Born: October 05, 1975 A handful of actresses carry such a wellspring of inner grace and presence that they appear destined for celebrity from birth. Natalie_Wood had it, as did Elizabeth_Taylor and Grace_Kelly; many would doubtless place Kate Winslet among their ranks. A tender 11 when she commenced her formal dramatic training, 19 when she debuted cinematically, and 20 when she received her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, Winslet never 'ascended' to stardom; she became a star overnight. The possessor of an hourglass-figured, full-lipped beauty that lends itself effortlessly to costume dramas, Winslet was roundly hailed by the press for standing in stark, proud contrast to her more conventional Hollywood peers. Born on October 5, 1975, and raised in Reading, England, as the daughter of stage actors and the granddaughter of a repertory theater manager, Winslet inherited the 'drama bug' from her folks. After training exhaustively as a child and securing professional representation she went on the air as a spokesgirl for a popular British cereal, and later attended a performing-arts secondary school. Following an early graduation in 1991 (prior to the age of 16), Winslet launched her regional stage career, highlighted by roles in adaptations of +The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and +Peter Pan. It would be difficult to imagine a more auspicious film bow than the role of Juliet Hulme in Peter_Jackson's Heavenly_Creatures -- or a more difficult one. This characterization -- that of an extroverted adolescent who constructs an incestuously exclusive fantasy world with her best friend (Melanie_Lynskey) -- put Winslet on the map, and opened the door for follow-ups in international megahits such as Ang_Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), as the willfull, passionate Marianne; and James_Cameron's Titanic (1997), as the object of Leonardo_Di_Caprio's affections, Rose DeWitt Bukater. She received dual Oscar nominations for those roles, but, surprisingly, failed to net either one.Meanwhile, Winslet concurrently shied away from the high gloss of Cameron and unveiled her stage origins, traveling the arthouse circuit with such productions as Michael_Winterbottom's Jude (1996), as Sue Bridehead; and Kenneth Branagh's disappointing, overbaked, four-hour Hamlet (1996), as Ophelia. Hideous_Kinky embodied a turn on a much smaller scale. Directed by Scottish helmer Gillies MacKinnon (and scripted by his brother, Billy), the film casts Winslet as a freewheeling young hippie who takes her children to Morocco in order to pursue spiritual enlightenment. Beyond the positive reviews gleaned by the film and the praise that critics lavished onto Winslet's performance, one of the most alluring sidelights happened off camera, when Winslet dated and then married James Threapleton, the third assistant director on the MacKinnon film. The couple divorced in 2001.During 1999 and 2000, Winslet dove into two roles that required her to cut loose and break free of all inhibitions. First, she played another young woman in search of spiritual enlightenment, this time in Jane_Campion's Holy_Smoke. Starring as an Australian girl who joins a cult on a visit to India, and is then 'deprogrammed' by Harvey_Keitel, Winslet's role pushed her beyond the limits of propriety and embarrassment (one scene has her standing naked and urinating in front of Keitel). Unfortunately, one or two brave performances did not an unequivocal masterpiece make; the picture sharply divided critics, falling far short of the praise heaped onto Campion's The_Piano six years earlier. Even gutsier (though more successful on a dramatic level) was Winslet's turn as a laundress who delivers the Marquis de Sade's manuscripts to the outside world in Phil_Kaufman's Quills. Winslet reentered the Oscar limelight with yet another Academy-nommed performance as a youthful Iris_Murdoch in director Richard_Eyre's Iris, but the gold statuette eluded her a third time when Jennifer_Connelly netted it for A_Beautiful_Mind. In early 2003, she hit a low point as Bitsey Bloom, opposite Kevin_Spacey in The Life of David Gale. Based on the experience of a University of Texas professor -- an avid anti-death-penalty activist faced with execution after a false conviction -- Winslet portrayed the reporter who broke the story in a desperate attempt to discover the truth behind the mysterious and brutal crime for which Gale was convicted. As scripted by Charles_Randolph and directed by Alan_Parker, the picture opened and closed almost simultaneously, to devastating, brutal reviews. Winslet fared better in 2004, as the love interest opposite Jim_Carrey in Michel_Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This humorous and poignant mindbender, with a tender romance at its co