Kate Nelligan

Acting

Kate Nelligan

Born 1950-03-16 · London, Ontario, Canada

Kate Nelligan (born Patricia Colleen Nelligan; March 16, 1950) is a Canadian retired actress, who was celebrated for her commanding performances and versatility. She trained at Glendon College in Toronto and London's Central School of Speech and Drama before launching her professional career in 1972 with the Bristol Old Vic, appearing in productions like Barefoot in the Park. Nelligan rose to prominence in the UK with the National Theatre in plays such as David Hare's Knuckle (1974) and Tales from the Vienna Woods (1977), alongside early television roles in The Onedin Line and her film debut in The Romantic Englishwoman (1975). In the early 1980s, she relocated to New York, where she garnered critical acclaim on Broadway, earning four Tony Award nominations for Plenty (1983), A Moon for the Misbegotten (1984), Serious Money (1988), and Spoils of War (1989). Her film career flourished with standout roles in Eye of the Needle (1981) opposite Donald Sutherland, Without a Trace (1983), and later Frankie and Johnny (1991), for which she won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress; she also received an Academy Award nomination for The Prince of Tides (1991). Other notable films include Wolf (1994), U.S. Marshals (1998), and The Cider House Rules (1999).

Acting credits

U.S. Marshals poster
6.5

U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard is accompanying a plane load of convicts from Chicago to New York. The plane crashes spectacularly, and Mark Sheridan escapes. But when Diplomatic Security Agent John Royce is assigned to help Gerard recapture Sheridan, it becomes clear that Sheridan is more than just another murderer.

U.S. Marshals

1998

Fatal Instinct poster
5.5

Ned Ravine is a police officer and lawyer who occasionally defends the delinquents he arrests. He crosses paths with seductive Lola Cain during an assignment and promptly begins an affair with her. Meanwhile, Ned's wife, Lana, is deep in an affair of her own. Lana and her lover are planning to murder Ned in an elaborate fashion so they can collect on his triple indemnity life insurance policy.

Fatal Instinct

1993

The Cider House Rules poster
7.1

Homer is an orphan who was never adopted, becoming the favorite of orphanage director Dr. Larch. Dr. Larch imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him?

The Cider House Rules

1999

Wolf poster
6.1

An aging publisher becomes a demon wolf and, with this newfound youthful vigor, fights to keep his job.

Wolf

1994

Premonition poster
6.3

A depressed housewife who learns her husband was killed in a car accident the day previously awakens the next morning to find him alive and well at home, and then awakens the day after to a world in which he is still dead.

Premonition

2007

Frankie and Johnny poster
6.8

When Johnny is released from prison following a forgery charge, he quickly lands a job as a short-order cook at a New York diner. Following a brief fling with waitress Cora, he develops an attraction for Cora's friend and fellow waitress Frankie. While Frankie resists Johnny's charms initially, she eventually relents when her best friend, Tim, persuades her to give Johnny a chance.

Frankie and Johnny

1991

Shadows and Fog poster
6.7

With a serial strangler on the loose, a bookkeeper wanders around town searching for the vigilante group intent on catching the killer.

Shadows and Fog

1991

The Prince of Tides poster
6.6

A troubled Southern man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her (and New York City) in the process.

The Prince of Tides

1991

Eye of the Needle poster
6.7

Great Britain, 1944, during World War II. Relentlessly pursued by several MI5 agents, Henry Faber the Needle, a ruthless German spy in possession of vital information about D-Day, takes refuge on Storm Island, an inhospitable, sparsely inhabited island off the coast of northern Scotland.

Eye of the Needle

1981

The Count of Monte-Cristo poster
6.9

Young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes, finds treasure, and reinvents himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on those who betrayed him.

The Count of Monte-Cristo

1975

Boy Meets Girl poster
8.0

Angelina is a shy and whimsical Italian waitress who has moved from Italy to Canada to fulfill a family vow by marrying a man she's not in love with. Angelina settles into a neighborhood in Toronto's Little Italy longing for true love. Mike is a jaded and cynical copywriter for romance novels but has lost his faith in romantic love. In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, an enigmatic and amorous couple named Il Magnifico and Mrs. Jones set the whole neighborhood ablaze with romantic passion. While everyone seems to be falling under the spell of Cupid's arrows, Angelina and Mike meet and just might find the true love that they've been searching for.

