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Name: Brenda Blethyn
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Date of Birth:
February 20, 1946
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Place of Birth:
Ramsgate, Kent, England, UK
Mini-bio:
Though Brenda Blethyn has enjoyed a long and successful career as an actress on the British stage and in television, it wasn't until the release of Mike Leigh's film Secrets and Lies in 1996 that she ... read morebecame well-known to moviegoers as well, earning a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for what was only her third film.Blethyn's early stage experience included stints in the stock companies of the Bubble Theatre and the Belgrade Theater of Coventry. In 1975, she joined the Royal National Theater, where she worked with some of Britain's leading stage directors, including Peter Wood, Peter Hall, and Bill Bryden, and her roles ran the gamut from Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House to Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday. With the Royal Shakespeare Company, she appeared under the direction of Maximillian Schell in Tales From the Vienna Woods and in Alan Ayckbourn's Wildest Dream. In 1991, she received the British Drama Awards' Best Actress prize for her role in Steaming and the Theatre World Awards' Outstanding New Talent prize for her role in the Broadway production of Absent Friends.Blethyn made her film debut in 1990, with a small part in Nicholas Roeg's The Witches. Robert Redford cast her as Brad Pitt's mother in A River Runs Through It in 1992, but 1996's Secrets and Lies provided Blethyn with her first substantial screen role. In a story developed through six months of improvisations with Leigh and the cast, Blethyn's performance as a woman getting to know the daughter she had given up made her an international sensation almost overnight. Blethyn received another Oscar nomination in 1999, for her role as the overbearing mother in Little Voice; her nomination complemented her growing popularity in Hollywood, reflected by her casting in such high profile projects as Billy Bob Thornton's Daddy and Them (1999). The following year, Blethyn again earned raves for her starring role in Saving Grace, a comedy about a woman forced to start growing marijuana to stave off creditors following her husband's death.On television, Blethyn has appeared in BBC productions of King Lear and Henry VI, Part One, as well as several series, including The Labours of Erica, The Buddha of Suburbia, and Outside Edge, which first teamed her with Secrets and Lies co-star Timothy Spall. ~ Rovi
Brenda Blethyn mini-bio: After twenty years of hard work on stage and both television and stage, there are not many other actresses who deserved the success, recognition and stardom which Brenda Blethyn has now achieved.
Born in 1946 in Ramsgate in Kent, England, she started her career at British Rail in the 1960s. Saving money during her time there, she took a risk and enrolled herself at the at The Guildford School of Acting in Guildford, Surrey, England and then left her British Rail years behind. Her risk had paid off, by the mid-1970s she was working on stage, eventually joining the National Theatre Company in 1975.
It was the 1980s, however that saw Brenda move onto the small screen when she appeared in a BBC2 Playhouse presentation called "BBC2 Playhouse: Grown-Ups (#7.5)" (1980), playing the character Gloria. Other work in television quickly followed and this kept her working throughout the 1980s.
She still remained relatively unknown with the viewing public during the 1980s, despite her consistent work and superb acting abilities. It was not until the dawn of the 90s that her career took off. In 1990, she played the supporting cast member role of Mrs Jenkins in film based on the Roald Dahl novel The Witches (1990), with Anjelica Huston, Jane Horrocks and Mai Zetterling. Film work now became the order of the day in the early 90s, appearing in both A River Runs Through It (1992) and the television film "Screen One: The Bullion Boys (#5.8)" (1993). It was then back to a TV series in 1994, with "Outside Edge" (1994), working on this production for its two-year run.
It is without a doubt that 1997 will be remembered as her biggest year to date. She was cast by her old friend Mike Leigh in the film Secrets & Lies (1996) as Cynthia Rose Purley, opposite highly talented Marianne Jean-Baptiste. The film received storming reviews and Blethyn won a BAFTA Film Award and subsequently received an Academy Award nomination for her role, along with Jean-Baptiste.
Although Brenda came home from the Oscars empty handed, her profile in Hollywood and Britain soared as a result of the nomination and her appearance on The 69th Annual Academy Awards (1997) (TV).
Film roles then came thick and fast following Secrets & Lies (1996). Brenda was nothing short of superb in Little Voice (1998). A second Academy Award nomination followed but once again she was the bridesmaid rather than the bride at the Oscars. Since 1996, she has found a new home in film and she has worked consistently in the medium.
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