Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is an English actress and occasional singer. Winslet made her film debut starring in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994). She achieved recognition in a supporting role in Ang Lee's adaption of Sense and Sensibility (1995) and her role as Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic (1997).
Winslet has appeared in films such as the Iris Murdoch biopic Iris (2001), the neosurrealistic indie film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2003), Todd Field's 2006 drama Little Children, the romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), and a screen adaption of Revolutionary Road (2008). Nominated for six Academy Awards, Winslet won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Reader. She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, as well as being nominated for an Emmy.
At the age of 22, Winslet became the youngest actress to receive two Oscar nominations; at age 33, she was the youngest actor to receive six nominations.In 2009, David Edelstein of New York Magazine hailed her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation."
Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, the daughter of Sally Anne (née Bridges), a barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming-pool contractor.Her parents were "jobbing actors", with Winslet commenting that she "didn't have a privileged upbringing" and that their daily life was "very hand to mouth". Her maternal grandparents, Linda (née Plumb) and Archibald Oliver Bridges, founded and operated the Reading Repertory Theatre,and her uncle, Robert Bridges, appeared in the original West End production of Oliver!. Her sisters, Beth Winslet and Anna Winslet, are also actresses.
Winslet, raised as an Anglican, began studying drama at the age of 11 at the Redroofs Theatre School,[5] a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl and appeared in a television commercial for Sugar Puffs cereal, directed by Tim Pope.
Winslet's career began on television, with a co-starring role in the BBC children's science fiction serial Dark Season in 1991. This was followed by appearances in the made-for-TV movie Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1992, the sitcom Get Back for ITV and an episode of medical drama Casualty in 1993, also for the BBC.
