Let's talk about: Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on September 15, 1890 in Ashfield, Torquay, Devon. 

Her father was a wealthy American that had been sent to Switzerland for his education. He met her mother, Clara (an English woman) and they were married. 

 

Agatha said that she had a very happy childhood. She was surrounded by strong and independent women. They spent their time going between their home in Devon, her step-grandmother and aunt's home in Ealing, West London, and parts of Southern Europe where they would go in the winter for vacation. 

She and her siblings were home educated, learning to read, write, and do math as well as being taught music. Agatha learned to play the piano and the mandolin. 

She also, along with her siblings, believed that her mother was psychic. 

Agatha loved reading right from the start. She read as much as she could. 

 

 "One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood."

 

She also spent a lot of time by herself or with her pets. She didn't have many friends  until she was a little older and stated that it was "one of the highlights of my existence" to be in the youth production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of The Guard with this group of friends. 

Agatha's father was sick a lot. He suffered from a series of heart attacks and died in November of 1901 when he was 55 years old. She was eleven. His death was devastating and she said it marked the end of her childhood. The next year she was sent to receive a formal education at Miss Guyer's Girls School in Torquay. She did not like it and found the disciplined school really hard to get used to. 

A few years later she was sent to Paris where she was educated in three separate places- Mademoiselle Cabernet's, Les Marroniers, and then Miss Dryden's which was a finishing school. 

When she returned to England her mother was ill and they went together to Cairo for the warmer weather. They stayed three months.

Back in Britain she wrote and performed in amateur theatrics, poetry, and music. 

She wrote her first story, The House of Beauty (early version of her later published story The House of Dreams) while she was ill in bed. She continued to write short stories and another novel set in Cairo. 

She was also looking for a husband during this time. She had short relationships with four men and was even engaged to another. But then she met Archibald Christie at a dance. He was born in India and was an army officer. They fell in love quickly. Archie proposed and she accepted. 

World War 1 began and Archie was sent to France to fight. They married on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1914 at Emmanuel Church in Bristol while he was home on leave. 

Agatha also wanted to be a part of the war effort and joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment. She attended to wounded soldiers at a hospital in Torquay. 

After the war they settled in St. John's Wood in northwest London. 

Agatha was a fan of detective novels and decided to write her own. 

She wrote The Mysterious Affair at Styles featuring Hercule Poirot, a former Belgian police officer with a large twirly moustache. It was rejected by a few publishing companies but then accepted by The Bodley Head if she would change the ending. She did and then signed the contract which she later felt was exploitative. 

During this time she gave birth to her only child, Rosalind, in August 1919. 

Her second novel, The Secret Adversary had a new detective couple, Tommy and Tuppence. It was also published by The Bodley Head and she got 50 pounds for it. She soon followed it up with another Poirot novel and short stories. 

She and her husband left their daughter with her mother and sister in order to travel promoting the British Empire Exhibition. They went to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. While in Africa they learned to surf prone and then in Hawaii they surfed standing up. 

A few years later, in 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He was in love with Nancy Neele, a friend of someone from their tour. On December 3, 1926 they fought and he left the house to spend the weekend with his mistress. That evening Christie left their home leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. 

Her car was later found at Newlands Corner with her expired driving licence and her clothes. 

The Home Secretary , police, and a newspaper offered a 100 pounds reward to find her. Over a thousand police officers and 15,000 volunteers along with some airplanes searched the area for her. 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a spiritual medium one of Agatha's gloves to try to find her. 

Her disappearance was featured on the front page of The New York Times. 

She was not found for ten days. 

On December 14, 1926, she was found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire. She had registered as Mrs. Teresa Neele from Cape Town. 

Two doctors diagnosed her as suffering amnesia from a depressed state brought on by overwork, her mother's death earlier in the year, and her husband's infidelity. 

Public opinion varied however, thinking that it was a publicity stunt or possibly an attempt to frame her husband for murder. 

She made no reference to it in her autobiography. 

They divorced in 1928 and Archie married Nancy Neele. 

Agatha was given custody of Rosalind and the right to keep the last name Christie for her writing. 

In 1930 she married archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan after meeting him during an archaeological dig. Their marriage was happy they remained married for the rest of her life. 

"An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her."

Agatha continued to travel and write. She used many of the places that she traveled (as well as the area she lived in) for settings for her books. During World War 2 she worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital in London and acquired a knowledge of poisons that she put to use in her later novels. 

In 1941-1942 she was investigated by the British Intelligence Agency MI5 because they were afraid that she had a spy in their top secret code breaking center Bletchley Park after one of her characters was named Major Bletchley. 

She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1956 New Year Honours for her many literary works and was promoted to Dame Commander three years after her husband was knighted for his archaeological work in 1968. 

"I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."

In 1971 her health began to suffer though she continued to write. It is believed that she may have begun to suffer from Alzheimer's or dementia. 

She died on January 12, 1976. 

Agatha is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections but she also wrote six romances under the name of Mary Westmacott. 

"The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes."

*Do you have a favorite Agatha Christie novel?

