Cressida Bonas
English actress, dancer and model

Cressida Bonas

The basics
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Intro
English actress, dancer and model
Gender:
Female
Birth:
18 February 1989(Winchester, Winchester, Hampshire, United Kingdom)
Star sign:
Education:
University of Leeds
Prior Park College
Stowe School
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
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The details
Biography

Introduction

Cressida Curzon Bonas (born 18 February 1989) is an English actress and model.

Early life and education

Cressida Curzon Bonas was born in Winchester, Hampshire, the only child and daughter of 1960s "It girl" Lady Mary-Gaye Georgiana Lorna Curzon, daughter of the second marriage of the 6th Earl Howe, and her third husband, Old Harrovian entrepreneur Jeffrey Bonas. The Bonas family, once grocers and butchers, also owned textile mills in Castle Gresley and Burton-on-Trent under the company name "Bonas Brothers"; it closed operations in the 1980s, having produced, as its final line, elastic for women's tights.

She has seven half-siblings: three paternal half-brothers from her father's first marriage; one maternal half-sister from her mother's first marriage; and two maternal half-sisters and a maternal half-brother from her mother's second marriage, including actress Isabella Calthorpe.

Bonas had a sports scholarship to Prior Park College in Bath, Somerset, and then completed her formal education at Stowe School. She then went on to study Dance at Leeds University graduating with a 2:1, before undertaking post-graduate dance studies at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire in Greenwich.

Career

Whilst at school, Bonas played cockney housekeeper Mrs. Swabb in Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus, Miss Julie in the eponymous play, and Laura in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie.

Bonas made her first screen appearance in 2009 with a small role in the TV series Trinity. Her theatrical debut came in 2014 at Hay Festival in the play There's a Monster in the Lake. The play was also staged at the Vault Festival in January 2015. In May and June 2015 Bonas appeared as Laura in the one-woman play, An Evening with Lucian Freud, by Laura-Jane Foley, at the Leicester Square Theatre. Jane Shilling in The Daily Telegraph praised the "charm and energy of Bonas's performance". In June 2014 Bonas was rumoured to be going to appear in the film Tulip Fever (2015) as Mrs. Steen. In December 2016 and January 2017 Bonas played the female lead role of Daisy Buchanan in the musical play Gatsby, at the Leicester Square Theatre, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

Bonas was photographed by Mario Testino for Vanity Fair after being included in the magazine's annual "International Best-Dressed List" in 2014. In January 2015, after modelling for British brand Burberry, Bonas was announced to front the 2015 campaign of fashion company Mulberry. Her work for the brand includes a two-minute-long advertisement released in March that co-stars actor Freddie Fox and is directed by Ivana Bobic.

Personal life

Bonas has been called an "It girl". She was introduced to Prince Harry by Princess Eugenie in May 2012. On 30 April 2014, it was reported that the couple had separated amicably. In May 2018, she was a guest at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

On 18 August 2019, Bonas's engagement to estate agent Harry Wentworth-Stanley was announced via a post on his Instagram page. Wentworth-Stanley is the son of Nicholas Wentworth-Stanley, of a Hertfordshire landed gentry family, and his first wife, Clare Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven (née HustedSteel), social editor for Tatler magazine.

Selected credits

Theatre

Year Play Role Venue Notes
2014 There's a Monster in the Lake Wolf Hay Festival
2015 There's a Monster in the Lake Wolf Vault Festival
2015 The Importance of Being Earnest
2015 An Evening with Lucian Freud Laura Leicester Square Theatre
2016/2017 The Great Gatsby Daisy Buchanan Leicester Square Theatre

Film and television

Year Film Role Notes
2009 Trinity Cheerleader
2016 Doctor Thorne Patience Oriel
2017 The Bye Bye Man Sasha
2017 Tulip Fever Mrs. Steen
2020 White House Farm Sheila Caffell