Kim Cattrall was born in Liverpool, England, but grew up in Canada and made her professional stage debut in a production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She has acted in numerous TV movies, but became a household name in her role as Samantha Jones on the hit series, Sex and the City, a role for which she received five Emmy nominations. She won the Golden Globe for the role in 2003 and was part of the SAG Award-winning Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2001 and 2004.
Career Highlights: Ticket to Heaven, Police Academy, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
First Major Screen Credit: Crossbar (1979)
Biography
A popular screen figure of the 1980s and '90s whose casting in HBO's runaway hit series Sex and the City provided her career with a solid second wind, Emmy-winning actress Kim Cattrall has endured to prove that older women can retain their sexuality and femininity while simultaneously maintaining a vital screen presence. Born in Liverpool, England, Cattrall's parents immigrated the family to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, when the future actress was three years old. After returning to England at age 11 to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Cattrall finished high school in Vancouver, and at age 16 struck out on her own after winning a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.
Though director Otto Preminger would sign Cattrall to a five-year contract and give the actress her film debut in Rosebud (1975), Universal would soon step in to buy out her contract, making Cattrall one of the last actors to participate in the now defunct Universal Contract Player System. Following with television appearances in Starskey and Hutch and Charlie's Angels, and turning up in such features as Deadly Harvest (1977), it appeared as if good things were in store for Cattrall in the future. The dawn of the 1980s found Cattrall's star ascending in such features as Porky's (1981), and with the release of Police Academy in 1984 her face was becoming a familiar one to film and television audiences.
Following up with such typically '80s fare as Turk 182! (1985), Cattrall essayed the role of the green-eyed girl whose fate was questionable in John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (1986), the year before her most famous (until Sex and the City of course) role in Mannequin (1987). Essentially a typical '80s throwaway comedy, Cattrall's effervescent presence, combined with Starship's catchy title tune "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," gave the film such a boost that it even spawned a Cattrall-less sequel. It was following Mannequin that Cattrall's career began to stall in the wake of such instantly forgettable films as Honeymoon Academy (1990) and the Gary Busey actioner Breaking Point (1993), though her role in 1995's Live Nude Girls proved a curious precursor to her role on Sex and the City.
A frank and funny HBO series based on the writings of New York Observer columnist Candace Bushnell, Sex and the City gave Cattrall a chance to shine as a lusty an unabashedly sexual PR executive whose confidence in the bedroom rivals only her confidence in the boardroom. A runaway hit that's popularity only grew as the show entered is sixth season, Sex and the City once again made Cattrall a household name as it influenced everything from fashion to the drinks of the New York scene. Cattrall's character proved so popular that in mid-2003 it was announced that once Sex and the City drew to a close, she would star in her own spin-off series. Though she would inexplicably continue to release such vapid feature fare as Baby Geniuses (1999), appearances in such efforts as the Britney Spears road drama Crossroads ensured that Cattrall would remain a familiar face to young audiences. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Cattrall is one of seven children and was born in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, England.[1][2] Her mother, Shane, was a secretary, and her father, Malcolm, a construction engineer.[3] When she was 3 months old, her family emigrated to the Canadian city of Courtenay, British Columbia. At 11, she returned to Cheshire when her grandmother became ill, and she studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), before returning to Canada at age 16 to finish her final year of secondary school.
Career
Cattrall began her career before graduating from high school in 1972, when she left Canada for America. There, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and upon her graduation signed a five-year movie deal with directorOtto Preminger, making her film debut in Preminger's Rosebud in 1975. A year later, Universal Studios bought out that contract and Cattrall became one of the last participants of the Universal Contract Player System. During her time with Universal, she guest-starred in numerous television programmes of varying style and genre. In 1979, she played Dr. Gabrielle White in The Incredible Hulk and would go down in TV Hulk lore as one of the few characters who knew David Banner was alive and was the Hulk. In a successful transition to cinema, Cattrall starred opposite Jack Lemmon in his Oscar-nominated movie Tribute in 1980. The following year, she starred in the critically acclaimed Ticket to Heaven. She also had a guest role in the TV Mini-Series Scruples.
Her film work continued during Sex and the City when she appeared in Britney Spears' first film venture, Crossroads. Sex and the City ended as a weekly series in spring 2004 with 10.6 million viewers. Cattrall reprised the role of Samantha Jones in the Sex and the City film, released on May 30, 2008. She will also appear in a sequel planned for release in 2010.
On 2 June 2008, Cattrall was reported to be set to star in and executive produce Sensitive Skin for HBO, an adaptation of the eponymous British series revolving around a middle-aged wife and mother who rediscovers her sexuality.[6]
On June 16, 2009, it was announced that Cattrall would receive a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto. The induction ceremony will be held on September 12, 2009.[7]
Personal life
Cattrall has been married three times. Her 1977-1979 marriage to Larry Davis was annulled. Her second marriage was from 1982-89 to Andre J. Lyson; with him, she lived in Frankfurt and learned to speak German fluently, but admits she has forgotten a lot over the years.[8][9][10]
From 1998 to 2004, she was married to audio designer Mark Levinson. The two co-wrote the 2002 book Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm.[11]