Let's talk about: Bram Stoker

Abraham "Bram" Stoker was born on November 8, 1847 in Dublin, Ireland. 

He was the third of seven children. 

Bram became ill at a young age and was stuck in bed, never standing up without help, until he started school at the age of seven. At this time he made a complete recovery. While sick in bed his mother would tell him many stories, some of them horror, that probably influenced his later writings.

"I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."

He went to a private school run by Reverend William Woods. He grew up without any more health issues and, in fact, became an athlete while attending Trinity College in Dublin. He was even named University Athlete. 

He was auditor of the College Historical Society, The Hist, and President of the University Philosophical Society. He graduated with honors as a B.A. in Math. 

After his time at Trinity, he became a theater critic for the Dublin Evening Mail. No one thought much of critics at the time but they noticed Bram because of how well written his reviews were. He wrote a good review of Henry Irving's Hamlet at the Theatre Royal in December of 1876 and Irving then invited him to dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel where he was staying. 

They became quick friends. 

During this time he was also writing stories. In 1872 The Crystal Cup was published by the London Society and then The Chain of Destiny was published in four parts in "The Shamrock". 

He wrote a non-fiction book in 1876 called The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland while he was working as a civil servant, and it became a standard work. 

In 1878 Bram married Florence Balcombe, an aspiring actress, and they moved to London. Bram became the acting manager and then business manager of Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre. He worked there for twenty seven years. Stoker was able to travel to many places with Irving's tours and as his personal secretary.

During this time he also began writing many novels. 

On December 31, 1879, Bram and Florence had a son, Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. He would be their only child. 

In 1890, Bram visited the town of Whitby in England. He stayed in a house on the West Cliff. It is said that he really enjoyed the town, the Whitby Abbey, the church's tombstones and the bats flying around many of the churches. I read that while staying in Whitby, Bram was looking at the ruins of the Abbey and imagined he saw a person or creature climbing up the walls. That sparked an idea in him. There is even a Bram Stoker Memorial Seat in Whitby. You can look across the harbor from that spot and see the Abbey, the church, and the stone steps. There is an inscription on the bench that reads, "The view from this spot inspired Bram Stoker to use Whitby as the setting of part of his world-famous novel Dracula."

 Before writing Dracula, he met Armin Vambery, a Hungarian writer and traveler who told him stories of the Carpathian mountains. He spent seven years researching the European folklore and stories of vampires. 

Bram returned to Whitby and stayed in the Royal Hotel while writing Dracula. A lot of the book takes place in Whitby using the places he would have seen while there. It is said that people still come to Whitby looking for "Dracula's grave", not realizing he is fictional. 

 After suffering from many strokes, Bram died on April 20, 1912. He was cremated and his ashes were put in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium. When his son died, his ashes were added to the urn. His wife's were meant to be as well but were, instead, scattered at the Gardens of Rest. Those that want to visit his urn at Golders Green are escorted there to guard against vandalism. 

Over the course of his life, he wrote and published 12 novels and several short story collections.But it is safe to say he is most well known and beloved for Dracula. It is one of my favorite books and I consider him one of the best writers I have ever read. 

Let's talk about: Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was born August 30, 1797 as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London.
Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a feminist philosopher, educator, and a writer. Mary was her second child. She died very soon after Mary was born.
Mary's father, William Godwin, was a philosopher, novelist, and journalist. Mary was his first child. He raised Mary along with her half-sister Fanny Imlay. A year after his wife's death he published Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In this book he was intending to pay tribute to his late wife but it didn't quite end up that way as it revealed her affairs and illegitimate child.
Mary, however, was raised to cherish the memories of her mother that others shared with her. She had a happy childhood according to those that knew the family, but they were often in debt and her father felt he needed to find a new wife to help raise the children. He married Mary Jane Clairmont in December of 1801. She was a well educated woman and had two young children as well. Mary detested her step mother.
Her father and step mother started a publishing company called M.J. Godwin and sold children's books, stationary, maps, and games. However it was not as successful as he had hoped. He continued to incur debt. 
Mary didn't have very much formal education but was tutored by her father. He took all of the children to the library and on educational outings. She also had a governess, a tutor, and was allowed to read her father's books.
Her father described her at age fifteen as " singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible."

In 1812, Mary's father sent her to stay with the family of William Baxter in Scotland.
He wrote to him that " I am anxious that she should be brought up... like a philosopher, even like a cynic."
Mary loved it there and returned the next summer as well, staying ten months this time.

"I wrote then—but in a most common-place style. It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered."

Mary met the radical poet-philosopher Percy Shelley in between her two stays in Scotland. He was one of her father's political followers. In 1814, when she returned home from her second stay in Scotland, he had become separated from his wife and was visiting her home often as he had helped her father with some of his debt. He was also estranged from his own wealthy, aristocratic family as they wanted him to follow their traditional plans for him and they didn't approve of his radical views. Because of this he was unable to have access to all of his money until he inherited the estate and couldn't help her father with all of his debts. Mary's father felt betrayed as he felt that promises had been made.

