Swinton was born in London. Her mother, Judith Balfour (née Killen), was Australian, and her father, Major-General Sir John Swinton of Kimmerghame, Berwickshire, KCVO, is Scottish. The Swinton family is an ancient Anglo-Scots family that can trace its lineage to the ninth century. Swinton attended West Heath Girls' School (the same class as Diana, Princess of Wales), and also Fettes College for a brief period. In 1983, she graduated from Murray Edwards College (known previously as New Hall) at Cambridge University with a degree in Social and Political Sciences. She has two Honorary Doctorates: one from Napier University in Edinburgh, received in August 2006 and one from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) in Glasgow, received July 2006. She was a contributing editor to the literary magazine Zembla.Swinton lives in Nairn, in the Highland area of Scotland, with Scottish painter John Byrne, the father of her twins, Xavier and Honor. She travels with her partner Sandro Kopp, a German/New Zealand painter, while continuing her live-in relationship with Byrne platonically. She has been with Kopp since 2004 and the relationship has Byrne's blessing.
In August 2006 she opened the new Screen Academy Scotland production centre in Edinburgh.
On July 2008 she founded the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema Of Dreams, a whimsical, glamour-free, purely cinephile film festival. The event takes place in a ballroom in Nairn in the Scottish Highlands in August.
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Born Katherine Matilda Swinton
November 5, 1960, London, England
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