Knight Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Actors (1920->)
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Sir Dirk Bogarde, distinguished film actor and writer, was born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde on March 28, 1921, to Ulric van den Bogaerde, the art editor of "The Times" (London) newspaper, and actress Margaret Niven in the London suburb of Hampstead. He was one of three children, with sister Elizabeth and younger brother Gareth. His father was Flemish and his mother was of Scottish descent.
Ulric Bogaerde started the Times' arts department and served as its first art editor. Derek's mother, Margaret - the daughter of actor and painter Forrest Niven - appeared in the play "Bunty Pulls The Strings", but she quit the boards in accordance with her husband's wishes. The young Derek Bogaerde was raised at the family home in Sussex by his sister, Elizabeth, and his nanny, Lally Holt.
Educated at the Allen Glen's School in Glasgow, he also attended London's University College School before majoring in commercial art at Chelsea Polytechnic, where his teachers included Henry Moore. Though his father wanted his eldest son to follow him into the "Times" as an art critic and had groomed him for that role, Derek dropped out of his commercial art course and became a drama student, though his acting talent at that time was unpromising. In the 1930s he went to work as a commercial artist and a scene designer.
He apprenticed as an actor with the Amersham Repertory Company, and made his acting debut in 1939 on a small London stage, the Q Theatre, in a role in which he delivered only one line. His debut in London's West End came a few months later in J.B. Priestley's play "Cornelius," in which he was billed as "Derek Bogaerde". He made his uncredited debut as an extra in the pre-war George Formby comedy Come on George! (1939).
The September 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union triggered World War II, and in 1940 Bogarde joined the Queen's Royal Regiment as an officer. He served in the Air Photographic Intelligence Unit and eventually attained the rank of major. Nicknamed "Pippin" and "Pip" during the war, he was awarded seven medals in his five years of active duty. He wrote poems and painted during the war, and in 1943, a small magazine published one of his poems, "Steel Cathedrals," which subsequently was anthologized. His paintings of the war are part of the Imperial War Museum's collection.
Similar to his character, Captain Hargreaves, in King & Country (1964), he was called upon to put a wounded soldier out of his misery, a tale recounted in one of his seven volumes of autobiography. While serving with the Air Photographic Intelligence Unit, he took part in the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which he said was akin to "looking into Dante's Inferno".
In one of his autobiographies, he wrote, "At 24, the age I was then, deep shock stays registered forever. An internal tattooing which is removable only by surgery, it cannot be conveniently sponged away by time."
After being demobilized, he returned to acting. His agent re-christened him "Dirk Bogarde," a name that he would make famous within a decade. In 1947 he appeared in "Power Without Glory" at the New Lindsay Theatre, a performance that was praised by Noël Coward, who urged him to continue his acting career. The Rank Organization had signed him to a contract after a talent scout saw him in the play, and he made his credited movie debut in Dancing with Crime (1947) with a one-line bit as a policeman.
His first lead in a movie came that year when Wessex Films, distributed by Rank, gave him a part in the proposed Stewart Granger film Sin of Esther Waters (1948). When Granger dropped out, Bogarde took over the lead. Rank subsequently signed him to a long-term contract and he appeared in a variety of parts during the 14 years he was under contract to the studio.
For three years he toiled in Rank movies as an apprentice actor without making much of a ripple; then in 1950, he was given the role of young hood Tom Riley in the crime thriller The Blue Lamp (1950) (the title comes from the blue-colored light on police call-boxes in London), the most successful British film of 1950, which established Bogarde as an actor of note. Playing a cop killer, an unspeakable crime in the England of the time, it was the first of the intense neurotics and attractive villains that Bogarde would often play.
He continued to act on-stage, appearing in the West End in Jean Anouilh's "Point of Departure". While he was praised for his performance, stage acting made him nervous, and as he became more famous, he began to be mobbed by fans. The pressure of the public adulation proved overwhelming, particularly as he suffered from stage fright. He was accosted by crowds of fans at the stage door during the 1955 touring production of "Summertime," and his more enthusiastic admirers even shouted at him during the play. He was to appear in only one more play, the Oxford Playhouse production of "Jezebel," in 1958. He never again took to the boards, despite receiving attractive offers.
He first acted for American expatriate director Joseph Losey in The Sleeping Tiger (1954). Losey, a Communist and self-described Stalinist at the time, had emigrated to England after being blacklisted in Hollywood after he refused to direct The Woman on Pier 13 (1949) at RKO Pictures, which was owned by right-wing multi-millionaire Howard Hughes at the time, and he was accused in testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee of being a Communist. The director, like Bogarde, would not find his stride until the early 1960s, and Losey and Bogarde would build their reputations together.
First, however, Losey had to overcome Bogarde's reluctance to star in a low-budget film (shot for $300,000) with a blacklisted American director. Losey, who had never heard of Bogarde until he was proposed for the film, met with him and asked Bogarde to view one of his pictures. After seeing the film, Bogarde was enthusiastic, and Losey talked him into taking the role, which he accepted at a reduced fee (Losey originally was not credited with directing the film due to his being blacklisted in the States). A decade later they would make more memorable films that would be watersheds in their careers.
It was not drama but comedy that made Dirk Bogarde a star. He achieved the first rank of English movie stardom playing Dr. Simon Sparrow in the comedy Doctor in the House (1954). The film was a smash hit, becoming one of the most popular British films in history, with 17 million admissions in its first year of release. As Sparrow, Bogarde became a heartthrob and the most popular British movie star of the mid-50s. He reprised the character in Doctor at Sea (1955), Doctor at Large (1957).
The title of the latter film may have described his mood as a serious actor having to do another turn as Dr. Sparrow between his career-making performances in Losey's The Servant (1963), with a script by Harold Pinter, and Losey's adaptation of the stage play King & Country (1964), in which Bogarde memorably played the attorney for a young deserter (played by Tom Courtenay).
Bogarde, hailed as "the idol of the Odeons" in honor of his box-office clout, was offered the role of Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger (1959) by producer Harry Saltzman and director Tony Richardson, based on the play that touched off the "Angry Young Man" and "Kitchen Sink School" of contemporary English drama in the 1950s. Though Bogarde wanted to take the part, Rank refused to let him make the film on the grounds that there was "altogether too much dialog." The part went to Richard Burton instead, who went over-the-top in portraying his very angry, not-so-young man.
After this disappointment, Bogarde went to Hollywood to play Franz Liszt in Song Without End (1960) and to appear in Nunnally Johnson's Spanish Civil War drama The Angel Wore Red (1960) with Ava Gardner. Both were big-budgeted films, but hampered by poor scripts, and after both films failed, Bogarde avoided Hollywood from then on.
He was reportedly quite smitten with his French "Song Without End" co-star Capucine, and wanted to marry her. Capucine, who suffered from bi-polar disorder, was bisexual with an admitted preference for women. The relationship did not lead to marriage, but did result in a long-term friendship. It apparently was his only serious relationship with a woman, though he had many women friends, including his I Could Go on Singing (1963) co-star Judy Garland.
In the early 1960s, with the expiration of his Rank contract, Bogarde made the decision to abandon his hugely successful career in commercial movies and concentrate on more complex, art house films (at the same time, Burt Lancaster made a similar decision, though Lancaster continued to alternate his artistic ventures with more crassly commercial endeavors). Bogarde appeared in Basil Dearden's seminal film Victim (1961), the first British movie to sympathetically address the persecution of homosexuals. His career choice alienated many of his old fans, but he was no longer interested in being a commercial movie star; he, like Lancaster, was interested in developing as an actor and artist (however, that sense of finding himself as an actor did not extend to the stage. His reputation was such in 1963 that he was invited by National Theatre director Laurence Olivier to appear as Hamlet to open the newly built Chichester Festival Theatre. That production of the eponymous play also was intended to open the National Theatre's first season in London. Bogarde declined, and the honor went instead to Peter O'Toole, who floundered in the part.)
Jack Grimston, in Bogarde's "Sunday Times" obituary of May 9, 1999, entitled "Bogarde, a solitary star at the edge of the spotlight," said of the late actor that he "belonged to a group that was rare in the British cinema. He was a fine screen player who owed little to the stage. Dilys Powell, the Sunday Times film critic, wrote of him before her own death: 'Most of our gifted film players really belonged to the theater. Bogarde belonged to the screen.'" Bogarde had won the London Critics Circle's Dilys Powell award for outstanding contribution to cinema in 1992.
Appearing in "Victim" was a huge career gamble. In the film, Bogarde played a married barrister who is being blackmailed over his closeted homosexuality. Rather than let the blackmail continue, and allow the perpetrators to victimize other gay men, Bogarde's character effectively sacrifices himself, specifically his marriage and his career, by bravely confessing to be gay (homosexuality was an offence in the United Kingdom until 1967, and there reportedly had been a police crackdown against homosexuals after World War II which made gay men particularly vulnerable to blackmail).
The film was not released in mainstream theaters in the US, as the Production Code Administration (PCA) refused to classify the film and most theaters would not show films that did not carry the PCA seal of approval. "Victim" was the antithesis of the light comedy of Bogarde's "Doctor" movies, and many fans of his character Simon Sparrow were forever alienated by his portrayal of a homosexual. For himself, Bogarde was proud of the film and his participation in it, which many think stimulated public debate over homosexuality. The film undoubtedly raised the public consciousness over the egregious and unjust individual costs of anti-gay bigotry. The public attitude towards the "love that dared not speak its name" changed enough so that within six years, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act decriminalizing homosexual acts between adults passed Parliament. Bogarde reported that he received many letters praising him for playing the role. His courage in taking on such a role is even more significant in that he most likely was gay himself, and thus exposed himself to a backlash.
Bogarde always publicly denied he was a homosexual, though later in life he did confess that he and his manager, Anthony Forwood, had a long-term relationship. When Bogarde met him in 1939, Forwood was a theatrical manager, who eventually married and divorced Glynis Johns. Forwood became Bogarde's friend and subsequently his life partner, and the two moved to France together in 1968. They bought a 15th-century farmhouse near Grasse in Provence in the early 1970s, which they restored. Bogarde and Forwood lived in the house until 1983, when they returned to London so that Forwood could be treated for cancer, from which he eventually died in 1988. Bogarde nursed him in the last few months of his life. After Forwood died, Bogarde was left rudderless and he became more reclusive, eventually retiring from films after Daddy Nostalgia (1990).
Mark Rowe and Jeremy Kay, in their obituary of Bogarde, "Two brilliant lives - on film and in print," published in "The Independent" on May, 9, 1999, wrote, "Although he documented with frankness his early sexual encounters with girls and later his adoring love for Kay Kendall and Judy Garland, he never wrote about his longest and closest relationship - with his friend and manager for more than 50 years, Tony Forwood. Sir Dirk said the clues to his private life were in his books. "If you've got your wits about you, you will know who I am." The British documentary The Private Dirk Bogarde: Part One (2001) made with the permission of his family, stressed the fact that he and Forwood were committed lifelong partners.
