Zoë Wanamaker


Zoë Wanamaker is an American-born British actress who has worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. A nine-time Olivier Award nominee, she won for Once in a Lifetime and Electra. She has also received four Tony Award nominations for her work on Broadway; for Piaf, Loot, Electra, and Awake and Sing!.
Wanamaker's film appearances include Wilde, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and My Week with Marilyn. She was twice nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress, for Prime Suspect and Love Hurts, and starred as Susan Harper in the long-running sitcom My Family. She has also appeared in the ITV dramas Agatha Christie's Poirot, Mr Selfridge, and Girlfriends.

Early life

Zoë Wanamaker was born in New York City on 13 May 1949, the daughter of Canadian actress and radio performer Charlotte Holland and American actor, film director, and radio producer Sam Wanamaker. Her parents were Jewish, although she had a secular and non-observant upbringing. Her father was of Ukrainian-Jewish descent; the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 24 February 2009, revealed that her paternal grandfather Maurice Wanamaker was a tailor from Mykolaiv.
Whilst working in the United Kingdom in 1952, Wanamaker's father found out he had been blacklisted. Her parents therefore decided to remain there. She was educated at the independent King Alfred School in Hampstead and at Sidcot School, a Quaker boarding school in Somerset. Zoe attended Hornsey College of Art for the Pre-Diploma Course before she trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Career

Stage

Wanamaker's career started in the theatre. From 1976 to 1984 she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. She won an Olivier Award for her 1979 performance in Once In a Lifetime and a second for Sophocles' Electra in 1998. In 1985, she played Verdi's wife Giuseppina Strepponi in the original production of After Aida. She appeared on stage playing the part of Beatrice opposite Simon Russell Beale as Benedick in the National Theatre's production of Much Ado About Nothing. She has received Tony Award nominations for her performances in Piaf, Loot, Electra, and Awake and Sing!.
In 1997, Wanamaker was the first person to speak on the stage of the newly completed replica theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, on London's South Bank. This was in recognition of the role played by her father in founding the new theatre. She subsequently became Honorary President of the Globe.
From May to October 2010, Wanamaker appeared in Arthur Miller's All My Sons as Kate Keller at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in London.
Wanamaker appeared in Terence Rattigan's All On Her Own from 24 October 2015 till 13 January 2016 at the Garrick Theatre. The work is a one-woman play that preceded Rattigan's Harlequinade, which she also appeared in, each night as part of a never-before-seen double bill. In 2016 she appeared in the world premiere production of Elegy at the Donmar Warehouse.

Screen

Starting in the early 1980s, Wanamaker began performing on screen, most notably in a number of critically acclaimed television productions, such as the BBC Television production Edge of Darkness; she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for her portrayal of the love interest of a suspected serial killer in the first instalment of the Granada series Prime Suspect.
Television series have included Paradise Postponed and Love Hurts with Adam Faith. She appeared with Wendy Hiller in The Countess Alice in 1993, playing a rebellious woman searching for the truth about her past in war-torn Germany.
She played Madam Hooch in the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
She played Clarice, one of the dim-witted twin sisters of Lord Groan in Gormenghast, a BBC television adaptation of Mervyn Peake's trilogy.
Wanamaker portrayed Susan Harper in the BBC situation comedy My Family from 2000 to 2011.
She voiced a CGI character named Lady Cassandra in the Doctor Who episode "The End of the World", and reprised the role in the episode "New Earth".
Wanamaker lent her voice to the 2008 Xbox 360 game Fable II as the blind Seeress Theresa, who guides the playing character throughout the game. She returned to voice Theresa again in Fable III in 2010, and again in 2012 for .
She played Ariadne Oliver in six episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot.
In 2015, she joined the cast of Mr. Selfridge as Princess Marie, the Russian mother-in-law of Rosalie Selfridge/Bolotoff.

Honours

Wanamaker was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2001 New Year Honours for services to drama. She also received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of East Anglia on 19 July 2012.

Public advocacy

Wanamaker has been a Patron of the UK charity Tree Aid, since 1997. Tree Aid enables communities in Africa's drylands to fight poverty and become self-reliant, while improving the environment. In 2006 Wanamaker recorded a successful Radio 4 appeal for the charity
She is a patron of Dignity in Dying, the Lymphoedema Support Network, Youth Music Theatre UK and of the Young Actors' Theatre, Islington. She is also one of the Honorary Patrons of the London children's charity Scene & Heard. Wanamaker also supports Survival International's campaign to save the threatened native tribes in Brazil.
In August 2014, Wanamaker was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.
Wanamaker is one of nine presidents of The Young People's Trust for the Environment.

Personal life

Wanamaker lived for many years with fellow Royal Shakespeare Company actor David Lyon. In November 1994, she married actor/dramatist Gawn Grainger. She has no children. Wanamaker holds both British and American citizenship. She became a British citizen in 2000.
Her father was actor and producer Sam Wanamaker. Film historian Marc Wanamaker is her cousin.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Theatre

Awards and nominations

Year given is year of ceremony.
YearAwardCategoryNominated workResult-
1979Olivier AwardBest Actress in a RevivalOnce in a Lifetime
1981Tony AwardBest Featured in a PlayPiaf!
1981Drama Desk AwardOutstanding Featured Actress in a PlayPiaf!
1984Olivier AwardBest Actress in a RevivalTwelfth Night
1984Olivier AwardBest Actress in a Supporting RoleThe Time of Your Life
1985Olivier AwardBest Performance in a Supporting RoleMother Courage
1986Tony AwardBest Featured Actress in a PlayLoot
1986Drama Desk AwardOutstanding Featured Actress in a PlayLoot
1989/90Olivier AwardBest Performance in a Supporting RoleOthello
1991Olivier AwardBest Actress in a Supporting RoleThe Crucible
1992BAFTA TV AwardBest ActressPrime Suspect
1993BAFTA TV AwardBest ActressLove Hurts
1996Olivier AwardBest ActressThe Glass Menagerie
1998BAFTA Film AwardBest Supporting Actress Wilde
1998Olivier AwardBest ActressElectra
1999Tony AwardBest Actress in a PlayElectra
1999Drama Desk AwardOutstanding Actress in a PlayElectra
2002Olivier AwardBest ActressBoston Marriage
2006Tony AwardBest Featured Actress in a PlayAwake and Sing!