Kate Winslet: My life in pictures

Updated: 17:00 EDT, 30 April 2010

Life story: Kate Winslet was nominated for six academy awards and finally won this year for her role in The Reader

Born into a family of jobbing actors, the Titanic star has eclipsed them all with six Oscar nominations. Here, she relives her life in pictures.

1982: Kate was born on 5 October, 1975, and grew up, the second oldest of four  -  Anna, Beth and Joss  -  in a small terraced house in Reading, Berkshire.

Her parents, Roger and Sally, were stage actors; her maternal grandparents  Oliver and Linda Bridges ran the  Reading Repertory Theatre, and Uncle Robert was a regular in the West End theatre. 

1984: Kate got her first professional role when she was 11, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a Sugar Puffs ad.

She trained at Redroofs Theatre School in Maidenhead, where she was nicknamed 'Blubber' for tipping the scales at 13st, but this is when her stage career took off.

1991: Ten days after finishing her GCSEs, Kate began work on the BBC sci-fi series Dark Season and started a romance with actor Stephen Tredre . 

She said of Stephen, who was 12 years her senior, 'He was the most important person in my life, next to my family.' They were close until his death from cancer in 1997.

Family affair: Kate was born on 5 October, 1975, and grew up, the second oldest of four  -  Anna, Beth and Joss  -  in a small terraced house in Reading, Berkshire

Rising star: Kate got her first professional role when she was 11, left, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a Sugar Puffs ad and later in the BBC sci-fi series Dark Season and started a romance with actor Stephen Tredre, right

1993: Like many future stars, Kate starred in an episode of the BBC series Casualty. 'In England, it almost seems to be part of a jobbing actor's training [to appear in Casualty],' she says. 'Appearing in the show taught me a big lesson in how to be natural in front of the camera.'

1994: Working in a deli to support herself, Kate received a phone call that changed her life  -  out of 175 hopefuls, she had got the part in her first film, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, the reallife tale of murder in 1952 New Zealand.

Big lessons: Kate starred in an episode of the BBC series Casualty before her first film role in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures

1995: Invited to audition for a minor role in Sense And Sensibility, Kate pretended her agent had misinformed her and read for the lead role of  Marianne Dashwood instead  -  impressing the director.

Kate received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Marianne, whose heart is broken by the cruel but handsome  Willoughby (Greg Wise).

Leading men: Kate with Greg Wise in Sense and Sensibility, left, and Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic

1997: After reading the script for James Cameron's Titanic, Kate says, 'I closed it, wept floods of tears and said, "Right, I've absolutely got to be a part of this. No two ways about it."' Kate tracked down Cameron and called him.

'I said, "Look, you really do need to cast me in this role," and he laughed, and I said, "Laugh all you like but if you don't, you're going to regret it."'

Love life: On the set of the Hideous Kinky, Kate met her first husband, assistant director Jim Threapleton, they had a daughter Mia, but divorced in 2002 before she met second husband Sam Mendes, right

Third time unlucky: Kate received her third Oscar nomination for Iris, in which she portrayed the Irish novelist Iris Murdoch in her youth. Although dating Mendes, she attended the premiere with her younger brother, Joss, the only one in family not in showbiz

2000: On the set of the lowbudget Hideous Kinky, Kate met her future husband, assistant director Jim Threapleton.

They married in 1998, wearing his and hers ensembles designed by Alexander McQueen, and their daughter, Mia, was born two years later. But the marriage was not to last. 'When I married Mia's father, she says, 'I was very young. I just didn't know who I was. But I'm a person who doesn't regret things.'

2002: Kate received her third Oscar nomination for Iris, in which she portrayed the Irish novelist Iris Murdoch in her youth. Although dating Sam Mendes, the Oscar-winning director of American Beauty, she attended the premiere with her younger brother, Joss, the only one of the Winslet family not in showbiz. 

Kate recalls meeting Sam Mendes at a party: 'We had this exciting meeting. I walked away dazzled, thinking, "What the hell was that?"' They married in 2003, when Kate was pregnant with their son, Joe, but separated this year  -  'by mutual consent'.

2005: Kate is nominated for her fourth Oscar, but loses out to Hilary Swank. Making light of this, she appears in the TV comedy Extras, explaining to Ricky Gervais that she is playing a nun in a film set in World War II because the key to winning an Academy Award is to do a Holocaust film. Ironically, she would finally win her first Oscar playing an Auschwitz guard in The Reader.

Making light: Kate appeared in the TV comedy Extras, explaining to Ricky Gervais that she is playing a nun in a film set in World War II because the key to winning an Academy Award is to do a Holocaust film

2009: Six nominations later and standing on the podium having won her first Oscar for The Reader, Kate said, 'I'd be lying if I hadn't made a version of this speech before. I think I was eight years old and staring into the bathroom mirror. And this [holding up her statuette] would've been a shampoo bottle... Well, it's not a shampoo bottle now!'

2010: Celebrating Colin Firth's Best Actor win at the Baftas, Kate said that as she was not nominated her only worry was 'not falling over my dress. I find dressing up an absolute headache, and am much happier in jeans and jumpers. But you have to enter into premieres and awards ceremonies in the spirit of fun, and you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.'

Last laugh: Kate, right at the Baftas with actor Colin Firth,  and with her first Oscar, right