Best Known As: Queen Elizabeth in The King's Speech
Often seen in a corset in historical roles or in outlandish makeup in dark, eccentric fantasies, British film actress Helena Bonham Carter has also delivered acclaimed portrayals of a poor 20th-century Londoner (The Wings of the Dove, 1997, Best Actress Oscar nomination) and Queen Elizabeth (The King's Speech, 2010, Best Supporting Actress nomination). She was 20 when she landed her first leading role as the short-lived English monarch Lady Jane Grey (Lady Jane, 1986), and now plays Bellatrix Lestrange in the series of films based on the Harry Potter novels. She has appeared opposite Mel Gibson (Hamlet, 1990), Woody Allen (Mighty Aphrodite, 1995), Brad Pitt (Fight Club, 1999), and Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd, 2007, and Alice in Wonderland, 2010). Her partner in life since 2001 has been Tim Burton, director of several of her films. They live in adjoining London apartments, connected by a corridor, and have two children: Billy Ray Burton, born 4 October 2003, and Nell Burton, born 15 December 2007.
Bonham Carter's great-grandfather, Herbert H. Asquith, was prime minister of England, 1908-1916... Her great-uncle, Anthony Asquith, was a film director whose credits include Pygmalion (1938) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952).
Perhaps the actress most widely identified with corsets and men named Cecil, Helena Bonham Carter was for a long time typecast as an antiquated heroine, no doubt helped by her own brand of Pre-Raphaelite beauty. With a tumble of brown curls (which were, in fact, hair extensions), huge dark eyes, and translucent pale skin, Bonham Carter's looks made her a natural for movies that took place when the sun still shone over the British Empire and the sight of a bare ankle could induce convulsions. However, the actress, once dubbed by critic Richard Corliss "our modern antique goddess," managed to escape from planet Merchant/Ivory and, while still performing in a number of period pieces, eventually became recognized as an actress capable of portraying thoroughly modern characters.
Befitting her double-barreled family name, Bonham Carter is a descendant of the British aristocracy, both social and cinematic. The great-granddaughter of P.M. Lord Herbert Asquith and the grandniece of director Anthony Asquith, she was born to a banker father and a Spanish psychotherapist mother on May 26, 1966, in London. Although her heritage may have been defined by wealth and power, Bonham Carter's upbringing was fraught with misfortune, from her father's paralysis following a botched surgery to her mother's nervous breakdown when the actress was in her teens. Bonham Carter has said in interviews that her mother's breakdown first led her to seek work as an actress and she was soon going out on auditions.
She made her screen debut in 1985, playing the ill-fated title character of Trevor Nunn's Lady Jane. Starring opposite Cary Elwes as her equally ill-fated lover, Bonham Carter made enough of an impression as the 16th century teen queen to catch the attention of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, who cast her as the protagonist of their 1986 adaptation of E.M. Forster's A Room With a View. The film proved a great critical success, winning eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. The adulation surrounding it provided its young star with her first real taste of fame, as well as steady work; deciding to concentrate on her acting career, Bonham Carter dropped out of Cambridge University, where she had been enrolled.
Unfortunately, although she did indeed work steadily and was able to enhance her reputation as a talented actress, Bonham Carter also became a study in typecasting, going from one period piece to the next. Despite the quality of many of these films, including Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990) and two more E.M. Forster vehicles, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) and Howards End (1992), the actress was left without room to expand her range. One notable exception was Getting It Right, a 1989 comedy in which she played a very modern socialite.
Things began to change for Bonham Carter in 1995, when she appeared as Woody Allen's wife in Mighty Aphrodite and then had the title role in Margaret's Museum, in which she gave a powerful performance as a coal miner's wife driven to madness by various tragedies visited upon her. Bonham Carter's work in the film prompted observers to note that she seemed to be moving away from her previous roles, and although she still appeared in corset movies -- such as Trevor Nunn's lush 1996 adaptation of Twelfth Night -- she began to enhance her reputation as a thoroughly modern actress. In 1997, she won acclaim for her performance in Iain Softley's adaptation of The Wings of the Dove, scoring a Best Actress Oscar nomination in the process.
After playing a woman stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease opposite offscreen partner Kenneth Branagh in the poorly received The Theory of Flight (1998) and appearing with Richard E. Grant in A Merry War (1998), Bonham Carter landed one of her most talked-about roles in David Fincher's 1999 Fight Club. As the object of Brad Pitt's and Edward Norton's desires, the actress exchanged hair extensions and English mannerisms for a shock of spiky hair and American dysfunction, prompting some critics to call her one of the most shocking aspects of a shocking movie.
