Aitken was born in
Dublin,
Ireland, the daughter of
Sir William Aitken, a Conservative MP, and the Hon.
Penelope Aitken, whose father was
John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby. Maffey was the
UK Representative to Ireland (1939–49). She is a great-niece of newspaper magnate and war-time minister
Lord Beaverbrook, and sister to former Conservative cabinet minister
Jonathan Aitken. She attended
Riddlesworth Hall Preparatory School in Norfolk,
Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset and
St Anne's College, Oxford, where she graduated with a degree in English Language and Literature. Aitken has directed several plays in the West End and on Broadway. Her production of
The 39 Steps, which ran in London for nine years, also played three years on Broadway and won Olivier and
Tony Awards. In 2011, she directed
Frank Langella in
Man and Boy on Broadway. She is a Visiting Lecturer at
Yale,
NYU and
Juilliard drama schools. Her extensive acting career includes leading roles at the
Royal National Theatre, the
Royal Shakespeare Company and in the West End. She has played more
Noël Coward leads than any other actress. Her film career includes appearances in
Doctor Faustus (1967),
Mary, Queen of Scots (1971),
Half Moon Street (1986),
A Fish Called Wanda (1988) (for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award),
The Fool (1990),
The Grotesque (1995),
Fierce Creatures (1997),
Jinnah (1998) and
Asylum (2005). In 1984, Aitken co-wrote and starred in the sitcom
Poor Little Rich Girls alongside
Jill Bennett. She is the author of
A Girdle Round the Earth, a story of some of the remarkable women travellers of the last 200 years, and
Style: Acting in High Comedy, published in 1996, which contends that "
High comedies are not bloodless, refined, wordy plays — their themes are sex, money and social advancement. They contain a splendid contradiction: wit and elegance at the service of man's basest drives." ==Personal life==