In the same issue, the National Film Theatre's David Thompson, in the article "The public understood he was essentially gay," wrote about Bogarde at his high-water mark in the 1950s, that "Audiences of that time loved him . . . Very few people picked up on the fact that there was a distinct gay undertone. It says something about British audiences of the time. He had the good fortune to break out of that prison, and it came through the film Victim (1961), where he played a gay character, and through meeting with Joseph Losey, who directed him in The Servant (1963). For the first time, Bogarde's ambivalence was exploited and used by film."
Bogarde's sexuality is not the issue; what was striking was that it was an act of personal courage for one of Britian's leading box-office attractions to appear in such a provocative and controversial film. Even in the 21st century, many mainstream actors are afraid to play a gay character lest they engender a public backlash against themselves, which is much less likely than it was more than 40 years ago when Bogarde made "Victim."
Apart from sociology, "Victim" marks the milestone in which critics and audiences could discern the metamorphosis of Bogarde into the mature actor who went on to become one of the cinema's finest performers. Most of Bogarde's best and most serious roles come after "Victim," the film in which he first stretched himself and broke out of the mold of "movie star." He received the first of his six nominations as Best Actor from the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) for the film.
Bogarde co-starred with John Mills in The Singer Not the Song (1961), and with Alec Guinness in Damn the Defiant! (1962) (a.k.a. "Damn the Defiant!"). In 1963 he reunited with Losey to film the first of two Losey films with screenplays by Pinter. Bogarde's participation in the two Losey/Pinter collaborations, The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967), in addition to 1964's "King & Country", solidified his reputation. Critics and savvy moviegoers appreciated the fact that Bogarde had developed into a first-rate actor. For his role as the eponymous servant, Bogarde won BAFTA's Best Actor Award. He had now "officially" arrived in the inner circle of the best British film actors.
These three films also elevated Losey into the ranks of major directors (Bogarde also starred in Losey's 1966 spy spoof Modesty Blaise (1966), but that film did little to enhance either man's reputation. He turned down the opportunity to appear in Losey's The Assassination of Trotsky (1972) due to the poor quality of the script).
Philip French, in his obituary "Dark, exotic and yet essentially English", published in "The Observer" on May 9, 1999, said of Bogarde, "Losey discovered something more complex and sinister in his English persona and his performance as Barrett, the malevolent valet in 'The Servant,' scripted by Harold Pinter, is possibly the most subtle, revealing thing he ever did - by confronting his homosexuality in a non-gay context."
Losey told interviewer Michel Ciment that his work with Bogarde represented a turning point in the actor's career, when he developed into an actor of depth and power. He also frankly admitted to Ciment that without Bogarde, his career would have stagnated and never reached the heights of success and critical acclaim that it did in the 1960s.
Interestingly during the filming of "The Servant." Losey was hospitalized with pneumonia. He asked Bogarde to direct the film in order to keep shooting so that the producers would not cancel the film. A reluctant Bogarde complied with Losey's wishes and directed for ten days. He later said that he would never direct again.
Bogarde co-starred with up-and-coming actress Julie Christie in John Schlesinger's Darling (1965), for which Christie won a Best Actress Oscar and was vaulted into 1960s cinema superstardom. During the filming of the movie, both Bogarde and Christie were waiting to hear whether they would be cast as Yuri Zhivago and his lover Lara in David Lean's upcoming blockbuster Doctor Zhivago (1965). Christie got the call, Bogarde didn't, but he was well along in the process of establishing himself as one of the screen's best and most important actors. He won his second BAFTA Best Actor Award for his performance in "Darling."
Bogarde went on to major starring roles in such important pictures as The Fixer (1968), for which Alan Bates won a Best Actor Academy Award nomination. While Bogarde never was nominated for an Oscar, he had the honor of starring in two films for Luchino Visconti, The Damned (1969) ("The Damned") and Death in Venice (1971), based on Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice." Bogarde felt that his performance as Gustav von Aschenbach, the dying composer in love with a young boy and with the concept of beauty, in "Death in Venice" was the "the peak and end of my career . . . I can never hope to give a better performance in a better film."
Visconti told Bogarde that when the lights went up in a Los Angeles screening room after a showing of "Death in Venice" for American studio executives, no one said anything. The silence encouraged Visconti, who believed it meant that the executives were undergoing a catharsis after watching his masterpiece. However, he soon realized that, in Bogarde's own words, "Apparently they were stunned into horrified silence . . . A group of slumped nylon-suited men stared dully at the blank screen." One nervous executive, feeling something should be said, got up and asked, "Signore Visconti, who was responsible for the score of the film?"
"Gustav Mahler," Visconti replied.
"Just great!", said the nervous man. "I think we should sign him."
After "Venice", Bogarde made only seven films over the next two decades and was scathing about the quality of the scripts he was offered. To express himself artistically, he began to write. In his third volumes of autobiography, he wrote, "No longer do the great Jewish dynasties hold power: the people who were, when all is said and done, the Picture People. Now the cinema is controlled by vast firms like Xerox, Gulf & Western, and many others who deal in anything from sanitary-ware to property development. These huge conglomerates, faceless, soulless, are concerned only with making a profit; never a work of art . . . "
He rued the fact that "it is pointless to be 'superb' in a commercial failure; and most of the films which I had deliberately chosen to make in the last few years were, by and large, just that. Or so I am always informed by the businessmen. The critics may have liked them extravagantly, but the distributors shy away from what they term 'A Critic's Film', for it often means that the public will stay away. Which, in the mass, they do: and if you don't make money at the box-office you are not asked back to play again."
However, the courageous artist was not to be daunted: "But I'd had very good innings. Better than most. So what the hell?" His well-written works were enthusiastically received by critics and the book-buying public.
Bogarde appeared in another film that flirted with the theme of German fascism, Liliana Cavani's highly controversial The Night Porter (1974) ("The Night Porter"). He played an ex-SS officer who encounters a woman with whom he had been engaged in a sado-masochistic affair at a World War II Nazi extermination camp. Many critics found the film, which featured extensive nudity courtesy of Charlotte Rampling, crassly offensive, but no one faulted Bogarde's performance.
He played Lt. Gen. Frederick "Boy" Browning in the all-star blockbuster A Bridge Too Far (1977). Although some of his fellow actors were World War II veterans, only Bogarde had been involved in the actual battle. His performance arguably is the best in the film. Appearing in Alain Resnais' art house hit Providence (1977) gave Bogarde the opportunity to co-star with John Gielgud. He also starred in German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder's adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's Despair (1978), with a script by Tom Stoppard. Though the film was not much of a critical success, Bogarde's acting as 1930s German businessman Hermann Hermann, a man who chooses to go mad when faced with the paradoxes of his life in his proto-fascist fatherland, was highly praised.
Bogarde enjoyed working with Fassbinder. He wrote that "Rainer's work was extraordinarily similar to that of Visconti's; despite their age difference, they both behaved, on set, in much the same manner. Both had an incredible knowledge of the camera: the first essential. Both knew how it could be made to function; they had the same feeling for movement on the screen, of the all-important (and often-neglected) 'pacing' of a film, from start to finish, of composition, of texture, and probably most of all they shared that strange ability to explore and probe into the very depths of the character which one had offered them."
After his experience with Fassbinder, he acted only four more times, twice in feature films and twice on television. Bogarde was nominated for a Golden Globe for playing Roald Dahl in The Patricia Neal Story (1981). He got rave reviews playing Jane Birkin's father in Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy Nostalgia (1990), his last film.
In 1984 Bogarde was asked to serve as president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, a huge honor for the actor, as he was the first Briton ever to serve in that capacity. Two years earlier he had been made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des lettres 1982. A decade later, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II on February 13, 1992.
Bogarde won two Best Actor Awards out of six nominations from the British Academy of Film & Television Arts, for "The Servant" and "Darling" in 1964 and 1966, respectively. He was also nominated in 1962 for "Victim," in 1968 for "Accident" and Our Mother's House (1967) and in 1972 for "Morte a Venezia."
Bogarde suffered a stroke in 1996, and though it rendered him partially paralyzed, he was able to recover and live in his own flat in Chelsea. However, by May of 1998 he required around-the-clock nursing care, and he had his lawyers draw up a "living will," also known as a no-resuscitation order. Bogarde publicly came out in favor of voluntary euthanasia, becoming Vice President of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. He publicly addressed the subject of his own "living will," which ordered that no extraordinary measures be taken to keep him alive should he become terminally ill.
The living will proved unnecessary. Dirk Bogarde died of a heart attack on May 8, 1999, in his home in Chelsea, London, England. According to his nephew Brock Van den Bogaerde, the family planned to hold a private funeral but no memorial service in accordance with his uncle's wish "just to forget me." Bogarde wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered in France, and accordingly, his remains were returned to Provence.
Margaret Hinxman, in her May 10, 1999, obituary in "The Guardian", said of him, "At his peak and with directors he trusted - Joseph Losey, Luchino Visconti and Alain Resnais - Dirk Bogarde . . . was probably the finest, most complete, actor on the screen."
Clive Fisher's obituary in "The Independent" on May 10, 1999, praised Bogarde as "a major figure because, wherever they were made, his finest films are all somehow about him. He was a great self-portraitist and the screen persona he fashioned, a stylization of his private being, not only dominated its surroundings but spoke subliminally and powerfully to British audiences about the tensions of the time, about connivances and cruel respectabilities of England in the Fifties and Sixties."
The secret of Dirk Bogarde's success as a great cinema actor was his intimate relationship with the camera. Bogarde believed that the key to acting on film was the eyes, specifically, the "look" of the actor. Like Alan Ladd, it didn't matter if an actor was good with line readings if they had mastery over the "look." For many critics and movie-goers at the end of the 20th century, Dirk Bogarde's face epitomized the "look" of Britain in the tumultuous decades after the Second World War.
David Tindle's portrait of Bogarde is part of the collection of London's National Portrait Gallery, London. In 1999, the portrait, on temporary loan, was displayed at 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister's official residence, with other modern works of art. Officially, Dirk Bogarde had become the look of Britain.- Actor
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Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions.
He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinow on April 16, 1921 in Swiss Cottage, London, the son of Nadezhda Leontievna (née Benois) and Jona Freiherr von Ustinow. His father was of one-quarter Polish Jewish, one-half Russian, one-eighth Ethiopian, and one-eighth German descent, while his mother was of one-half Russian, one-quarter Italian, one-eighth French, and one-eighth German ancestry. Ustinov had ancestral connections to Russian nobility as well as to the Ethiopian Royal Family. His father, also known as "Klop Ustinov", was a pilot in the German Air Force during World War I. In 1919, Jona Freiherr von Ustinow joined his own mother and sister in St Petersburg, Russia, where he met his future wife, artist Nadia Benois, who worked for the Imperial Mariinsky Ballet and Opera House in St Petersburg.
In 1920, in a modest and discreet ceremony at a Russian-German church in St Petersburg, Ustinov's father married Nadia. In February 1921, when she was seven months pregnant with Peter, the couple emigrated from Russia in the aftermath of the Communist Revolution. Young Peter was brought up in a multilingual family. He was fluent in Russian, French, Italian and German, as well as English. He attended Westminster College (1934-37), took the drama and acting class under Michel St Denis at the London Theatre Studio (1937-39), and made his stage debut in 1938 at the Stage Theatre Club in Surrey. He wrote his first play at the age of 19. In 1939, he made his London stage debut in a revue sketch, then had regular performances with the Aylesbury Repertory Company. The following year, he made his film debut in Hullo, Fame! (1940).
