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Cate Blanchett (born May 14, 1969) is an Australian actress. She was born as Catherine Elise Blanchett in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia as the daughter of a Texan navy officer who came ashore in Melbourne and never left and a Melbourne schoolteacher. Her father, Robert, had moved on to advertising when he met her mother, June. He died of a heart attack when Cate was only 10 years old. She has two brothers, the oldest, Bob, is a computer programmer, and her younger sister, Genevieve, is a set designer in the theatre.
Blanchett graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney in 1992, and began her career on the stage. Her first major stage role was opposite Geoffrey Rush in the 1993 David Mamet play Oleanna. Her film debut was as an Australian nurse captured by the Japanese in the POW production directed by Bruce Beresford, Paradise Road, that co-starred Glenn Close and Frances McDormand.
She married playwright and screenwriter Andrew Upton, who she met back in 1996 while she was performing in a production of The Seagull. It was hardly love at first sight, however. "He thought I was aloof and I thought he was arrogant," said Cate Blanchett. "It just shows you how wrong you can be. But once he kissed me that was that." The two were married in 1997 and welcomed their first child, Dashiell John, in December 2001 and their second child Roman was born in 2004.