Janet Suzman

Born: February 9 1939
Where: Johannesburg, South Africa

The Royal Shakespeare Company actress if probably best known for her Oscar-nominated portrayal of the Russian Czarina in 1971's Nicholas and Alexandra.

The granddaughter and niece of politically active South Africans (Helen Suzman), she decided to pursue an acting career while attending the University of the Witwatersrand.

Accepted into several British drama schools, she opted to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where she trained under Iris Watson.

Accolades for her stage work followed - particularly her RSC work - and she then concentrated on television work.

An infrequent big screen star, she made her feature debut as the mother of an autistic child in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.

After earning a surprise Academy Award nomination for Nicholas and Alexandra, the actress triumphed onstage in Antony and Cleopatra.

Suzman continued to concentrate on stage work, although she accepted the occasional film role.

She was the distraught mother of a kidnapped child in The Black Windmill and was one of the passengers in the all-star melodrama Voyage of the Damned in 1976.

Suzman was also excellent as Frieda Lawrence to Ian McKellen's D H Lawrence in the biopic Priest of Love.

After a brief respite to give birth to her son, she returned to films as a Restoration aristocrat who hires an artist in Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract.

As the Eighties wore on, Suzman began a secondary career as a stage director, helming a South African production of Othello in 1987.

As her directing work increased, she has made fewer onscreen appearances, although she was excellent in support of Michael Gambon in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective.

She also played to her strengths as Donald Sutherland's wife in Euzhan Palcy's anti-apartheid drama A Dry White Season.

Subsequent appearances include the lacklustre Nuns on the Run and as Judith Geller in Leon the Pig Farmer.

Recent work has included the mother of John Cusack's Jewish art dealer who befriends Adolf Hitler in the film Max.