Catherine Tate

Tate was born in Bloomsbury, London, on 5 December 1969 and was raised in the Brunswick Centre. Her mother, Josephine, was a florist. Tate has said that the character of Margaret in The Catherine Tate Show, who shrieks at the slightest of disturbances, is based largely on her mother. Tate never knew her father as he left very early on in her life and, consequently, she was brought up in a female-dominated environment, being cared for by her mother, grandmother, and godparents. As a child, Tate had obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and was obsessed with word association. For example, she was not able to leave a jumper on the floor because it might have brought misfortune to her mother, whose name began with the letter "J" like "jumper". Tate attended St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School in Holborn, and Notre Dame High School, a convent secondary school for girls in Southwark. By the time she was a teenager, she knew she wanted a professional acting career; following the abolition of the sixth form at her secondary school, she was sent to a boys' Roman Catholic school, Salesian College in Battersea, at the age of 16, as it had the necessary facilities for drama. She left school without sitting her A levels. She then tried for four years to get a place in the Central School of Speech and Drama, succeeding on her fourth attempt. She studied there for three years. Prior to getting a place there, Tate went to the Sylvia Young Theatre School, but left after a week, later stating, "Even at that age, I realised I wasn't Bonnie Langford. It was very competitive." She was also a member of the National Youth Theatre. Born Catherine Ford, she changed her name when she got her Equity card as an actress. She chose her new surname after the character of Jessica Tate, played by Katherine Helmond, from the American sitcom television series Soap.