Zoë Wanamaker is one of Britain's most recognised actors thanks to her role in the BBC sitcom My Family. The 75-year-old Laurence Olivier Award winner, who boasts an impressive list of theatre, TV and film credits, is currently starring in the new Bergerac reboot as Charlie Hungerford.
But while she's been a regular fixture on our screens for years, did you know Zoë isn't the only famous face in her family? Find out more below…
Zoë's famous family
Zoë comes from a family of actors. Her father, Sam Wanamaker, was an American actor and director who devoted years of his life to creating Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in Southwark, but sadly died aged 74 in 1993 before seeing it built.
In 2015, the My Family actress revealed that she "found it difficult" to enter the building for "a long time".
© Bill Johnson/ANL/Shutterstock"I knew how much it had cost both my mother and father – the struggle he'd had, the arguments, the fights about the bridge – now the 'wobbly bridge' – which was his idea," she told The Telegraph, and revealed that everything her father predicted about the South Bank has happened, including the rise of property prices and more buildings. "He was before his time. I am proud of it," she said.
Sam's TV and film credits include The Spiral Staircase, Private Benjamin and Baby Boom. In 1968, he directed the pilot episode of the TV show Lancer, which was fictionalised in the 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He was portrayed by Nicholas Hammond.
Zoë's mother, Charlotte Holland, was a Canadian actress and radio performer.
© BBCThe family moved to London when Zoë was three because her father was identified as a communist sympathiser during the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s.
Both parents discouraged Zoë and her two sisters from following in their footsteps. "They didn't want me to suffer," the actress previously told The Telegraph. "This business, as all actors will tell you, is largely about rejection. And my threshold of resistance was, and is, pretty low. But I didn't think there was anything else I could do. I didn't think I was very bright or very intelligent, so, as usual, you become an actor."
Zoë's famous husband
Zoë is married to Scottish actor, playwright and screenwriter, Gawn Grainger. His TV credits include Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.
Zoë and Gawn had known each other for a while before things turned romantic. Their friendship blossomed into a relationship while they were both grieving: Zoë for her father and Gawn for his wife, Janet.
© James Shaw/Shutterstock"I'd known Gawn and Janet for a while," Zoë previously said. "We'd been friends and on occasion I'd borrow Gawn as an escort."
"It sort of happened," she continued. "I suppose I just continued borrowing him as a friend and that's how it started."
© UKTVWhile Zoë and Gawn don't share any children, the actress became a stepmum to Gawn's two children when they married.
"Marriage was never particularly high on my agenda. But I got lucky," she previously told The Lady. "I met a very nice man who made me laugh and whose children welcomed me into their house precisely because they could see I made their father happy again."
