Biography for
Francesca Annis More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

14 May 1945, Kensington, London, England, UK

Birth Name

Francesca M. P. Annis

Height

5' 4" (1.63 m)

Mini Biography

Francesca Annis, the English actress, has enjoyed a 50-plus year career spanning seven decades in movies, television and the theater, was born in London six days after V-E Day, on May 14th, 1945. Her father Lester was English, but her mother Mariquita was of Brazilian-French heritage. From the time she was a year old to the age of seven, the family lived in Brazil. The young Francesca spoke Portuguese, that country's language, as a child.

Educated at a convent school, she dreamed of becoming a nun but trained as a ballet dancer before studying drama at the Corona Theatre School. She began acting in bit parts in the 1950s, working her way up to better roles. In addition to appearing on the big and little screens, she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Her most famous roles are as Lady Macbeth in Roman Polanski's 1971 version of The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971), in which she had a notorious nude sleep-walking scene, and as Paul Atreides' mother Lady Jessica in David Lynch's 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune (1984). A highly respected performer, in 1979, she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress playing Lillie Langtry in the TV mini-series "Lillie" (1978).

IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood

Trivia

Former long-term companion was British actor Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient (1996)). They met while performing the play Hamlet in 1994. She portrayed Gertrude, he Hamlet. The couple broke up in February, 2006.

Has 3 children (daughters: Charlotte and Taran, son: Andreas - a.k.a. Rainbow) from a long relationship with Patrick Wiseman that began in 1976.

Attended convent schools and wanted to be a nun when she was young.

Daughter Charlotte Wiseman is a costume designer.

Daughter of Mara Purcell.

Personal Quotes

From 1 till 7, when we moved to England, I spoke only Portuguese. But I can't speak a word of it now.

Everything has changed. An interview has become such a confrontational thing. It makes you very defensive.

Eat well and sleep well. That will feed your nervous system and your psyche. As you get older, you look how you feel.

As you grow older, your whole life becomes very rich, multifaceted.

Each decade, I've lived in that decade, so I could easily shed the 20s, the 30s, the 40s.

[Speaking about her 1978 role as Lillie Langtry] She exploited everything and everyone, but she still managed to maintain their respect. I don't know if I would have gone to bed with a man to get what I wanted, even if I had been born in her era, when women had so little freedom. But I can think of worse things people have done to succeed.