Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet has been one of my favorite actresses ever since I saw her play Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility (especially since her name is so similar to mine!) Jane Austen is also one of my favorite authors. Now that I've seen her wonderful performance in Titanic, I am a total fan!!

Kate was born on October 5, 1975 in Reading England. She has naturally blonde hair (some people not familiar with Kate other than in Titanic think red is her natural hair color!) blue eyes and is 5'8'' tall. She is the second of four children- her sibs are Anna (25), Beth (20) and Joss (17). Apparently, acting is in her blood- her dad is an actor, her mother is the daughter of two actors and her grandparents once owned a theatre!




In Titanic, Kate charmingly portrays Rose Dewitt Bukater, the unhappy rich girl who feels trapped by the circumstances in her life, but is eventually set free by her relationship with Jack Dawson (Leonardo Dicaprio.) Titanic definitely deserved its 11 Oscars. The sets and costumes were magnificent, there were lots of gee whiz special effects, the acting was good and the script was moving, but it also had its funny moments- not to mention the snazzy necklace!

Titanic is the first movie to make a billion dollars in domestic and international sales. In the domestic box office, Titanic ranks number one of all time- beating the previous #1 Star Wars, which is very impressive, since Star Wars includes the recent re-release of the trilogy. James Horner's soundtrack is the best selling instrumental film score of all time- beating the old record set by the Chariots of Fire. Also, James Cameron's making of Titanic book was a bestseller.

I'm not alone in my appreciation of Kate. She has won numerous awards, the most prestigious being her Oscar nomination for playing Marianne and Rose. However, some people spend more time griping about Kate's weight instead of her skill as an actress, especially after she gained some weight after the filming of Titanic. I think Kate is very pretty just the way she is- being an actress is not about being skinny.

Here's an article from the March issue of Australian Who magazine that agrees with me:
An English rose in full bloom, Titanic star Kate Winslet refuses to prune back and become a typical Hollywood lightweight. Sweeping into the Golden Globes in LA in January very late, very flustered but oh-so sumptuous in a va-voom tight lace dress, Kate Winslet confessed with a laugh to Who Weekly that she'd spent seven hours getting ready but "didn't every other girl here?" Quite possibly but every other girl did not have man-of-the-moment Matt Damon gushing over her at an aftershow party. Or Geoffrey Rush eagerly waiting to "pay homage at the shrine of Kate Winslet" at another. And, sadly, not every other girl woke up to the stinging headlines about themselves the next morning: KATE'S TITANIC WEIGHT BATTLE.

One of my all time favorite movies is Sense and Sensibility! Based on Jane Austen's amazing book, it is the story of Marianne, Eleanor and Margaret Dashwood and their mother, who have suddenly become poor,due to their father's death. They struggle along through the story with problems of the heart, but finally, Marianne and Eleanor are married! Yeah! The acting, screenplay and costumes are all marvelous- Kate won an Oscar nomination for this role, which she lost to Mira Sorvino.

At the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) awards- where Kate won best supporting actress for her role as Marianne Dashwood in 1996- the only thing Titanic won was Best Supporting Actress (Gloria Stuart). At the Golden Globes, Kate wore a pretty lacy black dress. Titanic won for Best Picture: Drama, Best Director, Best Score, and Best Original Song, but didn't win best actor or actress (oh well, Kate will get her day eventually!)

At the Academy Awards, Kate looked fabulous in a green dress by Alexander McQueen for Givenchy ("it matches my eyes" she said). Titanic won 11 Oscars, tying with Ben Hur for the most. It got: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Best Soundeffects Editing, Best Editing, Best Costumes, Best Dramatic Score, Best Original Song (Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On") but not best actress or best supporting actress (Kate lost to Helen Hunt). Incindentally, this is the first time two actresses have gotten nominations for the same character (young and old Rose!) Also, this Academy Award nomination is Kate's second- she is the youngest actress ever to get two nominations. Mickey Rooney got his second when he was 23, so she beat him by a year.

Kate's new movie coming up is called Hideous Kinky. She plays Julia, a hippie mother of two girls traveling through Africa in the early 70's. The plot is based on the novel by Esther Freud (yes, the daughter of Sigmund Freud). They finished filming in Morocco in December of 97, and I hear it will come out in June of 98.

Kate- married??

Kate Winslet and Jim Threapleton were married yesterday by the priest who taught the actress at primary school - and then joined 160 guests for a bangers and mash reception at a local pub.

The ceremony at All Saints' Church in Miss Winslet's home town of Reading was supposed to be a secret, but news leaked out and security guards were called in to protect the wedding party.

The Oscar-winning Miss Winslet, 23, wore a cream tasselled gown and an Asian-style taselled headband. She carried yellow and white flowers and was followed into church by four attendants. Mr Threapleton, a 25-year-old assistant film director, wore a blue collarless suit.

The marriage service was conducted by Father John Mortiboys, who taught Miss Winslet and both her sisters. Outside the church, the couple kissed and walked along a corridor of well-wishers who threw rose petals at their feet. They then set off for the Crooked Billet pub in Stoke Row, ten miles away. Their guests followed in a fleet of coaches.

Once there, they celebrated with cheese and tomato tartlets, bangers and mash and bakewell tart and custard, which the bride later announced "went down a treat". They then danced to an Irish fiddle band - whose repertoire inevitably included tunes from Titanic.