From 1942-46, Ustinov served with the British Army's Royal Sussex Regiment. He was batman for David Niven, and the two became lifelong friends. Ustinov spent most of his service working with the Army Cinema Unit, where he was involved in making recruitment films, wrote plays and appeared in three films as an actor. At that time he co-wrote and acted in The Way Ahead (1944) (aka "The Immortal Battalion").
Ustinov had a stellar film career as actor, director, and writer. Among his numerous screen acting gems were his unparalleled, Academy Award-nominated interpretation of Nero in Quo Vadis (1951) and roles in Max Ophüls's masterpiece Lola Montès (1955), Barefoot in Athens (1966), The Comedians (1967), Robin Hood (1973) and Logan's Run (1976). He also wrote and directed such brilliant films as Billy Budd (1962), Lady L (1965) and Memed My Hawk (1984). He was awarded two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, one for his role in Spartacus (1960) and one for his role in Topkapi (1964), and received two more Oscar nominations as an actor and writer. His career slowed down a bit in the 1970s, but made a comeback as Hercule Poirot in Death on the Nile (1978) by director John Guillermin. In the 1980s, Ustinov recreated Poirot in several subsequent television movies and theatrical films, including Evil Under the Sun (1982) and Appointment with Death (1988), while his cinema work in the 1990s also includes his superb performance as Professor Gus Nikolais in George Miller's excellent dramatic film, Lorenzo's Oil (1992), a character partially inspired by Hugo Wolfgang Moser, a research scientist who had been director of the Neurogenetics Research Center at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University.
His expertise in dialectic and physical comedy made him a regular guest of talk show hosts and late-night comedians. His witty and multidimensional humor was legendary, and he later published a collection of his jokes and quotations summarizing his wide popularity as a raconteur. He was also an internationally acclaimed TV journalist. Ustinov covered over 100,000 miles and visited more than 30 Russian cities during the making of his well-received BBC television series Russia (1986).
In his autobiographies, "Dear Me" (1977) and "My Russia" (1996), Ustinov revealed his observations on his life, career, and his multicultural and multi-ethnic background. He wrote and directed numerous stage plays, successfully presenting them in several countries. His drama, "Photo Finish", was staged in New York, London and St. Petersburg, Russia, where Ustinov directed the acclaimed production, starring Elena Solovey and Petr Shelokhonov. Ustinov also served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and a president of WFM, a global citizens movement. Ustinov served as Rector of Dundee University for six years. He was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Royal Society of Arts in 1957 and was knighted in 1990.
From 1971 until his death in 2004, Ustinov's permanent residence was a château in Bursins, Vaud, Switzerland. He died of heart failure on March 28, 2004, in a clinic in Genolier, also in Vaud. His funeral service was held at Geneva's historic Cathedral of St. Pierre, and he was laid to rest in the village cemetery of Bursins. He was survived by three daughters (Tamara, Pavla, and Andrea) and one son (Igor). His epitaph may be gleaned from his comment, "I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World".- Actor
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Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it be Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), or Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), or as the title monster in the Hammer Horror film, The Mummy (1959).
Lee was born in 1922 in London, England, where he and his older sister Xandra were raised by their parents, Contessa Estelle Marie (Carandini di Sarzano) and Geoffrey Trollope Lee, a professional soldier, until their divorce in 1926. Later, while Lee was still a child, his mother married (and later divorced) Harcourt George St.-Croix (nicknamed Ingle), who was a banker. Lee's maternal great-grandfather was an Italian political refugee, while Lee's great-grandmother was English opera singer Marie (Burgess) Carandini.
After attending Wellington College from age 14 to 17, Lee worked as an office clerk in a couple of London shipping companies until 1941 when he enlisted in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Following his release from military service, Lee joined the Rank Organisation in 1947, training as an actor in their "Charm School" and playing a number of bit parts in such films as Corridor of Mirrors (1948). He made a brief appearance in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), in which his future partner-in-horror Peter Cushing also appeared. Both actors also appeared later in Moulin Rouge (1952) but did not meet until their horror films together.
Lee had numerous parts in film and television throughout the 1950s. He struggled initially in his new career because he was discriminated as being taller than the leading male actors of his time and being too foreign-looking. However, playing the monster in the Hammer film The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) proved to be a blessing in disguise, since the was successful, leading to him being signed on for future roles in Hammer Film Productions.
Lee's association with Hammer Film Productions brought him into contact with Peter Cushing, and they became good friends. Lee and Cushing often than not played contrasting roles in Hammer films, where Cushing was the protagonist and Lee the villain, whether it be Van Helsing and Dracula respectively in Horror of Dracula (1958), or John Banning and Kharis the Mummy respectively in The Mummy (1959).
Lee continued his role as "Dracula" in a number of Hammer sequels throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s. During this time, he co-starred in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), and made numerous appearances as Fu Manchu, most notably in the first of the series The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), and also appeared in a number of films in Europe. With his own production company, Charlemagne Productions, Ltd., Lee made Nothing But the Night (1973) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976).
By the mid-1970s, Lee was tiring of his horror image and tried to widen his appeal by participating in several mainstream films, such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974), and the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
The success of these films prompted him in the late 1970s to move to Hollywood, where he remained a busy actor but made mostly unremarkable film and television appearances, and eventually moved back to England. The beginning of the new millennium relaunched his career to some degree, during which he has played Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and as Saruman the White in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lee played Count Dooku again in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), and portrayed the father of Willy Wonka, played by Johnny Depp, in the Tim Burton film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).
On 16 June 2001, he was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his services to drama. He was created a Knight Bachelor on 13 June 2009 in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama and charity. In addition he was made a Commander of the Order of St John on 16 January 1997.
Lee died at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on 7 June 2015 at 8:30 am after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure, shortly after celebrating his 93rd birthday there. His wife delayed the public announcement until 11 June, in order to break the news to their family.- Actor
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Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough of Richmond-upon-Thames, was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Mary (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a don at Emmanuel College and wrote a standard text on Anglo-Saxon law. The family later moved to Leicester where his father was appointed Principal of the university while Richard was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
His film career began with a role as a deserting sailor in In Which We Serve (1942), a part that contributed to his being typecast for many years as a coward in films like Dulcimer Street (1948), Operation Disaster (1950) and his breakthrough role as a psychopathic young gangster in the film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel, Brighton Rock (1948). During World War II, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force.
He worked prolifically in British films for the next 30 years, and in the 1950s appeared in several successful comedies for John Boulting and Roy Boulting, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959). Early in his stage career, Attenborough starred in the London West End production of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap", which went on to become one of the world's longest-running stage productions. Both he and his wife were among the original cast members of the production, which opened in 1952 and (as of 2007) is still running.
In the 1960s, he expanded his range of character roles in films such as Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and Guns at Batasi (1964), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the regimental Sergeant Major. He appeared in the ensemble cast of The Great Escape (1963), as Squadron Leader "Roger Bartlett" ("Big X"), the head of the escape committee.
In 1967 and 1968, he won back-to-back Golden Globe Awards in the category of Best Supporting Actor, the first time for The Sand Pebbles (1966), starring Steve McQueen, and the second time for Doctor Dolittle (1967), starring Rex Harrison. He would win another Golden Globe for Best Director, for Gandhi (1982), in 1983. Six years prior to "Gandhi", he played the ruthless "Gen. Outram" in Indian director Satyajit Ray's period piece, The Chess Players (1977). He has never been nominated for an Academy Award in an acting category.
He took no acting roles following his appearance in Otto Preminger's The Human Factor (1979), until his appearance as the eccentric developer "John Hammond" in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993). The following year, he starred as "Kris Kringle" in Miracle on 34th Street (1994), a remake of the 1947 classic. Since then, he has made occasional appearances in supporting roles, including the historical drama, Elizabeth (1998), as "Sir William Cecil".
In the late 1950s, Attenborough formed a production company, "Beaver Films", with Bryan Forbes and began to build a profile as a producer on projects, including The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Angry Silence (1960) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961), also appearing in the first two of these as an actor.
His feature film directorial debut was the all-star screen version of the hit musical, Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), and his acting appearances became more sporadic - the most notable being his portrayal of serial killer "John Christie" in 10 Rillington Place (1971). He later directed two epic period films: Young Winston (1972), based on the early life of Winston Churchill, and A Bridge Too Far (1977), an all-star account of Operation Market Garden in World War II. He won the 1982 Academy Award for Directing for his historical epic, Gandhi (1982), a project he had been attempting to get made for many years. As the film's producer, he also won the Academy Award for Best Picture. His most recent films, as director and producer, include Chaplin (1992), starring Robert Downey Jr. as Charles Chaplin, and Shadowlands (1993), based on the relationship between C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham. Both films starred Anthony Hopkins, who also appeared in three other films for Attenborough: "Young Winston", "A Bridge Too Far" and the thriller, Magic (1978).
Attenborough also directed the screen version of the hit Broadway musical, "A Chorus Line" (A Chorus Line (1985)), and the apartheid drama, Cry Freedom (1987), based on the experiences of Donald Woods. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director for both films. His most recent film as director was another biographical film, Grey Owl (1999), starring Pierce Brosnan.
Attenborough is the President of RADA, Chairman of Capital Radio, President of BAFTA, President of the Gandhi Foundation, and President of the British National Film and Television School. He is also a vice patron of the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund.
He is also the patron of the UWC movement (United World Colleges), whereby he continually contributes greatly to the colleges that are part of the organization. He has frequented the United World College of Southern Africa(UWCSA) Waterford Kamhlaba. His wife and he founded the "Richard and Sheila Attenborough Visual Arts Center". He also founded the "Jane Holland Creative Center for Learning" at Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland in memory of his daughter, who died in the Tsunami on Boxing Day, 2004. He passionately believes in education, primarily education that does not judge upon color, race, creed or religion. His attachment to Waterford is his passion for non-racial education, which were the grounds on which Waterford Kamhlaba was founded. Waterford was one of his inspirations for directing Cry Freedom (1987), based on the life of Steve Biko.
He was elected to the post of Chancellor of the University of Sussex on 20 March 1998, replacing the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. A lifelong supporter of Chelsea Football Club, Attenborough served as a director of the club from 1969-1982 and, since 1993, has held the honorary position of Life Vice President. He is also the head of the consortium, "Dragon International", which is constructing a film and television studio complex in Llanilid, Wales, often referred to as "Valleywood".
In 1967, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was knighted in 1976 and, in 1993, he was made a life peer as Baron Attenborough, of Richmond-upon-Thames in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
On 13 July 2006, Attenborough and his brother, David Attenborough, were awarded the titles of Distinguished Honorary Fellows of the University of Leicester "in recognition of a record of continuing distinguished service to the University". Lord Attenborough is also listed as an Honorary Fellow of Bangor University for his continued efforts to film making.
Attenborough has been married to English actress Sheila Sim, since 1945. They had three children. In December 2004, his elder daughter, Jane Holland, as well as her daughter Lucy and her mother-in-law, also named Jane, were killed in the tsunami caused by the Indian Ocean earthquake. A memorial service was held on 8 March 2005, and Attenborough read a lesson at the national memorial service on 11 May 2005. His grandson, Samuel Holland, and granddaughter, Alice Holland, also read in the service.
