The great Eddy Grant is best remembered for his music especially the early 1980’s hit “I Dont Wanna Dance”. He has contributed his music to many movies and appeared as an actor twice including “Mustard Bath” in 1993. He was born in 1948 in British Guiana. Grant had his first number one hit in 1968, when he was the lead guitarist and main songwriter of the groupThe Equals, with his self-penned song “Baby Come Back“.[3] The tune also topped the UK Singles Chart in 1994, when covered by Pato Banton featuring Robin and Ali Campbell of the reggae group UB40.[4] Notably, he openly used his songwriting for political purposes, especially against the then-current apartheid regime of South Africa. The Clash recorded a version of “Police On My Back” for their Sandinista! set. (“Wikipedia)
Tim Roth has built up a considerable body of fine work in film since his debut in 1982 in “Made In Britain” as a white power skinhead. He has worked with Quentin Tarentino in “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction”.
TCM overview:
With a resume that boasted an assortment of villains and ne’er-do-wells, actor Tim Roth often had to avoid being typecast in order to play roles that demonstrated his extraordinary talents. Equally at home in both comedy and drama, Roth made an immediate impression as an unrepentant skinhead – complete with swastika tattoo on his forehead – in his first onscreen performance, “Made in Britain” (1982). He quickly became in demand after playing an assassin-in-training in “The Hit” (1984), then made a name for himself in the United States as a troubled Vincent Van Gogh in Robert Altman’s “Vincent & Theo” (1990). But it was his work with Quentin Tarantino in “Reservoir Dogs” (1992) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994) that cemented his status as one of the top stars of the independent world. Following an Oscar-nominated turn in “Rob Roy” (1995), Roth settled into playing varying degrees of malcontents before cracking big budget Hollywood with a major role in “Planet of the Apes” (2001) and stealing the show from everyone else. After disappearing into several foreign-made films, Roth re-emerged to play the arch-villain in “The Incredible Hulk” (2008), once again solidifying – and perhaps perpetuating – his image as Hollywood’s go-to bad guy.
Born May 14, 1961 in London, England, Roth was raised in middle-class Dulwich by his father, Ernie, a journalist and former member of the British Communist Party, and Anne, a landscape painter and school teacher. Forced to switch from a comfortable primary school to The Strand comprehensive in nearby Brixton, Roth encountered a rougher crowd unappreciative of his proper English accent. After quickly developing his cockney accent, Roth resigned himself to a life of taking speed and digging art in the midst of a nascent punk movement. While in school, he auditioned for a part in a musical version of “Dracula,” which sparked a previously nonexistent desire to pursue an acting career. He eventually made his way to Camberwell College of Arts, where he continued to delve into drugs, art and co-eds. But he soon dropped out of school and secured his Equity card while taking on a job selling advertising space while he worked fringe theater at night. Though many of the theaters were out in the middle of nowhere, Roth did manage to hone his chops on the works of Jean Genet and August Strindberg, though that sometimes meant performing to an audience of one.
Roth stumbled around for several years until he had one of those spontaneous, life-changing moments. In the early 1980s, while repairing a flat bicycle tire outside the Oval House, a community theater that was hosting auditions for a television movie to be directed by Alan Clarke. Instead of getting a tire pump, he was granted an audition, subsequently landing the leading role of Trevor, a violent and remorseless skinhead rebelling against anything that dares cross his path, in “Made in Britain” (1982). Roth was downright terrifying with a visceral performance, attracting immediate attention from audiences and critics. Roth made his feature debut with Mike Leigh’s wry working-class drama, “Meantime” (1983), playing a shy young man down on his luck struggling with his family to make ends meet. But it took Stephen Frears and a bottle of bleach to catapult Roth into the limelight. As the dyed blond apprentice killer learning his new trade from an old pro (John Hurt) in “The Hit” (1984), Roth offered a strong turn that was both brutal and endearing.
With a heavy helping of positive reviews, Roth was able to parlay his role in “The Hit” into a budding career, playing variations-on-a-thug in films like “Return to Waterloo” (1985), “Murder With Mirrors” (CBS, 1987) and “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” (1989). In a change of pace, Roth played a troubled character of an altogether different sort in Robert Altman’s biopic “Vincent & Theo” (1990), which examined the relationship between the Van Gogh brothers. Playing against actor Paul Rhys’ controlled take on Theo, Roth’s Vincent was rife with the energy and desperation of a creative, but ultimately troubled mind. He lent the same kind of force to his pairing with Gary Oldman in Tom Stoppard’s screen version of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” (1990), a wildly absurdist take on Shakespeare’s most notorious pair of supporting players. Roth’s game performance impressed aspiring filmmaker Quentin Tarantino enough to offer Roth the role of Mr. Orange, a critically-wounded undercover cop posing as a thief in the brutally violent crime thriller, “Reservoir Dogs” (1992). Adopting a flawless American accent and spending most of the movie wallowing in a pool of his own blood after a jewelry heist gone bad, Roth more than held his own with the likes of Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn and Steve Buscemi.
