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Jennifer Ehle

 
Actor: Jennifer Ehle
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Dec 29, 1969
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '90s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Romance
  • Career Highlights: Pride and Prejudice, Sunshine, Wilde
  • First Major Screen Credit: Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Biography

An actress who infuses her characters with luminous strength and shrewd intelligence, Jennifer Ehle emerged in the mid-'90s as one of England's most compelling new talents. A trained stage actress, she won international recognition and a BAFTA TV Award in 1996, when she starred as Elizabeth Bennet in the acclaimed BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Her career breakthrough led to both more screen work and the opportunity for Ehle, the daughter of actress Rosemary Harris, to establish herself as an actress in her own right. Born December 29, 1969, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the home of her novelist father John Ehle, Ehle was raised largely in nearby Asheville. She spent a great deal of her childhood following her mother's career engagements back and forth between the States and the U.K., attending over 18 schools in the process. Ehle eventually settled in London to study drama at the Central School, but dropped out in 1991 to take the part of Calypso in Peter Hall's lauded TV adaptation of The Chamomile Lawn. Further television and stage roles followed, and in 1993, Ehle made her screen debut with a small role in Iain Softley's Backbeat as Cynthia Powell, John Lennon's first wife. Ehle's career entered a new and more lucrative phase with her award-winning turn as Pride and Prejudice's heroine; in addition to its success in Britain, the miniseries -- which also launched Colin Firth to international fame in his role as Mr. Darcy -- proved to be a runaway hit in the States. More film work duly came Ehle's way: she could be seen playing Oscar Wilde's wife, Constance, in Wilde (1997); a prisoner of war alongside Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Cate Blanchett, and Julianna Margulies in Paradise Road (1997); and a woman who finds herself becoming involved with her supposedly gay former boyfriend in Bedrooms & Hallways (1998). Ehle was cast in perhaps her most high-profile screen role to date in 1999, when she starred as the wife of a Hungarian lawyer (Ralph Fiennes) in István Szabó's epic Sunshine, a historical drama tracing the fortunes of three generations of a Hungarian Jewish family. However, the actress' involvement in the film, which also starred real-life mother Harris as the older version of her character, was overshadowed in theatrical circles by her work on the stage that same year. For her performance as Annie, the wife of a brilliant but emotionally evasive playwright (Stephen Dillane) in the Broadway production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, Ehle found herself up against her mother, who starred in Waiting in the Wings, for a 2000 Best Actress Tony Award. Ehle ultimately won the award, the latest honor in what looked to be, like her mother's, a very long and vibrant career. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
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Wikipedia: Jennifer Ehle
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Not to be confused with Jennifer Hale.
 This biography of a living person does not cite any references or sources. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately. (May 2008) Find sources: (Jennifer Ehle – news, books, scholar)
Jennifer Ehle
Born December 29, 1969 (1969-12-29) (age 39)
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
Spouse(s) Michael Ryan (2001-present)

Jennifer Ehle (pronounced /ˈiːliː/; born December 29, 1969) is a two-time Tony Award-winning British-American actress of stage and screen. She is probably best known for her starring role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 mini-series Pride and Prejudice.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle, Ehle made her stage debut as a toddler in A Streetcar Named Desire, in which her mother played Blanche Dubois. She spent her childhood between the UK and America, attending 18 different schools including the Interlochen Arts Academy. Her drama training was split between the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

Career

In 1992, Peter Hall cast her in an adaptation of The Camomile Lawn, a novel by Mary Wesley, in which she and her mother played the same character at different ages. This story, produced by UK's Channel 4, was a five part mini-series about lives and loves of a family of cousins from 1939 to the present.

Her performance as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice gained her a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award. After a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company, she gained her first major feature film role in Paradise Road. She continued pursuing a career both on stage and screen, winning critical acclaim and a Best Performance by a Leading Actress Tony Award for her 2000 Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Her mother was also nominated for the same award that year for Waiting in the Wings. After a hiatus, she returned to the stage in 2005 in The Philadelphia Story at the Old Vic opposite Kevin Spacey. The following year she played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth as part of the Shakespeare in the Park. She won her second Tony award for portraying three characters in Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia triptych, which ran from October 2006 until May 2007.

