Zoë Wanamaker

Zoë Wanamaker was born in New York City on 13 May 1949,[4][5] the daughter of Canadian actress and radio performer Charlotte Holland and American actor, film director, and radio producer Sam Wanamaker (born Samuel Wattenmacker). Her parents were Jewish, although she had a secular and non-observant upbringing. Her father was of Ukrainian-Jewish descent; the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 24 February 2009, revealed that her paternal grandfather Maurice Wanamaker (originally Manus Watmacher) was a tailor from Mykolaiv.[6]

Whilst working in the United Kingdom in 1952, Wanamaker's father found out he had been blacklisted. Her parents therefore decided to remain there.[4] She was educated at the independent King Alfred School in Hampstead and at Sidcot School, a Quaker boarding school in Somerset. Zoe attended Hornsey College of Art for the Pre-Diploma Course[7] before she trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama.[4][8]

Wanamaker was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2001 New Year Honours for services to drama. She also received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of East Anglia on 19 July 2012.[20]

Wanamaker has been a Patron of the UK charity Tree Aid,[21] since 1997. Tree Aid enables communities in Africa's drylands to fight poverty and become self-reliant, while improving the environment. In 2006 Wanamaker recorded a successful Radio 4 appeal for the charity[22]

She is a patron of Dignity in Dying, the Lymphoedema Support Network,[23] Youth Music Theatre UK [24] and of the Young Actors' Theatre, Islington. She is also one of the Honorary Patrons of the London children's charity Scene & Heard.[25] Wanamaker also supports Survival International's campaign to save the threatened native tribes in Brazil.[26]

In August 2014, Wanamaker was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.[27]

Wanamaker is one of nine presidents of The Young People's Trust for the Environment.[28]

Wanamaker lived for many years with fellow Royal Shakespeare Company actor David Lyon.[29] In November 1994, she married actor/dramatist Gawn Grainger.[4] She has no children. Wanamaker holds both British and American citizenship. She became a British citizen in 2000.[30]

Her father was actor and producer Sam Wanamaker. Film historian Marc Wanamaker is her cousin.[31]

• For her stage work, Wanamaker has been nominated four times for the United States' most prestigious theatre award the Tony and nine times for the most prestigious British theatre award the Olivier, winning two.
• For her screen work, Wanamaker has received three BAFTA nominations.[38]

Year given is year of ceremony.

• In 2006, Wanamaker and the rest of the cast of Awake and Sing! won a special Drama Desk award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zoë Wanamaker.

• Zoë Wanamaker on IMDb
• Zoë Wanamaker at the Internet Broadway Database
• Zoë Wanamaker – Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org
• Zoë Wanamaker interviewed by Beth Stevens about Awake and Sing! on Broadway.com