Mary and Percy began secretly meeting each other at her mother's grave in St Pancras Churchyard and soon fell in love. 

She was seventeen and he was almost twenty-two.
Her father did not approve and tried to keep them from each other.

On July 28, 1814, Mary and Percy left together for France. They could not marry, as he was still married and his wife was expecting their second child. They took her step sister Claire with them. They traveled through France by donkey, mule, carriage, and foot. They wrote as they traveled.

"It was acting in a novel, being an incarnate romance."

When they reached Lucerne, Switzerland they had to return to England because of a lack of money. 

They arrived in Gravesend, Kent, England on September 13, 1814.
When they returned Mary was pregnant. They now found themselves with no money and neither family would have anything to do with them. 

They found lodging that they shared with Claire.

They continued to write and read as much as they could. Percy would sometimes leave home for short periods of time to escape creditors.
Mary was very ill during this time in her pregnancy and he would often go on outings with Claire.
His wife Harriet also gave birth to his son.
On February 22, 1815 Mary gave birth to their daughter. She was two months premature.
On March 6 of the same year, Mary wrote to their close friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg,

"My dearest Hogg my baby is dead—will you come to see me as soon as you can. I wish to see you—It was perfectly well when I went to bed—I awoke in the night to give it suck it appeared to be sleeping so quietly that I would not awake it. It was dead then, but we did not find that out till morning—from its appearance it evidently died of convulsions—Will you come—you are so calm a creature & Shelley is afraid of a fever from the milk—for I am no longer a mother now."

^{After the loss of her child, Mary suffered from depression for a time and was said to be haunted by visions of the baby. By summer she had recovered and was pregnant again. 
After the death of his grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley, Percy found that he now had the money he needed once again. They rented a cottage in Bishopsgate.  
On January 24, 1816, Mary gave birth to their second child, William, named after her father. He was nicknamed "Willmouse".}  

In May of that year they travelled with their son and Claire to Geneva to spend the summer with the poet Lord Byron, whom Claire was having an affair. She was pregnant with his child. 

They spent their time boating on the lake and writing. It rained so often that they would often find themselves confined to the house, sitting around the log fire telling each other ghost stories. 

Lord Byron proposed that they "each write a ghost story". 

At first Mary couldn't come up with an idea, which made her anxious. Then one evening their discussion turned to that of the principles and nature of life. 

"Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated" Mary thought. 

She was unable to sleep that night as her imagination kept her awake. 

"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world."

 She began writing. She originally planned for the tale to be a short story but it turned into her first novel, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. It was published in 1818. It was published anonymously. 

They returned to England in September. They found a home in Bath and Claire once again lived with them. They were hoping to keep Claire's pregnancy a secret.

Soon after, Mary's sister Fanny was found dead in an Inn along with a suicide note and a bottle of laudanum. 

On December 10, Percy's wife, pregnant with their third child (so apparently he was still visiting Harriet after their separation) was found drowned in a lake in Hyde Park, London. It was also suicide. 

Harriet's family tried to keep Percy from getting custody of their two children and he was told by his lawyers that his case would be improved if he was married. Percy and Mary (who was now pregnant again) married on December 30, 1816. Mary's father and step mother came to the wedding and ended their estrangement from her. 

In march of that year the Chancery Court ruled that Percy was morally unfit to have custody of his children and placed them with a clergyman's family. Percy and Mary moved with Claire and her new baby Alba to Albion House at Marlow, Buckinghamshire. Here, Mary had their third child, Clara.

Percy was once again worried about creditors and often lived away from home. They were worried about losing custody of their children and decided to leave England for Italy in March of 1818. 

When they arrived in Italy, Claire gave Alba to Lord Byron to raise. He had agreed to this as long as Claire promised to have nothing more to do with her. 

They spent their time moving from place to place meeting new people who would often come along with them on their travels, writing, and reading. 

During this time Mary was struck with heartbreak at the death of both of her children. 

Clara died in September of 1818 and William in June of 1819.  

Mary found comfort in her writing. 

She gave birth to her fourth child, Percy, on November 12, 1819. 

The family found happiness in Italy after this. She called it " a country which memory painted as paradise". 

Mary wrote the autobiographical novel Matilda, Valperga, and the plays Prosperine and Midas during this time. She was however often ill and depressed. 

It was revealed that in 1819, Percy had registered the birth of a baby girl named Elena Shelley. Mary had not had this child and it was claimed that Claire was the mother. It remained a mystery. The baby died in 1820. Mary dealt with that and Percy's many other affairs. She may have had some of her own. 

In the summer of 1822 Mary, pregnant again, moved with Percy, Claire, the children, and their friends Edward and Jane Williams to a Villa near the Bay of Lerici. While there, Claire found out that her child with Lord Byron, had died from typhus. Mary was distracted and unhappy and came to regard the villa as a dungeon. She miscarried, losing so much blood that she almost died. Percy had her sit in a bath of ice while waiting for the doctor and was said to have saved her life by doing so. 

In July Percy and Edward left on a sailing journey and never reached their destination. 

