Helen Mirren biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Actress. Born Illiana Lydia Petrovna Mironoff on July 26, 1945, in London, England, the second of three children born to Vasiliy Petrovich "Basil" Miranoff and Kathleen Rogers. Her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, played the viola with the London Philharmonic. He later left the orchestra to become a cab driver and driving test examiner, both professions that better supported his family, and eventually ended up a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport. Mirren's mother, Kathleen Rogers, was the daughter of a butcher who supplied meat to Queen Victoria. When Mirren was 9 years old, her father—whose family was Russian aristocracy—legally changed the family surname from Mironoff to Mirren.

Mirren was attracted to theater at an early age, finding her inspiration at the age of 13 at an amateur production of Hamlet. "I was blown away by all this over-the-top drama," she said in an interview with The Times UK. "We grew up without TV and never went to the cinema, so after Hamlet all I wanted to do was get back into that world where all those fabulous things were possible." Mirren was steered away from the career by her parents, and was instead sent to St. Bernard's High School, a Catholic convent, in Southend-on-Sea. An English teacher at St. Bernard's, who happened on a recruiting circular for the National Youth Theatre, urged Helen to audition for the troupe. She did, and at the age of 18 was accepted into the company. At the urgings of her mother, however, she entered a London teaching college in order to learn a stable profession.

Aspiring Actress

By age 20, however, Mirren was starring as Cleopatra in the 1965 NYT production of Antony and Cleopatra. Her performance as the Egyptian leader landed her an agent, as well as a place with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She began playing sexually charged roles such as Castiza in the 1966 staging of The Revenger's Tragedy; Cressida in a 1968 production of Troilus and Cressida; and Lady Macbeth in the 1974 Trevor Nunn production of MacBeth. These roles, as well as several others, earned her the label "The Sex Queen of Stratford"—a title she greatly resented.

Mirren's film career began as an extension of her stage performances, starring in the film versions of her RSC productions. She then appeared as a co-star in the film, Caligula (1980), which also starred Malcolm MacDowell and Peter O'Toole. The movie was controversial for its strong violence and explicit sex scenes, and had a self-imposed X rating. As a result, the film performed poorly at box offices and received pans from critics, who dismissed the movie as thinly veiled pornography. It was eventually re-cut and rated R for its re-release a year later.

Mirren fared better in the gangster film The Long Good Friday (1979), which received strong praise. She followed this performance with a role in the fantasy film Excalibur (1981), which was based on the legend of King Arthur. But it was her role in the film Cal (1984)