the same name. Bonham Carter co-starred in a film adaptation of the musical Les Misrables, released in 2012. She played the role of Madame Thnardier.

On 17 May 2012, it was announced that Bonham Carter would be appearing in the 2013 adaptation of Reif Larsen's book The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, entitled The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet. Her casting was announced alongside that of Kathy Bates, Kyle Catlett and Callum Keith Rennie, with Jean-Pierre Jeunet directing. She also appeared in a short film directed by Roman Polanski for the clothing brand Prada. The short was entitled A Therapy and she appeared as a therapy patient to Ben Kingsley's therapist.

In 2013, she played Red Harrington, a peg-legged brothel madam, who assists Reid and Tonto in locating Cavendish, in the movie The Lone Ranger. Also that year, Bonham Carter narrated poetry for The Love Book App, an interactive anthology of love literature developed by Allie Byrne Esiri. Also in 2013, Bonham Carter appeared as Elizabeth Taylor, alongside Dominic West as Richard Burton, in BBC4's Burton & Taylor which premiered at the 2013 Hamptons International Film Festival. She played the Fairy Godmother in the 2015 live-action re-imagining of Walt Disney's Cinderella.

In 2016, Bonham Carter reprised her role of the Red Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass. In June 2016, it was confirmed that Bonham Carter would star in a spin-off of the Ocean's Eleven Trilogy, titled Ocean's Eight, alongside: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, and Sarah Paulson.

Personal life

In 1994, Bonham Carter began a relationship with Kenneth Branagh whilst he was still married to Emma Thompson. After five years together, the relationship came to an end in 1999.

In 2001, Bonham Carter began a relationship with American director Tim Burton, whom she met while filming Planet of the Apes. Burton subsequently took to casting her in his films, including Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows. Bonham Carter and Burton lived in two adjoining houses in Belsize Park, London. Bonham Carter owned one of the houses, Burton later purchased the other and they connected the two. In 2006, they bought the Mill House in Sutton Courtenay, England. It was previously leased by her grandmother, Violet Bonham Carter, and owned by her great-grandfather, former British prime minister H. H. Asquith.

Bonham Carter and Burton have two children together: son Billy Raymond Burton (born October 2003) and daughter Nell Burton (born December 2007). Bonham Carter has stated that her daughter Nell is named after all the "Helens" in her family. Bonham Carter told The Daily Telegraph and several other interviewers of her struggles with infertility and the difficulties she had during her pregnancies. She noted that before the conception of her daughter, she and Burton had been trying for a baby for two years and although they conceived naturally, they were considering IVF. On 23 December 2014, Bonham Carter and Burton announced that they had "separated amicably" earlier that year.

In August 2008, four of her relatives were killed in a safari bus crash in South Africa, and she was given indefinite leave from filming Terminator Salvation, returning later to complete filming. In early October 2008, it was reported that Bonham Carter had become a patron of the charity Action Duchenne, the national charity established to support parents and sufferers of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

In August 2014, Bonham Carter was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue. In May 2016, Bonham Carter was one of hundreds of public figures who signed an open letter supporting the United Kingdom remaining a member of the European Union in the run-up to June's referendum on that issue.

In the media

Bonham Carter is known for her unconventional and eccentric sense of fashion. Despite her often controversial fashion choices, Vanity Fair named her on its 2010 Best-Dressed List and she was selected by Marc Jacobs to be the face of his autumn/winter 2011 advertising campaign. She has cited Vivienne Westwood and Marie Antoinette as her main style influences.

Ancestry

Paternal

Bonham Carter's paternal grandparents were British Liberal politician Sir Maurice Bonham Carter and renowned politician and orator Lady Violet Bonham Carter. Helena is descended on her father's side from John Bonham Carter, Member of Parliament for Portsmouth. Helena's paternal great-grandfather was H. H. Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith and Prime Minister of Britain 1908-1916. She is the great-niece of Asquith's son, Anthony Asquith, legendary English director of such classics as Carrington V.C. and The Importance of Being Earnest, and a first cousin of the economist Adam Ridley and of politician Jane Bonham Carter.

Bonham Carter is a distant cousin of actor Crispin Bonham-Carter. Other prominent distant relatives include Lothian Bonham Carter, who played first-class cricket for Hampshire, his son, Vice Admiral Stuart Bonham Carter, who served in the Royal Navy in both world wars, and pioneering English nurse Florence Nightingale.

Maternal

Her maternal grandfather, Spanish diplomat Eduardo Propper de Callejn, saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust during World War II, for which he was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations (his own father was a Bohemian Jew). He later served as Minister-Counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Her maternal grandmother, Baroness Hlne Fould-Springer, was from an upper class Jewish family; she was the daughter of Baron Eugne Fould-Springer (a French banker descended from the Ephrussi family and the Fould dynasty) and Marie Cecile von Springer (whose father was Austrian-born industrialist Baron Gustav von Springer, and whose mother was from the de Koenigswarter family). Hlne Fould-Springer converted to Catholicism after World War II. Hlne's sister was the French philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (1916-2003), the wife of Baron lie de Rothschild, of the prominent Rothschild family (who had also married within the von Springer family in the 19th century); Liliane's other sister, Therese Fould-Springer, was the mother of British writer David Pryce-Jones.

