Her breakthrough role came in 1983 when she transferred her performance in Willy Russell’s hit play to the big screen in Educating Rita and won her a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and her first Academy Award Nomination.
Walters rejected all the numerous offers that Hollywood showered upon her after Educating Rita and went back to the UK to star in Terry Jones moviePersonal Services based on the true life story of the much-beloved Cynthia Payne the British brothel keeper and Madam who showed how hypocritical the UK sex laws were at the time. The movie, a smash hit in the UK, flopped ignominiously in the US …. one audience member walked out muttering that ‘the movie contained something to offend everyone.’
Walters won her second Academy Award Nomination for teaching Billy Elliot to dance in the popular 2000 movie.
It was however Walters work with the TV comic actress/writer Victoria Wood that she won over everyone’s hearts in the UK ….. and it is an enormous shame that none of the enormous body of work that kept us Brits hysterically scream in laughter ever found it’s way to the worldwide audience that it so deserved. From a vast secretion of favorite clips, queerguru has chosen two. The first from this glorious Made-for-Tv Movie Pat and Margaret about two long-lost sisters who are now world’s apart.
However there is a hardly a single Brit gay man of a certain age who doesn’t know the words of this classic sketch called Two Soups off by heart which shows Walters at her very funniest.
Labels: 2016, culture, gay icon, happy birthday
