Alex Kingston appeared moved to tears as she received applause from the audience on Strictly Come Dancing. She wore a sparkling teal outfit and held her partner’s hand tightly.
Her stunning rumba performance was so elegant and technically impressive that head judge Shirley Ballas gave her a perfect ten and put her in first place on last Saturday’s show.
Alex is now a strong contender to win, but she’s unique on Strictly Come Dancing – at 62, she’s considerably older than many of the other contestants. Even Bill Bailey, the show’s oldest winner, was just 55 when he won in 2020.
Alex hasn’t had any formal dance training. Viewers are once again debating whether professional dancers like Amber Davies and Lewis Cope have an unfair edge on the show, but Alex is much more comfortable performing scenes from Shakespeare than doing dances like the paso doble.
Her performances on Strictly have really resonated with viewers, especially one where she brilliantly stayed in character as Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada.
Alex and her partner Johannes Radebe performed a foxtrot on Saturday’s show to Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again,” and Alex’s performance, dressed as the singer in a blonde wig and floral dress, was a hit with the judges. While she had a small stumble, Anton du Beke called her dancing ‘divine,’ and Motsi Mabuse said she looked like she was ‘floating on air.’
Shirley Ballas felt confident about her dancing and believed she had a strong physique for the competition, expecting to make it to the final. However, she advised the contestant to refine a few technical aspects of her performance. Despite receiving a score of 32 – a slight dip from her 36 last week – she remained among the leaders on the leaderboard.
Many people will recognize Alex from her roles before Strictly Come Dancing – either as the enigmatic River Song in Doctor Who, a celebrated stage actress, or, for a lot of viewers, as the energetic Dr. Elizabeth Corday from the TV show ER.
Oh my gosh, it was those seven years on that incredible medical drama that completely changed Alex’s life! Before that, she was just starting out, but after that show? She became a massive star, like, one of the biggest on TV in the entire nineties! I remember watching her and just knowing she was destined for greatness.
Most people remember her landing that incredible role, but few know the painful personal struggles happening behind the scenes. She actually finalized her divorce from Ralph Fiennes, whom she’d been with for over ten years, right as she was signing on for the fourth season of ER in 1997.
They first became acquainted as acting students at RADA in the early 1980s and married in 1993. However, their marriage ended after three years when Ralph began a relationship with actress Francesca Annis, who was 18 years older than him.
Alex said the breakup made her feel hopeless and consider suicide. However, if her marriage to Ralph had worked out and they’d had the family she wanted, she might never have moved to the US and found her own independence.
According to a source in the film industry, Ralph was a major star at the time, but his partner was often seen as ‘the actor’s girlfriend’ rather than a celebrated actress herself, especially during their relationship.
Landing a role on ER launched her career, and while her marriage fell apart around that time, it probably gave her the motivation to pursue the path she truly desired.
Alex recently made a big career change, and she says it was deeply influenced by the loss of both her parents. Her father, Anthony, was an English butcher, and her mother, Margarethe, was German. This personal loss was a key factor in her decision to join Strictly.
On top of everything else, she also battled a difficult personal challenge last year, receiving a diagnosis of uterine cancer in 2024.
The actress, originally from Surrey, initially dismissed her health issues as a normal part of getting older and tried to ignore them. However, she eventually suffered a bleed while performing on stage. Despite this, she continued the show with assistance from the costume team.
She says she felt like her old self again after undergoing a hysterectomy and radiation treatment. Despite this, she’s already back to competing on Strictly Come Dancing, less than a year after finishing her treatment.
Early in her career, Alex was strongly influenced by her then-husband, Ralph. For instance, when Ralph joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, she decided to do the same.
I knew I had to join that company – honestly, I didn’t think our relationship could survive if I didn’t. It was a make-or-break situation for me, so I really pushed myself and thankfully, I got the job, as I told someone back in 2013.
For ten years, Ralph and Juliette worked as actors taking on various roles. Then, in 1992, Ralph appeared in his first film, playing Heathcliff in a movie version of Wuthering Heights, with Juliette Binoche as Cathy.
Although the movie wasn’t a critical success, it made Ralph Fiennes famous and established him as a popular actor. A year later, his career truly took off with his haunting performance as Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination – and eventually two more.
He later gained a large following of younger fans for his portrayal of the villain Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies. However, while his career was taking off in Hollywood, his wife, Alex, continued to perform in stage plays and take on smaller roles in television shows like The Bill and Soldier Soldier.
She recalled that when they were a couple, his career was much more prominent than hers. While she focused on theatre, he was landing major film roles. She admitted the difference in their levels of fame caused some issues, but emphasized there was never any rivalry between them. Two years into their marriage, her husband took on the iconic role of Hamlet in a play where Francesca Annis played his mother, Gertrude.
I was absolutely shocked when I learned about Ralph and Francesca. It was a real scandal – she was so much older than him, and already in a committed relationship with a family! They had an affair, and Ralph ended up leaving Alex in 1996. It was a terrible time for her personally, she was really hurting. But, surprisingly, things started to improve professionally for Alex. She landed this amazing role – the lead in a TV drama called ‘The Fortunes And Misfortunes Of Moll Flanders’, and she starred opposite a young Daniel Craig, which was a huge break for her.
Shortly after, in early 1997, she starred in the thriller Croupier, directed by Mike Hodges, playing a South African con artist with Clive Owen. Her performance in Moll Flanders is what led the producers of ER to notice her, as they were looking for an English actress to play a new doctor on the show.
According to a source, Alex is proving herself to be a powerful talent in film and television, showing everyone that her work speaks for itself, separate from her private life.
Things were also improving in her personal life, and she soon found love again. She met her future second husband, Florian Haertel, a German writer and journalist, through friends she’d made in Los Angeles. They were introduced on a blind date.
Their first date went so well, they got married the next year – in 1999 on a beach in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They were inspired to have a beach wedding after meeting a couple at their hotel bar who had done the same thing.
Salome Violetta Haertel was born in 2001 after her parents went through several difficult rounds of IVF and a long, 36-hour labor.
It took 13 rounds of IVF before I finally became pregnant with Salome, and it was incredibly difficult. When you’re so focused on getting pregnant, you don’t always think about the potential long-term health consequences,” she explained in an interview.
They tried for years to expand their family, even attempting to adopt twice, but weren’t successful. Unfortunately, the marriage eventually fell apart, leading to a separation in 2009 and a final divorce in 2013.
In 2015, Alex married TV producer Jonathan Stamp in Rome at the All Saints Anglican Church. She then moved back to the UK permanently in 2019.
It was quite a coincidence that just as Amanda Abbington was getting ready to start on Strictly Come Dancing last month, her ex-partner, Ralph Fiennes, released a trailer for his new play. The trailer, promoting ‘Small Hotel’ at the Theatre Royal Bath, features Francesca Annis as his dance partner. Despite their split in 2006 – which followed multiple instances of infidelity on Ralph’s part – they’ve worked together again on this production, which Ralph describes as a story about rekindling a romance with someone from your past.
Is it just luck? Maybe. But looking at the last thirty years, any attempt to underestimate Alex will likely only motivate them to achieve even more.
When ‘Strictly’ asked me to join, I immediately thought, ‘You only live once!’ I realized I should pursue something I’d always dreamed of, because if you don’t take a chance, it’ll never happen.
Honestly, what’s the biggest risk? With a show like Strictly, the worst that could happen is elimination. But even that isn’t so bad – you’ve already taken part and shown what you can do.
With such determination, the glitterball trophy is surely now well and truly within her reach.
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2025-10-26 00:20