Geraldine James

Geraldine James OBE (born July 6, 1950 in Maidenhead , Berkshire ; actually Geraldine Thomas ) is a British actress . In addition to her theater work, she has appeared in over 80 film and television roles since the mid-1970s, mostly dramas. For the feature film An Unworthy Woman (1989) she and Peggy Ashcroft won the Acting Award at the Venice International Film Festival .

Life

childhood and education

Geraldine James was born Geraldine Thomas and grew up in her native Maidenhead, not far from London , with a brother and sister. Her father Gerald Thomas was a successful cardiologist, her mother Annabella James (birth name: Doogan) was of Irish descent and suffered from an alcoholic disease . Her parents died in 1987. In retrospect, James described her childhood as loveless. Her father was reserved towards her and her parents separated when she was fourteen years old. James discussed her mother's alcoholic illness in various interviews and later became the patron of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA).

Her father sent James to Downe House , an exclusive boarding school in Berkshire . As a student, she participated in various Shakespeare performances. Last year James took her class to Stratford-upon-Avon , where she was impressed by Trevor Nunn's King Lear production, with Eric Porter in the title role. She was also inspired to take up the acting profession through the Shakespare play What you want with Vanessa Redgrave (1964) and many theater performances with Janet Suzman . Against the will of her father, with whom she was to be reconciled much later, James moved to London at the age of eighteen, where she trained as an actor at the local Drama Center . She earned the cost of doing this by doing odd jobs such as singing in a band or as a bartender. For a short time, James also worked as a cloakroom for the Royal Shakespeare Company .

Theater work and film and television roles

After completing her acting training, James claims that she got many roles easily. After four years in the English repertory theater in Chester , Exeter and Coventry (1972–1975), the mid-1970s saw her first smaller roles in television series and films. For her portrayal of a deaf-mute girl who drifts into prostitution ( Dummy , 1977), James won a first nomination for the British Academy Television Award . She became known to a worldwide cinema audience for her supporting role in Richard Attenborough's award-winning film biography Gandhi (1982). James had greater success in 1984 with the role of Sarah Layton in the multi-part television series The Jewel of the Crown , which earned her another nomination for the British Television Award. In the award-winning production, she appeared alongside Peggy Ashcroft , who promoted her and became her mentor.

Together with Ashcroft appeared James in 1989 in Peter Hall's film drama An unworthy woman , which both the Best Actor Award of the Film Festival of Venice earned (the film was in the UK as part of the television series Screen One published). In 1990 Hall entrusted her with the role of Portia in his revival of The Merchant of Venice alongside Dustin Hoffman as Shylock. For her debut at New York's Broadway , she won a Drama Desk Award and a nomination for the prestigious Tony Award . In the course of her theater career, James played classical roles in plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen ( Hedda Gabler ), Strindberg ( Miss Julie ) or Chekhov ( The Cherry Orchard ), as well as Annie Sullivan in William Gibson's The Miracle Worker and John Osborne's The Entertainer .

From the 1990s onwards, James mainly took on roles in British television productions. She was nominated two more times for the British Academy Television Award - as an older prostitute in the series Band of Gold (1995-1997) and as the attractive wife of a bank robber (played by Pete Postlethwaite ) in the multi-part The Sins (2000).

In 2003, James received the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) award . In 2009, Guy Ritchie cast her as Mrs. Hudson in the blockbuster Sherlock Holmes . This was followed by roles in larger productions such as Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), Ritchie's sequel Sherlock Holmes: Spiel im Schatten, and David Fincher's Delusion (both 2011).

family

In 1986 Geraldine James married her longtime partner, British fellow actor and director Joseph Blatchley . Their daughter (* 1985) had already been born the year before. James lives in south London with her husband.

Plays (selection)

• 1978: The Passion of Dracula ( Queen's Theater , London; role: Dr. Helga Von Zandt)
• 1979: The Merchant of Venice ( Coventry ; role: Jessica)
• 1981: The White Devil (Oxford Playhouse, Oxford )
• 1987: When I was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout ( Whitehall Theater , London)
• 1988: Cymbeline ( National Theater , London; role: Imogen)
• 1989–1990: The Merchant of Venice (Phoenix Theater, London; 46th Street Theater, New York City; role: Portia)
• 1992: Death and the Maiden (Duke Of York's Theater, London)
• 1993: Give Me Your Answer, Do (Hampstead Theater, London)
• 1993: Hedda Gabler (Manchester Royal Exchange Theater, Manchester)
• 1993: Lysistrata ( Old Vic Theater , London)
• 1998: Give Me Your Answer, Do (Hampstead Theater)
• 2001: Faith Healer (Almeida at King's Cross, London; role: Grace)
• 2003: The Cherry Orchard (Oxford Stage Company)
• 2004: Home (Oxford Stage Company)
• 2005: The UN Inspector (National Theater, Olivier Theater, London; role: Anna Andreyevna)

Filmography (selection)

