Cate Blanchett Biography

Cate Blanchett (born May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) is an Oscar-winning actress.

She was born Catherine Elise Blanchett, the daughter of a Texan naval petty officer of distant French descent who came ashore in Melbourne and met her mother, a Melbourne schoolteacher. Her father, Robert, later worked in advertising after marrying her mother, June. He died of a heart attack when Cate was 10 years old. She has two siblings; the elder, Bob, is a computer programmer, and her younger sister, Genevieve, is a theatrical designer.

Blanchett's secondary education was in Melbourne at the Methodist Ladies' College, where she explored her passion for acting. She later moved to Sydney to study at the National Institute of Dramatic Art; graduating in 1992 and beginning her career on the stage. Her first major stage role was opposite Geoffrey Rush in the 1993 David Mamet play Oleanna. She also appeared as Ophelia in an acclaimed 1994-95 production of Hamlet, directed by Neil Armfield, starring Richard Roxburgh and Geoffrey Rush.

She had roles in Australian television drama mini-series. She appeared as 'Elizabeth Ashton' in the mini-series Heartland opposite Ernie Dingo ("Heartland" is known as "Burned Bridges" in the United States), and she appeared as Bianca in the mini-series Bordertown.

Her film debut was as an Australian nurse captured by the Japanese in the prisoner of war production of Paradise Road directed by Bruce Beresford, that co-starred Glenn Close and Frances McDormand.

Blanchett is perhaps best known for her role as Elizabeth I, Queen of England in the 1998 movie Elizabeth. This role earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, which she was widely considered to be likely to win (however the award instead went to Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love). Blanchett later won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2005 for playing Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorcese's The Aviator. This made Blanchett the first person ever to garner an Academy Award for playing a previous Oscar-winning actor.

Already an acclaimed actress, Blanchett received a host of new fans when she appeared in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies. She played the role of the elf Galadriel in all three films. She married playwright and screenwriter Andrew Upton, whom she met back in 1996 while she was performing in a production of The Seagull. It was hardly love at first sight, however. "He thought I was aloof and I thought he was arrogant," Blanchett later remarked. "It just shows you how wrong you can be. But once he kissed me that was that." The two were married in 1997 and welcomed their first child, Dashiell John, in December 2001; their second child, Roman Robert, was born in 2004. The younger son received a minor burn injury on May 15, 2005 while the family was in Marrakech, Morocco, for the filming of the movie Babel. After treatment there, Blanchett flew with him to London for further treatment. It is rumoured she is returning to live in Australia