Their boat sank during a storm. 

After Percy's death, Mary soon left for England to stay with her father and step mother in Strand until a bit of money from her father in law allowed her to get a home nearby. She spent her time writing and editing her late husband's poems. 

She found it hard to find friends and eventually moved closer to London to be near her friend Jane Williams. 

During the years of 1827-1840 Mary wrote the novels The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, Lodore, and Falkner. She also wrote for Ladies' magazine. She also compiled the poems of her husband for publication. 

In 1848, her son Percy, was married. They were happy and Mary and her daughter in law Jane got along very well. She moved in with them and traveled with them. 

On February 1, 1851 Mary died at the age of fifty three from a suspected brain tumor. 

On the one year anniversary of her death, her son opened her box-desk and found locks of her deceased children's hair, a notebook she had shared with her husband, a copy of his poem "Adonais", and a silk parcel containing some of her husband's ashes and the remains of his heart. 

Of all of her work, I have only read Frankenstein. 

I will review it later but for now I can say that I found it fascinating. 

Mary obviously lived a life of turmoil and drama. It is certainly not a life I would want.  I think her life led to a very unusual mind and insight that perhaps made a work such as Frankenstein possible. 

- See more at: http://www.bl.uk/people/mary-shelley#sthash.aT47EziB.dpuf

- See more at: http://www.bl.uk/people/mary-shelley#sthash.aT47EziB.dpuf

Let's talk about: Keira Knightley

 Keira Christina Knightley was born on March 26, 1985 in Richmond, a suburb of London. 

Her parents were both in the entertainment business. Her father, Will Knightley, was an actor. Her mother, Sharman Macdonald, was an actress turned playwright. 

Keira asked for her own agent when she was three years old. 

When she was six she finally got that agent and her first role on television as "Little Girl" in Screen One: Royal Celebration in 1993. 

She didn't have any formal training and continued to act because she loved it. 

She went to a regular school nearby and didn't have a plan for when she left. 

At a young age, they discovered that Keira had severe difficulties when reading and writing. She wasn't formally diagnosed with dyslexia but it was felt that she was dealing with a form of it. 

She worked really hard, with the help of her family, until she was able to overcome her problem by her early teen years. 

She continued to land roles in various television shows and some films. 

The first time she really made a name for herself was when she played Natalie Portman's decoy "Padme" in Star Wars: Episode 1- The Phantom Menace in 1999. 

Her role as the decoy was kept a secret before the movie's release so that the surprise would not be spoiled. The similarity between Keira and Natalie Portman was so great that during filming, their moms couldn't even tell them apart once they were in makeup.  

"The problem for me was that by being in the film the magic was broken. I loved the first Star Wars film and my mum was really into it too, that's why I took the part. But the Force wasn't there when we were filming it, and they didn't have real light sabres, which annoyed me."

At this point she began to get offers for much bigger roles and had to start turning some things down so that she could focus on one project at a time along with her schoolwork. 

In 1999 she appeared in Oliver Twist and traveled to Romania where she did her first title role playing Robin Hood's daughter Gwyn in Walt Disney's Princess of Thieves. 

Her roles continued from there. 

In 2001 she sat her final school exams and then started her A- levels at Esher College studying Classics, English Literature, and Political History.

In 2002 she filmed Bend It Like Beckham which was a huge success. 

 She then landed the lead role of Larisa Feodorovna Guishar in Doctor Zhivago.

It was filmed in Slovakia throughout the spring of 2002 and forced her to leave her studies and pursue acting full time. 

She followed this with Love Actually and then landed an audition for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. 

She almost missed out on Pirates. Auditions were being held in London but she was stuck in heavy traffic. She then had to be added on to the very end of the auditions list and just made it in time to audition. It was filmed after Love Actually but released before it and was the first film to make people really pay attention and wonder who this "new" face was.

Her career took off from there. 

One planned film was cancelled which led to a great opportunity. 

She spent the year instead visiting Ethiopia on behalf of the Comic Relief Charity and then spending the summer filming Pride and Prejudice. 

In October 2004, she received the Hollywood Film Award for Best female Breakthrough Actor.

In 2005 she received her first Golden Globe nomination for Pride and Prejudice, and soon after came her first Academy Award nomination. 

Her career was definitely on the rise. 

She won Best Actress for Atonement in 2007.

On May 4, 2013 Keira married her boyfriend of 2 years, James Righton, in a private ceremony near Marseilles. In May 2015, she gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Edie Righton. 

Keira continues to take on new and different roles and prove that she is a great actress. 

My favorite Keira movies are: 

#1: The Pirates of the Caribbean films

I really enjoy these films, especially the first one. 

I thought she did a really good job in this role.

#2: Love Actually 

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has read this blog. 

It's a movie that I love. Her story, while not one of my favorites in the film, is sweet and I like her in it. 

#3: Pride and Prejudice

I love Keira as Elizabeth Bennett. I think she really felt genuine in the character and brought a lot of fun and life to her. I go back and forth between this and the 1995 adaptation because there are things in each adaptation that I like better than the other. While I love the Elizabeth in the 1995 version, I think I like Keira's even better.

