BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Jeremy Piven Harry Gordon Selfridge in Mr. Selfridge Chicago native Jeremy Piven stars as fellow Midwesterner Harry Gordon Selfridge in MASTERPIECE’s new series about the mercantile genius who showed early 20th-century London how to shop. Among his many notable roles, Piven is best known as movie agent Ari Gold in the hit series Entourage, which aired for eight seasons and won Piven three Emmy® Awards and a Golden Globe®. His extensive career in television also includes the satirical Larry Sanders Show. In film, he starred in Mark Pellington’s drama I Melt with You, Gaby Dellal’s heart- wrenching Angels Crest, Gary Fleder’s Runaway Jury, Todd Phillips’ hit comedy Old School, Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, Peter Chelsom’s Serendipity, The Family Man, Peter Berg’s Very Bad Things and The Kingdom, Cameron Crowe’s Singles, Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, Guy Ritchie’s Rocknrolla, and The Player for director Robert Altman. In 2005, Piven returned to his theater roots starring in the off-Broadway hit Fat Pig by Neil LaBute, for which he received a Distinguished Performance Honor from the Drama League. He also appeared as Bobby Gould on-Broadway in Speed-the-Plow. As a child growing up in Chicago, the eight-year-old Piven climbed on stage at the Piven Theatre Workshop, founded by his father, Byrne, and mother, Joyce Piven. He is still very active with this workshop and returns to Chicago frequently to help keep his parents’ dream alive. Frances O’Connor Rose Selfridge in Mr. Selfridge Who can forget Frances O’Connor as the bad girl of literature, Madame Bovary, in MASTERPIECE’s passionate 2000 adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s classic novel? And with Hugh Bonneville as her much-deceived husband! In Mr. Selfridge, the tables are turned with her character, Rose, as the wronged spouse. Her acclaimed past roles include the heroine, Fanny Price, in Patricia Rozema’s 1999 adaptation of Mansfield Park, opposite Alessandro Nivola; and the mother of Haley Joel Osment’s robotic boy in Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence.Her recent work includes the indie Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes for director Francesca Gregorini; the Billy Bob Thornton–directed feature Jayne Mansfield’s Car, opposite Robert Duvall, Kevin Bacon, John Hurt, and Billy Bob Thornton; the indie feature Lumpy; and the American feature Little Red Wagon for director David Anspaugh. She was also seen in the Aussie features The Hunter, opposite Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill, and Blessed, for which she won Best Actress at the Australian Film Institute Awards. On television she made a splash starring on the ABC series Cashmere Mafia, executive produced by Darren Star. She also received rave reviews for her title character performance in the West End production Tom & Viv. -more- Zoë Tapper Ellen Love in Mr. Selfridge MYSTERY! fans remember Zoë Tapper as the duplicitous widowed temptress in the last episode of Zen. In Mr. Selfridge, she plays a less lethal femme fatale—spunky showgirl Ellen Love, who steals the boss’s heart and a bit of his wallet, while becoming the “Spirit of Selfridge.” Tapper graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama just days before taking her first film role, playing “pretty, witty” Nell Gwynn in Richard Eyre’s Stage Beauty, opposite Rupert Everett and Claire Danes. Other film roles followed, ranging from Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, alongside Joan Plowright, to the romantic comedy Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, with Felicity Jones and Downton Abbey’s Elizabeth McGovern. On the London stage, Tapper starred opposite Joseph Fiennes in John Osbourne’s Epitaph for George Dillon, directed by Peter Gill, and The Guardian called her “a Desdemona to die for” in Shakespeare’s Othello at The Globe. On the small screen, Tapper’s credits include the title role in the BAFTA-nominated A Harlot’s Progress, opposite Toby Jones, and she played a spirit medium in the award-winning Andrew Davies adaptation of Affinity. She also starred in the BBC drama Desperate Romantics, with a performance likened by one critic to “the 19th century’s version of Angelina Jolie,” and she was a Royal Television Society award nominee for her portrayal of a tortured prostitute in Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky, directed by Simon Curtis. Andrew Davies Creator, writer, and executive producer of Mr. Selfridge A screenwriting legend, Andrew Davies’s adaptations and original screenplays have won international acclaim, including five BAFTA and two Primetime Emmy® awards. His many credits on MASTERPIECE date back to1985, when he wrote an episode of Bleak House—the drama series’ first retelling of the Dickens novel. He also adapted in its entirety MASTERPIECE’s celebrated second version, starring Gillian Anderson, which aired in 2006. His other adaptations on MASTERPIECE include classics such as Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Wives and Daughters, Moll Flanders, Daniel Deronda, and Little Dorrit, as well as modern novels including A Room with a View, Doctor Zhivago, South Riding, and Take a Girl Like You. Davies’s movie credits include Circle of Friends, The Tailor of Panama, and both Bridget Jones films. Prolific beyond imagining, he is currently working on Quirke, based on John Banville’s novels written as Benjamin Black, a TV movie about Dylan Thomas for the poet’s centenary, a new movie version of Beauty and the Beast to be directed by Guillermo del Toro, and TV miniseries adaptations of Les Miserables and War and Peace. -more- Rebecca Eaton Executive Producer, MASTERPIECE Named one of TIME Magazine’s Most Influential People of 2011, Rebecca Eaton took over the helm of the PBS series MASTERPIECE THEATRE and MYSTERY! in 1985, and oversaw the highly successful relaunch of MASTERPIECE in 2008 that has attracted a larger, more diverse audience to the series. Eaton has brought American audiences such high-profile titles as Prime Suspect, Bleak House, The Lost Prince, Inspector Morse, Miss Marple, The Complete Jane Austen, Cranford, Wallander, Little Dorrit, and the recent hits Sherlock and Downton Abbey, which drew more than 17 million viewers during its second season. Under her leadership, MASTERPIECE has won 42 Primetime Emmy® Awards, 17 Peabody Awards, two Golden Globes®, and two Academy Award® nominations. Eaton’s distinguished career has earned her the official recognition of Queen Elizabeth II—with an honorary OBE (Officer, Order of the British Empire). January 2013 Funding provided by.