About Helena Bonham Carter

Helena Bonham Carter was born 26 May 1966 is a British actress. Bonham Carter made her film debut in the K. M. Peyton film, A Pattern of Roses, before appearing in her first leading role in Lady Jane. She is best known for her portrayals of Lucy Honeychurch in the film A Room with a View, Marla Singer in the film Fight Club, Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter film series, her Oscar-nominated performance as Kate Croy in The Wings of the Dove, her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as well as her other collaborations with Tim Burton, her domestic partner since 2001. Bonham Carter will play the villainous Red Queen, alongside notable actors such as Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman, Anne Hathaway, and Christopher Lee, in Burton's 2010 film, Alice in Wonderland, and Enid Blyton in an adaptation of her life entitled Enid.
Bonham Carter was born in Golders Green, London. Her mother, Elena (née Propper de Callejón), is a psychotherapist. Her father, Raymond Bonham Carter, was a merchant banker and the alternate UK director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. during the 1960s;he came from a famous British political family, being the son of English Liberal politician Sir Maurice Bonham Carter and renowned politician and orator Violet Bonham Carter, whose father was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, H. H. Asquith (1908–1916). Helena Bonham Carter's maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was of half Spanish and half Jewish ancestry, and served as a diplomat and former Minister-Counsellor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C. Bonham Carter's Jewish maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was the daughter of Baron Eugène Fould-Springer (a French-born banker), and Marie Cecile Von Springer (whose father was the industrialist Baron Gustav Springer). Hélène Fould-Springer's sister was the French philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (1916–2003), the wife of Baron Élie de Rothschild, and her other sister, Therese Fould-Springer, was the mother of British writer David Pryce-Jones.

Bonham Carter has two brothers, Edward and Thomas, and is a distant cousin of fellow actor Crispin Bonham-Carter, who played Mr. Bingley in the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Bonham Carter. Bonham Carter is also distantly related to Admiral Stuart Bonham Carter, Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels (through marriage), pioneering English nurse Florence Nightingale[6] and is the grand-niece of Anthony Asquith, legendary English director of such classics as Carrington VC and The Importance of Being Earnest. Bonham Carter was educated at the South Hampstead High School, a girls' independent school in Hampstead, London and later at Westminster School, a co-educational independent school near the Palace of Westminster. Bonham Carter was denied admission to King's College, Cambridge University, not because of her grades or her test scores, but because school officials were afraid that she would leave mid-term to pursue her acting career. Because of Cambridge's rejection, Bonham Carter decided to concentrate fully on acting.
When Bonham Carter was just five, her mother had a serious nervous breakdown, from which it took her three years to recover. Upon her recovery, her experience in therapy led her to become a psychotherapist herself — Bonham Carter now pays her to read her scripts and deliver her opinion of the characters' psychological motivations. Five years after her mother's recovery, there was a more terrible familial blow. While holidaying in Greece, her father went deaf in one ear. He was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma, and a routine operation was carried out to remove the benign tumour. It went badly wrong. After 9 hours in surgery, Raymond, only 50 years of age, had a stroke that left him half-paralysed and confined to a wheelchair. With her two older brothers (both now bankers) at college, Bonham Carter was left to help her mother cope. She would later study her father's movements and mannerisms for her role in The Theory of Flight.
Bonham Carter did not receive any formal training in acting.In 1979, she won a national writing contest and used the money to pay for her entry into the actors directory Spotlight. She made her professional acting début at the age of 16, in a television commercial. She also had a part in a minor TV film A Pattern of Roses.

Filmography:
NEW!Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011) (filming) as Bellatrix Lestrange
NEW!Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (2010) (post-production) as Bellatrix Lestrange
NEW!The King's Speech (2010) (post-production) as Queen Elizabeth
NEW!Alice in Wonderland (2010) as The Red Queen
The Gruffalo (2009) (voice) as Mother Squirrel
Enid (2009) (TV)as Enid Blyton
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) as Bellatrix Lestrange
Terminator Salvation (2009) as Dr. Serena Kogan
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) as Mrs. Lovett
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) as Bellatrix Lestrange
Magnificent 7 (2005) (TV)as Maggi Jackson
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005/I) (VG) (voice) as Lady Tottington
Corpse Bride (2005) (voice) as Corpse Bride
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) (voice) as Lady Campanula Tottington
Conversations with Other Women (2005) as Woman
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) as Mrs. Bucket
Big Fish (2003) as Jenny - Young / Jenny - Senior / The Witch
Henry VIII (2003) (TV) as Anne Boleyn
Live from Baghdad (2002) (TV) as Ingrid Formanek
Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002) as Ruby
The Heart of Me (2002) as Dinah
Novocaine (2001) as Susan
Planet of the Apes (2001) as Ari
Football (2001) (as Helena Bonham-Carter) as Mum
Carnivale (2000) (voice) as Milly
The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything (1999) (TV) as Lily
Women Talking Dirty (1999) as Cora
Fight Club (1999) as Marla Singer
The Theory of Flight (1998) as Jane Hatchard
The Revengers' Comedies (1998) as Karen Knightly
Merlin (1998/II) (TV)as Morgan Le Fey
Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1997) as Rosemary
The Wings of the Dove (1997) as Kate Croy
Portraits chinois (1996) as Ada
Twelfth Night (1996) as Olivia
Jeremy Hardy Gives Good Sex (1995) as Herself
Mighty Aphrodite (1995) as Amanda
Margaret's Museum (1995) as Margaret MacNeil
Frankenstein (1994) as Elizabeth Frankestein
Butter (1994) (TV) as Dorothy
A Dark Adapted Eye (1994) (TV) as Faith Severn (adult)
Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald (1993) (TV) as Marina Oswald
Dancing Queen (1993) (TV) as Pandora/Julie
Howards End (1992) as Helen Schlegel
Brown Bear's Wedding (1991) (TV) (voice) as White Bear
Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) as Caroline Abbott
Hamlet (1990/I) as Ophelia
Getting It Right (1989)as Lady Minerva Munday
Francesco (1989) as Chiara
Six Minutes with Ludwig (1988)as The Star
La maschera (1988) as Iris
A Hazard of Hearts (1987) (TV) as Serena Staverley
The Vision (1987) (TV) as Jo Marriner
Maurice (1987) as Lady at Cricket Match
Lady Jane (1986) as Lady Jane Grey
A Room with a View (1985) as Lucy Honeychurch, Miss Bartlett's cousin and charge
A Pattern of Roses (1983) (TV) as Netty, The Past