Background
Mirren, Dame Helen was born on July 26, 1945 in London, England. Daughter of Basil and Katherine Mirren.
Mirren, Dame Helen was born on July 26, 1945 in London, England. Daughter of Basil and Katherine Mirren.
Graduated from the New College of Speech and Drama.
The movies only really caught up with Helen Mirren by the time she was thirty-five or so. Thus, despite the generous indications of Michael Powell when he cast her as the beach nymph in Age of Consent (69), Mirren’s fiery youthful beauty was largely confined to the stage in Britain. She was outstanding in the sixties and early seventies as Miss Julie. Cressida, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Titania, Cleopatra, and the Duchess of Malfi. Her exceptional Miss Julie was done for British TV (72, John Gleniston and Robin Phillips).
On screen, she generally had small roles: in Peter Halls film of A Midsummer Nights Dream (68); as suffragette and mistress in Savage Messiah (72, Ken Russell); O Lucky Man! (73, Lindsay Anderson); as Gertrude and Ophelia in the sixty-seven-minute Hamlet (76, Celestino Coronado); in The Collection (76, Michael Apted), from Pinter; as Caesonia in the Penthouse Caligula (79, Tinto Brass); as one of the adults playing children in Dennis Potters Blue Remembered Hills (79, Brian Gibson); and The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (80, Piers Haggard).
Then she was outstandingly sinister, centuries apart, as the mistress in The Long Good Friday (79, John Mackenzie) and Morgana in Excalibur (81, John Boorman). She was in 2010 (84, Peter Hyams); winning the best actress prize at Cannes for Cal (84, Pat O’Connor); Russian in White Nights (85, Taylor Haekford, her companion); The Gospel According to Vic (85, Charles Gormley); as the mother in The Mosquito Coast (86, Peter Weir); Pascali’s Island (88, James Dearden); The Cook, the Thief His Wife and Her Lover (89, Peter Greenaway); When the Whales Came (89, Clive Rees); The Comfort of Strangers (90, Paul Schrader); and Where Angels Fear to Tread (91, Charles Sturridge).
Still and all. she has never had a movie role as meaty as the lady cop in Prime Suspect on TV (91, Christopher Menaul). Nor have the movies had a fuller portrait of an attractive woman as soured bv career. Prime Suspect is doggedlv realistic and old-fashioned, despite its feminist slant, but it conjures up a Bmiuel black comedy in which gigolos, aristocrats, and bishops are forever turning themselves in for interrogation. Prime Suspect 2 (93, John Strickland) was not as good, but who could deny Ms. Mirren a franchise? Prime Suspect 3 (93, David Drury) played on television in Britain in December 1993. She also appeared in The Haick (93, David Havanan).
There have been two more Prime Suspect series (in 1995 and ’96), and Jane Tennison has made it all the way to superintendent without turning into a serial killer herself. Elsewhere, she was the Gertrude figure in Prince oj Jutland (94, Gabriel Axel); the queen in The Madness of King George (94, Nicholas Hytner); Some Mother’s Son (96. Terrv George), which she helped produce; Losing Chase (96, Kevin Bacon); Critical Care (97, Sidney Lumet); in the TV series Painted Lady (97, Julian Jarrold); the voice of the queen for The Prince of Egypt (98); showing just how far she can go in The Passion of Atyn Rand (99, Menaul); Teaching Mrs. Tingle (99, Kevin Williamson); Greenfingers (00, Joel Hershman); directing Happy Birthday (00); The Pledge (00, Sean Penn); Last Orders (01, Fred Schepisi); Gosford Park (01, Robert Altman); No Such Thing (01, Hal Hartley); Door to Door (01, Steven Schachter).
Member of PTO.
Married Taylor Hackford, December 31, 1997.