Attenborough's father was principal of University College, Leicester, now the city's university. This has resulted in a long association with the university, with Lord Attenborough a patron. A commemorative plaque was placed on the floor of Richmond Parish Church. The university's "Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts", which opened in 1997, is named in his Honor.
His son, Michael Attenborough, is also a director. He has two younger brothers, the famous naturalist Sir David Attenborough and John Attenborough, who has made a career in the motor trade.
He has collected Pablo Picasso ceramics since the 1950s. More than 100 items went on display at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester in 2007; the exhibition is dedicated to his family members lost in the tsunami.- Actor
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The son of a country chemist, the British actor Donald Sinden intended to pursue a career in architecture but was spotted in an amateur theatrical production and asked to join a company that entertained the troops during World War II (Sinden was rejected for naval service because of asthma). Following a brief training at drama school, he established himself in theater, particularly as a Shakespearean actor. Having made his film debut in The Cruel Sea (1953), Sinden became a leading man in British films during the 1950s and then moved onto character roles later in his career. While his film appearances became less frequent, he worked steadily in theater (with the Royal Shakespeare Company, primarily) and in television, notably as the unperturbable butler in Two's Company (1975) and as a miserable in-law in Never the Twain (1981).- Actor
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Roger Moore will perhaps always be remembered as the man who replaced Sean Connery in the James Bond series, arguably something he never lived down.
Roger George Moore was born on October 14, 1927 in Stockwell, London, England, the son of Lillian (Pope) and George Alfred Moore, a policeman. His mother was born in Calcutta, India, to a British family. Roger first wanted to be an artist, but got into films full time after becoming an extra in the late 1940s. He came to the United States in 1953. Suave, extremely handsome, and an excellent actor, he received a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His initial foray met with mixed success, with movies like Diane (1956) and Interrupted Melody (1955), as well as The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954).
Moore went into television in the 1950s on series such as Ivanhoe (1958) and The Alaskans (1959), but probably received the most recognition from Maverick (1957), as cousin Beau. He received his big breakthrough, at least internationally, as The Saint (1962). The series made him a superstar and he became very successful thereafter. Moore ended his run as the Saint, and was one of the premier stars of the world, but he was not catching on in America. In an attempt to change this, he agreed to star with Tony Curtis on ITC's The Persuaders! (1971), but although hugely popular in Europe, it did not catch on in the United States and was canceled. Just prior to making the series, he starred in The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970), which proved there was far more to Moore than the light-hearted roles he had previously accepted.
He was next offered and accepted the role of James Bond, and once audiences got used to the change of style from Connery's portrayal, they also accepted him. Live and Let Die (1973), his first Bond movie, grossed more outside of America than Diamonds Are Forever (1971); Connery's last outing as James Bond. He went on to star in another six Bond films, before bowing out after A View to a Kill (1985). He was age 57 at the time the film was made and was looking a little too old for Bond - it was possibly one film too many. In between times, there had been more success with appearances in films such as That Lucky Touch (1975), Shout at the Devil (1976), The Wild Geese (1978), Escape to Athena (1979) and North Sea Hijack (1980).
Despite his fame from the Bond films and many others, the United States never completely took to him until he starred in The Cannonball Run (1981) alongside Burt Reynolds, a success there. After relinquishing his role as Bond, his work load tended to diminish a little, though he did star in the American box office flop Feuer, Eis & Dynamit (1990), as well as the comedy Bullseye! (1990), with Michael Caine. He did the overlooked comedy Bed & Breakfast (1991), as well as the television movie The Man Who Wouldn't Die (1994), and then the major Jean-Claude Van Damme flop The Quest (1996). Moore then took second rate roles such as Spice World (1997), and the American television series The Dream Team (1999). Although his film work slowed down, he was still in the public eye, be it appearing on television chat shows or hosting documentaries.
Roger Moore was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire on December 31, 1998 in the New Years Honours for services to UNICEF, and was promoted to Knight Commander of the same order on June 14, 2003 in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to the charities UNICEF and Kiwanis International.
Roger Moore died of cancer on 23 May, 2017, in Switzerland. He was 89.- Actor
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Sidney Poitier was a native of Cat Island, Bahamas, although born, two months prematurely, in Miami during a visit by his parents, Evelyn (Outten) and Reginald James Poitier. He grew up in poverty as the son of farmers, with his father also driving a cab in Nassau. Sidney had little formal education and at the age of 15 was sent to Miami to live with his brother, in order to forestall a growing tendency toward delinquency. In the U.S., he experienced the racial chasm that divides the country, a great shock to a boy coming from a society with a majority of African descent.
At 18, he went to New York, did menial jobs and slept in a bus terminal toilet. A brief stint in the Army as a worker at a veterans' hospital was followed by more menial jobs in Harlem. An impulsive audition at the American Negro Theatre was rejected so forcefully that Poitier dedicated the next six months to overcoming his accent and improving his performing skills. On his second try, he was accepted. Spotted in rehearsal by a casting agent, he won a bit part in the Broadway production of "Lysistrata", for which he earned good reviews. By the end of 1949, he was having to choose between leading roles on stage and an offer to work for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out (1950). His performance as a doctor treating a white bigot got him plenty of notice and led to more roles. Nevertheless, the roles were still less interesting and prominent than those white actors routinely obtained. But seven years later, after turning down several projects he considered demeaning, Poitier got a number of roles that catapulted him into a category rarely if ever achieved by an African-American man of that time, that of leading man. One of these films, The Defiant Ones (1958), earned Poitier his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. Five years later, he won the Oscar for Lilies of the Field (1963), the first African American to win for a leading role.
He remained active on stage and screen as well as in the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. His roles in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and To Sir, with Love (1967) were landmarks in helping to break down some social barriers between blacks and whites. Poitier's talent, conscience, integrity, and inherent likability placed him on equal footing with the white stars of the day. He took on directing and producing chores in the 1970s, achieving success in both arenas.- Actor
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Stanley Baker was unusual star material to emerge during the Fifties - when impossibly handsome and engagingly romantic leading men were almost de rigueur. Baker was forged from a rougher mould. His was good-looking, but his features were angular, taut, austere and unwelcoming. His screen persona was taciturn, even surly, and the young actor displayed a predilection for introspection and blunt speaking, and was almost wilfully unromantic. For the times a potential leading actor cast heavily against the grain. Baker immediately proved a unique screen presence - tough, gritty, combustible - and possessing an aura of dark, even menacing power.
Stanley Baker came from rugged Welsh mining stock - and as a lad was unruly, quick to flare, and first to fight. But like his compatriot and friend Richard Burton, the young Baker was rescued from a gruelling life of coal mining by a local teacher, Glyn Morse, who recognized in the proud and self-willed lad a potent combination of a fine speaking voice, a smouldering intensity, and a strong spirit. And like Burton, Stanley Baker was specially and specifically tutored for theatrical success. In fact, early on, Burton and Baker appeared together on stage as juveniles in The Druid's Rest, in Cardiff, in Wales. But later, by way of Birmingham Repertory Theatre and then the London stage, Stanley Baker charted his inevitable course toward the Cinema.
Film welcomed the adult Baker as the embodiment of evil. Memorable early roles cast the actor in feisty unsympathetic parts - from the testy bosun in Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) to his modern-day counterpart in The Cruel Sea (1953), to the arch villains in Hell Below Zero (1954) and Campbell's Kingdom (1957) to the dastardly Mordred in Knights of the Round Table (1953) and the wily Achilles in Helen of Troy (1956). For a time there was a distillation of Baker's screen persona in a series of roles as stern and uncompromising policemen - in Violent Playground (1958), Chance Meeting (1959), and Hell Is a City (1960). But despite never having been cast as a romantic leading man, and being almost wholly associated with villainous roles, Stanley Baker nevertheless became a star by dint of his potent personality.
Although now enthroned by enthusiastic audiences Stanley Baker was obviously aware he need not desert unsympathetic parts - and his relish in playing the scheming Astaroth in Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) and the unscrupulous mobster Johnny Bannion in The Concrete Jungle (1960) was readily evident. But soon there were more principled, if still surly characters, in The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Games (1970), Eva (1962), and Accident (1967), the latter two films reuniting Baker with the American expatriot director of The Criminal, Joseph Losey. Stanley Baker also established a fruitful working relationship with the American director Cy Endfield, following their early collaboration on Hell Drivers (1957). When Baker inaugurated his own film production company - it was Endfield he commissioned to write and direct both Zulu (1964) and Sands of the Kalahari (1965), with Baker allotting himself the downbeat roles of the martinet officer John Chard in Zulu and the reluctant hero Mike Bain in The Sands Of The Kalahari.
Baker must have felt more assured in disenchanted roles - as further films from Baker's own stable still promoted the actor in either criminal or villainous mode - as gangster Paul Clifton in Robbery (1967) and the corrupt thief-taker Jonathan Wild in Where's Jack? (1969). The success of Baker's own productions was timely and did much to enhance the prestige of what was then considered an ailing British film industry. Stanley Baker also took the opportunity to move into the realm of television, appearing in, among other productions, the dramas The Changeling (1974) and Robinson Crusoe (1974), and also in the series How Green Was My Valley (1975).
Knighted in 1976 it was evident that Stanley Baker may well have continued to greater heights, both as an actor and a producer, but he succumbed to lung cancer and died at the early age of forty-eight. But his legacy is unquestioned. He was a unique force on screen, championing characterizations that were not clichéd or compromised. He established his own niche as an actor content to be admired for peerlessly portraying the disreputable and the unsympathetic. In that he was a dark mirror, more accurately reflecting human frailty and the vagaries of life than many of his more romantically or heroically inclined contemporaries. There have forever been legions of seemingly interchangeable charming and virile leading men populating the movies - but Stanley Baker stood almost alone in his determination to be characterized and judged by portraying the bleaker aspects of the human condition. Consequently, more than twenty-five years after his death, his sombre, potent personality still illuminates the screen in a way few others have achieved.- Actor
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Widely regarded as one of the greatest stage and screen actors both in his native UK and internationally, the unparalleled Nigel Hawthorne was born in Coventry, England on 5 April 1929, raised in South Africa and returned to the UK in the 1950s with his extensive work as a great gentleman of acting following during the decade as well as in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. His portrayal of 'Sir Humphrey Appleby' in the BBC comedy Yes Minister (1980) won him international acclaim in the 1980s. In 1992, he was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for his sublime interpretation of 'George III' in Alan Bennett's hit stage play, "The Madness of King George III" and he was also nominated for an Academy Award of Best Actor in a Leading Role in its brilliant film adaptation The Madness of King George (1994), both of them exquisitely directed by Nicholas Hytner.- Actor
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The tall, handsome and muscular Scottish actor Sean Connery is best known as the original actor to portray James Bond in the hugely successful movie franchise, starring in seven films between 1962 and 1983. Some believed that such a career-defining role might leave him unable to escape it, but he proved the doubters wrong, becoming one of the most notable film actors of his generation, with a host of great movies to his name. This arguably culminated in his greatest acclaim in 1988, when Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an Irish cop in The Untouchables (1987), stealing the thunder from the movie's principal star Kevin Costner. Connery was polled as "The Greatest Living Scot" and "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". In 1989, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine, and in 1999, at age 69, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man of the Century."
