Zoë Wanamaker

Zoë Wanamaker (born 13 May 1949) is an American-British actress who has worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.

Zoë Wanamaker was born in New York City on 13 May 1949, the daughter of Canadian actress and radio performer Charlotte Holland and American actor, film director, and radio producer Sam Wanamaker (born Samuel Wattenmacker).

Her father was of Ukrainian-Jewish descent, although she had a secular and non-observant upbringing.

Whilst working in the United Kingdom in 1952, Wanamaker's father found out he had been blacklisted in Hollywood.

Her parents therefore decided to remain in the UK.

She was educated at the independent King Alfred School in Hampstead and at Sidcot School, a Quaker boarding school in Winscombe, Somerset.

Zoe attended Hornsey College of Art for the Pre-Diploma Course before she trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Wanamaker's career started in the theatre.

From 1976 to 1984 she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

A nine-time Olivier Award nominee, she won for Once in a Lifetime (1979) and Electra (1998).

She won an Olivier Award for her 1979 performance in Once in a Lifetime and a second for Sophocles' Electra in 1998.

Starting in the early 1980s, Wanamaker began performing on screen, most notably in a number of critically acclaimed television productions, such as the BBC Television production Edge of Darkness; she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for her portrayal of the love interest of a suspected serial killer in the first instalment of the Granada series Prime Suspect.

She has also received four Tony Award nominations for her work on Broadway; for Piaf (1981), Loot (1986), Electra (1999), and Awake and Sing! (2006).

In 1985, she played Verdi's wife Giuseppina Strepponi in the original production of After Aida.

She appeared on stage playing the part of Beatrice opposite Simon Russell Beale as Benedick in the National Theatre's production of Much Ado About Nothing.

She has received Tony Award nominations for her performances in Piaf, Loot, Electra, and Awake and Sing!.

Television series have included Paradise Postponed (as Charlotte Fanner-Titmuuss, 1986) and Love Hurts (1992–94) with Adam Faith.

She was twice nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress, for Prime Suspect (1991) and Love Hurts (1992–1994).

She appeared with Wendy Hiller in The Countess Alice in 1992, playing a rebellious woman searching for the truth about her past in war-torn Germany.

She has acted in the films Wilde (1997), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), and My Week with Marilyn (2011).

In 1997, Wanamaker was the first person to speak on the stage of the newly completed replica theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, on London's South Bank.

This was in recognition of the role played by her father in founding the new theatre.

She subsequently became Honorary President of the Globe.

She portrayed Susan Harper in the sitcom My Family (2000–2011), and appeared in the ITV dramas Agatha Christie's Poirot (2005–2013), Mr Selfridge (2015), and Girlfriends (2018).

She played Clarice, one of the dim-witted twin sisters of Lord Groan in Gormenghast (2000), a BBC television adaptation of Mervyn Peake's trilogy.

Wanamaker portrayed Susan Harper in the BBC situation comedy My Family from 2000 to 2011.

Wanamaker was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2001 by Queen Elizabeth II.

She has received numerous accolades including a Laurence Olivier Award and nominations for three BAFTA Awards, and four Tony Awards.

She played Madam Hooch in the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001).

She did not reprise the role in the rest of the sequels, accusing the producers of underpaying their actors.

She voiced a CGI character named Lady Cassandra in the Doctor Who episode "The End of the World" (2005), and reprised the role (also appearing in the flesh this time) in the episode "New Earth" (2006).

Wanamaker lent her voice to the 2008 Xbox 360 game Fable II as the blind Seeress Theresa, who guides the playing character throughout the game.

The BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 24 February 2009, revealed that her paternal grandfather Maurice Wanamaker (originally Manus Watmacher) was a tailor from Mykolaiv.

From May to October 2010, Wanamaker appeared in Arthur Miller's All My Sons as Kate Keller at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in London.

She returned to voice Theresa again in Fable III in 2010, and again in 2012 for Fable: The Journey.

Wanamaker appeared in Terence Rattigan's All On Her Own from 24 October 2015 until 13 January 2016 at the Garrick Theatre.

The work is a one-woman play that preceded Rattigan's Harlequinade, which she also appeared in, each night as part of a never-before-seen double bill.

In 2016 she appeared in the world premiere production of Elegy at the Donmar Warehouse.

She returned to the Broadway stage in the 2023 Sharr White memory play Pictures From Home alongside Nathan Lane and Danny Burstein.

The play is adapted from photographer Larry Sultan's photo memoir of the same name.