Julia Mary "Julie" Walters, CBE is an English actress and writer.
She has won two BAFTA Film Awards, four BAFTA TV Awards and received the BAFTA Fellowship
in 2014.
Walters first came to international prominence in 1983, for playing the title role in Educating
Rita.
It was a role she had created on the West End stage and it earned her an Academy Award
nomination for Best Actress.
It also won her a BAFTA and a Golden Globe.
She received a second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actress, for
her role in the 2000 film Billy Elliot, which also won her a BAFTA.
Her other film roles include Personal Services, Prick Up Your Ears, Buster, Stepping Out,
Calendar Girls and Mamma Mia!.
She has also played Molly Weasley in seven of the eight Harry Potter films.
On stage, she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress for the 2001 production of All My
Sons.
On television, she is well known for her collaborations with Victoria Wood and has appeared with her
in several television shows including Wood and Walters, Victoria Wood As Seen on TV,
Pat and Margaret and Dinnerladies.
She has won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress four times, for My Beautiful Son, Murder,
The Canterbury Tales and as Mo Mowlam in Mo.
She also starred in A Short Stay in Switzerland in 2009, which won her an International Emmy
for Best Actress.
In 2006, she came fourth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest TV stars in Britain.
Early life Walters was born in St. Chad's Hospital, Edgbaston,
Birmingham, Warwickshire, then the maternity hospital for Smethwick, Staffordshire.
Her parents, Mary Bridget, an Irish Catholic postal clerk born in Ireland, and Thomas Walters,
an English builder and decorator, lived at 69 Bishopton Road, near Lightwoods Park, Bearwood.
The youngest of five children and the third to survive birth, Walters had an early education
at a convent school and later at Holly Lodge Grammar School for Girls on Holly Lane in
Smethwick, although she was asked to leave at the end of her lower sixth because of her
"high jinks".
In an interview with Alison Oddey, Walters said about her early schooling: "I was never
going to be academic, so [my mother] suggested that I try teaching or nursing [...] I'd been
asked to leave school, so I thought I'd better do it."
Her first job was in insurance at the age of 15.
At 18 she trained as a nurse at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, and worked
on the ophthalmic, casualty and coronary care wards during the 18 months she spent there.
Walters decided to leave nursing, and studied English and drama at Manchester Polytechnic
and pursued a career in the performing arts.
Walters worked for the Everyman Theatre Company in Liverpool in the mid-1970s, alongside several
other notable performers: Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Jonathan Pryce, Willy Russell
and Alan Bleasdale.
Career 1970s
Walters first received notice as the occasional partner of comedienne Victoria Wood, whom
she had briefly met in Manchester.
The two first worked together in the 1978 theatre revue In at the Death, followed by
the television adaptation of Wood's play Talent.
They went on to appear in their own Granada Television series, Wood and Walters, in 1982.
They have continued to perform together frequently over the years.
The BAFTA-winning BBC follow-up, Victoria Wood As Seen on TV, featured one of Walters's
best-known roles, Mrs. Overall in Wood's parodic soap opera, Acorn Antiques.
1980s Before making her London stage debut in Educating
Rita, Walters had worked in regional theatre, stand-up comedy and cabaret.
Her first serious acting role on TV was in the classic Boys from the Blackstuff in 1982,
and she broke into films with her Academy-Award-nominated, BAFTA Best Actress award-winning and Golden
Globe Award Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical/Comedy award-winning performance opposite
Michael Caine in Educating Rita, a role she had created on the West End stage.
In 1985, she played Adrian Mole's mother Pauline in the TV adaptation of The Secret Diary of
Adrian Mole.
Walters appeared in the lead role of Cynthia Payne in the 1987 film Personal Services – a
dramatic comedy about a British brothel owner.
Then she played the lead character's wife, June, in the film Buster, released in 1988.
She also appeared as Mrs. Peachum in the 1989 film version of The Threepenny Opera, which
was renamed Mack the Knife for the screen.
1990s In 1991, Walters starred opposite Liza Minnelli
in Stepping Out and had a one-off television special, Julie Walters and Friends, which
featured writing contributions from Victoria Wood and Alan Bennett.
In 1998 she starred as the Fairy Godmother in the ITV pantomime – Jack and the Beanstalk,
alongside actors Neil Morrissey, Adrian Edmondson, Paul Merton, Denise van Outen and Julian Clary.
The show was first broadcast 25 December 1998 on ITV1 and continues to be shown every year
around Christmas on ITV2.
2000s Walters has won numerous other acting awards,
and was appointed officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1999 and raised to commander
level in the 2008 New Year Honours for her services to drama.
In 2001 she won a Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in Arthur Miller's All My
Sons.
She received her second Oscar nomination and won a BAFTA for her supporting role as the
ballet teacher in Billy Elliot.
In 2002 she again won a BAFTA for her performance as Paul Reiser's mother in My Beautiful Son.
Walters also played Molly Weasley in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2 and got international success with it.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the only Harry Potter film to have not starred
Walters.
In 2003 Walters starred as a widow determined to make some good come out of her husband's
death from cancer in Calendar Girls, which also starred Helen Mirren and Ciarán Hinds.
In 2005 Walters again starred as an inspirational real-life figure, Marie Stubbs in the ITV1
drama Ahead of the Class.
In 2006, she came fourth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, coming four
places above frequent co-star Victoria Wood.