*Do you have a favorite Keira Knightley role? 

Let's talk about: Richard Armitage

Richard Crispin Armitage was born August 22, 1971 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England. 

"I've always been creative- as a kid growing up in Leicester, I liked painting and playing a few musical instruments. I started playing guitar in primary school, took up the cello when I was 11, then ditched that for the flute which I never really enjoyed. I've still got the cello in my wardrobe." 

He attended Pattison College in Coventry and then studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. 

His first role was a small one in This Year's Love in 1999. He went on to appear in television shows and a few movies. In 2004 he landed the lead role of John Thornton in North & South. 

 

From there he landed many movie and television spots. He has also appeared on stage many times and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for 18 months. 

I haven't seen a lot of his work. I have just started watching the BBC's Robin Hood so I am anxious to see how he does as the villain there. Other than that my exposure to Richard has been North & South, The Hobbit, and Captain America: The First Avenger.

However, I also read that he appeared as an unnamed Naboo fighter pilot in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. 

"I'd never been in front of the camera before. It was like being punched in the face, trial by fire... I was shocked, appalled, scared- and then excited."

My favorite role so far has been his portrayel of Thorin in The Hobbit. 

I loved the book and wondered at first how he would do. I felt like he really became Thorin. He gave the character so much emotion. I think he turned out to be the perfect choice.

Richard has aquaphobia ( fear of water, specifically of drowning). When he was very young his stroller fell into a neighbor's pond and his fear is believed to have come from that incident. 

However he has not let the fear stop him from being in the water. 

For Cold Feet he took a water aerobics class, swam at least 50 laps per day preparing for his role in Captain America playing Heinz Kruger, and was submerged in a well for a long time while shooting Robin Hood.

Richard can dance and sing. He has said that he would love to do a musical. 

"I think I've got an odd face. I always wanted to look like somebody else." 

Say What?

*What is your favorite Richard Armitage role?

Let's talk about: Kate Winslet

Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born on October 5, 1975 in Reading, Berkshire, England. 

She was born into an entertaining family. Her parents, Roger and Sally, were both stage actors. Her mother's parents Oliver and Linda Bridges ran the Reading Repertory Theatre, and her Uncle Robert Bridges worked in London's West End theater district. She has three siblings; her sisters Anna and Beth (also actresses) and her brother Joss.

"Mum and dad were very much friends, and up to life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up, they just taught me to be me."

Kate's first professional role was in a commercial for cereal where she was dancing with the Honey Monster. She was eleven years old. When later promoting her film The Holiday, she was interviewed on 'Good Morning America' and they showed a clip of what they thought was her commercial. The clip was actually not of her. She did not point that out to them because she did not want to get the researcher in trouble or embarrass them. 

Around this time she also started acting lessons and that led to her formal training at a performing arts high school. She began to land a few small parts on television sitcoms and appearing on stage in various productions. 

Her first big film was Heavenly Creatures in 1994. She was seventeen. 

The film was the true story about two teenage girls that commit a murder. It was praised by critics but, to be honest, I did not like it. 

She was still relatively unknown although the film got her name out there. She attended an audition the next year for Sense and Sensibility. She made a great impression on Emma Thompson which led her to get the role over all of the other actresses that tried out for it. She won a British Academy award for her portrayal of Marianne Dashwood as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. 

She followed Sense and Sensibility with two more period films, Jude in 1996 and Hamlet, also in 1996. 

The role that made her a household name was playing Rose DeWitt Bukater in James Cameron's Titanic in 1997. She received a Best Actress nomination for this movie as well which made her the youngest actress to ever receive two Academy Award nominations. 

She and Leonardo DiCaprio became very close friends while filming. They alter filmed Revolutionary Road together as well. Her children call him "Uncle Leo."

 

 "It's very important for me to make the statement that I am English and just because I've done one really big film, it doesn't mean that I don't want to keep a finger in the fantastic British film industry."

 

 

"After Titanic, it would have been completely foolish for me to go and try and top that. I'm an English girl, I've always loved England, I've never felt the desire to leave it for any particular reason. And whilst I'm ambitious and care very much about what I do, I'm not competitive. I also don't want to act every day of my life. ... So it was important to me after Titanic to just remind myself of why it was that I was acting in the first place, which is of course because I love it."

 

After the attention she received for Titanic, Kate wanted to make smaller independent films. She made quite a few small films over the years. After a few years she started making some big films again as well. Over the years she has made some really great films, some very well known and some that haven't been as successful. By 2015 she has been nominated for an Oscar six times. She has won once, a Best Actress Oscar for playing a former concentration camp guard in The Reader in 2008.

"People say to me, "You seem to have made this conscious decision to do independent films." In reality, I haven't. After each movie, I always think, how different can I possibly be?... Is this going to challenge me, is this going to inspire me, and is this going to make me love my job more than I already do?"

In 1998 she married Jim Threapleton, an assistant director. They had a daughter, Mia. 

They divorced in 2001. 

