Raised in Oxford, England

Got a job after graduating from college with the BBC's radio repertory company (date approximate)

Made feature film debut in a small role in "A Nice Girl Like Me"

Made first American films, "The Apple" and "The Awakening"

First major appearance on US TV, in a three-part adaptation of "The Little Princess", which aired on PBS

Appeared in a long-running series of commercial in England for British Telecom

Starred in the one-woman show, "Woomen, Lovely Woomen", onstage in London's West End; played a variety of female characters from the works of Charles Dickens; later took the show on tour internationally

American TV series debut: starred in the title role of Frannie Escobar in the short-lived CBS sitcom, "Frannie's Turn"

First starring role onstage in a major play, as Mrs. Hardcastle in Sir Peter Hall's staging of Oliver Goldsmith's classic 18th century Restoration farce, "She Stoops to Conquer"

Found second career recording books on tape

Provided the voice of Fly, the sheepdog who serves as surrogate mother to the title piglet in the Oscar-nominated "Babe"

Played the Nurse in Baz Luhrmann's film adaptation of "William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet"

Was one of the voices on the soundtrack for the award-winning documentary "The Long Way Home"

Reprised Fly for the sequel "Babe: Pig in the City"

Returned to the London stage to star as Ranyevskaya in "The Cherry Orchard"

Cast as the original matriarch of a Hungarian-Jewish family in Istvan Szabo's "Sunshine"

Co-starred with Stacy Keach and Jeffrey Jones in the L.A. premiere of "Another Time"

Appeared in the London staging of "The Vagina Monologues"

Played Professor Sprout in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

Co-starred as Peg Sellers in "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" with Geoffrey Rush and Charlize Theron

Cast in "Being Julia," based on the novel "Theatre," by W. Somerset Maugham

Cast in "Modigliani," a story of Amedeo Modigliani's bitter rivalry with Pablo Picasso

Cast in the Australian-produced computer-animated film, "Happy Feet"