Born May 14: Cate Blanchett

By Michael Baadke

Actress Cate Blanchett was born Catherine Elise Blanchett on May 14, 1969, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, the daughter of an American Naval officer and an Australian teacher.

Though she is just turning 47, Blanchett has appeared in nearly 60 films and has also starred on stage.

In 2005, she won a best supporting actress Academy Award for her performance as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. In 2014, she claimed the Oscar for best actress in a leading role, in the Woody Allen drama Blue Jasmine. She is the only Australian actress to receive two Oscars, and she has been nominated an additional four times.

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Her early roles included Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Meredith Logue in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). In 2001, she appeared as Galadriel in the first of six The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies, and she reprised the role of Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007).

The following year, she starred with Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and in 2010 she worked with fellow Australian Russell Crowe in Robin Hood.

Blanchett has been married to Australian writer Andrew Upton since 1997, and they have four children.

In 2009, Blanchett was featured on four Australian 55¢ stamps (two designs) in the Actors and Actresses set of the Australian Legends series (Scott 3010, 3017, 3013, 3021). The other film stars commemorated in the same set were Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Geoffrey Rush.