Helen Mirren has been an internationally acclaimed actress and the recipient of many awards, transferring without obvious effort from stage, cinema and television for over 40 years. Known in her youth for a forthright style, a liberated attitude and a bohemian outlook, she has never ceased to be out of the public eye, with legions of admiring fans all over the world. This illustrated memoir is an account of an extraordinary talent, and a life well lived.

Helen's aristocratic Russian grandfather, Pyotr Vasielivich Mironov, a military man, was sent to London by the Tsar and found himself stranded and penniless by the Bolshevik revolution, cut off from the family estate near Smolensk. He brought with him a trunk of papers and photographs. This delightful memoir starts with contents of the trunk, with evocative pictures of Helen's Russian antecedents. She has kept a rich seam of photographs and memorabilia from her life, and her parents, family life, childhood, teenage and early years as an actress living in insalubrious flats are vividly documented.

Helen's many distinguished roles in theatre, cinema and television and the illustrious men and women she has encountered are commemorated, as well as her forays into Hollywood and her subsequent life in the US with her husband, film director Taylor Hackford. Golden Globe and Oscar ceremonies make their appearance, as do many stunning images of Helen by the world's leading photographers.

In the Frame is a book to savour, created and written by one of the great personalities of our age.