She married director Sam Mendes in 2003. They had a son, Joe. They were also divorced in 2010. 

In 2012, she married Ned Rocknroll. He is Richard Branson's nephew and works for his uncle's space travel company Virgin Galactic as the head of Marketing Promotion and Astronaut Experience. They have a son, Bear. 

While vacationing at Richard Branson's house in the Caribbean, the house caught fire. Branson credits Kate with saving his 90 year old mother by carrying her out of the burning house. Kate has stated that she just carried her down a few steps. She and her husband named their son Bear Blaze because they met in a house fire, or so it has been said. 

She was pregnant with Bear whilst filming A Little Chaos and Divergent. During filming of Divergent they had to creative with the film angles, shooting above her waist, and having her carry things in front of her belly when she started showing sooner than expected.

"There is no way we are going to move out of England. Some might think that we want to live in Hollywood but that is not what we want at all. We will go and live in New York when it is necessary because of work but we prefer to be in England. I'm proud to be English - we both are. It's very important to me to retain that. I am an English girl and I love England. I have never felt the desire to leave. I am still ambitious and I will have to travel and live elsewhere because of that but England is always home."

Kate was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama. 

She also shared a Grammy award with Graham Greene in 2000 for the Best Spoken Word Album for Children. 

Her performance as Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 2004 is ranked #81 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. 

She received a Star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame on March 17, 2014.

"I was on the tube just before Christmas and this girl turned round to me and said, "Are you Kate Winslet?". And I said, "Well, yes. I am actually." And she said, "And you're getting the tube?". And I said, "Yes." And she said, "Don't you have a big car that drives you around?". And I said, "No". And she was absolutely stunned that I wasn't being driven round in some flash car all the time. It was ludicrous."

Kate prefers to wear boots rather than an other kind of shoe because she has said that it makes her fell like her feet are "firmly on the ground."

My Top 5 favorite Kate Winslet roles: 

#1: Sense and Sensibility

I was a teenager when Sense and Sensibility came out and it was one of my favorite movies instantly. 

 Marianne was my favorite girl character. 

I related to Marianne so much. I was passionate and loved literature and I just felt like I could have been Marianne if I had been born into a different time period. 

Kate became one of my favorite actresses because she did such a good job playing Marianne and making her feel so real to me. 

#2: Titanic

I was just under twenty years old when Titanic came out and Kate had once again given me a character that I could really relate to. Of course I couldn't relate to her time and place and station in life but I definitely felt that angst of wanting to make sure you were living your life for yourself and not just doing what was expected of you by the 'grown ups'. 

She did so well in this movie. 

#3: Finding Neverland

This should be no surprise as I have mentioned this movie before. It is one of my favorite films and I loved Kate in it. 

She plays the role of mother so well. She is still young and beautiful but comes across as very calm and serene in the role of mother. Of course, her character is hearbreaking as well. She is just perfection in this. 

#4: The Holiday

This is one of my very favorite Christmas movies!

Once again, Kate has given us a character that is completely relatable. 

I love watching her journey through this film. 

#5: Divergent

I enjoy this film. It isn't necessarily one of my favorites but I do like it. 

At first when I heard that Kate was playing Jeanine I couldn't really see it. She wasn't anything like I pictured her in my head. But once I saw it I knew that she was perfect for the role. 

It isn't as fun to see her play someone that I don't like, but she does it really well. 

I think Kate Winslet will always be one of my favorite actresses and I am excited to see what she will do next! 

*What is your favorite Kate Winslet film?

Let's talk about: David Tennant

David Tennant was born on April 18, 1971 in Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland.

 At that time his name was David McDonald. He would later choose his acting surname from Neil Tennant, singer of the Pet Shop Boys. He learned that he would have to change his professional name in order to join the actors' union, Equity, because there was already a David McDonald registered with them. He was reading an interview with Neil Tennant and decided to go with that. 

When he was about 3-4 years old he decided he wanted to become an actor because of his love of the show Doctor Who. 

 

"I was hugely formed by stories I was told as a child whether that was in a book, the cinema, theatre or television and probably television more than any medium is what influenced me as a child and formed my response to literature, story-telling and, therefore, the world around me.

I remember a conversation with my parents about who the people on the TV were, and learning they were actors and they acted out this story and just thinking that was the most fantastic notion, and that's what I want to do."

He attended Paisley Grammar school and during his years there he wrote about how he wanted to become a professional actor and play the role of the Doctor on Doctor Who. 

I think that is amazing. In my opinion it really adds something magical to his future career. 

His first acting job came when he was 16.  He attended the youth group theater run by the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama on the weekends (now RSAMD). He was the youngest student to ever win a place at the school and started as a full time drama student when he was 17. 

" Drama school is a pretty intense experience and I think it changes who you are. I think I grew up at drama school (which was fairly useful personally as much as professionally) and I certainly got exposed to a huge range of ideas, techniques, and practices that I had no previous experience of. I wouldn't have known what I was doing as an actor if I hadn't gone."

