Kate Nelligan

Patricia Colleen Nelligan (born March 16, 1950), known professionally as Kate Nelligan, is a Canadian stage, film and television actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1991 film The Prince of Tides, and the same year won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Frankie and Johnny. She is also a four-time Tony Award nominee for her work on Broadway, receiving nominations for Plenty (1983), A Moon for the Misbegotten (1984), Serious Money (1988) and Spoils of War (1989). Early life Nelligan, the fourth of six children, was born in London, Ontario, the daughter of Patrick Joseph Nelligan and his wife Josephine Alice (née Deir). Her father was a factory repairman and municipal employee in charge of ice rinks and recreational parks, and her mother was a schoolteacher. Her mother, whom Nelligan has described as "very powerful, very brilliant and very, very crazy", suffered from alcohol abuse and other psychological problems, and was subsequently institutionalized. Nelligan attended London South Collegiate Institute in London, Ontario, where she went by “Trish”, and then studied at Glendon College in Toronto, but did not graduate. Instead, she switched to studies at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. Career In August 1972, Nelligan launched her professional stage career as a "funny and convincing" Corie in the Bristol Old Vic production of Barefoot in the Park by Neil Simon. In the Bristol Old Vic studio space in the following April she took the role of Leila in The Screens, an abridgement by Howard Brenton of Jean Genet's savage Les Paravents. On television, she appeared in a regular role in the British television series The Onedin Line. In 1974, she was invited to London to play the part of Jenny in David Hare's play Knuckle at the Comedy Theatre, followed by a season with the National Theatre playing Ellie in Heartbreak House. 1975 saw her appear opposite Anthony Hopkins in the televised play The Arcata Promise followed by the televised theatrical version of The Count of Monte Cristo that featured an all-star cast of British and American actors. That same year her first feature-length film The Romantic Englishwoman was released.