by John Roberts

Created on: January 18, 2012   Last Updated: June 04, 2012

Tara Fitzgerald is a lovely English actress having accumulated a long and impressive resume while still only in her mid-40s. She is a prolific triple threat performer of stage, screen and television. Movie audiences recognize her best as star of "Sirens" (1993), "Brassed Off" (1996) and "I Capture the Castle" (2003). American television viewers have seen Fitzgerald numerous times in programs like "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (1996), "The Woman in White" (1996), "The Student Prince" (1997) and "Frenchman's Creek" (1997).

The actress possesses beauty and sex appeal and has escaped being typecast by her appearance in taking on a series of strong female characters. Fitzgerald has distinguished herself on London and Broadway stages in roles such as Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Nora in "A Doll's House." In 1995, she received a New York Drama Desk Award for her performance as Ophelia opposite Ralph Fiennes' "Hamlet." Her rich deep voice has provided employment in radio plays, TV narration and commercial voice-overs.

She was born Tara Anne Cassandra Fitzgerald September 18, 1967 in Cuckfield, West Sussex. Her Irish mother Sarah Geraldine Fitzgerald was a photographer and English father of Italian heritage Michael Callady an actor. The actress is the grand-niece of Oscar nominated Hollywood film star Geraldine Fitzgerald. She has a younger sister named Arabella. The family moved to the Bahamas where Fitzgerald's paternal grandfather David practiced law. They returned to London when she was three and a year later her parents divorced.

Mother and daughters moved in with Fitzgerald's aunt and uncle. Sarah met and married Irish actor Norman Rodway when Tara was six. Their short union produced sister Bianca. A nomadic lifestyle kept Fitzgerald drifting through schools in Dublin, Glasgow and Stratford-Upon-Avon before settling as a teen in London at the Walsingham Girls School. Fitzgerald left school at 16 to pursue an acting career and applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Both institutions rejected her on the basis of being too young and inexperienced at 17.

Fitzgerald gained life experience by waitressing around Europe for two years and returned to London where she was accepted by the Drama Centre. She lived with her mother and continued waitressing to pay bank loans for tuition fees. The aspiring actress graduated in 1990. An agent spotted her in an amateur stage production and arranged an audition

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