Beloved Oscar-Winning Actress Kate Winslet Celebrates Her Birthday

She’s portrayed everything from a suffragette to a Nazi camp guard to a survivor of the Titanic, and now Kate Winslet is taking on yet another role: birthday girl.

Happy Birthday, Kate Winslet!

And that’s because she was born on October 5, 1975, in Reading, Berkshire, which means that this talented performer is turning 45 years old today! Winslet made her screen debut at the age of 15 in the 1991 science fiction television series Dark Season.

This was soon followed by roles in Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (a made-for-TV movie), Get Back (a 15-episode sitcom), and an episode of the medical drama series Casualty.

In 1994, Winslet was one of 175 hopefuls to audition for a part in Peter Jackson’s psychological drama film Heavenly Creatures. Her intensity at the reading impressed Jackson, and she was subsequently hired to portray murderess Juliet Hulme.

Afterward, Winslet nabbed a leading role in the 1995 film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, written by her co-star Emma Thompson. One year later, she earned critical acclaim for her work in two features – the Michael Winterbottom-helmed Jude (based on the novel Jude the Obscure) and Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet. In the latter, Winslet played the doomed Ophelia.

Worldwide recognition followed soon after when Winslet accepted the lead female role in James Cameron’s Titanic. In the aftermath of the epic’s box-office success, Winslet appeared in the biographical film Hideous Kinky, the Jane Campion wrote/directed-effort Holy Smoke (a dramedy film about deprogramming), Enigma (an espionage thriller), and a pair of period dramas – Quills and Iris.

Among Winslet’s other high profile works is the science fiction romance Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Jim Carrey, Finding Neverland with Johnny Depp, Little Children, Revolutionary Road (which reunited her with Titanic co-star  Leonardo DiCaprio), The Reader, and the five-part HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce.

Winslet took home the Best Actress Academy Award for her work in The Reader, which also netted her a British Academy Film Award. She is also the recipient of two further BAFTA’s (Supporting Actress for Sense and Sensibility and Steve Jobs) as well as a Primetime Emmy Award (for her work in Mildred Pierce) and a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children.

Winslet has been married to Edward Abel Smith since December 2012. Together the couple has welcomed one son, Bear Blaze ((born 2013). Winslet is also mother to two other children – Mia Honey (born October 12, 2000) and Joe (born December 22, 2003) – from her previous marriages to Jim Threapleton and American Beauty Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes respectively. Entertainment Hub wishes Kate Winslet a very happy birthday.