Dame Helen Mirren’s talents have always been undeniable. Long before she won an Academy Award for her understated portrayal of Elizabeth II in The Queen, she became the golden child of British theater thanks to her enigmatic presence and one-of-a-kind versatility. Born to a working-class English mother and a Russian father who played viola with the London Philharmonic, a 13-year-old Mirren first discovered her passion for acting after seeing an amateur production of Hamlet.
“I was blown away by all this over-the-top drama,” she once told The Times in the UK. “We grew up without TV and never went to the cinema, so after Hamlet, all I wanted to do was get back into that world where all those fabulous things were possible.”
Mirren got a taste of fame early with her star-making turn in the National Youth Theatre’s production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic. The then 20-year-old earned such rapturous praise for the production that she became the youngest actor ever invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company, tackling roles such as Lady Macbeth and Miss Julie throughout her tenure. A documentary was soon commissioned to document her time at the RSC, appropriately titled Doing Her Own Thing.
It wasn’t until her beloved turn as Detective Jane Tennison in the 1991 British procedural Prime Suspect that Mirren became a household name across the globe. But she’s always understood the assignment at hand, whether it’s bringing levity to the role of a spirited Yorkshire housewife who bares it all in Calendar Girls or sparring with Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious franchise. And while she’s never strayed far from her theater roots, Mirren’s career—which boasts more than 130 film and television credits alone—mirrors the layered and idiosyncratic characters she’s brought to life over the past five decades.
Here, just for fun, Vogue digs through the archives to compile a photographic tribute to the divine dame.
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Photo: Courtesy of Getty Images
Actress Mary Payne and a 19-year-old Helen Mirren during rehearsal at the Queen’s Theatre, in London, for the National Youth Theatre’s 1964 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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Photo: Courtesy of Getty Images
Often cited as her first big break, Mirren starred as Cleopatra in the National Youth Theatre’s 1965 production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.
