Tilda Swinton

Katherine Matilda Swinton was born on 5 November 1960 in London, the daughter of Judith Balfour (née Killen; 1929–2012) and Sir John Swinton (1925–2018), the Laird of Kimmerghame House. She has three brothers. Her father was a retired major-general in the British Army, and was Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire from 1989 to 2000. Her mother was Australian. Her paternal great-grandfather was a Scottish politician and herald, George Swinton, and her maternal great-great-grandfather was the Scottish botanist John Hutton Balfour. The Swintons are an ancient Scots family whose members can trace their lineage to the 9th Century. Swinton considers herself "first and foremost" a Scot. Swinton attended three independent schools: Queen's Gate School in London, the West Heath Girls' School, and also Fettes College for a brief period. West Heath was a boarding school, where she was a classmate and friend of Lady Diana Spencer, the future Princess of Wales. As an adult, Swinton has spoken out against boarding schools, stating that West Heath was "a very lonely and isolating environment" and that she thinks boarding schools "are a very cruel setting in which to grow up and I don't feel children benefit from that type of education. Children need their parents and the love parents can provide." Swinton spent two years as a volunteer in South Africa and Kenya before university. In 1983, Swinton graduated from New Hall at the University of Cambridge with a degree in social and political sciences. While at Cambridge, she joined the Communist Party; she later joined the Scottish Socialist Party. It was in college that Swinton began performing on stage.