Thomas "Sean" Connery was born on August 25, 1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. His mother, Euphemia Maclean, was a cleaning lady, and his father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and truck driver. He also had a, Neil Connery, a plasterer in Edinburgh, who was eight years younger. Before going into acting, Sean had many different jobs, such as a milkman, lorry driver, a laborer, artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, coffin polisher and bodybuilder. He also joined the Royal Navy, but was later discharged because of medical problems. At the age of 23, he had a choice between becoming a professional soccer player or an actor, and even though he showed much promise in the sport, he chose acting and said it was one of his more intelligent decisions.
No Road Back (1957) was Sean's first major movie role, and it was followed by several made-for-TV movies such as Anna Christie (1957), Macbeth (1961) and Anna Karenina (1961) as well as guest appearances on TV series, and also films such as Hell Drivers (1957), Another Time, Another Place (1958), Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and The Frightened City (1961). In 1962 he appeared in The Longest Day (1962) with a host of other stars.
His big breakthrough came in 1962 when he landed the role of secret agent James Bond in Dr. No (1962). He played James Bond in six more films: From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983).
After and during the success of the Bond films, he maintained a successful career as an actor and has appeared in films, including Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Time Bandits (1981), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Rising Sun (1993), The Rock (1996), Finding Forrester (2000) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).
Sean married actress Diane Cilento in 1962 and they had Sean's only child, Jason Connery, born on January 11, 1963. The couple announced their separation in February 1971 and filed for divorce 2½ years later. Sean then dated Jill St. John, Lana Wood, Magda Konopka and Carole Mallory. In 1975 he married Micheline Roquebrune and they stayed married, despite Sean's well-documented love affair with Lynsey de Paul in the late '80s. Sean had three stepchildren through his marriage to Micheline, who was one year his senior. He is also a grandfather. His son, Jason and Jason's ex-wife, actress Mia Sara had a son, Dashiell Connery, in 1997.
Sean Connery died at the age of 90 on October 31, 2020, in Nassau, the Bahamas, where he resided for many years.- Actor
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Sir Ian Holm was one of the world's greatest actors, a Laurence Olivier Award-winning, Tony Award-winning, BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated British star of films and the stage. He was a member of the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company and has played more than 100 roles in films and on television.
He was born Ian Holm Cuthbert on September 12, 1931, in Goodmayes, Essex, to Scottish parents who worked at the Essex mental asylum. His mother, Jean Wilson (née Holm), was a nurse, and his father, Doctor James Harvey Cuthbert, was a psychiatrist. Young Holm was brought up in London. At the age of seven he was inspired by the seeing 'Les Miserables' and became fond of acting. Holm studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, graduating in 1950 to the Royal Shakespeare Company. There he emerged as an actor whose range and effortless style allowed him to play almost entire Shakespeare's repertoire. In 1959 his stage partner Laurence Olivier scored a hit on Ian Holm in a sword fight in a production of 'Coriolanus'. Holm still had a scar on his finger.
In 1965 Holm made his debut on television as Richard III on the BBC's The Wars of the Roses (1965), which was a filmed theatrical production of four of Shakespeare's plays condensed down into a trilogy. In 1969 Holm won his first BAFTA Film Award Best Supporting Actor for The Bofors Gun (1968), then followed a flow of awards and nominations for his numerous works in film and on television. In 1981, he played one of his best known roles, Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981), for which he was nominated for Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In the late 1990s, he gave a highly-acclaimed turn as the lawyer, Mitchell, in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and was subsequently cast in a number of high-profile Hollywood films of the next decade, playing Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element (1997), Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), and Professor Fitz in The Aviator (2004), as well as Zach Braff's character's father Gideon in Garden State (2004). His last non-Hobbit film role was a voice part as Skinner in Ratatouille (2007).
Ian Holm had five children, three daughters and two sons from the first two of his four wives and from an additional relationship. In 1989 Holm was created a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), and in 1998 he was knighted for his services to drama. He died in London in June 2020.- Actor
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Sir Robert's career fell into two distinct parts. In the '60s, he was widely regarded as the heir of Laurence Olivier. But, after his departure from Britain's National Theatre in 1970 and the breakup of his marriage with Maggie Smith three years later, he suffered a slump made worse by heavy drinking. In the '90s, the Royal Shakespeare Company invited him to play first Falstaff in "Henry IV" and then Lear in "King Lear", and this re-established Stephens's career. He was knighted early in 1995.- Actor
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Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London, to Ellen (née Burchell), a cook, and Maurice Micklewhite Sr., a fish-market porter. He had a younger brother, Stanley Caine, and an older maternal half-brother named David Burchell. He left school at age 15 and took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British army and serving in Korea during the Korean War, where he saw combat. Upon his return to England, he gravitated toward the theater and got a job as an assistant stage manager. He adopted the name of Caine on the advice of his agent, taking it from a marquee that advertised The Caine Mutiny (1954). In the years that followed, he worked in more than 100 television dramas, with repertory companies throughout England and eventually in the stage hit "The Long and the Short and the Tall".
Zulu (1964), the epic retelling of a historic 19th-century battle in South Africa between British soldiers and Zulu warriors, brought Caine to international attention. Instead of being typecast as a low-ranking Cockney soldier, he played a snobbish, aristocratic officer. Although "Zulu" was a major success, it was the role of Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965) and the title role in Alfie (1966) that made Caine a star of the first magnitude. He epitomized the new breed of actor in mid-1960s England, the working-class bloke with glasses and a down-home accent. However, after initially starring in some excellent films, particularly in the 1960s, including Gambit (1966), Funeral in Berlin (1966), Play Dirty (1969), Battle of Britain (1969), Too Late the Hero (1970), The Last Valley (1971) and especially Get Carter (1971), he seemed to take on roles in below-average films, simply for the money he could by then command.
However, there were some gems amongst the dross. He gave a magnificent performance opposite Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and turned in a solid one as a German colonel in The Eagle Has Landed (1976). Educating Rita (1983), Blame It on Rio (1984) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) (for which he won his first Oscar) were highlights of the 1980s, while more recently Little Voice (1998), The Cider House Rules (1999) (his second Oscar) and Last Orders (2001) have been widely acclaimed. Caine played Nigel Powers in the parody sequel Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), and Alfred Pennyworth in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. He appeared in several other of Nolan's films including The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014). He also appeared as a supporting character in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men (2006) and Pixar's sequel Cars 2 (2011).
As of 2015, films in which Caine has starred have grossed over $7.4 billion worldwide. He is ranked the ninth highest grossing box office star. Caine is one of several actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting every decade from five consecutive decades (the other being Laurence Olivier and Meryl Streep). He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1992 Birthday Honours, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2000 Birthday Honours in recognition for his contributions to the cinema.
Caine has been married twice. First to actress Patricia Haines from 1954 to 1958. They had a daughter, Dominique, in 1957. A bachelor for some dozen-plus years after the divorce, he was romantically linked to Edina Ronay (for three years), Nancy Sinatra, Natalie Wood, Candice Bergen, Bianca Jagger, Françoise Pascal and Jill St. John. In 1971 he met his second wife, fashion model Shakira Caine (née Baksh), and they married in 1973, six months before their daughter Natasha was born. The couple has three grandchildren, and in 2023, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.- Actor
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Alan Bates decided to be an actor at age 11. After grammar school in Derbyshire, he earned a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Following two years in the Royal Air Force, he joined the new English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre. His West End debut in 1956, at 22, was also the company's first production. In the same year Bates appeared in John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger," a play that gave a name to a generation of postwar "angry young men." It made Bates a star and launched a lifetime of his performing in works written by great modern playwrights -- Harold Pinter, Simon Gray, Storey, Bennett, Peter Shaffer and Tom Stoppard (as well as such classic playwrights as Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg and William Shakespeare). Four years later Bates appeared in his first film, a classic: The Entertainer (1960), in which he plays one of Laurence Olivier's sons. More than 50 film roles have followed, one of which, The Fixer (1968) (from a novel by Bernard Malamud) earned an Academy Award nomination for Bates. He married Victoria Ward in 1970. Their twin sons, Benedick and Tristan, were born in 1971. Tristan died during an asthma attack in 1990; Ward died in 1992. Bates threw himself into his work to get through these tragedies, and spoke movingly about the effects of his losses in interviews. He was the Patron of the Actors Centre in Covent Garden, London; Bates and his family endowed a theatre there in memory of Tristan Bates, who, like his father and brother, was an actor. With few exceptions, Bates performed in premium works, guided by intuition rather than by box office. For each role he created a three-dimensional, unique person; there is no stereotypical Alan Bates character. Women appreciate the sensitivity he brought to his romantic roles; gay fans appreciate his well-rounded, unstereotyped gay characters; and the intelligence, humor and detail - the smile that started in the eyes, the extra pat or squeeze, the subtle nuances he gave to his lines, his beautiful, flexible voice - are Bates hallmarks that made him special to all his admirers. The rumpled charm of his youth weathered into a softer but still attractive (and still rumpled) maturity. In his 60s Alan Bates continued to divide his time among films, theatre and television. His 1997 stage portrayal of a travel writer facing life's big questions at the bedside of his comatose wife in Simon Gray's "Life Support" was called "a magnificent performance, one of the finest of his career" (Charles Spencer, Sunday Telegraph, 10 August 97). His last two roles in New York earned critical praise and all the Best Actor awards Broadway can bestow. He was knighted in January 2003, and only a few weeks later began treatment for pancreatic cancer. He was positive that he would beat the disease, and continued to work during its course, only admitting to being "a bit tired." His courage and strength were remarkable, and even in his final days his humor remained intact. After his death, there was an outpouring of affection and respect. As Ken Russell said in his Evening Standard tribute, "The airwaves have been heavy with unstinted praise for Alan Bates since his untimely death . . . All the tributes were more than justified for one of the great actors ever to grace the screen and stage."- Actor
- Soundtrack
Acting chameleon Sir Tom Courtenay, along with Sir Alan Bates and Albert Finney, became a front-runner in an up-and-coming company of rebel upstarts who created quite a stir in British "kitchen sink" cinema during the early '60s. An undying love for the theatre, however, had Courtenay channeling a different course from the aforementioned greats and he never, by his own choosing, attained comparable cinematic stardom.
The gaunt and glum, fair-haired actor was born Thomas Daniel Courtenay into modest surroundings on February 25, 1937, in Hull, East Yorkshire, England, the son of Thomas Henry Courtenay, a ship painter, and his wife, Anne Eliza (née Quest). Graduating from Kingston High School there, he trained in drama at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. His reputation as an actor grew almost immediately with his professional debut in 1960 as Konstantin in "The Seagull" at the Old Vic. Following tours in Scotland and London with the play, Tom performed in "Henry IV, Part I" and "Twelfth Night" (also at the Old Vic) before assuming the title role of Billy from Albert Finney in the critically acclaimed drama "Billy Liar" at the Cambridge Theatre in 1961. The story, which tells of a Yorkshire man who creates a fantasy world to shield himself from his mundane middle-class woes, was the initial spark in Tom's rise to fame.
