Charlotte Rampling

Born: February 5 1946
Where: Sturmer, England, UK

Rampling came to controversial prominence with her role as the Nazi concentration camp victim opposite Dirk Bogarde in The Night Porter.

Despite being born in Britain, she is a strong Francophile (She was married to musician Jean Michel Jarre) and is enjoying a career renaissance with the likes of Summer Things and Swimming Pool.

The youngest daughter of a former Olympian-turned-career army officer, Rampling had a nomadic childhood, living throughout the UK, in Gibraltar and France.

As youngsters, she and her older sister Sarah had formed a cabaret singing act, a background she called upon when she dropped out of the University of Madrid in 1963 to tour with a Spanish troupe.

When she returned to England, she briefly worked at an advertising agency before embarking on a brief modeling career.

Richard Lester tapped her for a bit role as a water skier in The Knack...and How To Get It.

Rampling first came to attention, however, as Lynn Redgrave's pregnant roommate in Georgy Girl.

Luchino Visconti's The Damned cast her as a doomed liberal while she was a stunning Anne Boleyn in Henry VIII and His Six Wives.

After a turn as a psychopath in Asylum, Rampling was at her sultry best in Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter, cast as a concentration camp survivor who recreates a sadomasochistic affair with a former Nazi guard (Bogarde).

She did well with the femme fatale role opposite Robert Mitchum in Farewell, My Lovely and was heart-breaking as one of the women in the life of a film director in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories.

Sidney Lumet tapped into her penchant for chilly women casting her opposite Paul Newman in The Verdict while Nagisa Oshima's 1986 black comedy Max Mon Amour/Max, My Love cast her as a diplomat's wife who takes a chimpanzee for a lover.

Rampling shone as a Thatcherite politician in David Hare's Paris By Night and showed herself a capable supporting player as Helena Bonham Carter's wealthy and controlling aunt in The Wings of the Dove.

Her career hit a high as the estranged wife of Stellan Skarsgard in Signs and Wonders and Aberdeen but her best role was as a woman whose denial of her husband's likely death in Under the Sand.

She cropped up as a society snob in both the thriller Spy Game and the delightful French comedy farce Summer Things.

In 2003, she won acclaim for her performance as a writer in Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool and went on to star with Michael Caine in The Statement.

Recent work includes the acclaimed Italian drama The Keys of the House.