 A dominant '90s character player, Kathy Burke came to notice when awarded best actress at Cannes in 1997 as the battered wife in Nil by Mouth (d. Gary Oldman, 1997). Unconventional-looking and awesomely versatile, she was a bitter Mary Tudor in Elizabeth (d. Shekhar Kapur, 1998) and a lonely airport cleaner in the romantic comedy, This Year's Love (d. David Kane, 1999), and on TV the range has been evinced in the near-moronic Magda in Absolutely Fabulous (BBC, 1992) and the harridan trollop of Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (BBC, 1999). Born in London on 13 June 1964 to working-class Irish émigré parents, she was encouraged in acting at school and at 17 she was cast in Scrubbers (d. Mai Zetterling, made 1981, released 1983), then played in Sid and Nancy (d. Alex Cox, 1986) with Gary Oldman who remembered her when casting Nil by Mouth. Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film
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FILM & TV CREDITS
