Kim Ellen Thomson (born 30 October 1959) is an English actress who has appeared on stage, television and film since the early 1980s in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Early life Thomson was born on 30 October 1959, although other sources have said in 1960 and 1964, in Bath, Somerset, England, (official site says Scotland) to a Scottish father and Irish mother. Her parents split up when she was three and she was brought up in Surrey by her father's parents, who were originally from Alloa. At the age of six, she was sent to a boarding school for five years. Much later she went on record to say boarding schools should be abolished. She trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Career Her most memorable role was that of Lesley Bainbridge in the BBC sit-com Brush Strokes, which at its peak, was watched by over 15 million people with the British tabloids avidly following the storyline. In the 1987 episode of the TV series "Tales of the Unexpected" Thomson played the role of hotel maid Elly Somerton alongside Topol who starred as the lead character Professor Max Kelada. Thomson shared her first lead in Stealing Heaven (1988) with Derek de Lint and Denholm Elliott. In its review, Films and filming said "Kim Thomson's Heloïse moves with delicate poise, a heroine worthy of Rossetti or Burne-Jones, with vivacity and intelligence." The next year, 1989, she played Estella in a film of Great Expectations directed by Kevin Connor, with Jean Simmons, who had played Estella in the 1946 film, as Miss Havisham. Also in 1989 she was Cordelia on stage in King Lear, directed by Jonathan Miller, with the British Theatre Yearbook commenting "Kim Thomson's Cordelia can rarely have been equalled; she was exquisite in beauty, tender in care, full of youthful integrity." In 1992, Thomson was the leading lady of the TV series Virtual Murder, and in 1994 played another leading role in a costume drama series, The Wanderer. Dozens more appearances in film and on television followed, often as a character actress, such as her role as a society reporter in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004). In 1997, she took on the part of Lady Chiltern in An Ideal Husband, of which the Theatre Record said "Others have played this pure, cool, idealistic, demanding role with more