Background
Natascha McElhone was raised in Brighton as the only daughter (she has several brothers) of journalist parents.
Natascha with her husband, Martin Kelly
Natascha with her sons
Natascha McElhone was raised in Brighton as the only daughter (she has several brothers) of journalist parents.
She was a happy and energetic child and took Irish dancing classes from the age of 6 to 12 years old. She went to a girls only school, St. Mary's Hall School in Brighton, from 1982 to 1986 and is quoted as saying that she knew early on in her life that she wanted to be an actress, this inspired her to enrol in The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in 1990.
She worked extensively on the London stage in a number of productions, and she also toured nationally with the Leicester Haymarket's production of Chekov's The Cherry Orchard. McElhone made her television debut in 1994, playing an army officer in the BBC's A Breed of Heroes, and subsequently appeared in several British TV series, including Absolutely Fabulous.
Following her well-received screen debut in Surviving Picasso, McElhone played the young Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway (1997), and she had substantial roles in The Devil's Own (1997) and John Frankenheimer's Ronin (1998), the latter of which featured her as a tactical strategist who organizes a team of experts to steal a mysterious briefcase from a group of criminals. She also popped up as Truman Burbank's long-lost love interest in The Truman Show (1998), and in 2000, she could be seen singing and dancing her way across the Bard's iambic pentameter in Kenneth Branagh's musical adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost. Two short years later audiences would find McElhone cast opposite George Clooney in director Steven Soderbergh's psycholgical sci-fi effort Solaris. She appeared as Mary Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl in 2003, and continued to work steadily landing one of her most high-profile gigs when she landed the part of Karen on the Showtime series Californication
After her husband's sudden death, McElhone continued to write letters to him, sometimes documenting the daily trivia of life but also dealing with how she and their young children were coping with their loss. These letters and diary entries formed the basis of her book After You: Letters of Love, and Loss, to a Husband and Father. The book was published in July 2010. (The book is simply titled After You in the Kindle edition-UK version only.
Married Dr. Martin Hirigoyen Kelly in 1998, togerther they had three sons.
Her husband, Martin Kelly, was found dead on Tuesday 20 May 2008. Natascha, while pregnant with son Rex, was filming in the States at the time of his death and flew home straight away. It is thought he suffered a heart attack.
