Cate Blanchett Biography

Cate Blanchett was born in 1969 in Melbourne, Australia. Her father was an American naval officer who fell in love with Cate's mother, a schoolteacher. Her father died of a heart attack when Cate was only ten years old. She has an older brother, Bob, and a younger sister, Genvieve.Cate received her education at the Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne where her interest in acting was born. Other passions of hers were economics and fine arts, which she studied before deciding to leave Australia to travel.During her travels, Blanchett found herself in Egypt at the age of eighteen. A guest at the same Cairo hotel where she was staying asked her if she wanted to be an extra in a movie that was set to film. Blanchett agreed, and on the following day she found herself as part of a cheering crowd in a fight scene for a boxing film. She did not find the experience enjoyable and even walked off the set.Aftter traveling for a year, Cate returned to Australia to enroll at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She graduated from the school in 1992, and her degree allowed her to pursue a career on the stage.Blanchett began her professional acting career performing in plays throughout Australia, the first being Oleanna in 1993. The film also starred Acedemy Award winner, Geoffrey Rush, who is also an Australian native. The next play she starred in was Hamlet from 1994 to 1995, which again co-starred Geoffrey Rush.After her success in several plays, Blanchett went on to star in a television mini-series before landing her first role in the film Paradise Road, which co-starred Glenn Close and Frances McDormand.Throughout the 1990s Blanchett continued to star in quite a few films, some of which would earn her Academy Award nominations. She also continued to perform in plays, including The Seagull, which is where she met her husband in 1996.Her husband, Andrew Upton, is a playwright and screenwriter. Although her initial impression of him was that he seemed arrogant, and he felt she seemed aloof, it took only one kiss to cement their relationship. The couple married in December of 1997. Their first son, Dashiell John, was born in 2001 and their second son, Roman Robert, was born in 2004. Until recently, Cate and her family have made England their home base. The entire family has recently moved back to Australia.Blanchett has starred in numerous memorable roles. The list includes Elizabeth in 1998, in which she earned an Academy Award nomination for her role as the Queen of England. She also participated in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which has given her a whole new fan base. It was said that the only reason she wanted to participate in the film was because she would get to wear pointed ears for her role as the elf queen. It was also said that after filming wrapped, she took the ears home with her as a souvenir.In 2005 Cate won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator. Her co-star was Leonardo DiCaprio and the director was the famous Martin Scorsese.

• AskMen.com - Cate Blanchett