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Helena Bonham Carter (born 26 May 1966) is an English actress. Bonham Carter made her film debut in the K. M. Peyton film, A Pattern of Roses, before appearing in her first leading role in Lady Jane. She is known for her portrayals of Lucy Honeychurch in the film A Room with a View, Marla Singer in the film Fight Club, Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter film series, herBAFTA-nominated performance as Enid Blyton in Enid, her portrayal of the Red Queen in the new Alice in Wonderland, her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as well as her other collaborations with Tim Burton, her domestic partner since 2001. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her roles as Kate Croy in The Wings of the Dove and as Queen Elizabeth in the 2010 film The King's Speech.
Early life and family background
Helena Bonham Carter was born in Golders Green, London. Her mother, Elena (née Propper de Callejón), is a psychotherapist. Her father, Raymond Bonham Carter, was a merchant banker, and served as the alternative UK director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. during the 1960s. He came from a famous British political family, being the son of English Liberal politician Sir Maurice Bonham Carter and renowned politician and orator Violet Bonham Carter, whose father was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, H. H. Asquith (serving 1908–1916). Helena Bonham Carter's maternal grandfather, Spanish diplomat Eduardo Propper de Callejón, saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust during World War II, for which he was recognized as Righteous among the Nations(his own father had been Jewish). He later served as Minister-Counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Helena Bonham Carter's maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was from an upper-class Jewish family; she was the daughter of Baron Eugène Fould-Springer (a French-born banker) and Marie Cecile von Springer (whose father was Austrian-born industrialist Baron Gustav Springer). Hélène Fould-Springer's sister was the French philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (1916–2003), the wife of Baron Élie de Rothschild, of the prominent Rothschild family (who had also married within the von Springer family in the 19th century); her other sister, Therese Fould-Springer, was the mother of British writer David Pryce-Jones.
Bonham Carter has two brothers, Edward and Thomas, and is a distant cousin of fellow actor Crispin Bonham-Carter, who played Mr. Bingleyin the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, and politician Jane Bonham Carter. Bonham Carter is also distantly related to Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels (through marriage), as well as pioneering English nurse Florence Nightingale,[7] and is the grand-niece of Anthony Asquith, legendary English director of such classics as Carrington V.C. and The Importance of Being Earnest. Other distant relatives include Lothian Bonham Carter, who played first-class cricket for Hampshire, and his son, Admiral Sir Stuart Bonham Carter, who served in the Royal Navy in both World Wars and rose to the rank of Vice Admiral.
She was educated at the South Hampstead High School, an independent girls' school in Hampstead, London, and later at Westminster School, a co-educational independent school near the Palace of Westminster. Bonham Carter was denied admission to King's College, Cambridge, not because of her grades or her test scores, but because school officials were afraid that she would leave mid-term to pursue her acting career.[citation needed] Because of Cambridge's rejection, Bonham Carter decided to concentrate fully on acting.[citation needed]
When Bonham Carter was just 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.[citation needed] 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-paralysedand confined to a wheelchair.[citation needed] With her two older brothers at college, Bonham Carter was left to help her mother cope. She would later study her father's movements and mannerisms for her role in The Theory of Flight.
Career
Bonham Carter did not receive any formal training in acting.[9] In 1979, she won a national writing contest and used the money to pay for her entry into the actors directory Spotlight. She made her professional acting début 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 starring film role was as Lady Jane Grey in Lady Jane (1986), which was given mixed reviews by critics. The story reflected the tragic life of England's nine-days' Queen from her troubled adolescence and arranged marriage to her ill-fated accession and subsequent execution. Her breakthrough role was Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View, which was filmed after Lady Jane, but released beforehand. 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 and Stewart Granger in A Hazard of Hearts . Bonham Carter auditioned for the role of Nancy Spungen in Sid and Nancy, however she lost out to Chloe Webb,[citation needed] and turned down the role of Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves due to thesexual content.[citation needed] The role went to Emily Watson, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the role.[10]
These early films led to her to 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. She has since expanded her range, with her more recent films being Fight Club, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Big Fish, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Alice in Wonderland.
Bonham Carter speaks French fluently, starring 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.[citation needed] Bonham Carter was a member of the 2006 Cannes Film Festivaljury that unanimously selected The Wind That Shakes the Barley as best film.
