Mirren to receive BAFTA Fellowship

The veteran actress Dame Helen Mirren is to be made a fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

BAFTA’s highest honour will be handed to the four-time BAFTA winner at this year’s awards ceremony at the Royal Opera House on 16th February.

Dame Helen Mirren was SAG’s Best Actress in a TV Movie earlier this month

Dame Helen won the TV BAFTA three times in successive years in the early 1990s for Prime Suspect and a film BAFTA for The Queen – a role that also secured her an Oscar. Her success in the US has included 2 Golden Globes on the same night for playing Queen Elizabeth 2 on the big screen and Queen Elizabeth 1 on TV. Earlier this month, she won the Screen Actors Guild award for the best actress in a TV movie, for playing Linda Kenney Baden in Phil Spector.

Previous recipients of the BAFTA Fellowship include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Elizabeth Taylor and her contemporary Dame Judi Dench.

“This is the greatest professional honour I can imagine, certainly one I never dreamt of as a schoolgirl in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. To join that list of legendary names is overwhelming,” Dame Helen enthused.

The chairman of BAFTA, John Willis, said Dame Helen was one of the most outstanding actresses of her generation. “Dame Helen’s incredibly successful career is testament to the determination, dedication and skill she brings to each of her roles.”