Helen Mirren

At the Edinburgh Television Festival in August 2004, director Stephen Frears revealed that he had cast Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in a forthcoming project entitled The Queen, set during the week between the death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. Ouspenskaya died from a stroke several days after receiving severe burns in a house fire, which she had caused by falling asleep while smoking a cigarette. She was invested as a DBE on December 5, 2003. Despite her two Academy Award nominations her later films were inferior productions such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and Tarzan and the Amazons (1945). She married director Taylor Hackford, her domestic partner since 1986, on 31 December 1997 in Los Angeles. Her other successes included The Rains Came (1939), Waterloo Bridge (1940), The Mortal Storm (1940), and Kings Row (1942). The "sexy" image she acquired in her youth has been little affected by encroaching age. She received a second nomination in 1939 for her role in Love Affair.

In 1972 she joined Peter Brook's International Centre for Theatre Research, and joined the group's tour across North Africa which created The Conference of the Birds. Her first Hollywood role, in Dodsworth (1936) brought her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. This led to her joining the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Cressida in Troilus and Cressida, and Lady Macbeth in the production by Trevor Nunn. Although she had appeared in a few Russian silent films many years earlier, Ouspenskaya had avoided making a career in film, until the financial hardship of her school forced her to consider the possibilities of film to help her build her finances. She first appeared on stage in 1965 as Cleopatra for the National Youth Theatre. One of Ouspenskaya's students at the school during this period was the then unknown teenager, Anne Baxter. Mirren was born in the UK to a Russian-noble father who emigrated there in response to the Russian Revolution. She performed regularly on Broadway over the next decade, and in 1929 she founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York.

She is particularly well-known for her role as female detective Jane Tennison in the Prime Suspect series of television dramas. The Moscow Art Theatre travelled widely throughout Europe and when it arrived in New York in 1922 she decided to remain. Dame Helen Mirren (born Ilynea Lydia Mironoff July 26, 1945) is a British stage, television and movie actress. A member of the Moscow Art Theatre, she was directed by Konstantin Stanislavski, and for the remainder of her life advocated and taught his method. The Queen (2005). Born in Tula, Russia, Ouspenskaya studied singing in Warsaw and acting in Moscow and performed extensively in Russian theater. Shadowboxer (2005). Maria Ouspenskaya (July 29, 1876 - December 3, 1949) was a Russian born actress who achieved success as an stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.

Prime Suspect 6 (2004). The Clearing (2004). Calendar Girls (2003). Gosford Park (2001).

Prime Suspect 4-5 (1995-1996). The Madness of King George (1994). Prime Suspect 1-3 (1991-1993). Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991).

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989). The Mosquito Coast (1986). 2010: Odyssey Two (1984). Excalibur (1981).

Caligula (1979). O Lucky Man! (1973). Age of Consent (1969).