The brilliant British actress Kathryn Hunter was born Aikaterini Hadjipateras in New York to Greek parents fifty-nine years ago and raised in England where she trained at RADA.
The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer once described her as “…diminutive in stature and slightly lame, she has a deep, guttural voice, eyes like black olives and the most expressive of faces.”

In 1991 she won an Olivier Award for her portrayal of the millionaire in Friedrich Durrenmatt’s THE VISIT. When reviewing Samuel Beckett’s FRAGMENTS at London’s Young Vic in 2008, The Guardian’s Andrew Dickson said that Kathryn “crams into a few minutes of stage time more than most actors achieve in a career.”

Her ‘uncommon ability to shape shift’ has led her to play roles typically reserved for male actors. In 1997 she was the first British female actor to play KING LEAR professionally and four years later she lead an all-female cast in RICHARD III at Shakespeare’s Globe.

For most of September this year, the ‘master of transformation’ performed ten roles in an hour at the Young Vic, including the title character, Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie in the world premiere of THE EMPEROR  in what The Sunday Times declared, “her shape-shifting brilliance could be the stage performance of the year.”

I managed to catch up with her after the final matinee, which is no mean feat in itself as her boundless energy is not restricted to the stage. She was moving quickly looking for a friend, but did stop momentarily to thank me for this drawing I did of her as the Plantagenet King and sign it.