LONDON — Oscar-nominated actress Helena Bonham Carter, famed for playing quirky characters as well as British royalty, joins a former prisoner, a reality-TV guru and several Olympics organizers on the list of people being awarded honors by Queen Elizabeth II this New Year’s.
The queen awarded Bonham Carter a CBE, short for Commanders of the Order of the British Empire. Bonham Carter played Queen Elizabeth, the supportive wife of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II’s mother, in “The King’s Speech.”
Businessman Gerald Ronson, who was convicted in 1990 for a share-trading scandal and served six months of a one-year jail sentence, was awarded a CBE for his services to charity. Peter Bazalgette, who brought the show “Big Brother” to the U.K., was made a knight. Professor Geoffrey Hill, who has been described as the greatest living poet in the English language, also became a knight.
