| Kate Beckinsale Biography |
Her father was Richard Beckinsale, born in Nottingham, England, UK. He starred in a number of popular British television comedies during the 1970s, most notably the television series "Rising Damp" (1974), "Porridge" (1973) and "The Lovers" (1970). He passed away tragically early in 1979 at the age of 32.
Kate attended the private school, Godolphin and Latymer School in London for her grade and primary school education. In her teens, she twice won the British bookseller W. H. Smith Young Writers' competition - once for three short stories and once for three poems. After a tumultuous adolescence (a bout of anorexia - cured - and a smoking habit which continues to this day), she gradually took up the profession of acting.
Her major acting debut came in a World War II television movie called One Against the Wind (1991) (TV), filmed in Luxembourg during the summer of 1991. It first aired on American television that December. Kate began attending Oxford University's New College in the fall of 1991, majoring in French and Russian literature. She had already decided that she wanted to act, but to broaden her horizons she chose university over drama school. While in her first year at Oxford, Kate received her big break in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1993). Kate worked in three other films while attending Oxford, beginning with a part in the medieval historical drama Prince of Jutland (1994), cast as Ethel. The film was shot during spring, 1993 on location in Denmark, and she performed her supporting part during New College's Easter break. Later in the summer of that year, she performed as the lead in the contemporary mystery drama Uncovered (1994). Before she went back to school, her third year at university was spent at Oxford's study-abroad program in Paris, France, immersing herself in the French language, Parisian culture, and those awful French cigarettes.
Personal Quotes
"If someone had told me years ago that sharing a sense of humour was so vital to partnerships, I could have avoided a lot of sex!"
"No one is more enslaved than a slave who doesn't think they're enslaved."
"Everybody likes the underdog, because everybody feels like the underdog. No matter how successful you are, you always think, No one's being nice enough to me!"
"I try and take lots of vitamins and I don't drink. I do smoke, though, I'd be insufferable if I didn't smoke, you'd have to push me off a balcony I'd be so boring",
"With every project you do, you bring out a part of yourself, and it seems to be quite a good way of expanding a person."
"Apparently, I get facials and manicures all the time. I read this and think, 'Oh, I wish I did that!' I don't think I've had a facial since I was 19. When I shave my legs, I use my child's shampoo and a razor - if I can find one. If I did everything they said I did, I would never see Lily."
"I dropped out of Oxford, and now I only speak Russian with the woman who gives me a bikini-wax. See what Hollywood does to you?"
"I think, at 19, I was very grown-up in certain ways and extremely not so in others. If I had come on to a movie set at that age and someone had said, 'You're a bit funny-looking, can you go on a diet?' - I might have jumped off a building. I just didn't have the confidence to put that into perspective at the time."
"I look at how Keira Knightley is coiffed when she attends events. I remember going to Cannes with Much Ado About Nothing (1993) when I was 18, and nobody told me, 'Oh, here's a make-up artist or, 'This person wants to dress you, what clothes are you wearing?' It just wasn't like that when I started. Nobody even told me I could bring a friend! I just sort of showed up in a very expensive pair of trousers I bought in Harvey Nichols, and something I bought in the Sock Shop at the airport. But Keira Knightley has like full hair and make-up and a proper outfit and I think, 'Wow, she's not going to have the before photos I had to endure!' She's really lucky".
"I don't think he liked being in a cage and wouldn't stop masturbating and humping his bowl." about her daughter's pet rabbit
(Source: IMDB, www.imdb.com)
|
|
|
