No disrespect to Frances McDormand but in 1996 the Academy Award for Best Actress should have gone to Brenda Blethyn for her superlative performance as Cynthia Rose Purley the unforgettable, big-hearted cockney heroine in Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies. She had already picked up the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Cannes Best Actress Award for the role and in our eyes, the Oscar was hers for the taking.  It also marked the start of her becoming a treasured gay icon too. 

 

As this quintessential English Actress celebrates her 70th Birthday today, queerguru looks back at just five of our very favorite performances from this long career of this sheer genius of a woman who excels in these larger-than-life characters that always have a big heart. Such as her role as Mari Hoff in the movie adaption of Jim Cartwright’s hit play Little Voice, which in 1998 earned Blethyn another Academy Award Nomination.

 

In 2000 Blethyn played a small-town widow in ‘Saving Grace’ facing financial difficulty when she is persuaded to go into agricultural and grow a very special ‘crop’ with very hilarious consequences.

 

 

In 2005 she played Mrs Bennett who takes to her bed with the vapors in ‘Pride And Prejudice’. 

 

 

In the  2007 Australian movie ‘Introducing The Dwights’ Blethyn played a cafeteria worker by day who did stand up comedy by night, with yet another tour-de-force performance.

 

Happy 70th Birthday Brenda Blethyn.