DAME HELEN Mirren’s hitherto hidden talent for kung fu, alongside swearing like a sailor and unapologetic smoking, has propelled her to another accolade — the queen of “mashups”, home-made videos spread by largely American fans across the internet.

Mirren is the number one star in the world of mashups, compilations of film clips edited together for fun or social comment, which have blossomed since the video-sharing website YouTube was founded in 2005.

According to forthcoming research, Mirren has inspired more mashup ”tributes” in the first half of this year than either Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan. Only Star Trek captains and Harry Potter actors come close.

Last week there were 400 Mirren mashups posted on YouTube and rival sites, ranging in tone from the surreal and satirical to the obsequious and the mildly obscene.

These include Tudor War where, in heavily edited clips from her TV series Elizabeth I, Mirren appears to knock down other actresses who have played the role, including Dame Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Glenda Jackson and Anne-Marie Duff.

All fall victim to Mirren’s mighty right-handed chop and a “hai-yah” karate yell dubbed from The Muppet Show’s Miss Piggy.

In a re-edited trailer for The Queen, where Mirren played the current monarch to Oscar acclaim, Prince Philip has an Irish accent and the Queen complains about being sent out to buy cake before accosting a former prime minister with the unlikely plea: “I’m drunk, Tony, kiss me.”

In The King and the Queen, the monarch appears to flirt with Idi Amin in scenes lifted from The Last King of Scotland, and in Lick My Neck, Lick My Back, she smoulders with a series of leading men to a much-censored song by saucy rapper Khia.

Elsewhere, scenes from Prime Suspect, Caligula and Excalibur are given an extra risqué twist with a song from Amy Winehouse.

While the 62-year-old dame is said to find some of the mashups hilarious, film owners have noticed the surge in her popularity and asked YouTube to remove the clips.

Four, including Notes on a Queen, where Dench appears to get huffy and schemes against Mirren for this year’s Oscar, and Mirren Versus Deadwood, where the dame’s blue bloopers are cut alongside the profanities of the western TV show, abruptly vanished last week.

Kate Richardson, a New York researcher who tracks celebrity mashups for the website Idolator, said she was amazed at Mirren’s easy dominance over more obvious targets such as Spears, who was last week overtaken on US Google searches by the word “burrito”.

Spears may have 270,000 clips on YouTube, largely unsellable clips of her encounters with the 40-strong paparazzi pack who often help her home at the end of the day, but Richardson says she does not “get the mashup juices flowing like the Dirty Dame with the body beautiful”.

“Teens and film students who take the afternoon to create mashups are more interested in Dame Helen than Britney. They like people who are a bit less mainstream, a bit more independent, no matter how old they are.

“She is sexy, smart and fun - a role model for young American women. You can tell she probably says inappropriate things at cocktail parties and thinks anti-smoking campaigns are stupid.

“Helen Mirren has been hot since before she won the Oscar, but other Brits such as Alan Rickman also get a lot of tributes. I guess he is also classy in that British way and a little bit dangerous,” said Richardson.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a lobby group that defends freedom of speech on the internet, will discuss the rise of celebrity mashups at its forthcoming conference for would-be net tycoons.

But it fears this “golden age of electronic juvenilia” is under threat, a backlash headed by the UK-based performer Uri Geller.

Before this week’s debut of his US television reality show Phenomenon, Geller’s lawyers demanded that YouTube remove video footage questioning his claim to possess psychic powers on copyright grounds. YouTube complied, although the clips removed were not owned by Geller.

In December the EFF will challenge this “take-down” in a Californian court, suggesting that if the 60-year-old performer can pressure YouTube into dropping videos over which he has no legal rights then internet favourites such as the Mirren mashups are also in jeopardy.

View a clip of Mirren and Dench in action

Visit a fansite featuring a Mirren mashup

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