BRITISH CELEBRITIES (III): ILYENA VASILIEVNA MIRONOVA

Hellen Mirren

Ilyena Vasilievna Mironova (26 July 1945) is an English actress also known as Helen Mirren who was born in Chiswick. Her paternal grandfather was a Russian Colonel who was in the Imperial Russian Army and negotiated an arms deal in Britain when he and his family were stranded during the Russian Revolution. Her father was one of the Queen Victoria’s butchers. Helen studied Speech and Drama and was accepted in the National Youth Theatre and in the Royal Shakespeare Company.

After a successful theatrical career, she changed to TV and cinema. During the filming of White nights, she met her future husband. In this film, she played Galina Ivanova, the Nikolai Rochenko’s ex-girlfriend. He was a soviet dancer who had defected from the Soviet Union. The scene between Rochenko (played by the professional dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov) and Ivanova (Helen Mirren) in the Kirov Theatre of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) is one of the most beautiful and touching in the cinema story. Although, Helen considers herself “very anti-monarchist”, she participated in The Queen, where she played the main character of Queen Elizabeth II, winning an Oscar with a memorable interpretation of the British Monarch and she received a Dame Hood in the Order of the British Empire for services to the performing arts in 2003.

More information: Helen Mirren Official Site

As we go down life's lonesome highway
Seems the hardest thing to do is to find a friend or two
A helping hand
Some one who understands
That when you feel you've lost your way
You've got some one there to say "I'll show you".