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Julie Walters Biography

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

Filmography: 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.

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.

But Walters was for a long time better known for an entirely different connection. At Manchester Polytechnic, she'd befriended another aspiring entertainer named Victoria Wood. In 1978, Wood was asked to write songs for a show at the Bush Theatre but also contributed a sketch, in which she appeared with Walters. Recognising the chemistry between them, Wood then invited Walters to co-star with her in a play she'd written, called Talent, which was screened on national TV. In it, Wood played the plump and boring friend of Walters' more glamorous wannabe cabaret performer. A sequel - Nearly A Happy Ending - was screened in 1980, followed a year later by a TV special (Wood & Walters: Two Creatures Great And Small), and then a full-blown series, Wood & Walters.

As her TV career was taking off, Walters continued to perform onstage, in 1980 taking the lead role in Willy Russell's Educating Rita. As the Liverpudlian hairdresser seeking to better herself by enrolling at the Open University, she played opposite Mark Kingston for six months - the play being such a hit it quickly transferred to the Piccadilly Theatre in London's West End. When adapted for the Silver Screen (Kingston's place being taken by Michael Caine), Educating Rita was a worldwide hit, in 1983 earning Walters her first Oscar nomination.

Reuniting with Victoria Wood in 1984, the pair continued a string of TV hits that lasts to this day. Walters appeared in many TV plays and series, including huge hits like Alan Bennett's Talking Heads and Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole. Onstage, she tested her dramatic abilities in the likes of Macbeth, The Rose Tattoo and Frankie And Johnny, while still finding time to appear in a succession of movies. She was Phil Collins beleaguered wife in Buster, a courageous and sensitive brothel-keeper in Personal Services, a student of Liza Minnelli's in Stepping Out, and Joe Orton's mother in Prick Up Your Ears (it's amazing how Walters can convince as characters of such wildly varying ages).

Such is her onscreen charisma and the sense of working class morality she projects that Walters was near-perfect as the strict but supportive dance teacher, Mrs Wilkinson, in Billy Elliot. "I loved her," said Walters later. "She was truthfully written, I felt. She was disappointed on every single level you can imagine". Truthfully written, truthfully played. Walters found herself Oscar-nominated for the role, alongside such heavyweights as Frances McDormand and Dame Judi Dench, losing out only to Marcia Gay Harden's spectacular effort opposite Ed Harris in Pollock.

Such a nomination is excellent exposure and, despite the fact that Walters was hardly tested by the Billy Elliott role, suddenly she was hot property, being cast as Mrs Molly Weasley (mother of Harry's best friend Ron) in Christopher Columbus's monumentally expensive adaptation of JK Rowling's Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone. With Rowling having sworn to complete seven Potter novels - one for each year that Harry spends at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry - and each of them looking set to be turned into movies, Walters could be on to a winner. She has already signed up for Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, with a more pronounced part than in the first film. And, as that movie is due to be shot back-to-back with Part 3, her name will surely be writ large on the world's poster-boards for years to come.

Julie Walters was married, in 1997, to Grant Roffey. The couple had been going out for twelve years previously. They met in a wine bar, Walters introducing herself with the words "Do you want to come home with me and have my babies?" and Roffey replying "When do you want to start?" Roffey abandoned his sociology studies and manages the 70-acre organic farm they bought in Sussex. He also looks after their daughter, Maisie who, terrifyingly for Walters and Roffey, was struck down with leukaemia at the age of two. Mercifully, the child recovered and consequently inspired Walters' book Baby Talk in 1990. Walters has also worked hard for children's charities, even visiting Kosovo during the Balkan crisis in order to speak out for the lost children of the war.

Walters was awarded an OBE for services to drama in 1999. Amongst her other awards, stretching back over the years, are a BAFTA for Boys From The Black Stuff, and a Golden Globe for Educating Rita. Already this year she picked up another BAFTA for Billy Elliot and an extremely prestigious Olivier award for her role in Arthur Miller's All My Sons. At the age of 50, she shows no signs of slowing down, her natural ebullience and street-wisdom still shining brightly through.

Dominic Willis