Cate Blanchett Biography

Personal details


Name: Cate Blanchett
Born: 14 May 1969 (Age: 41)
Where: Melbourne, Australia
Height: 5' 8"
Awards: Won 1 Oscar, 2 BAFTAs and 2 Golden Globes
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Biography:
The term Meteoric is often used to describe the career paths of film actors. It's usually inaccurate, ignoring a plethora of dodgy TV shows and unwatchable B-movies made while the subject gradually and painfully learned their craft. With Cate Blanchett, though, Meteoric is absolutely on the nail. Within a mere two years of her feature debut, she had become one of the most sought-after actresses in the world. More importantly perhaps, she is already one of the most compelling, convincing and adaptable players of the last 30 years, matching the celestial standards set by the holy trinity of Streep, Pfeiffer and Lange. 


She was born Catherine Elise Blanchett on the 14th of May, 1969, at the Jessie McPherson Hospital in Melbourne (popularly known as the Jessie Mac, now - like so many hospitals - a vacant lot). Her father, Bob, was a Texan and ex-US Navy man who'd met Cate's mother, a teacher named June, and moved into advertising in Melbourne. There were two siblings: older brother Bob, now in computers, and younger sister Genevieve, a theatre designer. Cate claims there's some French ancestry in there somewhere, one antecedent being Louis Bleriot, the first aviator to fly across the English Channel. Or La Manche, depending on how you look at it.


As a kid, Cate recalls herself as "part extrovert, part wallflower". The extrovert part was fuelled early when, at a friend's birthday party at age 6, she was hugely impressed by a magician and began to dream of life as a performer. Her parents encouraged her, particularly in the field of music. She has an abiding love of classical music, even now guesting regularly on ABC Classic FM radio in Sydney, both playing and discussing.


The biggest event of her young life was a terribly sad one, her father dying of a heart attack when she was just 10. "The day dad died", she said in Joan Sauer's Brothers And Sisters "I was playing the piano and he walked past the window and I waved goodbye . . . and he died. After that I thought I would have to kiss everybody goodbye before I left the house. It was like I had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. I'd just be going down the street to get some milk, and I'd do it. If I had to come back in the house because I'd forgotten something, I'd have to go through the whole ritual again". At the hospital, she was left in a room with one of her dad's co-workers who told the kids "This is going to be a very, very hard time for your mother. You have to be very, very good". Cate believes that this "framed my whole relationship with the family". Crucially, it also made her a perfectionist.