The recognition he received landed him squarely into the heap of things as a new wave of "angry young men" were taking over British cinema during the swinging '60s. Singled out for his earlier stage work at RADA, he was eventually handed the title role in the war film Private Potter (1963), but it was his second movie that clinched stardom. Winning the role of Colin Smith in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Courtenay invested everything he had in this bruising portrayal of youthful desolation and rebellion. As a reform school truant whose solitary sentencing for robbing a bakery leads to a reawakening and subsequent recognition as a long distance runner, he was awarded a "Promising Newcomer" award from the British Film Academy, It was Courtenay then, and not Finney, who recreated his stage triumph as Billy Fisher in the stark film version of Billy Liar (1963). British Film Academy nominations came his way for this and for his fourth movie role in King & Country (1964). Vivid contributions to the films King Rat (1965), the ever-popular Doctor Zhivago (1965), which earned him his first Oscar nomination, and The Night of the Generals (1967) followed.
Despite all this cinematic glory, Courtenay did not enjoy the process of movie-making and reverted to his first passion -- the theatre -- beginning in 1966. Displaying his versatility with roles in such classic works as "The Cherry Orchard," "Macbeth" (as Malcolm), "Charley's Aunt," "The Playboy of the Western World," "Hamlet," "She Stoops to Conquer," "Peer Gynt" and "Arms and the Man," he still found scattered work in films, including The Day the Fish Came Out (1967), A Dandy in Aspic (1968) and Otley (1969), but none matched his earlier brilliance. In 1971 he took a self-imposed, decade-long sabbatical from filming.
Forming a sturdy association with the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester that would last over a decade, he continued to impress with lead roles in "The Rivals" and "The Prince of Homburg". Following his huge success as the libidinous Norman in "The Norman Conquests" in London, he made his Broadway debut with "Otherwise Engaged" (1977) and earned a Tony nomination and Drama League Award in the process. It was his second Tony-nominated triumph in "The Dresser" in 1980-1981, however, that lured Courtenay back to films when he was asked to recreate the role for the large screen. The Dresser (1983) co-starred Tom as the mincing personal assistant to an appallingly self-destructive stage star played by Albert Finney (Paul Rogers played the role with Tom on Broadway) who struggles to get the actor through a rigorous performance of "King Lear". Both British actors received Oscar nominations but lost the 1984 "Best Actor" award to American Robert Duvall.
Since then Tom has appeared on occasion in TV and film roles -- usually in support. A few standouts include the films Let Him Have It (1991), Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999), Last Orders (2001) and Nicholas Nickleby (2002), as well as the TV mini-series A Rather English Marriage (1998), for which he earned a British Television Award, Little Dorrit (2008) and the series Unforgotten (2015) for which he won a BAFTA award.
Over the years Sir Tom has excelled in solo stage shows as well. As a chronic alcoholic in "Moscow Stations," he won the 1994 London Critics Circle Theatre and London Evening Standard Theatre awards for "Best Actor." In 2002, he wrote the one-man show "Pretending To Be Me," based on the letters and writings of poet Philip Larkin. In the past decade he has continued to distinguish himself on both the classical ("King Lear," "Uncle Vanya") and contemporary ("Art") stages.
Courtenay's marriage to actress Cheryl Kennedy lasted about a decade (from 1973 to 1982). In 1988 he married Isabel Crossley, a stage manager at the Royal Exchange Theatre in London. He has no children from either marriage. In 1999, Sir Tom Courtenay was awarded an honorary doctorate from Hull University and in 2000 published his memoir "Dear Tom: Letters From Home", which earned strong reviews. Knighthood came a year after that.- Actor
- Composer
- Producer
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, he moved to London and joined the National Theatre, invited by Laurence Olivier, who could see the talent in Hopkins. In 1967, he made his first film for television, A Flea in Her Ear (1967).
From this moment on, he enjoyed a successful career in cinema and television. In 1968, he worked on The Lion in Winter (1968) with Timothy Dalton. Many successes came later, and Hopkins' remarkable acting style reached the four corners of the world. In 1977, he appeared in two major films: A Bridge Too Far (1977) with James Caan, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Elliott Gould and Laurence Olivier, and Maximilian Schell. In 1980, he worked on The Elephant Man (1980). Two good television literature adaptations followed: Othello (1981) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982). In 1987 he was awarded with the Commander of the order of the British Empire. This year was also important in his cinematic life, with 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), acclaimed by specialists. In 1993, he was knighted.
In the 1990s, Hopkins acted in movies like Desperate Hours (1990) and Howards End (1992), The Remains of the Day (1993) (nominee for the Oscar), Legends of the Fall (1994), Nixon (1995) (nominee for the Oscar), Surviving Picasso (1996), Amistad (1997) (nominee for the Oscar), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Meet Joe Black (1998) and Instinct (1999). His most remarkable film, however, was The Silence of the Lambs (1991), for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor. He also got a B.A.F.T.A. for this role.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Preeminent British classical actor of the first post-Olivier generation, Derek Jacobi was knighted in 1994 for his services to the theatre, and, in fact, is only the second to enjoy the honor of holding TWO knighthoods, Danish and English (Olivier was the other). Modest and unassuming in nature, Jacobi's firm place in theatre history centers around his fearless display of his characters' more unappealing aspects, their great flaws, eccentricities and, more often than not, their primal torment.
Jacobi was born in Leytonstone, London, England, the only child of Alfred George Jacobi, a department store manager, and Daisy Gertrude (Masters) Jacobi, a secretary. His paternal great-grandfather was German (from Hoxter, Germany). His interest in drama began while quite young. He made his debut at age six in the local library drama group production of "The Prince and the Swineherd" in which he appeared as both the title characters. In his teens he attended Leyton County High School and eventually joined the school's drama club ("The Players of Leyton").
Derek portrayed Hamlet at the English National Youth Theatre prior to receiving his high school diploma, and earned a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he initially studied history before focusing completely on the stage. A standout role as Edward II at Cambridge led to an invite by the Birmingham Repertory in 1960 following college graduation. He made an immediate impression wherein his Henry VIII (both in 1960) just happened to catch the interest of Olivier himself, who took him the talented actor under his wing. Derek became one of the eight founding members of Olivier's National Theatre Company and gradually rose in stature with performances in "The Royal Hunt of the Sun," "Othello" (as Cassio) and in "Hay Fever", among others. He also made appearances at the Chichester Festival and the Old Vic.
It was Olivier who provided Derek his film debut, recreating his stage role of Cassio in Olivier's acclaimed cinematic version of Othello (1965). Olivier subsequently cast Derek in his own filmed presentation of Chekhov's Three Sisters (1970). On TV Derek was in celebrated company playing Don John in Much Ado About Nothing (1967) alongside Maggie Smith and then-husband Robert Stephens; Derek had played the role earlier at the Chichester Festival in 1965. After eight eventful years at the National Theatre, which included such sterling roles as Touchstone in "As You Like It", Jacobi left the company in 1971 in order to attract other mediums. He continued his dominance on stage as Ivanov, Richard III, Pericles and Orestes (in "Electra"), but his huge breakthrough would occur on TV. Coming into his own with quality support work in Man of Straw (1972), The Strauss Family (1972) and especially the series The Pallisers (1974) in which he played the ineffectual Lord Fawn, Derek's magnificence was presented front and center in the epic BBC series I, Claudius (1976). His stammering, weak-minded Emperor Claudius was considered a work of genius and won, among other honors, the BAFTA award.
Although he was accomplished in The Day of the Jackal (1973) and The Odessa File (1974), films would place a distant third throughout his career. Stage and TV, however, would continue to illustrate his classical icon status. Derek took his Hamlet on a successful world tour throughout England, Egypt, Sweden, Australia, Japan and China; in some of the afore-mentioned countries he was the first actor to perform the role in English. TV audiences relished his performances as Richard II (1978) and, of course Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1980).
After making his Broadway bow in "The Suicide" in 1980, Derek suffered from an alarming two-year spell of stage fright. He returned, however, and toured as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company (1982-1985) with award-winning results. During this period he collected Broadway's Tony Award for his Benedick in "Much Ado about Nothing"; earned the coveted Olivier, Drama League and Helen Hayes awards for his Cyrano de Bergerac; and earned equal acclaim for his Prospero in "The Tempest" and Peer Gynt. In 1986, he finally made his West End debut in "Breaking the Code" for which he won another Helen Hayes trophy; the play was then brought to Broadway.
For the rest of the 80s and 90s, he laid stage claim to such historical figures as Lord Byron, Edmund Kean and Thomas Becket. On TV he found resounding success (and an Emmy nomination) as Adolf Hitler in Inside the Third Reich (1982), and finally took home the coveted Emmy opposite Anthony Hopkins in the WWII drama The Tenth Man (1988). He won a second Emmy in an unlikely fashion by spoofing his classical prowess on an episode of "Frasier" (his first guest performance on American TV), in which he played the unsubtle and resoundingly bad Shakespearean actor Jackson Hedley.
Kenneth Branagh was greatly influenced by mentor Jacobi and their own association would include Branagh's films Henry V (1989), Dead Again (1991), and Hamlet (1996), the latter playing Claudius to Branagh's Great Dane. Derek also directed Branagh in the actor's Renaissance Theatre Company's production of "Hamlet". In the 1990s Derek returned to the Chichester Festival, this time as artistic director, and made a fine showing in the title role of Uncle Vanya (1996).
More heralded work of late include profound portrayals of the anguished titular painter in Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998), the role of Gracchus in the popular, Oscar-winning film Gladiator (2000), and sterling performances in such films as Two Men Went to War (2002), Bye Bye Blackbird (2005), The Riddle (2007), Endgame (2009), The King's Speech (2010), Jail Caesar (2012), and as the King in Cinderella (2015). Continuing to mesmerize on the stage, he has turned in superb performances in "Uncle Vanya" (2000), Friedrich Schiller's "Don Carlos" (2005), _A Voyage 'Round My Father (2006), "Twelfth Night" (2009) and the title role in "King Lear" (2010). On the British TV series front, he has commanded more recent attention in the title role of a crusading monk in the mystery series Mystery!: Cadfael (1994), as Lord Pirrie in Titanic: Blood and Steel (2012), as Alan in Last Tango in Halifax (2012), and as Stuart Bixby in Vicious (2013).
He and his life-time companion of three decades, Richard Clifford, filed as domestic partners in England in 2006. Clifford, a fine classical actor and producer in his own right, has shared movie time with Jacobi in Little Dorrit (1987), Henry V (1989), and the TV version of Cyrano de Bergerac (1985).- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Widely regarded as one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native Great Britain and internationally, twice nominated for the Oscar and recipient of every major theatrical award in the UK and US, Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England, to Margery Lois (Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer and lay preacher. He is of Scottish, Northern Irish, and English descent. During his early childhood, his parents moved with Ian and his older sister, Jean, to the mill town of Wigan. It was in this small town that young Ian rode out World War II. He soon developed a fascination with acting and the theatre, which was encouraged by his parents. They would take him to plays, those by William Shakespeare, in particular. The amateur school productions fostered Ian's growing passion for theatre.
