Helena Bonham Carter

Biography

An aristocratic young lead, Bonham Carter's solemn, pre-Raphaelite beauty and forceful presence have made her the quintessential 19th-century naif or willful heroine in a series of meticulously detailed adaptations of novels by E.M. Forster and others. (She can be seen nude at this free celebrity site). Whether playing the romantic young heroine of the Ismail Merchant-James Ivory adaptation, "A Room With a View" (1986), or the loony, headstrong sister in their "Howards End" (1992), Bonham Carter managed to mix upper-crust haughtiness with human frailty. While her association with the Merchant-Ivory team brought her recognition, it also typecast her in period material.

Well-born into a family of politicians and film professionals, Bonham Carter began acting and writing while in prep school. Unlike many British performers, Bonham Carter had her first success onscreen, not onstage. Trevor Nunn cast her as the doomed "Lady Jane" (1986), with Cary Elwes as her Lord Dudley. Her first Merchant/Ivory film was "A Room with a View", in which she played a breathlessly young tourist in Florence. She had small roles in "Maurice" and the modern drama "The Vision" (both 1987) and played an actress loved by a roue in the Italian-made "La Maschera" (1988).

There was a modern role with the mild comedy "Getting It Right" (1989), but most of her films put her far into the past: Ophelia to Mel Gibson's Melancholy Dane in Franco Zeffirelli's "Hamlet" (1990); "Howards End"; and as Elizabeth, the doctor's love interest in Kenneth Branagh's "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (1994). Helen had a success with the modern comedy "Mighty Aphrodite" (1995), in the "Mia Farrow role" as Woody Allen's young, self-centered wife, complete with Yank accent. A smaller-budget outing was the period drama "Margaret's Museum" (also 1995), in which she played the headstrong daughter of a coal miner. She again worked with Trevor Nunn as Olivia in "Twelfth Night" (1996) and had one of her best roles as a scheming woman in love with a poor journalist in "The Wings of the Dove" (1997), earning a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

The following year, she reteamed onscreen with Branagh as a wheelchair-bound woman bent on losing her virginity before she dies in "Theory of Flight". In a further attempt to distance herself from period pieces, the actress essayed a woman who attends self-help groups for no particular reason and who finds herself drawn to a similarly inclined male (Edward Norton) in "Fight Club" (1999). Despite layers of makeup, Helena was recognizable as the sympathetic Ari in the Tim Burton-directed version of "Planet of the Apes" (2001).

Later that year, she deployed her femme fatale persona as a patient who leads her dentist (Steve Martin) into a web of sex, drugs and murder in the thriller "Novocaine".

Pics

Nude pictures:
Wings of the Dove (1997)

Naked movies:
Margaret's Museum (1995)

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