Bonham Carter played Bellatrix Lestrange in 2007's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2009's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and the 2010–2011 film adaptations of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bonham Carter received positive reviews as Lestrange, described as a "shining but underused talent".[12][13] She then 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. The film was released on 21 December 2007 in the US[14] and 25 January 2008 in the UK. 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.
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 joined the cast of partner Tim Burton's 2010 film, Alice in Wonderland as The Red Queen.Bonham Carter appears alongside Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Christopher Lee and Alan Rickman. Bonham Carter's role consists of two merged roles, The Queen of Hearts, and The Red Queen. In early 2009, Bonham Carter was named one of The Times newspaper's top 10 British Actresses of all time. Bonham Carter appeared on the list with fellow actresses Julie Andrews, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Audrey Hepburn.
In 2010, Bonham Carter played Queen Elizabeth in the film The King's Speech. As of January 2011, Bonham Carter 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.
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.[24] Bonham Carter also received her first Television BAFTANomination for Best Actress, for Enid. In 2010, she starred with Freddie Highmore in the Nigel Slater biopic Toast, which was filmed in theWest Midlands.
Personal life
Bonham Carter was in a relationship with actor Kenneth Branagh (with whom she appeared in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and The Theory of Flight), from 1994 to the summer of 1999. In 2001, she began her current relationship with director Tim Burton, whom she met while filming Planet of the Apes. Burton has taken to casting Bonham Carter in his movies, including Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Alice in Wonderland. They live in Belsize Park, London, in neighbouring houses with a connecting doorway because they felt they could not live in the same residence.
They purchased the house when she became pregnant with the couple's first child, son Billy Raymond Burton, who was born on 4 October 2003. The couple maintains a close relationship with Johnny Depp, who appears in many of Burton's films. Depp is Billy Ray's godfather, accepting the role after Burton persuaded Bonham Carter to ask him. At age 41, she gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Nell Burton, on 15 December 2007 in Central London. She says she named her daughter Nell after all the "Helens" in her family.
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 2008, Bonham Carter and Burton put their American apartments up for sale. The apartments are in the Greenwich Village area, in New York City. The couple sold them for a collective $8.75 million. In early October 2008, it was released that Bonham Carter had become apatron of the charity Action Duchenne, the national charity established to support parents and sufferers of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Miami Vice | Dr. Theresa Lyons | 2 Episodes |
| 1987 | 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 |
| 1994 | The Good Sex Guide | Herself | Episode: Episode #2.1 |
| 1996 | The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century | Vera Brittain | 2 Episodes |
| Year | Production | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | The Reluctant Debutante | Unknown | Performed on BBC Radio 4 |
| 1987 | The Tempest | Unknown | Performed at Oxford Playhouse |
| 1988 | The Woman in White | Laura Fairlie | Performed at Greenwich Theatre, London |
| 1989 | The Happiest of All Princesses | Unknown | Performed on BBC Radio 4 |
| 1989 | The Chalk Garden | Unknown | Performed at Windsor/Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford |
| 1991 | The House of Bernarda Alba | Magdalena | Performed at Nottingham Playhouse |
| 1992 | The Barber of Seville | Rosina | Performed at Palace Theatre, Watford |
| 1992 | Trelawney of the Wells | Imogen Parrot | Performed at Comedy Theatre, London |
| 1993 | The Secret Garden | Narrator | by Frances Burnett |
| 1993 | The Whales' Song | Narrator | by Dyan Sheldon |
| 1994 | The Seagull | Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya | Performed on BBC Radio 4 |
| 1994 | A Dog So Small | Narrator | by Philippa Pearce |
| 1994 | The Way to Sattin Shore | Narrator | by Philippa Pearce |
| 1995 | Song of Love | Unknown | Performed on BBC Radio 4 |
| 1995 | Remember Me | Narrator | |
| 1996 | I Capture the Castle | Rose | Performed on BBC Radio 4 |
| 1997 | A House by the Sea | Unknown | Performed on BBC Radio 4 |
| 1997 | The Diary of Anne Frank | Narrator | |
| 1998 | Lantern Slides | Violet Bonham Carter | Performed on BBC Radio 4 |
| 2000 | As You Like It | Rosalind | Performed on BBC Radio 4 |
| 2004 | The Rubenstein Kiss | Unknown | Postponed |
| 2010 | Private Lives | Amanda | Performed on BBC Radio 4 |
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