Also in 2006, she starred in the film Driving Lessons alongside Rupert Grint, and later
had a leading role in the BBC's adaptation of Philip Pullman's novel The Ruby in the
Smoke.
In the summer of 2006, Walters published her first novel, Maggie's Tree.
The novel, concerning a group of English actors in Manhattan and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
was described as "a disturbing and thought-provoking novel about mental torment and the often blackly
comic, mixed-up ways we view ourselves and misread each other."
Another reviewer described the novel as "the work of a writer who knows what she's doing.
There's nothing tentative about the writing, and Walters brings her experiences as an actress
to bear on the page. ... you do have the sensation of entering someone else's mind
and of looking through someone else's eyes."
Walters starred in Asda's Christmas 2007 TV advertising campaign.
She also appeared alongside Patrick Stewart in UK Nintendo DS Brain Training television
advertisements, and in a public information film about smoke alarms.
In summer 2008, Walters appeared in the film version of Mamma Mia!, playing Rosie Mulligan,
marking her second high profile musical, after Acorn Antiques.
Walters played Mary Whitehouse in the BBC Drama Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story, an
adaptation of the real-life story of Mrs. Whitehouse who campaigned for "taste and decency
on television".
Walters commented, "I am very excited to be playing Mary Whitehouse, and to be looking
at the time when she attacked the BBC and started to make her name."
Filth won Best Motion Picture Made for Television, and Walters was nominated for Best Actress
in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made For Television, at the 2008 13th Annual Satellite
Awards.
In 2009 Walters received a star in the Birmingham Walk of Stars on Birmingham's Golden Mile,
Broad Street.
She said: "I am very honoured and happy that the people of Birmingham and the West Midlands
want to include me in their Walk of Stars and I look forward to receiving my star.
Birmingham and the West Midlands is where I'm from; these are my roots and in essence
it has played a big part in making me the person I am today".
Her other awards include an International Emmy with Ben Whishaw for A Short Stay in
Switzerland.
She also appeared as Petula Gordino in Wood's sitcom dinnerladies.
2010s Walters played the late MP and Secretary of
State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam in a drama for Channel 4 broadcast in early 2010.
She had misgivings about taking on the role because of the differences in their physical
appearance, but the result was highly praised by critics.
In July 2012 Walters appeared in the BBC Two production The Hollow Crown as Mistress Quickly
in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I and II.
In 2012 she worked with LV= to promote one of their life insurance products targeted
at people over 50.
Walters was seen in television advertisements, at the lv.com website and in other marketing
material helping to raise awareness for life insurance.
Walters appeared in The Last of the Haussmans at the Royal National Theatre in June 2012.
The production was broadcast to cinemas around the world through the National Theatre Live
programme.
Personal life Walters' relationship with Grant Roffey, an
Automobile Association patrol man, began after a whirlwind romance.
The couple have a daughter, Maisie Mae Roffey, but did not marry until 1997, 11 years into
their relationship, when they went to New York City.
The couple live on an organic farm run by Roffey near Plaistow, West Sussex.
In August 2014 she featured in the first episode in the eleventh series of the BBC genealogy
series Who Do You Think You Are?.
The programme revealed that her maternal ancestors played an active part in the struggle for
more rights for Irish tenant farmers, known as the 'Irish Land War', which started in
1879.
Although not included in the programme, Walters' paternal grandfather, Thomas Walters, was
a veteran of the Second Boer War.
He was killed in action in World War I in June 1915, serving with the 2nd Battalion
of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and is commemorated at the Le Touret Memorial, France.
Filmography Theatre
(London debut) Irene Tinsley, Funny Peculiar, Mermaid Theatre, then Garrick Theatre, London,
1976 Vera, Breezeblock Park, Mermaid Theatre, then
Whitehall Theatre, London, 1977 Irene Goodnight, Flaming Bodies, ICA Theatre,
London, 1979 Rita, Educating Rita, Royal Shakespeare Company,
London, 1980 Having a Ball, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre,
London, 1981 Dotty, Jumpers, Royal Exchange Manchester,
1984 Fool for Love, Royal National Theatre, London,
1984–85 Macbeth, Leicester Haymarket Theatre, 1985
When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout, Whitehall Theatre, 1986
Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, Comedy Theatre, 1989
Serafina, The Rose Tattoo, Playhouse, London, 1991
All My Sons, Royal National Theatre, 2000 Acorn Antiques: The Musical, 2005
Also appeared in The Taming of the Shrew, produced in Liverpool, England; and in Jumpers,
Royal Exchange; performed with *Everyman Theatre, Liverpool and Bristol Old Vic.
The Last of the Haussmans, Royal National Theatre, London, 2012
Awards
Julie Walters has won eight BAFTAs, six competitive awards plus two honorary awards.
The first honorary award was a special BAFTA that she received at a tribute evening in
2003, before receiving the BAFTA Fellowship in 2014.
In 2000, she was awarded the Dilys Powell Award for Excellence in Film by the UK Critics'
Circle.
She became an OBE in 1999 and CBE in 2008.
Books Maggie's Tree
That's Another Story: The Autobiography References
External links Official web site Julie Walters
Julie Walters at the Internet Movie Database Julie Walters at the British Film Institute's
Screenonline A Conversation with Julie Walters – interactive
video interview presented by BFI Screenonline and British Telecom
Walters named as CBE