Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is a BAFTA Award-winning English actress. She is noted for having played a wide range of diverse characters over her career, but is probably best-known for her role as Rose DeWitt Bukater in the highest-grossing film of all time, Titanic (1997).

Although Winslet has not won an Academy Award, she has been favoured by the Academy: she was the youngest person to receive two Oscar nominations, and also had the most Oscar nominations of any actor before the age of 30 (having received a total of four nominations by that age). In addition, there have been only two occasions where two actors playing the same character in the same film have both been nominated for an Oscar; Winslet was a nominee in both instances (for Titanic and Iris).

Early life
Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, England to Roger Winslet and Sally Bridges, both of whom were actors. Her maternal grandparents, Oliver and Linda Bridges, founded and operated the Reading Repertory, and her uncle, Robert Bridges, appeared in the original West End production of Oliver! Her sisters are Beth Winslet and Anna Winslet, also actresses.

Winslet, raised an Anglican, began studying drama at the age of eleven at the Redroofs Theatre School,[1], a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, and was soon cast as a spokesperson for a cereal in television commercials.

Career
Winslet's career began on television, with a co-starring role in the BBC children's science fiction serial Dark Season in 1991, followed by appearances in the made-for-tv movie Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1992 and an episode of the medical drama Casualty in 1993, also for the BBC.

Winslet alongside Melanie Lynskey in Heavenly Creatures, this was her first film role.Winslet's film career took off with laudatory praise and recognition in 1994 when she starred in a joint leading role, as Juliet Hulme in director Peter Jackson's critically acclaimed Heavenly Creatures, playing a vivacious and imaginative teen who helps her best friend murder her mother when they are not allowed to be together.

This role was followed by the successful film Sense and Sensibility (co-starring Emma Thompson), which made her well-known, especially in the UK. Winslet became famous world-wide after the 1997 release of Titanic, a massive hit which holds the record as highest-grossing film in history (not accounting for inflation) at more than 1 billion dollars in box-office worldwide. It went on to win 11 Academy Awards.

Winslet has been regarded as something of a critics' darling, generally receiving positive reviews for every one of her films. Despite Titanic's success, she has continued making lower-budget, independent films, including Hideous Kinky and Holy Smoke; her roles in these smaller, more artistic films appear to be one of choice - she turned down the lead in Shakespeare in Love to make Hideous Kinky. She has also taken several roles in studio "period drama"s like Quills, Iris and Finding Neverland. (For a time, she was given the nickname "Corset Kate").

In 2005, Winslet appeared in a television commercial for the American Express credit card. As part of the "My Life, My Card" campaign, the ad shows Winslet strolling around Camden Lock, in London, as she makes references to all the events that have happened to her film characters - such as going to prison for murder (Heavenly Creatures), being penniless and heartbroken (Sense and Sensibility), almost drowning (Titanic), and having her memory erased (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). During the ad, she is shown holding items relating to her films; during the reference to Sense and Sensibility she thumbs through a copy of the book, and when she references Finding Neverland, she's holding a hook.

Winslet also appeared in an episode of BBC's comedy series Extras in August of 2005, as 'herself'. She memorably told Andy and Maggie, the two characters who star in the series, that she was doing a film about the Holocaust because she was tired of losing out on Oscars, as she's been nominated four times, and that everyone who does a film about the Holocaust wins an Oscar. Ricky Gervais later said on NPR that she was his favorite guest star.

In February 2006, Winslet announced that she would collaborate with her husband, director Sam Mendes, on a film version of the Richard Yates novel, Revolutionary Road. She also has interest in returning to the stage[citation needed].

Personal life
On November 22, 1998, Winslet married director Jim Threapleton. The two have a daughter, Mia Honey, who was born on October 12, 2000. After a divorce in 2001, Winslet began a relationship with director Sam Mendes, whom she married on May 24, 2003, on the island of Anguilla in the Caribbean. Their son, Joe Alfie, was born on December 22, 2003.

The media, particularly in England, have enthusiastically documented her weight fluctuations over the years. Winslet has been outspoken about her refusal to lose weight in order to conform to the Hollywood ideal. In February 2003, the British edition of GQ magazine published photographs of Winslet which had been digitally enhanced to make her look dramatically thinner than she really was; Winslet issued a statement saying that the alterations were made without her consent.