| BIOGRAPHY
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 become 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 homosapien plight. |
FILMOGRAPHY
• Henry VIII (2004)
• Big Fish (2003)
• The Heart of Me (2003)
• Till Human Voices Wake Us (2003)
• Live from Baghdad (2002)
• Novocaine (2001)
• Planet of the Apes (2001)
• Fight Club (1999)
• Portraits Chinois (1999)
• Merlin (1998)
• A Merry War (1998)
• Sweet Revenge (1998)
• The Theory of Flight (1998)
• Theory of Flight (1998)
• Margaret's Museum (1997)
• The Wings of the Dove (1997)
• Twelfth Night (1996)
• Margaret's Museum (1995)
• Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
• Francesco (1994)
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)
• Storyteller's Classics - The Toy Symphony (1994)
• Howards End (1992)
• Where Angels Fear to Tread (1992)
• Hamlet (1990)
• Getting It Right (1989)
• The Vision (1987)
• Lady Jane (1986)
• A Room with a View (1986) |
