Why are they famous ?: Emma Thompson

Main claim

Uber-luvvie turned Great British export. The Jodie Foster of Blighty, Emma Thompson is a one-woman institution, an achingly pukka thesp who also manages to garner Oscars. Cornering Shakespeare and Hollywood while pulling an Academy Award for her screenwriting, our heroine is Renaissance Woman incarnate. She has progressed from cringe-making bit player in the Ken 'n' Em show to towering talent complete with cred. And now we are a mother. At the age of 40, Thompson has given birth to her long-awaited first child, a daughter nicknamed jane.com. She declares herself "in heaven".

Appearance

Scrubbed bluestocking meets aficionado of Camden Lock. North London playgroup supervisor with large rummage box. The Glenda Jackson of the Nineties. Cool Britannia Thompson espouses a peculiarly British image, all porridge and knits and rude sex. She keeps her Oscars in her downstairs loo in Hampstead, which rather sums it up.

Home thoughts

Thompson attended Camden School for Girls before becoming a giantess of the Cambridge Footlights alongside a clutch of other soon-to-be-famous luvvies. She later starred in Fortunes of War and won an Oscar for Howard's End. As the daughter of the cult Magic Roundabout's creator Eric Thompson and actress Phyllida Law, she could have grown up a ghastly north London bratess, but our heroine is nothing if not sensible. She became Emma Thompson instead.

Luvvie match

Emma is partly famous for wearing wedding garb so ghastly it resembled a full set of loose covers from Bhs. As wife to Kenneth Branagh, a tremendously nauseating Olivier-Leigh aura surrounded our heroine and her princeling. "Ken is so tired his sperm are on crutches," commented Emma. Separation followed six years later. A collective cheer went up when no-lips Ken was replaced by howlingly handsome thesp Greg Wise, now father to the Thompson infant.

Fame prospects

Whether it's future thesplings, lavatorial Oscars or wholemeal jumpers, la Thompson is scattily invincible. That damehood cannot be far off.