Boy Meets Girl

1998

Up Close & Personal poster
6.3

Tally Atwater has a dream: to be a prime-time network newscaster. She pursues this dream with nothing but ambition, raw talent and a homemade demo tape. Warren Justice is a brilliant, hard edged, veteran newsman. He sees Tally has talent and becomes her mentor. Tally’s career takes a meteoric rise and she and Warren fall in love. The romance that results is as intense and revealing as television news itself. Yet, each breaking story, every videotaped crisis that brings them together, also threatens to drive them apart...

Up Close & Personal

1996

How to Make an American Quilt poster
6.4

Soon-to-be-wed graduate student Finn Dodd develops cold feet when she suspects her fiancé is cheating on her. In order to clear her head, Finn visits her grandmother, Hy, and great aunt, Glady Joe Cleary, in Grasse, Calif. There, Finn learns that Hy and Glady Joe are members of a group of passionate quilters, and over the course of her visit she is regaled with tales of love and life by women who have collected rich experiences and much wisdom.

How to Make an American Quilt

1995

The Lady of the Camellias poster
9.0

The doomed love story between Marguerite Gautier, a French courtesan frequented by high-class gentlemen, who is suffering from tuberculosis, and a young gentleman Armand Duval who's new in town.

The Lady of the Camellias

1976

Dracula poster
6.4

In 1913, charming, seductive, and sinister Count Dracula travels to England seeking an immortal bride.

Dracula

1979

The Romantic Englishwoman poster
5.4

A marriage crisis between a writer and his wife leads her to flee to Germany and eventually return with another man, through whom the writer is going to overcome his writer's block.

The Romantic Englishwoman

1975

Without a Trace poster
5.4

English professor Susan Selky lives alone in a Brooklyn apartment with her young son, Alex. When Alex fails to return home from school one afternoon, a frantic Selky contacts the police. Detective Al Menetti, a father himself, takes an interest in the case that quickly turns into an obsession. As a devastated Selky struggles to come to terms with Alex's disappearance, Menetti steps out from behind the badge to continue investigating.

Without a Trace

1983

Walter and Henry poster
8.6

Walter and his 12-year-old son Henry are a pair of New York City street musicians living at poverty level in an empty Brooklyn lot. When Walter has a nervous breakdown, it's up to Henry to find his father's long-lost family, including the grandfather and aunt he's never met.

Walter and Henry

2001

Eleni poster
5.9

Nick is a writer in New York when he gets posted to a bureau in Greece. He has waited 30 years for this. He wants to know why his mother was killed in the civil war years earlier. In a parallel plot line we see Nick as a young boy and his family as they struggle to survive in the occupied Greek hillside. The plot lines converge as Nick's investigations bring him closer to the answers.

Eleni

1985

A Wrinkle in Time poster
6.3

Meg and Charles Wallace are aided by Calvin and three interesting women in the search for their father who disappeared during a government experiment. Their travels take them around the universe to a place unlike any other.

A Wrinkle in Time

2003

Stolen Moments poster
3.1

A documentary history of lesbianism in North American and Europe, with historic references, archival material, film clips, interviews with many women - famous and not-famous witnesses and players - who clearly remember a difficult, painful, and often downright dangerous past.

Stolen Moments

1998

In from the Night poster
6.7

Vicki Miller is a writer who has cut herself off from her dysfunctional family. Her life drastically changes when one night, her 16-year-old nephew Bobby shows up unannounced on her doorstep. He looks tired and depressed, and when Vicki realizes that he's run away, she takes him in.

In from the Night

2006

Love & Hate: The Story of Colin and Joanne Thatcher poster
7.7

Narcissistic Saskatchewan Tory politician Colin Thatcher is engaged in a bitter divorce from his wife Jo-Ann. When a series of court rulings over the divorce go against him, Thatcher decides a more drastic solution is needed - murder! A series of attempts on Jo-Ann's life follow, most of which don't succeed. Finally one does, and the arrogant Thatcher believes he is above the law and immune to prosecution. But his arrogance proves to be his undoing, as Crown Counsel Serge Kujawa builds a case against this psychopathic monster for 1st-degree murder - charging that Thatcher hired someone to kill his wife. The true story of one of the most disturbing stories of murder-for-hire in Canada.

Love & Hate: The Story of Colin and Joanne Thatcher

1989

Swing Vote poster
5.8

A newly-appointed Supreme Court Justice must settle a controversial moral and legal dilemma with his tie-breaking decision which may also have serious implications on his own family's harmony.

Swing Vote

1999