He worked regularly in theater and television after leaving drama school. His first big break was in 1994 when he played the lead role in the Scottish drama, Takin' Over the Asylum. He then moved to London. He spent several years as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and was very successful there. He began to make a name for himself with his roles in the TV dramas Blackpool and Casanova. 

In 2003 he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actor of 2002 for his role in Lobby Hero performed at the Donmar Warehouse and the New Ambassador's Theatre's. 

In 2005, his childhood dream finally came to fruition. 

David was chosen to play the role of the Doctor on Doctor Who. 

 " I have such fond memories of watching 'Doctor Who' when I was a kid and growing up, that if I've left anybody anywhere with memories as fond, then I feel like I've done my job. "

He was the Doctor from 2005-2010 which makes him one of the longest running doctors. 

He brought something really special to this role. His quirkiness and excitement made him so much fun to watch. He really became the Doctor. It doesn't feel like he is playing a character. I think he swept us all away in the Tardis with him. We didn't want him to go.

He met his wife, Georgia Moffett, on the set of Doctor Who in November of 2007 when she played the role of his daughter.  In real life she is the daughter of former Doctor actor Peter Davison. They were married in 2011. He adopted her son, Tyler, and they have had two children together.

	"If you can sell that you're the King of Scotland, or Henry V on a tiny stage in a studio theatre somewhere, then you can probably sell that you're a starship captain or a time traveler. I've been quite lucky in that I've managed to tick off a few of my dream roles, really. Beyond that, you wait for the next script to come in that will have the dream role that you don't know exists yet, I suppose."

David has continued to do movies, television, and theater. 

In 2009 so many people wanted to seem him in the Royal Shakespearean Company Production of Hamlet that the London run at the Novello Theater sold out in three hours. 

He won the 2009 Critics Choice Award for Best Shakespearean Performance for this role.

" I love characters who are clever and smart, and you have to run to catch up with. I think there's something very appealing and rather heroic in that." I haven't seen a lot of David's work yet. I have a lot of watching to do! But I do have two other favorites that he was in besides Doctor Who. These should come as no surprise to anyone.  They are: 1. Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Obviously not because I like the character but because he was so good at playing him.  2. James Arber in The Decoy Bride:

I have already expressed my love for this film on the blog. He is fantastic in it. 

I can't wait to see more from David! He is truly a tremendous talent!

*What are your favorite films and television shows starring David Tennant?

*Have you watched him as the Doctor?

Let's talk about: Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter was born on July 28, 1866 in Bolton Gardens, Kensington, in London, England. 

Her family lived in a large house, had servants, and Beatrix was taken care of by a nanny. She spent most of her time in the top of the house in their large nursery. She would, on most days, only see her parents at bedtime. 

When she was old enough to begin schooling the nursery was converted to a school room and she was taught by her governess. At this time it was not common for girls in her social class to attend regular school. Beatrix loved learning and was especially interested in languages and literature. 

She loved classic folk and fairy tales, rhymes, and riddles. 

 “Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”

It was discovered that she had a talent for drawing and painting.  Beatrix's parents encouraged her art and hired special tutors to teach her art and take her to art galleries. She spent many hours drawing her pictures of animals and plants. She would draw realistic pictures of them as well as imaginative pictures with the animals wearing clothes and doing human chores. 

She even drew her own versions of some of the fairy tales and stories that she was learning about like Cinderella and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 

 She also wrote about and drew her pets.

The family always had a pet dog. In addition to that the children kept rabbits, a hedgehog, some mice, frogs, snakes, snails, lizards, and a bat in their school room to observe. They also had a collection of insects that they identified, mounted, and drew. 

Bertram, her younger brother, was born when Beatrix was six. They grew to be good friends and shared a love of painting, drawing, and animals. 

(Bertram and Beatrix)

Her favorite time of year was summer. 

Every year her father rented a large house in Scotland and they would take the dog, the servants, and even the carriage horses north by train. Sometimes Beatrix would also bring her little rabbits or mice along in boxes. The house they visited the most was Dalguise in Perthshire. 

She and Bertram were able to explore the countryside to their hearts content and she used these times to observe and draw plants, insects, and animals. 

(pages from Beatrix's sketchbook in 1876 when she was nine)

When she was fifteen Beatrix began to keep a journal but she wrote in a secret code that she invented (which was not deciphered until 1958). She said that when she read them back when she was older she sometimes found it difficult to understand! In her journals she would record her activities as well as her opinions about current events, society, art, and politics. 

In her sketchbook she would practice drawing and in her journal she practiced writing. 

Both of these skills would come in very handy as she grew older.

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.”

When Beatrix was sixteen Dalguise House was not available for their summer holiday and so her family rented a house in the Lake District in England. This was her first visit to the Lake District and she fell in love with the countryside right away.

In the early 1890's, Beatrix first published some of her drawings. 

Hildesheimer & Faulkner published her illustrations and greetings card designs for a booklet entitled "A Happy Pair".

