Brenda Blethyn,
OBE (born 20 February 1946) is an
English actress and
author. Blethyn began her career on stage as a member of the
National Theatre company, and made her first television appearance in 1980. Following her
big screen debut with smaller supporting roles in films such as
The Witches (1990) and
A River Runs Through It (1992), she made her break-through role in the 1996
dramedy Secrets & Lies, for which she was awarded a
BAFTA, a
Golden Globe and an
Academy Award nomination.
Blethyn has appeared in an eclectic range of films, including
independent comedies such as
Saving Grace (2000),
Plots with a View (2002) and
Clubland (2007),
music-themed films like
Little Voice (1998) and
Beyond the Sea (2004) and big-budget films such as
Pride & Prejudice (2005) and
Atonement (2007). In addition, Blethyn has also appeared in television productions including
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993),
Belonging (2004) and
War and Peace (2007).
Early life
Born
Brenda Anne Bottle in
Ramsgate,
Kent,
England, Blethyn is the youngest of nine children of a
conservative Roman Catholic working class family. Her mother, Louisa Kathleen (
née Supple, b. 1904), was a housewife and former maid, who met Blethyn's father, William Charles Bottle (b. 1894), around 1922 while working for the same household in
Broadstairs, Kent.
Bottle had previously worked as a
shepherd, and spent six years in
India with the
Royal Field Artillery immediately prior to returning home to Broadstairs to become the family's
chauffeur.
Yet before the war, he found work as a mechanic at the
Vauxhall car factory in
Luton,
Bedfordshire.
