Some of her other notable stage credits are Pygmalion, The Pillars of Society and Hamlet as Ophelia.

Michelle Suzanne Dockery was born on 15 December 1981 in Romford, East London.

She has two elder sisters, Louise and Joanne. Her father, Michael Dockery, is a native of Athlone, Ireland,who worked his way up from driving a van to becoming a surveyor, and his wife, Lorraine née Witton is from Stepney, East London. Dockery's maternal great-grandmother, Maud Malyon, was born in 1910 in Newham, East London, and was a domestic servant.

She was 17 when she married Dockery's great-grandfather, grocer's assistant William Henry Oakman, 18, at West Ham Register Office.

Dockery was educated first at the Chadwell Heath Foundation School (now the Chadwell Heath Academy) in Chadwell Heath, East London. She was then trained at the Finch Stage School. After her A Levels she enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, graduating in 2004.

Dockery was a member of the National Youth Theatre, studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she won the Gold Medal for drama and made her professional debut in His Dark Materials at the Royal National Theatre in 2004. In 2006, she was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award for her performance as Dina Dorf in Pillars of the Community at the National Theatre.

Dockery appeared in Burnt by the Sun at the National Theatre for which she received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.She won second prize at the Ian Charleson Awards for her performance as Eliza Doolittle in Peter Hall's production of Pygmalion at the Theatre Royal, Bath, which toured the UK and transferred to The Old Vic in 2008, and for the same production was nominated Best Newcomer at the Evening Standard Awards 2008. In 2010, she played Ophelia in Hamlet at the Crucible Theatre alongside John Simm.

Dockery made her television debut as Betty in Fingersmith in 2005. In 2006, she starred as Susan Sto Helit in a two-part adaptation of Terry Pratchett's novel Hogfather. In 2008, Dockery played Kathryn in Channel 4's The Red Riding Trilogy and played the guest lead of tormented rape victim Gemma Morrison in BBC`s Waking the Dead. In 2009, she appeared in the two-part Cranford Christmas special for the BBC, and starred as the lead character in a modernised BBC adaptation of The Turn of the Screw.

Dockery came to public prominence in 2010 when she played Lady Mary Crawley in Julian Fellowes' series Downton Abbey, the first season of which was screened on ITV between September and November 2010. She was nominated for a Southbank Award in January for Best Breakthrough Performance in a TV drama. A second series of Downton Abbey was shown in 2011, followed by a special Christmas Day episode, with Dockery nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of Best Actress. The show's third series premiered on 16 September 2012 in the UK, and on 6 January 2013 in the US A fourth series has been commissioned for broadcast and began filming in February 2013.

Dockery is a jazz singer. She sang at the 50th Anniversary of Ronnie Scott's Jazz club in London and has occasionally sung with Sadie and the Hotheads, a band formed by Elizabeth McGovern, who plays her mother in Downton Abbey.

Dockery cites her musical influences as Peggy Lee, Melody Gardot and Billie Holiday in her more melancholy moods.

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