Yahoo Finance Kate Winslet: Why I am pleased my ancestors were impoverished slaves
Kate Winslet has said she would have been âdisgustedâ to discover she had wealthy or royal ancestors on Who Do You Think You Are?
The Titanic star - who is worth an estimated ÂŁ62 million - spoke of her relief that the BBC showâs investigation into her family tree revealed her background was one of impoverishment.
Winslet told the Radio Times: âI would have been upset and disgusted if I had come from wealth or royalty.
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âMy roots are socialist, working class and, in a funny way, my parents frowned upon the wealthy.â
She instead learned that her maternal great-great-grandfather came to the UK from Sweden in 1884 to work as a tailor, a fact which, âbasically means Iâm an immigrantâ.
The 43-year-old Oscar-winning actress was born in Reading, one of four children to Roger Winslet, a struggling actor who she has said in the past took labouring jobs to make ends meet. Her mother Sally worked as a nanny and a waitress and her maternal grandparents were also actors.
Winslet attended Redroofs Theatre School but had to leave after sitting her GCSEs because her parents could not afford the fees.
She said: âMum and Dad went to Oxford for their honeymoon and we always had holidays out of the back of the van with a tent.
âWe had wonderful times camping in Cornwall and France. We never went anywhere as a family that involved getting on a plane, ever, ever, ever.â
In the family history series Winslet learns her great-great-great-great grandparents Anders and Anna were starving slaves in Sweden in the early 1800s.
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The Reader star said coming from a âlong line of impoverished people on both sides of my familyâ, is why she had âtried to instill my parentsâ values into my kids.â
Winslet said: âPeople never believe me, but my children arenât over privileged. We just donât live like that. They are very balanced. Humble.
âMy ancestors were impoverished but they would do anything for their kids and Iâm exactly the same.â
Winslet is mother to Mia, 18, with her first husband Jim Threapleton, son Joe, 15, with her second husband Sam Mendes and five-year-old Bear with her current husband Edward Abel Smith, formerly known as Ned Rocknroll and the nephew of businessman Sir Richard Branson.
Winsletâs mother died from ovarian cancer in 2017, and Winslet revealed she had always wanted her to appear on the BBC show and find out more about their roots.
She said: âWhen Mum died, it was like the North Star just dropped out of the sky. It was the hardest part of making Who Do You Think You Are?
âMum would absolutely have come with me on the journey. She loved travelling when I was in a position to send her and Dad to nice places. She would have been part of WDYTYA, I know she would.
âI cried and cried. I cried every step of the way.â
Daniel Radcliffe also takes part in the new series.
The Harry Potter star breaks down in tears as he reads his great-grandfather's suicide note. Jewish businessman Samuel Gershon had been left destitute and shamed after a robbery at the family's Hatton Garden jewellery business in 1936, which police accused him of faking so he could claim the insurance.
Radcliffe said: "Everything he had worked for and that his father had worked for, has sort of been destroyed.
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"You want to just reach into the past and just go âwhatever youâre going through, you have so much to offer the people who are around you still . . . you have so much to give to them.
âAnd, they still would all have loved youâ.â
Who Do You Think You Are? begins on Monday July 22 on BBC One at 9pm