When Ian was of age to begin attending school, he made sure to get roles in all of the productions. At Bolton School in particular, he developed his skills early on. Indeed, his first role in a Shakespearian play was at Bolton, as Malvolio in "Twelfth Night". Ian soon began attending Stratford-upon-Avon theatre festivals, where he saw the greats perform: Laurence Olivier, Wendy Hiller, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Paul Robeson. He continued his education in English Drama, but soon it fell by the wayside as he concentrated more and more on performing. He eventually obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1961, and began his career in earnest.
McKellen began working in theatre over the next few years. Very few people knew of Ian's homosexuality; he saw no reason to go public, nor had he told his family. They did not seem interested in the subject and so he saw no reason to bring it up. In 1988, Ian publicly came out of the closet on the BBC Radio 4 program, while discussing Margaret Thatcher's "Section 28" legislation, which made the promotion of homosexuality as a family relationship by local authorities an offense. It was reason enough for McKellen to take a stand. He has been active in the gay rights movement ever since.
Ian resides in Limehouse, where he has also lived with his former long-time partner Sean Mathias. The two men have also worked together on the film Bent (1997) as well as in exquisite stage productions. To this day, McKellen works mostly in theatre, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his efforts in the arts. However, he has managed to make several quite successful forays into film. He has appeared in several productions of Shakespeare's works including his well received Richard III (1995), and in a variety of other movies. However, it has only been recently that his star has finally begun to shine in the eyes of North American audiences. Roles in various films, Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Apt Pupil (1998) and Gods and Monsters (1998), riveted audiences. The latter, in particular, created a sensation in Hollywood, and McKellen's role garnered him several of awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe and an Oscar nod. McKellen, as he continues to work extensively on stage, he always keeps in 'solidifying' his 'role' as Laurence Olivier's worthy 'successor' in the best sense too, such as King Lear (2008) / King Lear (2008) directed by Trevor Nunn and in a range of other staggering performances full of generously euphoric delight that have included "Peter Pan" and Noël Coward's "Present Laughter", as well as Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land" (National Theatre Live: No Man's Land (2016)), both in acclaimed productions brilliantly directed by Sean Mathias.
McKellen found mainstream success with his performance as Magneto in X-Men (2000) and its sequels. His largest mark on the big screen may be as Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, which he reprised in "The Hobbit" trilogy. He also reprised the role of 'King Lear' with new artistic perspectives in National Theatre Live: King Lear (2018) offering an invaluable mesmerizing experience as a natural force of stage - and screen - of infinite generosity through his unsurpassable interpretation of the titanically vulnerable king.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Sir Michael Gambon was born in Cabra, Dublin, Ireland, to Mary (Hoare), a seamstress, and Edward Gambon, an engineer. After joining the National Theatre, under the Artistic Directorship of Sir Laurence Olivier, Gambon went on to appear in a number of leading roles in plays written by Alan Ayckbourn. His career was catapulted in 1980 when he took the lead role in John Dexter's production of "Galileo". Since then, Gambon has regularly appeared at the Royal National Theatre and the RSC. Roles include, King Lear, Othello, Mark Anthony and Volpone. He was described by the late Sir Ralph Richardson as being "The Great Gambon" and he is now considered to be one of the British theatre's leading lights. He was made a CBE in 1992.- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of stage, screen and TV's finest transatlantic talents, slight, gravel-voiced, pasty-looking John Vincent Hurt was born on January 22, 1940, in Shirebrook, a coal mining village, in Derbyshire, England. The youngest child of Phyllis (Massey), an engineer and one-time actress, and Reverend Arnould Herbert Hurt, an Anglican clergyman and mathematician, his quiet shyness betrayed an early passion for acting. First enrolled at the Grimsby Art School and St. Martin's School of Art, his focus invariably turned from painting to acting.
Accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1960, John made his stage debut in "Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger" followed by "The Dwarfs." Elsewhere, he continued to build upon his 60's theatrical career with theatre roles in "Chips with Everything" at the Vaudeville, the title role in "Hamp" at the Edinburgh Festival, "Inadmissible Evidence" at Wyndham's and "Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs" at the Garrick. His movie debut occurred that same year with a supporting role in the "angry young man" British drama Young and Willing (1962), followed by small roles in Appuntamento in Riviera (1962), A Man for All Seasons (1966) and The Sailor from Gibraltar (1967).
A somber, freckled, ravaged-looking gent, Hurt found his more compelling early work in offbeat theatrical characterizations with notable roles such as Malcolm in "Macbeth" (1967), Octavius in "Man and Superman" (1969), Peter in "Ride a Cock Horse" (1972), Mike in '"The Caretaker" (1972) and Ben in "The Dumb Waiter" (1973). At the same time he gained more prominence in a spray of film and support roles such as a junior officer in Before Winter Comes (1968), the title highwayman in Sinful Davey (1969), a morose little brother in In Search of Gregory (1969), a dim, murderous truck driver in 10 Rillington Place (1971), a skirt-chasing, penguin-studying biologist in Cry of the Penguins (1971), the unappetizing son of a baron in The Pied Piper (1972) and a repeat of his title stage role as Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (1974).
Hurt shot to international stardom, however, on TV where he was allowed to display his true, fearless range. He reaped widespread acclaim for his embodiment of the tormented gay writer and raconteur Quentin Crisp in the landmark television play The Naked Civil Servant (1975), adapted from Crisp's autobiography. Hurt's bold, unabashed approach on the flamboyant and controversial gent who dared to be different was rewarded with the BAFTA (British TV Award). This triumph led to the equally fascinating success as the cruel and crazed Roman emperor Caligula in the epic television masterpiece I, Claudius (1976), followed by another compelling interpretation as murderous student Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (1979).
A resurgence occurred on film as a result. Among other unsurpassed portraits on his unique pallet, the chameleon in him displayed a polar side as the gentle, pathetically disfigured title role in The Elephant Man (1980), and as a tortured Turkish prison inmate who befriends Brad Davis in the intense drama Midnight Express (1978) earning Oscar nominations for both. Mainstream box-office films were offered as well as art films. He made the most of his role as a crew member whose body becomes host to an unearthly predator in Alien (1979). With this new rush of fame came a few misguided ventures as well that were generally unworthy of his talent. Such brilliant work as his steeple chase jockey in Champions (1984) or kidnapper in The Hit (1984) was occasionally offset by such drivel as the comedy misfire Partners (1982) with Ryan O'Neal in which Hurt looked enervated and embarrassed. For the most part, the craggy-faced actor continued to draw extraordinary notices. Tops on the list includes his prurient governmental gadfly who triggers the Christine Keeler political sex scandal in the aptly-titled Scandal (1989); the cultivated gay writer aroused and obsessed with struggling "pretty-boy" actor Jason Priestley in Love and Death on Long Island (1997); and the Catholic priest embroiled in the Rwanda atrocities in Shooting Dogs (2005).
Latter parts of memorable interpretations included Dr. Iannis in Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001), the recurring role of the benign wand-maker Mr. Ollivander in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), the tyrannical dictator Adam Sutler in V for Vendetta (2005) and the voice of The Dragon in Merlin (2008). Among Hurt's final film appearances were as a terminally ill screenwriter in That Good Night (2017) and a lesser role in the mystery thriller Damascus Cover (2017). Hurt's voice was also tapped into animated features and documentaries, often serving as narrator. He also returned to the theatre performing in such shows as "The Seagull", "A Month in the Country" (1994), "Afterplay" (2002) and "Krapp's Last Tape", the latter for which he received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award.
A recovered alcoholic who married four times, Hurt was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen in 2004, and Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in 2015. That same year (2015) he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In July of 2016, he was forced to bow out of the father role of Billy Rice in a then-upcoming London stage production of "The Entertainer" opposite Kenneth Branagh due to ill health that he described as an "intestinal ailment". Hurt died several months later at his home in Cromer, Norfolk, England on January 15, 2017, three days after his 77th birthday.- Actor
- Producer
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David Jason was born in Edmonton, London, in 1940. He has become one of Britain's most famous, versatile and respected actors, who is most famous for his role in Only Fools and Horses (1981) as Del Boy. He made his debut in the series in 1981 and was still playing the same role up to the Christmas special in 2002. His big break came in the 1967 children's comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) starring alongside members of the Monty Python team: Terry Jones; Eric Idle, and Michael Palin.
Sadly, in 1990, he spent time away from work to nurse Myfanwy Talog, the Welsh actress who was his long time partner, before she died of cancer at the age of 49. He has come a long way from his days as an electrician and has won numerous awards for his work. He has managed to combine the comedy aspect of his career with rather more serious roles, such as that of Jack Frost in the highly-rated detective series A Touch of Frost (1992) and has proved that he is a man of many talents. In the mid 1970s, he performed as Blanco, an elderly prisoner, in episodes of Porridge (1974) with Ronnie Barker. He has also done voice work in children's TV.
He has not really concentrated on films, although he was very impressive in the TV film All the King's Men (1999), playing Frank Beck, the Commander of the Sandringham Company who mysteriously disappeared whilst in action in The Great War campaign in Gallipoli in 1915.
He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife, Gill Hinchcliffe and their daughter, Sophie Mae, who was born in 2001. His hobbies are a little DIY and gardening. He was knighted in 2005, becoming Sir David Jason.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Sir Patrick Stewart was born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England, to Gladys (Barrowclough), a textile worker and weaver, and Alfred Stewart, who was in the army. He was a member of various local drama groups from about age 12. He left school at age 15 to work as a junior reporter on a local paper; he quit when his editor told him he was spending too much time at the theatre and not enough working. Stewart spent a year as a furniture salesman, saving cash to attend drama school. He was accepted by Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1957.
He made his professional debut in 1959 in the repertory theatre in Lincoln; he worked at the Manchester Library Theatre and a tour around the world with the Old Vic Company followed in the early 1960s. Stewart joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, to begin his 27-year association. Following a spell with the Royal National Theatre in the mid 1980s, he went to Los Angeles, California to star on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), which ran from 1987-1994, playing the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. After the series ended, Stewart reprised his role for a string of successful Star Trek films: Star Trek: Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). Stewart continues to work on the stage and in various films. He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Queen's New Year's Honours List for his services to drama.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji on December 31, 1943 in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. His father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, was a Kenyan-born medical doctor, of Gujarati Indian descent, and his mother, Anna Lyna Mary (Goodman), was an English actress. Ben began to act in stage plays during the 1960s. He soon became a successful stage actor, and also began to have roles in films and television. His birth name was Krishna Bhanji, but he changed his name to "Ben Kingsley" soon after gaining fame as a stage actor, fearing that a foreign name could hamper his acting career.
Kingsley first earned international fame for his performance in the drama movie Gandhi (1982). His performance as Mohandas K. Gandhi earned him international fame. He won many awards - including an Academy Award for Best Actor. He also won Golden Globe, BAFTA and London Film Critics' Circle Awards. After acting in Gandhi (1982), Ben was recognized as one of the finest British actors.
