Biography

Harriet Walter

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Dame Harriet Mary Walter DBE is a British actress. She has received a Laurence Olivier Award as well as numerous nominations including for a Tony Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2011, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama.
- IMDb mini biography by: Bonitao

She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1989 (1988 season) for Best Actress in a Revival in "Twelfth Night", "A Question of" and "Three Sisters".
She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2000 Queen's New Years Honours List and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 Queen's New Years Honours List for her services to drama.
Both she and her uncle Christopher Lee appeared in "Star Wars" films: Lee played Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) and Walter played Dr. Kalania in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015).
She was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2001 (2000 season) for Best Actress in "Life X 3" at the Royal National Theatre, Lyttelton stage.
She studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) in London, England.

[Commenting on Maggie Smith following her death in September 2024] Completely unique and completely irreplaceable... She was a complete one off. She was adorable to me. She was always really nice to me, and she rang me up on occasions and said why didn't I ring more often and I felt I really should have had the courage to be her friend. But I was a little bit nervous of her, I suppose, and I tried to think what that nervousness was, and it was that one wasn't going to be entertaining enough, gossipy enough, to hold her attention. She wasn't actually someone who wanted to be the centre [of attention], any more than any actor. Of course you want attention when you're on, but behind the scenes, she was a listener. She was a games player, she joined in, she liked company, but she was incredibly private... we have to admit that only her close family and her lovers, who are now gone, really knew her, and we just sort of brushed against her if we were lucky.

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