Julie Walters

Biography

Born: 22 February 1950
Where: Birmingham, England
Awards: 3 BAFTAs, 1 Golden Globe and 2 Oscar nominations
Filmography: The Complete List

Consistently voted the UK's most popular female light entertainer and comedienne, Julie Walters is a far more rounded artist than that. A successful stage performer of longstanding, she's been involved in many of the most important theatrical progressions of the last 25 years, as well as being a best-selling author and an award-winning screen actress. She also took a prime part in one of the most successful franchises in screen history, playing Mrs Weasley in the Harry Potter movies. Worldwide fame and critical respect - really, she has it all.

Julie Walters was born in Smethwick, Birmingham, on the 22nd of February, 1950. The youngest of three children (she has two brothers), she hails from an Irish Catholic family. From an early age, she wanted to be an actress, but was persuaded by her mother - a strong woman and a heavy influence on the family - to take up nursing as a profession. Eventually though, the draw of the stage was too much and, having studied English and Drama at Manchester Polytechnic, she joined the legendary Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. Her mother was extremely disappointed by this move, saying "She'll be in the gutter before she's 20" but was secretly proud of her daughter's subsequent achievements. When her mother died, in 1989, Walters was deeply moved to find amongst her possessions a box stuffed with newspaper clippings recording Julie's many successes.

Walters' connection with the earthy, realistic theatre of the North of England was forged at the Everyman. It was here, in 1974, that she first met playwright Alan Bleasdale (then still a drama teacher), and acted in his stage debut, Scully. She'd later score TV hits in more of his work, notably The Boys From The Black Stuff and his more recent adaptation of Oliver Twist (Bleasdale is renowned as a modern-day Dickens). She'd also win the respect of two other groundbreaking playwrights - Willy Russell and Alan Bennett, Bennett giving her a TV debut in 1978 in his 6-play series Me! I'm Afraid Of Virginia Woolf.