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Kim Cattrall - Biography

The actress is best known for playing Samantha Jones on Sex And The City

Kim Cattrall attends the "About My Father" premiere in NYC
Nicky Morris
TV and film writer
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Kim Cattrall's early life

Born in Liverpool, England, on August 21, 1956, Kim moved to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, when she was three months old. She was raised there by her construction engineer father, Dennis, and part-time secretary mother, Shane, along with her older sister and two younger siblings. The family was forced to return to England for a period when Kim was 11 to look after her ailing grandmother. And it was there Kim was bitten by the acting bug, after seeing her first play - Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest - in London's West End. 

To pursue her dream, she took drama courses at the London Academy Of Music And Dramatic Art and began getting parts in local theatre productions. She continued her progress upon returning to Canada aged 16, studying at the Banff School of Fine Arts, before moving to the Big Apple after graduating in 1972.

Kim Cattrall's acting career

Whilst living in New York, Kim furthered her drama studies by winning a scholarship to New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts and landed her first role in director Otto Preminger's 1975 flick Rosebud, alongside Peter O'Toole.

She landed small parts in 1970s TV series The Incredible Hulk and Charlie's Angels, before winning several film roles and starring in the mini-series Scruples in 1980. 

Two years later, she got her next big break in the hit comedy Porky's. Roles in other successful comedies followed, including Police Academy in 1984 and Mannequin in 1988, while in 1991 she joined Captain Kirk and crew in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The film and TV roles kept coming, but it was seven years later in 1998 that Kim was offered her most memorable part that of sultry Samantha Jones on the hit HBO series Sex And The City. The show ran for six years, ultimately winning the actress a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild awards. 

The series ended in 2004 but it wasn't the last audiences would see of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte. In 2008, the cast reunited for the Sex and the City film, before returning again for its sequel in 2010. 

In 2021, HBO launched a reboot of the popular comedy, And Just Like That..., and while Kim didn't appear in the original series, she made a comeback in the second season, released in 2023. 

Kim Cattrall's personal life

 In 1977, Kim married Canadian writer Larry Davis, but they divorced two years later and Kim relocated to Los Angeles. 

In 1982, the actress wed German architect Andre Lyson, having previously been linked with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The pair split in 1989 and Kim went on to marry audio equipment designer Mark Levinson in 1998. The relationship ended six years later.

She began dating BBC employee Russell Thomas, who she's been with since 2016.

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