After his international fame for appearing in Gandhi (1982), Kingsley appeared in many other famous movies. His success as an actor continued. His performance as Itzhak Stern in the drama movie Schindler's List (1993) earned him a BAFTA nomination for best supporting actor. Schindler's List (1993) won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. During the late 1990s, Kingsley acted in many successful movies. He played Sweeney Todd in the television movie The Tale of Sweeney Todd (1997), for which he was nominated for the Screen Actors' Guild Award. His other notable role was as Otto Frank in the television movie Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001), for which he won the Screen Actors' Guild Award.
In 2002, Kingsley was appointed Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's New Years Honours for his services to drama. In 2013, he received the BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment. That same year, he also received the Fellowship Award at the Asian Awards in London, England.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Tony Robinson was born on 15 August 1946 in London, England, UK. He is a producer and actor, known for Time Team (1994), Maid Marian and Her Merry Men (1989) and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989). He has been married to Louise Hobbs since 27 June 2011. He was previously married to Mary Shepherd.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Born in 1949, Antony Sher was raised in South Africa before going to London to study at the Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art between 1969 and 1971. After performing for the Gay Sweatshop theatrical group in "Thinking Straight" (1975), "The Fork" (1976), and "Stone" (1976), he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982. Three years later, his performance in the title role of "Richard III" won him a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor and, in 1997, he won another Laurence Olivier Award for "Stanley".
Although he spent more time onstage, Sher appeared in a number of films and TV series, including The History Man (1981), Shadey (1985), The Young Poisoner's Handbook (1995) and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (1996). He gave a charming performance as Benjamin Disraeli in Mrs. Brown (1997), and played "Dr. Moth" in Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Sher was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Born in London, England, Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is the second child of Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the U.K., and his second wife, actress Jill Balcon. His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema and head of the famous Ealing Studios. His older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis, is a documentarian. His father was of Northern Irish and English descent, and his mother was Jewish (from a family from Latvia and Poland). Daniel was educated at Sevenoaks School in Kent, which he despised, and the more progressive Bedales in Petersfield, which he adored. He studied acting at the Bristol Old Vic School. Daniel made his film debut in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), but then acted on stage with the Bristol Old Vic and Royal Shakespeare Companies and did not appear on screen again until 1982, when he landed his first adult role, a bit part in Gandhi (1982). He also appeared on British television that year in Frost in May (1982) and How Many Miles to Babylon? (1982). Notable theatrical performances include Another Country (1982-83), Dracula (1984) and The Futurists (1986).
His first major supporting role in a feature film was in The Bounty (1984), quickly followed by My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and A Room with a View (1985). The latter two films opened in New York on the same day, offering audiences and critics evidence of his remarkable range and establishing him as a major talent. The New York Film Critics named him Best Supporting Actor for those performances. In 1986, he appeared on stage in Richard Eyre's "The Futurists" and on television in Eyre's production of The Insurance Man (1986). He also had a small role in a British/French film, Nanou (1986). In 1987, he assumed leading-man status in Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), followed by a comedic role in the unsuccessful Stars and Bars (1988). His brilliant performance as Christy Brown in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot (1989) won him numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor.
He returned to the stage to work again with Eyre, as Hamlet at the National Theater, but was forced to leave the production close to the end of its run because of exhaustion, and has not appeared on stage since. He took a hiatus from film as well until 1992, when he starred in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), a film that met with mixed reviews but was a great success at the box office. He worked with American director Martin Scorsese in The Age of Innocence (1993), based on Edith Wharton's novel. Subsequently, he teamed again with Jim Sheridan to star in In the Name of the Father (1993), a critically acclaimed performance that earned him another Academy Award nomination. His next project was in the role of John Proctor in father-in-law Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (1996), directed by Nicholas Hytner. He worked with Scorsese again to star in Gangs of New York (2002), another critically acclaimed performance that earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Day-Lewis's wife, Rebecca Miller, offered him the lead role in her film The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005), in which he played a dying man with regrets over how his wife had evolved and over how he had brought up his teenage daughter. During filming, he arranged to live separate from his wife to achieve the "isolation" needed to focus on his own character's reality. The film received mixed reviews. In 2007, he starred in director Paul Thomas Anderson's loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel "Oil!", titled There Will Be Blood (2007). Day-Lewis received the Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, and a variety of film critics' circle awards for the role. In 2009, Day-Lewis starred in Rob Marshall's musical adaptation Nine (2009) as film director Guido Contini. He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.- Actor
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Kenneth Charles Branagh was born on December 10, 1960, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to parents William Branagh, a plumber and carpenter, and Frances (Harper), both born in 1930. He has two siblings, William Branagh, Jr. (born 1955) and Joyce Branagh (born 1970). When he was nine, his family escaped The Troubles by moving to Reading, Berkshire, England. At 23, Branagh joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he took on starring roles in "Henry V" and "Romeo and Juliet". He soon found the RSC too large and impersonal and formed his own, the Renaissance Theatre Company, which now counts Prince Charles as one of its royal patrons. At 29, he directed Henry V (1989), where he also co-starred with his then-wife, Emma Thompson. The film brought him Best Actor and Best Director Oscar nominations. In 1993, he brought Shakespeare to mainstream audiences again with his hit adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing (1993), which featured an all-star cast that included, among others, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton and Keanu Reeves. At 30, he published his autobiography and, at 34, he directed and starred as "Victor Frankenstein" in the big-budget adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein (1994), with Robert De Niro as the monster himself. In 1996, Branagh wrote, directed and starred in a lavish adaptation of Hamlet (1996). His superb film acting work also includes a wide range of roles such as in Celebrity (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Valkyrie (2008) and his stunning portrayal of Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn (2011), where once again he offered a great performance that was also nominated for an Academy Award.- Actor
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- Music Department
Harry Secombe was one of Britain's best loved comic entertainers. Born in Swansea, South Wales he began singing as a child in local church choirs. His first job was as a clerk although he had considered a career in opera. During World War Two he served in the Army in North Africa and Italy. He met the comedian Spike Milligan while on duty in the Western desert and their common bond was a unique brand of humour. Secombe appeared in many troop concerts where he was known for his trademark high pitched laugh and blowing raspberries. After the war he appeared as a comic at London's famous Windmill Theatre and in 1945 became one of the stalwarts of the hugely successful radio series Educating Archie. His greatest popularity began in 1951 with the birth of radio's Crazy People, later to be renamed The Goon Show. One of the most famous radio comedy programmes of all time it helped launch the careers of Secombe, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine.
Whilst the Goon Show was in its prime the comedy team made several films associated with the series including Down Among the Z Men (1952) and in 1955 Secombe had his own TV show, The Harry Secombe Show. His other popular TV shows, often written by Marty Feldman and Barry Cryer, included Secombe and Friends (1966) and Have a Harry Christmas (1977). On stage he had a long running success with Leslie Bricusse's Pickwick (1963) and he revived the show in the 1980s.
His most notable film work began with Davy (1957) in which he played a music hall performer who auditions for an opera at Convent Garden. It was meant as a star vehicle for him but was not a box office success. International audiences became familiar with him when he played Mr Bumble, the beadle in Oliver! (1968) and films such as The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971) and Starstruck (1972).
Knighted in 1981 and much slimmed down after a serious attack of peritonitis, he continued to appear in concerts and on television as well as writing several volumes of autobiography. He toured Australia and in 1983 became the host of Highway, a weekly TV religious programme. This was Secombe toned down, far from his rollicking past and with no jokes, but it gave him a chance to sing seriously. The show ran for nearly ten years.
Ill health continually dogged the comedian in his final years and he battled with cancer and a severe stroke. He continued to appear on television, notably narrating D Day - The Official Story (1994) and presenting Top Ten Comedy Records (2000).- Actor
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Lord Rix, who was the president of Mencap since 1980, was also the entertainer behind a hit run of Whitehall farces in London in the 1950s and 1960s.
"Lord Rix was a beloved colleague and friend to so many people with a learning disability and their families," Mencap chief executive Jan Tregelles said. "His passion, zeal and humour will be sorely missed. His tireless campaigning has perhaps done more to improve the lives of people with a learning disability than any other."
Rix announced in 2016 that he was terminally ill and called for the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia for those dying in severe pain.
"Unhappily, my body seems to be constructed in such a way that it keeps me alive in great discomfort when all I want is to be allowed to slip into a sleep, peacefully, legally, and without any threat to the medical or nursing profession," he said in a letter that attempted to explain to his fellow peers in the House of Lords why he no longer opposed assisted dying legislation.
"Only with a legal euthanasia bill will the many people who find themselves in the same situation as me be able to slip away peacefully in their sleep instead of dreading the night."
Offstage, aside from his charitable work, Rix chaired the Arts Council of Great Britain's drama panel from 1986 to 1993 and was responsible for opening up grant funding for a wider mix of performers, more involvement for women and more funding for ethnic minority theatre companies.
Rix, who is perhaps still best known for his roles as crooked bookies or harassed civil servants, was married for 64 years to actor and fellow campaigner Elspet Gray, who died in 2013. They appeared together on stage and screen several times during their long marriage.
They began to take an active interest in the problems faced by people with learning disabilities when their daughter Shelley, the eldest of four, was born with Down's syndrome in 1951. At the time the condition was still referred to as mongolism and there was little support on offer. Rix became involved with Mencap (then the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults) to try to change this.
The actor, who was born in east Yorkshire, first found acting work at the age of 18 with Donald Wolfit's Royal Shakespeare Company while on deferred service from the Royal Air Force. Only a few months later, he played Sebastian in Twelfth Night in the West End. When his military deferment was extended, he gained more regular stage experience with the White Rose Players in Harrogate. After serving in the RAF, he ended up as a volunteer Bevin Boy, working in Doncaster's coal mines.
Rix made his name as an actor-manager after appearing on tour with Gray in the farce Reluctant Heroes by Colin Morris. He moved his company of comic performers, which included actors Leo Franklyn, Derek Royle, Terry Scott, Andrew Sachs and Rix's sister, Sheila Mercier, who later played Annie Sugden in Emmerdale Farm, into the Whitehall Theatre in 1950, where he enjoyed a long period of popular success, later moving to the Garrick Theatre. Key farces included Dry Rot by John Chapman and Chase Me, Comrade by Ray Cooney, and although this brand of comedy drew big audiences and enjoyed record-breaking runs Rix said he was resigned to not winning much recognition from the serious sector of the profession.
In 1980 theatre critic Michael Coveney expressed regret about critics' attitude to Whitehall farces. "A tradition of critical snobbery has grown up around these plays," he wrote, "partly because they were so blatantly popular, but chiefly because of our conviction that farce, unless written by a Frenchman, is an inferior theatrical species. Once the National Theatre has done its duty by Priestley and Rattigan and others teetering on the brink of theatrical respectability, I suggest they employ Mr Rix ... to investigate the ignored riches of English farce between Travers and Ayckbourn."
One-off TV comedies put on by Rix regularly drew audiences of 15 million or more, but few recordings survive. The actor was made a life peer in 1992. His daughter Shelley died in 2005. His sons are Jonathan and Jamie, a producer and a children's author. His surviving daughter is actor Louisa Rix, with whom he presented Let's Go for the BBC in the late 1970s and early 80s. It was the first television programme designed for people with a learning disability.
Brian Rix, Baron Rix died in August 2016 in England.