Her most recent films include Before the Rains, an Indian-US co-production directed by Santosh Sivan, and Pride and Glory with Edward Norton and Colin Farrell. In 2008 she was featured in a CBS telefilm, The Russell Girl.

Ehle played a character in István Szabó's movie Sunshine, and her mother Rosemary Harris played the older version of the character.

In August 2009, it was announced that Ehle would play the character of Catelyn Stark in HBO's Game of Thrones, an adaptation of George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire fantasy book series.

In 2010, Ehle will be staring alongside John Lithgow in the production of MR. & MRS. FITCH presented by Second Stage Theatre.[1] She will also play Myrtle Logue, wife of King George VI's speech therapist Lionel Logue, in The King's Speech. George VI is played by her Pride and Prejudice co-star, Colin Firth.

Personal life

Ehle dated actors Toby Stephens, from The Camomile Lawn, and Colin Firth, Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. She is now married to the writer Michael Ryan and they have two children, George and Talulah. They currently reside in upstate New York.

Awards and nominations

Awards
Nominations

Work

Filmography

Television

Theatre

  • The Coast of Utopia (November 2006-May 2007) Vivian Beaumont Theater
    • Voyage- Liubov Bakunin (opened November 2006)
    • Shipwrecked- Natalie Herzen (opened December 2006)
    • Salvage- Malwida von Meysenbug (opened February 2007)
  • Macbeth (June 2006) Delacorte Theater,Shakespeare in the Park- Lady Macbeth
  • The Philadelphia Story (May 3-July 23, 2005) Old Vic - Tracy Lord
  • Design for Livin (February 2001) American Airlines Theatre/Roundabout Theatre Company - Gilda
  • The Real Thing (March 29-August 2000) Barrymore Theater - Annie
  • The Real Thing (January 13-March 18, 2000) Albery Theatre - Annie
  • Summerfolk (September & October 1999) National Theatre - Varvara Mikhailovna
  • The Real Thing (June & July 1999) Donmar Warehouse - Annie
  • Richard III (1995-96) Royal Shakespeare Company - Lady Anne
  • Painter of Dishonour (1995-96) Royal Shakespeare Company - Serafina
  • The Relapse (1995-96) Royal Shakespeare Company - Amanda
  • Breaking the Code (1992) Triumph Productions tour - Pat Green
  • Tartuffe (1991) Peter Hall Company - Elmire
  • 1959 Pink Thunderbird Edinburgh Festival
  • Laundry and Bourbon Edinburgh Festival

References

  1. ^ http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Tony_Winners_Lithgow_and_Ehle_Are_MR_MRS_FITCH_For_Second_Stage_Theatre_20090819

External links

v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play

Irene Worth (1976) · Julie Harris (1977) · Jessica Tandy (1978) · Constance Cummings / Carole Shelley (1979) · Phyllis Frelich (1980) · Jane Lapotaire (1981) · Zoe Caldwell (1982) · Jessica Tandy (1983) · Glenn Close (1984) · Stockard Channing (1985) · Lily Tomlin (1986) · Linda Lavin (1987) · Joan Allen (1988) · Pauline Collins (1989) · Maggie Smith (1990) · Mercedes Ruehl (1991) · Glenn Close (1992) · Madeline Kahn (1993) · Diana Rigg (1994) · Cherry Jones (1995) · Zoe Caldwell (1996) · Janet McTeer (1997) · Marie Mullen (1998) · Judi Dench (1999) · Jennifer Ehle (2000)
v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play (2001-present)

Blair Brown (2000) · Viola Davis (2001) · Katie Finneran (2002) · Michele Pawk (2003) · Audra McDonald (2004) · Adriane Lenox (2005) · Frances de la Tour (2006) · Jennifer Ehle (2007) · Rondi Reed (2008) · Angela Lansbury (2009)

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