Childhood
Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born October 5, 1975, in Reading, England.
Winslet was surrounded by the theater from birth. Born into a family of thespians--parents Roger and Sally were both stage actors, maternal grandparents Oliver and Linda Bridges ran the Reading Repertory Theatre, and it seemed to Kate that it was the natural thing to go into it.
Uncle Robert Bridges appeared in the original West End production of Oliver; and both her sisters Beth and Anna are actors.
Kate followed her ancestors by studying the craft of acting at Redroofs School in Maidenhead, U.K. She scored her first professional gig at 11, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a commercial for a kids' cereal.
During her childhood, and into her teen years, Kate's 5'6'' frame weighed as much as 185 pounds, and she was nicknamed ''Blubber'' in school.
After acting lessons and a graduation from a performing arts high school, Kate took to the stage in productions of Adrian Mole and Peter Pan.
Career
Winslet's silver screen debut came in 1994 when she costarred as delinquent teen Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson's thriller Heavenly Creatures. The film, based on the true story of two fantasy-gripped girls who commit a brutal murder, received modest distribution but was roundly praised by critics.
She followed it with the starring role of Princess Sarah in the kid's movie A Kid in King Arthur's Court (1995).
That same year, she played the willful, passionate Marianne in Ang Lee's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. She earned a number of kudos for her work, including an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
She may have lost the Oscar, but she did win the Screen Actors Guild for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Supporting Actress Award, both for Sense and Sensibility.
Winslet's superstar status arrived in 1997 when she was cast in James Cameron's award winning movie, Titanic. Portraying Leonardo DiCaprio's love attraction, Rose Dewitt Bukater, Kate became the youngest actress ever handed two Oscar nominations.
Her role as Rose DeWitt Bukater not only made her the envy of teenage girls worldwide, but it also marked her transition from artsy, independent films, to commercial blockbuster flicks. Needless to say she looked terrific in Titanic but slowly slipped out of the limelight in the aftermath of the blockbuster's monstrous success.
In the next years Kate starred in independent films, Gillies MacKinnon's adaptation of Esther Freud's Hideous Kinky and Jane Campion's comedy-drama Holy Smoke (both in 1999). She also lent her voice for Gary Hurst's animated movie, Faeries (1999).
The next year found her back in period dress as the Marquis de Sade's chambermaid and accomplice in Quills (2000).
She eventually netted her third Oscar nomination for portraying young Iris Murdoch in Richard Eyre's adaptation of John Bayley's drama Iris (2001). In that same year, moviegoers saw her in Michael Apted's adaptation of Robert Harris' WWII epic Enigma.
