Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!
Today marks the 100th anniversary of Universal Pictures, a studio that has brought us a whole host of great and iconic movies over the years.
To celebrate we take a look at some of the iconic women who have worked with the studio during that time.
- Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!, Out Of Africa)
Meryl Streep was first nominated for an Oscar in Deer Hunter (1978) despite it only being the second film she had starred in. She has since achieved 16 more Academy Award nominations, 3 of which she has won.
Early in her career, Streep received a letter from Bette Davis, whom most critics and cinema historians ranks as the greatest American movie actress ever. Davis told Streep that she felt that she was her successor as the premiere American actress.
Streep has been married to Don Gummer for 34 years and has 4 children with him.
- Tippi Hendren (The Birds)
Tippi Hendren was scouted by Alfred Hitchcock after appearing in a soda advert. He put her under personal contract before casting her in Universal’s The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964).
Sean Connery, her leading man from Marnie, said on television that she was 'underrated while almost everyone in Hollywood was overrated.' She named her cat after him.
Hendren has been married 4 times and her daughter is Melanie Griffith, meaning that her son-in-law is Antonio Banderas.
- Keira Knightley (Love Actually, Atonement)
Keira Knightley famously asked her parents for an agent at the age of 3 and was granted one by the time she was 6 providing she only worked on productions in the summer holidays.
The green satin gown she wore in Atonement (2007) was voted the public's favourite film costume of all time in a survey by Sky Movies and In Style magazine (2008).
Keira Knightley has an obsession with shoes, stating: 'I see a pair of shoes I adore, and it doesn't matter if they have them in my size. I buy them anyway.'
- Molly Ringwald (The Breakfast Club)
Molly Ringwald is one of the core members of the 'Brat Pack,' having starred in John Hughes’ Sixteen Candles (1984) and The Breakfast Club (1985).
Ringwald speaks fluent French having; been educated at the Lycee Francaise School in Los Angeles, lived in France and married to a Frenchman (Valery Lameignère). Ringwald has had 3 children with her second husband Panio Gianopoulos.
- Emily Blunt (The WolfMan, The Adjustment Bureau)
Emily Blunt developed a stammer at age 8. It was only when a drama teacher asked her to play a character with a different accent that her stammer disappeared age 12, this set her sights on acting as a career.
Blunt dated Michael Buble for three years but is now married to John Krasinski after being introduced by friend Anne Hathaway in 2008.
Co-star Meryl Streep has praised Blunt as 'the best young actress I’ve worked with in some time, perhaps ever.'
- Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason)
Zellweger acquired her first Oscar nomination for Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001), the role that is widely considered to be her most memorable.
She is good friends with George Clooney and claims that: 'We have a lovely relationship. I write him six-page emails about my political rage and he writes back.'
Zellweger has a Swiss father and a Norwegian mother. She annulled her marriage to Kenny Chesney after 7 months and has since been linked to Jack White and Bradley Cooper.
- Doris Day (Pillow Talk)
Doris Day aspired to be a professional dancer but discovered her singing talent after her leg was crushed in a car accident when she was young.
She has been married 4 times. After the death of her third husband Martin Melcher, she vowed never to act again.
She discovered after his death that Melcher had signed a deal for her to appear in her own TV series The Doris Day Show and agreed to it as Melcher had squandered her earnings and left her in debt.
Day now runs the Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets.
In celebration of Universal’s 100th Anniversary, a range of 15 DVD and Blu-ray titles including Mamma Mia! The Movie and The Birds are available in stores now, with Augmented Reality technology, which brings the physical and virtual worlds together in your very own hands.
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