("A Happy New Year To You", Greeting card published by Hildesheimer & Faulkner)

Most of her time she spent studying natural history. She loved learning about archaeology, geology, entomology, and mycology. She was very interested in fungi. Charles McIntosh, a Scottish naturalist, encouraged her to make her drawings of fungi more accurate. By 1896 Beatrix wrote a paper with her own theory on how fungi spores reproduced called 'On the Germination of the Spores of Agaricineae'. It was presented to the Linnean Society by one of their mycologists from the Royal Botanic Gardens in 1897. Beatrix, unfortunately could not present it herself as women could not attend Society meetings. The paper has since been lost.

Beatrix soon began to write picture letters to a child of her former governess that was recovering from scarlet fever and confined to bed. In 1901 she turned one of these letters into her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. She printed her own private edition of it. 

The idea was then turned down by several publishers before Frederick Warne published it in 1902 when Beatrix agreed to redo her black and white illustrations into color. 

Norman Warne, the youngest of the three brothers who ran the publishing firm of Frederick Warne & Co., was assigned to be Beatrix's editor for The Tale of Peter Rabbit. He and Beatrix got along well from the very first meeting. Beatrix would often take the carriage to the Warne offices in Bedford Square to discuss the book with Norman. It was not considered appropriate at the time time for a lady to visit alone so she always had to take a long a female friend as a chaperone.

(Norman Warne)

The following year, under Norman's editorial supervision, Beatrix produced The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin and The Tailor of Gloucester. All three of her books were becoming huge commercial successes. Twenty more "little books", as she called them, followed these usually at a rate of two to three per year. In 1903 Beatrix registered a Peter Rabbit doll. 

By 1904 Beatrix was preparing The Tale of Two Bad Mice for publication. Norman was fully involved in the creative process going as far as buying her doll's house furniture to use as props and inviting her to his brother's house in Surbiton to sketch a real doll's house he had made. 

Her mother refused to let her go. She viewed the Warne family as unsuitable friends because they were "in trade". 

Despite her mother's feelings on the matter, a romance was beginning between Norman and Beatrix. 

They were never able to spend any time alone together but they were still able to become very close. Norman sent Beatrix a letter on July 25, 1905 proposing marriage. 

Beatrix's parents forbade the marriage but eventually they agreed to Beatrix's compromise that she was allowed to wear her engagement ring but the engagement would not yet be made public. 

They would give it a few months time before they announced it. 

Sadly, Norman suddenly became ill with a fast moving form of leukaemia and he died only a month after his proposal. This was devastating to Beatrix and she threw herself into her work as a way to cope with her grief. 

 "I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever."

She proceeded with her plans to buy Hill Top Farm, a small working farm in Near Sawrey in the Lake District. The farm became her sanctuary. It was a place she could go to paint and write and learn about farm management, although she never lived there full time. 

Hill Top and the surrounding areas began to pop up in her books. 

Beatrix spent as much time as she could in the Lake District and began to use her income from her books to buy farmland. 

Four years after buying Hill Top Farm, she purchased Castle Farm just across the road from Hill Top. 

The solicitor who helped her with her property dealings was a local man, William Heelis. 

Over the years, as they worked together and shared in their interests of the countryside and conservation, a relationship began to grow gradually. 

When their friendship grew to love, her parents again objected. 

This time she ignored their wishes and married William in October 1913. 

They remained happily married living in the Lake District in Castle Cottage until Beatrix's death in 1943.  

“I hold an old-fashioned notion that a happy marriage is the crown of a woman’s life.”

Beatrix bought fifteen farms. She took an active part in caring for all of them. She would dress in clogs, a shawl, and an old tweed skirt and help with the hay-making. She searched the fells for lost sheep. She bred Herdwick sheep and won prizes with them at local shows. In 1943 she became the first woman elected President of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders' Association. 

She said she was at her happiest when she was with her farm animals and in the outdoors. 

“Thank God I have the seeing eye,’ that is to say as I lie in bed I can walk step by step on the fells and rough lands seeing every stone and flower and patch of bog and cotton grass where my old legs will never take me again.”

In 1929, she wrote her longest story, The Fairy Caravan, which featured her own Herdwick Sheep. It was dedicated to an American boy, Henry Coolidge and was only published in America. 

Beatrix is not only remembered for her wonderful "little books" but also for her conservation efforts. When she was sixteen and visiting the Lake District for the first time, a local vicar named Hardwicke Rawnsley made a strong impression on Beatrix with his views on the need to care for the environment. Hardwicke Rawnsley became one of the three founders of the National Trust and Beatrix supported the National Trust all of her life. 

When she died she left her fifteen farms and over 4,000 acres of land to the National Trust. 

She stated that they must keep Hill Top Farm exactly as it had been and today it receives thousands of visitors per year. 

 

 In 1925, when asked by the editor of The Horn magazine in Boston to write something about herself for her admirers in America, she wrote, "Beatrix Potter is Mrs. William Heelis. She lives in the north of England, her home is amongst the mountains and lakes she has drawn in her picture books. .. She leads a very busy contented life, living always in the country and managing a large sheep farm on her own land."

She indeed left behind quite the legacy. 

“Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.”