Kate Winslet (English Actress)

Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She is the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader (2008). Winslet has been acclaimed for both dramatic and comedic work in projects ranging from period to contemporary films, and from major Hollywood productions to less publicised indie films. She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association among others, and has been nominated for an Emmy Award for television acting.

Raised in Berkshire, Winslet studied drama from childhood, and began her career in British television in 1991. She made her film debut in Heavenly Creatures (1994), for which she received her first notable critical praise. She achieved recognition for her subsequent work in a supporting role in Sense and Sensibility (1995) and for her leading role in Titanic (1997), the highest grossing film for more than 12 years until 2010.

Since 2000, Winslet's performances have continued to draw positive comments from film critics, and she has been nominated for various awards for her work in such films as Quills (2000), Iris (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006), The Reader (2008) and Revolutionary Road (2008). Her performance in the latter prompted New York magazine to describe her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation".The romantic comedy The Holiday and the animated film Flushed Away (both 2006) were among the biggest commercial successes of her career.

Winslet was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2000. She has been included as a vocalist on some soundtracks of works she has performed in, and the single "What If" from the soundtrack for Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001), was a hit single in several European countries. Winslet has a daughter with her former husband, Jim Threapleton, and a son with her current husband, Sam Mendes, from whom she is separated. She lives in New York City.


Born in Reading, Berkshire, Winslet is the daughter of Sally Anne (née Bridges), a barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming-pool contractor. Her parents were "jobbing actors", which led Winslet to comment that she "didn't have a privileged upbringing" and that their daily life was "very hand to mouth".Her maternal grandparents, Linda (née Plumb) and Archibald Oliver Bridges, founded and operated the Reading Repertory Theatre, and her uncle, Robert Bridges, appeared in the original West End production of Oliver!. Her sisters, Beth and Anna Winslet, are also actresses.

Raised in an Anglican household, Winslet began studying drama at the age of 11 at the Redroofs Theatre School, a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl.At the age of 12, Winslet appeared in a television advertisement directed by filmmaker Tim Pope for Sugar Puffs cereal. Pope said her naturalism was "there from the start".

While on the set of Dark Season, Winslet met actor-writer Stephen Tredre, with whom she had a nearly five-year relationship. He died of bone cancer soon after Winslet completed filming Titanic, causing her to miss the film's premiere in order to attend his funeral in London. She and Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio have remained good friends since the filming.

Winslet was later in a relationship with Rufus Sewell, but on 22 November 1998 she married director Jim Threapleton, whom she met while on the set of Hideous Kinky.They have a daughter, Mia Honey, who was born on 12 October 2000 in London. Winslet and Threapleton divorced in 2001,Winslet began a relationship with Sam Mendes, whom she married on 24 May 2003 on the island of Anguilla in the Caribbean. Their son, Joe Alfie Winslet Mendes, was born on 22 December 2003 in New York City.Mendes and Winslet announced a separation in March 2010, stating, "The split is entirely amicable and is by mutual agreement."

Mendes and his production company, Neal Street Productions, purchased the film rights to the long-delayed biography of circus tiger tamer Mabel Stark.The couple's spokesperson said, "It's a great story, they have had their eyes on it for a while. If they can get the script right, it would make a great film."

The media have documented her weight fluctuations over the years.Winslet has been outspoken about her refusal to allow Hollywood to dictate her weight.In February 2003, British GQ magazine published photographs of Winslet which had been digitally altered to make her look dramatically thinner than she really was.Winslet issued a statement that the alterations were made without her consent, saying "I just didn't want people to think I was a hypocrite and that I'd suddenly lost 30 lbs. or whatever".GQ subsequently issued an apology.She won a libel suit in 2009 against British tabloid The Daily Mail after it printed that she lied about her exercise regimen.Winslet said she had always expressed the opinion that women should be encouraged to accept their appearance with pride, and therefore "was particularly upset to be accused of lying about my exercise regimen, and felt that I had a responsibility to request an apology in order to demonstrate my commitment to the views that I have always expressed about body issues, including diet and exercise."

Winslet and Mendes live in Greenwich Village in New York City.They also own a Grade II-listed five-bedroom house, set in 22 acres in the village of Church Westcote in Gloucestershire, England.After purchasing the house for £3 million, they have reportedly spent a further £1 million in renovations, as the house had fallen into disrepair after the death of its former owner, the equestrian artist Raoul Millais in 1999.

Mendes was scheduled to fly on American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked on 11 September 2001 and subsequently crashed into the Pentagon.In October 2001, Winslet was seven hours into a London-Dallas flight with her daughter Mia when a passenger who claimed to be a terrorist, later charged with creating mischief, stood up and shouted "We are all going to die."As a result of these incidents, Winslet and Mendes never fly together on the same aircraft, as they fear leaving their children parentless.

Academy Award nomination milestones

Winslet was 26 when she received her third Academy Award nomination, for Iris, just missing the mark of Natalie Wood, who received her third nomination at age 25.She set the mark as the youngest actor to receive five nominations, at age 31, for Little Children (2006). She surpassed Bette Davis, who was 33 when she received her fifth nomination for her performance in The Little Foxes (1941).With her Best Actress nomination for The Reader, Winslet became the youngest actor to receive six Oscar nominations. At age 33, Winslet passed the mark Davis, one year older, set with Now, Voyager (1942).

Winslet received Academy Award nominations as the younger versions of the characters played by fellow nominees Gloria Stuart, as Rose, in Titanic (1997) and Judi Dench, as Iris Murdoch, in Iris. These are the only instances of the younger and older versions of a character in the same film both yielding Academy Award nominations.

When she was not nominated for her work in Revolutionary Road, Winslet became only the second actress to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Drama) without getting an Oscar nomination for the same performance (Shirley MacLaine was the first for Madame Sousatzka [1988], and she won the Golden Globe in a three-way tie). Academy rules allow an actor to receive no more than one nomination in a given category; as the Academy nominating process determined that Winslet's work in The Reader would be considered a lead performance—unlike the Golden Globes, which considered it a supporting performance—she could not also receive a Best Actress nomination for Revolutionary Road.

Awards and nominations

Winslet won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Reader (2008). She won two Golden Globe Awards in the same year: Best Actress (Drama) for Revolutionary Road and Best Supporting Actress for The Reader. She has won two BAFTA Awards: Best Actress for The Reader, and Best Supporting Actress for Sense and Sensibility (1995). She has earned a total of six Academy Award nominations, seven Golden Globe nominations, and seven BAFTA nominations.

She has received numerous awards from other organisations, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for Iris (2001) and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Sense and Sensibility and The Reader. Premiere magazine named her portrayal of Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) as the 81st greatest film performance of all time.