Kim Cattrall is most well recognized for her long-time role as Samantha Jones on the hugely successful HBO series, Sex and the City. She maintained the role for six years until the show’s end and appeared in both spin off feature films. Cattrall has been acting since the ’70s, but it wasn’t until she got this particular role that her career really took off. She’s received five Emmy nominations, four Golden Globe nominations and even won a Golden Globe! It’s safe to say playing this character was the peak of her career, but it wasn’t the end. Cattrall has continued to act and even land lead roles in other series and take on the stage in Broadway productions — she’s had one of the most fruitful careers of all her SATC co-stars since the show ended. Kim currently stars on and produces a critically acclaimed Canadian comedy series called Sensitive Skin. Fans of the show know everything there is to know about Samantha Jones (and lots that they don’t need to know), but not much is known about the actress who played her, so here’s 10 things you probably didn’t know about Kim Cattrall:
10. Childhood
Kim Cattrall was born in Liverpool, England in 1956, but when she was only 3-months old she moved out west to British Columbia with her parents. Her mother Gladys Shane was a secretary and her father, Dennis Cattrall was a construction engineer. Cattrall returned to her roots in London to attend the London Academy for Music and the Dramatic Arts when she was 11-years-old. During this time she was cast in her first play called, “The Importance of Being Earnest” and took numerous acting examinations. She reunited with her family in Canada for high school and later attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on scholarship. On her Twitter bio she describes herself as a “Liverpool-born, Canadian-raised New Yorker.”
9. Acting Career
Kim was offered her first real acting gig before she even entered adulthood. She got the offer while attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts when she was spotted by a director, Otto Preminger and subsequently cast in the film Rosebud in 1975. It took a while for her career to really gain much traction, but since then she’s appeared in over 50 films! She mostly focused on television appearances throughout the ’70s and then shifted over to movies in the ’80s. In the early ’80s she landed starring roles in the films, Porky, Police Academy and Mannequin. Cattrall’s big break came after two decades of acting in the biz when she was offered the role of Samantha Jones, a promiscuous publicist living in New York on the HBO series, Sex and the City. At first she turned down the role and it took numerous meetings with producers to convince her that Samantha wasn’t a two-dimensional character until she finally agreed to take it on. It proved to be worth it in the end because in 2002 she won a Screen Actors Guild Award and in 2003 a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Since the show took off she has become an international celebrity.
© 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved. Courtesy: Everett Collection.8. Citizenship
She has dual British and Canadian citizenship. There have been numerous false reports that Cattrall is a US citizen, but she’s adamantly refuted these claims. In a 2010 interview with British jouanlist Sophy Grimshaw, Cattrall said, “It’s been falsely reported on the net many times that I became an American citizen, which I have not. I love America, I love New York, but I will never give up who I am. I’m not an American.”
7. She’s Been Married Three Times
Cattrall was married to author Larry Davis from 1977 to 1979, German architect Andreas Lyson in 1982 to 1989 and audio designer and jazz bassist Mark Levison from 1998 to 2004. Kim Cattrall lived in Germany with her third husband and at one point was fluent in the language, but admits her fluency has gotten quite rusty.
6. She’s an Author
She used her reputation from Sex and the City as Samantha Jones to co-author a book in 2002 with her ex Levison called “Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm.” The two reportedly split after he became “obsessed with the physical side of their relationship.” However, similar to her SATC character, authoring this particular book hasn’t been great for her dating life either. During an interview with Ellen DeGeneres she said it actually scared them away! She also penned the books “Sexual Intelligence” and “Being a Girl: Navigating the Ups and Downs of Teen Life.”
5. Honorary Fellow
In 2010 Kim Cattrall was recognized for her contribution to the dramatic arts and was named an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University.
Source: PA Photos via Glamour4. Samantha Jones
Kim has admitted in interviews before that she was hesitant about playing the character of Samantha Jones — and no one can blame her for that! She has also stated that it ruined her dating life for quite some time because people often assumed she was similar to the character she played on television, but in reality it took her a very long time to be comfortable with her sexuality. In an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine, she said, “I’m no expert on s-x but I’ve felt under huge pressure in the past to be one, because of the characters I’ve played.” She has also stated in interviews that despite what rumors float around in the press, all the leading ladies in the Sex and the City series get along quite well.
© HBO / Courtesy: Everett Collection3. Famous Connections
Her grandmother used to babysit Ringo Star when he was a baby named Richard Starkey. In an interview with Mirror she commented on her return to the UK at the age of 11 and said, “It was the time of the Beatles, so it was really exciting. I loved it. In fact, my grandmother used to babysit Ringo.”
2. She Cheated Death
Kim was supposed to be on the ill-fated 103 Pan Am flight that was hit by a terrorist bomb and sent crashing into the Scottish village of Lockerbie in 1988. In an interview she said she missed the flight to go run a last minute errand. “The closest I’ve come to death was when I was booked on Pan Am flight 103. I changed flights when I remembered to stop at Harrods to buy my mom a Wedgwood teapot.”
REX1. Family Secrets
In 2009 Cattrall participated in a BBC documentary titled Who Do You Think You Are? where some unfortunate facts about her family were uncovered. It was discovered that her grandfather, George Baugh, disappeared in 1938 and abandoned his family which consisted of her then 8-year-old mother and two younger sisters. That alone was bad enough, but it was also discovered that he went off to marry another woman named Isabella Oliver the following year in Tudhoe, County Durham and had another four children. Cattrall was also told in 1961 he emigrated to Australia and became a postmaster. He retired in 1972 and died while living in Sydney in 1974. She did not know any of this information nor did her family because after he left her mother as a little girl he wasn’t heard from again. No one even knew what he looked like or had seen a clear photograph of him.
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