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Helena Bonham Carter
at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival promoting Curse of the Wererabbit
Born	Helena Bonham Carter May 26, 1966 (1966-05-26) (age 42) Golders Green, London, England
Occupation	Actress, Singer
Years active	1983 - present
Domestic partner(s)	Tim Burton (2001 - present) 2 children
Awards won Other awards NBR Award for Best Actress 1997 The Wings of the Dove Evening Standard British Film Awards Best Actress 2008 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street shared with Conversations with Other Women Empire Award Best British Actress Fight Club London Critics Circle Film awards Best Actress The Wings of the Dove

Helena Bonham Carter (born May 26, 1966) is an Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated English actress. She is best known for her portrayals of Lucy Honeychurch in the film A Room with a View, Marla Singer in the film Fight Club, Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, her Oscar-nominated performance as Kate Croy in The Wings of the Dove, her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, as well as her other collaborations with her domestic partner, Tim Burton. Carter has recently signed on to star as a villain alongside Christian Bale in Terminator Salvation.

Biography

Early life and family background

Bonham Carter was born in Golders Green, London. Her mother, Elena (née Propper de Callejón), is a psychotherapist. Her father, Raymond Bonham Carter, was a merchant banker and the alternate UK director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. during the 1960s;^[1][2][3] he came from a famous British political family, being the son of Maurice Bonham Carter and Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury (whose father was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, H. H. Asquith). Bonham Carter's maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was of half Spanish and half Jewish ancestry, and served as a diplomat and former Minister-Counsellor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C. Bonham Carter's Jewish maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was the daughter of Baron Eugène Fould-Springer (a French-born banker who was a cousin of Achille Fould), and Mitzi Springer (whose father was the industrialist Baron Gustav Springer).^[1][4][5] Hélène Fould-Springer's sister was the French philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (1916–2003), the wife of Baron Élie de Rothschild, and her other sister, Therese, was the mother of British writer David Pryce-Jones.^[4]

Bonham Carter has two brothers, Edward and Thomas, and is a cousin of actor Crispin Bonham-Carter, who played Mr. Bingley in the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. Bonham Carter was educated at the South Hampstead High School, a girls' independent school in Hampstead, London and later at Westminster School, a co-educational independent school near the Palace of Westminster.

Career

Bonham Carter has not received any formal training in acting.^[6] In 1979, she won a national writing contest and used the money won to pay for her entry into the actors directory 'Spotlight'. She made her professional acting début at the age of 16, in a television commercial. She also had a part in a minor TV film A Pattern of Roses (1983). Her first starring film role was in Lady Jane (1984, released 1986) which had mixed reviews. Her breakthrough performance was in the role of Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View (1985, released 1986) which was filmed after Lady Jane, but released first. Bonham Carter also appeared in episodes of Miami Vice as Don Johnson's love interest during the 1986-87 season.

These early films led to her being typecast as a "corset queen", and "English rose", playing pre- and early 20th century characters, particularly in Merchant-Ivory films. She expanded her range,^[6]; her more recent films are Fight Club, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Big Fish, and Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. She also speaks French fluently, starring in a 1996 French film Portraits chinois. In August 2001, she was featured in Maxim. Bonham Carter was a member of the jury at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival that unanimously selected The Wind That Shakes the Barley as the best film.

Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett in the 2007 film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Bonham Carter played Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which was released in 2007. She replaced Helen McCrory, who left due to pregnancy, (but will be portraying Narcissa Malfoy in the sixth and possibly seventh film adaptations). Bonham Carter received positive reviews as Lestrange, described as a "shining but underused talent";^[7] her character will re-appear in the final three movie adaptations of the six and seventh books.^[8] She then played Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney Todd's (Johnny Depp) amorous accomplice in the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The film was released on December 21, 2007 in the US^[9] and January 25, 2008 in the UK. Directed by Tim Burton, Bonham Carter received a Golden Globe nomination ("Best Actress - Comedy or Musical") for her performance, though she did not win. She also won the Best Actress award in the 2007 Evening Standard British Film Awards for her performances in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Conversations With Other Women. Bonham Carter will also be appearing in the fourth Terminator film entitled Terminator Salvation. It is said that she will play a small but pivotal role and the lead villain of the film.

Personal life

Bonham Carter was in a relationship with actor Kenneth Branagh (with whom she appeared in several films) from 1994 to the summer of 1999. She then briefly dated actors Rufus Sewell and Steve Martin.^[10] In October 2001, she began her current relationship with director Tim Burton, whom she met while filming Planet of the Apes. She has appeared in all of his subsequent films. They live in Belsize Park, London, in adjoining houses with a connecting hallway, each part decorated and styled to suit their own personalities, because they felt they couldn't live 'together' but didn't want to live apart. They purchased the house when she became pregnant with the couple's first child, son Billy Ray Burton, who was born on 4 October 2003. At age 41, she gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Nell, on 15 December 2007 in Central London.^[11] She says she named her daughter Nell after all the "Helens" in her family lineage.^[12][13]

Filmography

Discography

Awards and Nominations

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Helena Bonham Carter

• Helena Bonham Carter at the Internet Movie Database
• Helena Bonham Carter at Yahoo! Movies
• Helena Bonham Carter at Allmovie
• Helena Bonham Carter at TV.com
• Helena Bonham Carter at Celebuzz
• Helena Bonham Carter at the TCM Movie Database
• Helena Bonham Carter at the Open Directory Project