Ancestors

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	'	Netty Bellinger
1985	'	Lucy Honeychurch
1986	Lady Jane	Lady Jane Grey
1987	Maurice	Lady at Cricket Match	Cameo
	'	Serena Staverley
1988	'	Iris
	Six Minutes with Ludwig	The Star
1989	Francesco	Chiara Offreduccio
	Arms and the Man	Raina Petkoff
	Getting It Right	Lady Minerva Munday
1990	Hamlet	Ophelia
	'	Beatrix Potter
1991	Where Angels Fear to Tread	Caroline Abbott
	Brown Bear's Wedding	White Bear (voice)
1992	Howards End	Helen Schlegel
1993	Dancing Queen	Pandora / Julie
1994	Mary Shelley's Frankenstein	Elizabeth Frankenstein
	Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald	Marina Oswald
	'	Faith Severn (adult)
	Butter	Dorothy	Short film
1995	Mighty Aphrodite	Amanda Weinrib
	Margaret's Museum	Margaret MacNeil
	Jeremy Hardy Gives Good Sex	Herself (voice)
1996	Twelfth Night: Or What You Will	Olivia
	Portraits chinois	Ada
1997	'	Narrator (voice)
	Keep the Aspidistra Flying	Rosemary
	'	Kate Croy
1998	Sweet Revenge	Karen Knightly	Also known as The Revengers' Comedies
	'	Jane Thatchard
1999	Fight Club	Marla Singer
	Women Talking Dirty	Cora
	'	Lily
2000	Carnivale	Milly (voice)
2001	Planet of the Apes	Ari
	Novocaine	Susan Ivey
	Football	Mum	Short film
2002	'	Dinah
	Till Human Voices Wake Us	Ruby
2003	Big Fish	Jennifer Hill / The Witch
2004	Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events	Beatrice Baudelaire	Uncredited cameo
2005	Conversations with Other Women	Woman
	Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit	Lady Tottington (voice)
	Corpse Bride	Emily, the Corpse Bride (voice)
	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Mrs. Bucket
2006	Sixty Six	Esther Reubens
2007	Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	Bellatrix Lestrange
	Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street	Mrs. Lovett
2009	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	Bellatrix Lestrange
	Terminator Salvation	Dr. Serena Kogan / Skynet
	'	Mother Squirrel (voice)	Short film
2010	Alice in Wonderland	Red Queen / Iracebeth of Crims
	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1	Bellatrix Lestrange
	'	Queen Elizabeth
2011	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2	Bellatrix Lestrange
	'	Mother Squirrel (voice)	Short film
2012	Dark Shadows	Dr. Julia Hoffman
	A Therapy	Patient	Short film
	Great Expectations	Miss Havisham
	Les Misrables	Mme. Thnardier
2013	The Lone Ranger	Red Harrington
	The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet	Dr. Clair
2014	Night Will Fall	Narrator	Documentary film
2015	Cinderella	The Fairy Godmother
	Suffragette	Edith New
2016	Alice Through the Looking Glass	Red Queen / Iracebeth of Crims
2017	Poles Apart	Nanuk	Short film
	55 Steps	Eleanor Riese
2018	Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero	Margaret Conroy (voice)	Filming
	Ocean's Eight	Rose	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1987	Miami Vice	Dr. Theresa Lyons	2 episodes
1988	Screen Two	Jo Marriner	Episode: "The Vision"
1989	Theatre Night	Raina Petkoff	Episode: "Arms and the Man"
1991	Jackanory	Reader	5 episodes
1994	Absolutely Fabulous	Dream Saffron	Episode: "Hospital"
	'	Herself	Episode #2.1
1996	'	Vera Brittain	2 episodes
1998	Merlin	Morgan le Fay	3 episodes
2002	Live from Baghdad	Ingrid Formanek	Television film
2003	Henry VIII	Anne Boleyn	2 episodes
2005	Magnificent 7	Maggi Jackson	Television film
2009	Enid	Enid Blyton	Television film
2010	Toast	Joan Potter	Television film
2011	Life's Too Short	Herself	Episode #1.3
2013	Burton & Taylor	Elizabeth Taylor	Television film
2014	Turks & Caicos	Margot Tyrrell	Television film
	Salting the Battlefield	Margot Tyrrell	Television film
2015	Codes of Conduct	Esther Kaufmann	Pilot (not picked up)
2016	Love, Nina	George	5 episodes

Music videos

Year	Artist	Song
2012	Rufus Wainwright	"Out Of The Game"
2015	Bryan Adams	"Brand New Day"

Video games

Year	Title	Role
2005	Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit	Lady Tottington (voice)

Theatre and radio credits

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Venue
1987	'	Unknown	Oxford Playhouse
1988	'	Laura Fairlie	Greenwich Theatre, London
1989	'	Unknown	Windsor/Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford
1991	'	Magdalena	Nottingham Playhouse
1992	'	Rosina	Palace Theatre, Watford
1992	Trelawney of the Wells	Imogen Parrot	Comedy Theatre, London

Radio

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	'	Unknown	BBC Radio 4
1989	'	Unknown	BBC Radio 4
1993	'	Narrator	By Frances Burnett
1993	'	Narrator	By Dyan Sheldon
1994	'	Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya	BBC Radio 4
1994	'	Narrator	By Philippa Pearce
1994	'	Narrator	By Philippa Pearce
1995	Song of Love	Unknown	BBC Radio 4
1995	Remember Me	Narrator
1996	'	Rose	BBC Radio 4
1997	'	Unknown	BBC Radio 4
1997	'	Narrator
1998	Lantern Slides	Violet Bonham Carter	BBC Radio 4
2000	As You Like It	Rosalind	BBC Radio 4
2004	'	Unknown	Postponed
2010	Private Lives	Amanda	BBC Radio 4

Awards and nominations

Template:Main article Bonham Carter has been the recipient of a BAFTA Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as receiving further nominations for two Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards and three Primetime Emmy Awards. She has received other prestigious awards such as a Satellite Award and two National Board of Review awards.