Cressida Curzon Bonas born 18 February 1989 is an English actress and model.
Early life and education
Bonas was born in Winchester, Hampshire, the only child of 1960s “It girl” Lady Mary-Gaye Georgiana Lorna Curzon (daughter of the 6th Earl Howe’s second marriage) 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.
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 won a sports scholarship to Prior Park College in Bath, Somerset, then completed her formal education at Stowe School. She 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.
She 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. In 2020 she played Sheila Caffell in White House Farm, a British television series about the 1985 White House Farm murders.
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.
In July 2020, Bonas married Harry Wentworth-Stanley, a property investor, and a stepson of George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven, in a small, private ceremony in West Sussex.
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 |