• 1976: Code name Seeney ( The Sweeney , TV series, episode 3x10 Pay Off )
• 1977: Dummy (TV movie)
• 1978: Wings of Ash: Pilot for a Dramatization of the Life of Antonin Artaud (short film)
• 1978: Crown Court (TV series, episode 7x13 The Song Not the Singer: Part 1 )
• 1979: Love Among the Artists (TV series, 5 episodes)
• 1979: The Dumb Waiter
• 1979: Bloody Kids
• 1980: Sweet William
• 1982: Gandhi
• 1984: The Jewel in the Crown (TV series, 12 episodes)
• 1985: Blott on the Landscape (TV series, 6 episodes)
• 1988: Echoes (TV series, 4 episodes)
• 1989: The Tall Guy (The Tall Guy)
• 1989: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
• 1991: Teen Agent - If looks could kill (If Looks Could Kill)
• 1991: Beltenebros
• 1992: The Bridge
• 1994: Words Upon the Window Pane
• 1994: Land Behind the Rainbow (No Worries)
• 1995–1997: Band of Gold (TV series, 18 episodes)
• 1996: Moll Flanders
• 1997: Agent Null Null Nix (The Man Who Knew Too Little)
• 2000: Lushin's Defense (The Luzhin Defense)
• 2000: The miracle of Taliesin Jones (The Testimony of Taliesin Jones)
• 2000: The Sins (TV series, 7 episodes)
• 2000: Lover's Prayer (All Forgotten)
• 2002: Tom & Thomas
• 2002: Odor of Chrysantemums
• 2003: Calendar Girls (Calendar Girls)
• 2004: He Knew He Was Right (TV series, 4 episodes)
• 2004: The Fever
• 2004: Little Britain (TV series, 4 episodes)
• 2004: Hex (TV series, 3 episodes)
• 2005: The Gallop (After the Funeral)
• 2006: Jane Hall (TV series, 5 episodes)
• 2006: The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (TV series, 5 episodes)
• 2007: The Time of Your Life (TV series, 6 episodes)
• 2008: The Last Enemy (TV series, 5 episodes)
• 2008: Little Britain USA (TV series, 4 episodes)
• 2009: Sherlock Holmes
• 2010: Alice in Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland)
• 2010: We Want Sex (Made in Dagenham)
• 2011: The Farmer's Wife
• 2011: Arthur
• 2011: Sherlock Holmes : A Game of Shadows
• 2011: Verblendung (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
• 2013: Diana
• 2013–2014: Utopia (TV series, 8 episodes)
• 2014: Robot Overlords - rule of the machine (Robot Overlords)
• 2015: 45 years
• 2015: Black Work (miniseries, 3 episodes)
• 2016: Alice in Wonderland: Behind the Mirrors (Alice Through the Looking Glass)
• 2016: The Five (TV series, 10 episodes)
• 2016: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
• 2017: Daphne
• 2017: Sergeant Rex - Not Without My Dog (Megan Leavey)
• 2017: Beast
• since 2017: Anne with an E (TV series)
• 2019: Back to Life (TV series, 9 episodes)
• 2019: Downton Abbey

Awards

• 1978: Nomination for the BAFTA TV Award for Dummy (Category: Best Actress)
• 1985: Nomination for the BAFTA TV Award for The Jewel of the Crown - On the Other Shore (Best Actress)
• 1989: Best Actor Award of the International Film Festival of Venice for an unworthy woman (together with Peggy Ashcroft )
• 1990: Nomination for the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for An Unworthy Woman (Best Actress)
• 1990: Drama Desk Award for The Merchant of Venice (Best Theater Actress)
• 1990: nominated for the Tony Award for The Merchant of Venice (Best Actress in a play)
• 1996: Nomination for the BAFTA TV Award for Band of Gold (Best Actress)
• 2001: Nomination for the BAFTA TV Award for The Sins (Best Actress)
• 2007: Nomination for the Golden Nymph at the Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo for The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (best actress in a television series)

Web links

• Geraldine James in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Geraldine James in the Internet Broadway Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Greenstreet, Rosanna: The Questonnaire: Geraldine James . In: The Guardian , October 15, 1994, p. T78.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Honan, Corinna: I was terrified of men . In: Daily Mail , September 10, 1994, pp. 14-16.
3. ↑ Geraldine James . In: Contemporary Theater, Film, and Television . Vol. 76. Gale, 2007.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Geraldine James . In: Debrett's People of Today . Debrett's Peerage Ltd., 2008 (accessed via Biography Resource Center . Farmington Hills, Mich .: Gale, 2009).
5. ↑ ^{a b} Geraldine James: I worry I'll turn into an alcoholic like my mother at dailymail.co.uk, accessed March 20, 2012
6. ↑ ^{a b} Rothstein, Mervyn: For Actress in 'The Merchant,' Hatred of Portia Turns to Love . In: New York Times , Jan 2, 1990, p. 13.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Wolf, Matt: ( AP ): Understanding India in Two Celebrated Projects . February 1, 1985 (accessed via LexisNexis Wirtschaft ).
8. ↑ ^{a b} Geraldine James makes her presence felt at latimes.com, accessed on March 20, 2012
9. ↑ A room of my own: Geraldine James at guardian.co.uk, accessed March 20, 2012