Kim Victoria Cattrall (born August 21, 1956), is a British-born, Canadian-raised Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO comedy/romance series Sex and the City, and for her leading roles in the 1980s films Police Academy and Mannequin.
Early life
Cattrall was born in the small town of Widnes in England, 16 miles from Liverpool, one of four children of builder Dennis Cattrall and his wife Shane. When she was less than a year old, her family emigrated to Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada. At 11 she returned to England when her grandmother became ill, and she studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), before returning to Canada at 16 where she finished her final year of high school.
Acting career
Cattrall went to New York City in 1972 where she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Shortly after graduation she signed a five-year movie deal with director Otto Preminger and made her film debut in Preminger's Rosebud in 1975. A year later, Universal Studios bought her contract and Cattrall became one of the last participants in that studio's contract player system. Monique James and Eleanor Kilgallen were the casting agents who had been finding jobs for Universal's contract players since the 1950s.Kilgallen, based in New York, helped Cattrall considerably. During Cattrall's time with Universal, Kilgallen booked her for numerous guest-star roles on television shows of varying style and genre. In 1979 Cattrall played the part of Dr. Gabrielle White in The Incredible Hulk and would go down in TV Hulk Lore as one of the few characters who knew David Banner was alive and was the creature. Her work in television paid off, and she quickly made the transition to cinema. She starred opposite Jack Lemmon in his Oscar-nominated movie Tribute in 1980. The following year, she starred in the critically acclaimed Ticket to Heaven.
In 1982, Cattrall played Miss Honeywell in Porky's, followed two years later by a role in the original Police Academy. In 1985, she starred in three movies: Turk 182, City Limits and Hold-Up. In 1986, she played Kurt Russell's brainy flame in the cult classic Big Trouble in Little China. In 1987, her lead role in Mannequin proved a huge success with audiences. One of her most well-known film roles is that of the traitor Lieutenant Valeris in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
Aside from her film work, Cattrall is also a stage and theater actress, with performances in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge and Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters to her credit. In 1997, she was cast in Sex and the City, Darren Star's series that was broadcast on HBO. As Samantha Jones, Cattrall gained international recognition. She capitalised on her success by appearing in steamy television commercials promoting the Pepsi product Pepsi One. She also signed a publishing deal to write a book about sex with her third husband, Mark Levinson. In addition, she can be heard reading the poetry of Rupert Brooke on the CD Red Rose Music SACD Sampler Volume One.
Her film work continued during Sex and the City when she starred as Caroline in Britney Spears' first film venture, Crossroads. Sex and the City ended as a weekly series in spring 2004 with an audience of 10.6m viewers. Cattrall will star in the Sex and the City film, which is due for release on May 30, 2008.
In 2005, she appeared in the Disney picture Ice Princess, in which she played the character of Tina Harwood, the ice skating coach of the film's lead character. Unfortunately, Ice Princess was not a financial success. She also portrayed Claire, a paralyzed woman who wants to die, in the West End drama revival of Whose Life Is It Anyway?. In early 2006, it was rumored that Cattrall would soon join the cast of Desperate Housewives, playing Edie's (Nicollette Sheridan) wild sister. In October 2006 she appeared in a West End production of David Mamet's The Cryptogram at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Since late 2005, she has appeared in a number of British television commercials for Tetley Tea. In July 2006, a commercial for Nissan cars, which featured Kim in her Samantha character from Sex and the City, was withdrawn from New Zealand television, apparently because of complaints about the innuendo. In 2006 she starred alongside Brendan Gleeson in John Boorman's 2006 film The Tiger's Tail, a black comedy that focuses on the impact of the Celtic Tiger economy on Irish people. On November 11 on ITV, she starred alongside David Haig, Daniel Radcliffe, and Carey Mulligan in My Boy Jack, the story of author Rudyard Kipling's search for his son lost in World War I.