After a brief turn in the romantic comedy Women Talking Dirty in 1999, Bonham Carter was soon gearing up for another surprising turn in director Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes (2001). If critics were shocked by her unconventional role in Fight Club, they would no doubt be left dumbfounded with her trading of extravagant period-piece costumes for Rick Baker's makeup wizardry as the simian sympathyser to Mark Wahlberg's Homo sapiens' plight. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
Helena's maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was from an upper-class Jewish family; she was the daughter of Baron Eugène Fould-Springer (a French banker, who was descended from the Ephrussi family and the Fould dynasty) and Marie Cecile von Springer (whose father was Austrian-born industrialist Baron Gustav von Springer, and whose mother was from the de Koenigswarter family).[3][6][7] Hélène Fould-Springer converted to Catholicism after World War II.[8][9] Her sister was the French philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (1916–2003), the wife of Baron Élie de Rothschild, of the prominent Rothschild family (who had also married within the von Springer family in the 19th century);[10] her other sister, Therese Fould-Springer, was the mother of British writer David Pryce-Jones.[6]
When Bonham Carter was five, her mother had a serious nervous breakdown, from which it took her three years to recover. Upon her recovery, her experience in therapy led her to become a psychotherapist herself – Bonham Carter now pays her to read her scripts and deliver her opinion of the characters' psychological motivations.[13] Five years after her mother's recovery, her father was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma. He suffered complications during an operation to remove the tumour which led to a stroke that left him half-paralysed and using a wheelchair.[14] With her two older brothers at college, Bonham Carter was left to help her mother cope. She would later study her father's movements and mannerisms for her role in The Theory of Flight,[15] before his death in January 2004.
Bonham Carter has not received any formal training in acting.[16] In 1979, she won a national writing contest and used the money 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.
Her first starring film role was as Lady Jane Grey in Lady Jane (1986), which was given mixed reviews by critics. Her breakthrough role was Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View, which was filmed after Lady Jane, but released beforehand. Bonham Carter also appeared in episodes of Miami Vice as Don Johnson's love interest during the 1986–87 season and then, in 1987 opposite Dirk Bogarde in The Vision and Stewart Granger in A Hazard of Hearts. Bonham Carter was originally cast in the role of Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves, but backed out during production due to, "...the character's painful psychic and physical exposure," according to Roger Ebert.[17] The role went to Emily Watson, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the role.[18] In 1994, Bonham Carter appeared in a dream sequence during the second season of the British comedy series Absolutely Fabulous, playing Edina Monsoon's daughter Saffron. Throughout the series, references to physical similarities between Bonham Carter and the character of Saffron had been made.
Bonham Carter speaks French fluently, starring in a 1996 French film Portraits chinois. In August 2001, she was featured in Maxim. She played her second Queen of England when she was cast as Anne Boleyn in the ITV1 mini-series Henry VIII; however her role was restricted, as she was pregnant with her first child at the time of filming.[19] Bonham Carter was a member of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival jury that unanimously selected The Wind That Shakes the Barley as best film.[20]
In May 2006, Bonham Carter launched her own fashion line, "The Pantaloonies", with swimwear designer Samantha Sage. Their first collection, called Bloomin' Bloomers, is a Victorian style selection of camisoles, mop caps and bloomers. The duo are now working on Pantaloonies customised jeans, which Bonham Carter describes as "a kind of scrapbook on the bum".[25]
In mid-2011, Bonham Carter was reported to be in negotiations to star in a film adaptation of the musical Les Misérables, playing the role of Madame Thénardier. Her role was later confirmed on 8 September 2011.[39]
In 2001, Bonham Carter began her current relationship with director Tim Burton, whom she met while filming Planet of the Apes. Burton has taken to casting Bonham Carter in his movies, including Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Alice in Wonderland. They live in Belsize Park, London, in neighbouring houses with a connecting doorway because they both agreed that they needed their own personal space, and though living next door to each other, they still have a happy and healthy loving relationship.[40] Bonham Carter owned one of the houses, Burton later purchased the other and they then connected the two.
Their son Billy Raymond Burton was born on 4 October 2003.[citation needed] At age 41, she gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Nell Burton, on 15 December 2007 in Central London.[41] She says she named her daughter Nell after all the "Helens" in her family.[41][42]
In August 2008, four of her relatives were killed in a safari bus crash in South Africa,[40] and she was given indefinite leave from filming Terminator Salvation, returning later to complete filming.[43]
In 2008, Bonham Carter and Burton sold their American apartments for $8.75 million.[44] In early October 2008, it was reported that Bonham Carter had become a patron of the charity Action Duchenne, the national charity established to support parents and sufferers of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.[citation needed]
Bonham Carter is known for her unconventional sense of fashion,[45][46] which has been described as "shabby chic".[47] Despite her often controversial fashion choices, Vanity Fair named her on its 2010 Best-Dressed List[48] and she was selected by Marc Jacobs to be the face of his autumn/winter 2011 advertising campaign.[49] She cites Vivienne Westwood and Marie Antoinette as her main style influences.[48]
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