{"id":281613,"date":"2011-02-25T01:30:14","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T01:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/02\/25\/best-supporting-mum-why-helena-bonham-carter-says-her-mother-is-the-real-star\/"},"modified":"2011-02-25T01:30:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T01:30:14","slug":"best-supporting-mum-why-helena-bonham-carter-says-her-mother-is-the-real-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/25\/best-supporting-mum-why-helena-bonham-carter-says-her-mother-is-the-real-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Supporting Mum! Why Helena Bonham Carter says her mother is the REAL star"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

\nBy
\nPaul Scott<\/a>
Last updated at 1:30 AM on 25th February 2011<\/p>\n

Doubtless Helena Bonham Carter has allowed herself a fleeting glance in the mirror over recent days to cast a critical eye over the latest flamboyant ensemble she has chosen for her seemingly never-ending round of red-carpet events.<\/p>\n

She is the first to admit, however, that with her endearingly slapdash approach to dressing up, the results can go either way.<\/p>\n

When she gets it right, her Gothic style, fragile beauty and bird\u2019s-nest hairdo are a welcome antidote to the glossy production line of Hollywood\u2019s identikit leading ladies. When it goes wrong, she looks like the survivor of a Victorian cyclone. <\/p>\n

\n\"Bond:<\/p>\n

Bond: Helena and her mother Elena pictured at the 16th annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards in Los Angeles last month<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But aside from the occasional fashion faux pas, 44-year-old Helena is on a high at the moment, thanks to her bravura performance as the Queen Mother in hit British movie The King\u2019s Speech. She is up for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday \u2014 an accolade she won at the Baftas in London earlier this month. <\/p>\n

In a typically rambling but moving speech, the actress dedicated the award to her mother, Elena, saying: \u2018This is for all the best supporting wives \u2014 the Queen Mother herself, and my mum. There is no doubt that if my father were alive, he would have given it to her. She was the best supporting wife you could ever have wished for.\u2019<\/p>\n

It was a hint at Helena\u2019s traumatic early life, about which little is widely known.<\/p>\n

Watching at home on television was her mother, Mrs Bonham Carter. \u2018I didn\u2019t know Hellie was going to say that \u2014 it was a huge surprise,\u2019 Elena told me this week. \u2018But I was immensely touched by it, and she knows how very, very proud I am of her.\u2019<\/p>\n

Millions of viewers watching the ceremony would have had no idea about
\nthe tragic family history behind Helena\u2019s public declaration. It
\nincludes her battle with depression, her mother\u2019s mental illness and a
\ndevastating stroke suffered by Helena\u2019s late father that left him
\ndisabled.<\/p>\n

\n\"Dream<\/p>\n

Dream cast: Helena as Queen Elizabeth with Colin Firth as King George VI in a scene from The King’s Speech<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Her friends say this legacy\u00a0 haunts the star and led to her living at home until she was 32. \u2018I was trying to make it better,\u2019 Helena says. \u2018I thought: \u201cIf I remain a child, it will make up for what happened to Dad.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

Outwardly,Helena, the youngest of three children, was born into great privilege. Her father, the Honourable Raymond Bonham Carter, was a merchant banker who represented the Bank of England on the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n

Helena\u2019s great-grandfather was the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and her grandmother, the politician and orator Lady Violet Bonham Carter, was a close confidante of Winston Churchill. Meanwhile, Helena\u2019s mother, the French-Spanish Elena Propper de Callejon, is from a long line of European noblemen. Helena was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London, where she was close friends with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. <\/p>\n

But behind the fa\u00e7ade is a more distressing reality. In 1971, when she was five, her psychotherapist mother suffered a three-year mental breakdown, which left her mostly bedridden. <\/p>\n

Then, eight years later, her father had suffered a massive stroke. He was left quadriplegic, nearly blind and needing round-the-clock care of nurses at the family\u2019s huge home in Golders Green, North London.<\/p>\n

Her elder brothers were away at college, so it fell to the 13-year-old Helena to help care for her father. His illness provoked her own battle with depression. \u2018There\u2019s a streak in our family of, I\u2019d say, healthy insanity,\u2019 she says. \u2018We\u2019ve all had a bit \u2014 my mother, my grandmother and my great-grandmother. It\u2019s genetic.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Helena responded to her father\u2019s illness by becoming an actress. Her big break came when society magazine Tatler ran a feature about girls who looked like they belonged in a different era. Director Trevor Nunn saw it and cast her as the lead in his 1986 film Lady Jane, about the doomed Lady Jane Grey. <\/p>\n

Helena went on to win high-profile roles in period dramas, such as E.M. Forster\u2019s A Room With A View, and an Oscar nomination in 1997 for her part in the film version of Henry James\u2019s novel The Wings Of The Dove. <\/p>\n

\n\"Red<\/p>\n

In the limelight: Helena with The King’s Speech co-star Colin Firth, (left) and director Tom Hooper at a recent awards ceremony\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Despite her success, she stayed at the family home. The friend added:
\n\u2018Hellie couldn\u2019t make the break after her dad\u2019s illness \u2014 but she knew
\nit wasn\u2019t healthy to be living at home.\u2019 <\/p>\n

After 24 years in a
\nwheelchair, Raymond, who never lost his ability to speak, had another
\nstroke. He died in January 2004, aged 74, with the actress at his side.
\nHeartbreakingly, not long before, Raymond asked: \u2018Helena, how do I die? I
\njust can\u2019t seem to do it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, her home setup hampered her love life. Her first serious relationship was in 1994 with Kenneth Branagh, with whom she starred in Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein. Branagh was married to actress Emma Thompson, but within a year they\u2019d split \u2014 gossips cited Bonham Carter as the cause. <\/p>\n

But Helena was to be devastated in 1999 when Branagh ditched her. <\/p>\n

Two years later she fell for U.S. film director Tim Burton on the set of Planet Of The Apes. The couple, who have two children \u2014 Billy Ray, seven, and three-year-old Nell \u2014 bizarrely share three adjacent townhouses in Belsize Park, North London \u2014 one for each parent and another for the nanny. <\/p>\n

Burton has cast her in a series of his films, including Sweeney Todd and Alice In Wonderland, but it is her role in The King\u2019s Speech \u2014 the story of the then Queen Elizabeth\u2019s determination to help her husband George VI conquer his stammer \u2014 that has won her critical acclaim. <\/p>\n

Helena\u2019s success has allowed her to spend more time with her mother.<\/p>\n

\u2018She took me to the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards in LA,\u2019 Mrs Bonham Carter told me. \u2018Now I\u2019m just hoping she can repeat her success at the Oscars.\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a success that seems all the more extraordinary given the struggles Helena faced in her early life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Read more:
\nBest Supporting Mum! Why Helena Bonham Carter says her mother is the REAL star<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Paul Scott Last updated at 1:30 AM on 25th February 2011 Doubtless Helena Bonham Carter has allowed herself a fleeting glance in the mirror over recent days to cast a critical eye over the latest flamboyant ensemble she has chosen for her seemingly never-ending round of red-carpet events. She is the first to admit, however, that with her endearingly slapdash approach to dressing up, the results can go either way. When she gets it right, her Gothic style, fragile beauty and bird\u2019s-nest hairdo are a welcome antidote to the glossy production line of Hollywood\u2019s identikit leading ladies. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nBest Supporting Mum! 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