In the obscure, bleak independent drama “Jumpin’ at the Boneyard” (1992), Roth played a man who nearly beats his crack-addled brother (Alexis Arquette) to death after catching him in a robbery. Roth followed as real-life serial killer Charles Starkweather in the two-part miniseries “Murder in the Heartland” (ABC, 1993), earning critical plaudits for his frighteningly realistic performance. Reuniting with Quentin Tarantino, Roth memorably portrayed a small-time stickup artist who gets an unexpected comeuppance from a reforming hit man (Samuel L. Jackson) while trying to rob a coffee shop with his Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) in “Pulp Fiction” (1994). Buried beneath the hoopla surrounding “Pulp Fiction” was another crime thriller, “Little Odessa” (1994), starring Roth as a hit man for the Russian mob, assigned to do a job in his old neighborhood of Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Though he received notice and acclaim for both parts, Roth found himself sinking deeper into the mud of being typecast as a crook or killer. Even a supporting turn in “Rob Roy” (1995), playing the scheming, obsequious fop Archibald Cunningham, was ultimately along the same lines. He did, however, wow critics and audiences enough to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
While he tried to break the tide with a comic turn as a bellhop – the unifying element in the four-part anthology “Four Rooms” (1995) – the results were mixed. Roth gamely tried to be what each director wanted, but came off more mannered than amusing. Meanwhile, he returned to form as the recently released convict whose attraction to a debutante upends her nuptial plans in Woody Allen’s musical “Everyone Says I Love You” (1996). Roth displayed a modest set of pipes when called upon to warble two songs. Paired with rapper Tupac Shakur in “GRIDLOCK’d” (1997), Roth once again plumbed the depths of a troubled man; this time, a drug-addicted musician trying to clean up. After appearing as the ruthless real-life Dutch Schultz in “Hoodlum” (1997), Roth went against type a bit in “Deceiver” (1997), playing a wealthy yuppie suspected of murder. Roth finally shed his bad guy image in Giuseppe Tornatore’s English-language debut, “The Legend of 1900” (1998). Cast as the adult incarnation of a music prodigy who spent his entire life on a luxury liner – a character that was more symbolic than real – Roth delivered a sweetly touching performance that allowed him to spread his wings.
Like many actors, Roth secretly harbored a desire to become a director. He eventually made his debut with “The War Zone” (1999), an intense family drama about a brother and sister who willingly engage in incest. In translating Alexander Stuart’s controversial novel to the screen, Roth took great pains not to sensationalize the material. Using an evenhanded approach, he meticulously crafted a powerful and devastating film. Displaying virtuosity with his actors, including the relatively unknown Lara Belmont and Freddie Cunliffe, Roth elicited amazing work and proved that if he ever grew weary of playing screen villains, he could easily find a home behind the cameras. His career in front of the camera continued unabated with a supporting role as the Marquis de Lauzun in the costume drama “Vatel” (2000), which he followed with a supporting role as a sleazy owner of a strip club in the dismal crime comedy “Lucky Numbers” (2000). After playing the lethal right-hand of a scheming Cardinal (Stephen Rea) in the martial arts-tinged actioner, “The Musketeer” (2001), Roth donned a prosthetic monkey suit to portray the militant General Thade in “Planet of the Apes” (2001). Though the film was a major disappointment, his portrayal was cited as the best, eliciting true fear in viewers.
Having settled into a comfortable career that encompassed both major Hollywood blockbusters and little-seen independents, Roth continued to play stock-in-trade roles as unrepentant thugs while delving every now and then into unchartered waters. He played a stage hypnotist in 1930s Germany with dreams of starting a Ministry of the Occult in Hitler’s government in “Invincible” (2002), then portrayed Oliver Cromwell, who helped depose Charles I (Rupert Everett) with General Thomas Fairfax (Dougray Scott), in “To Kill a King” (2003). After forgettable supporting roles in the drama “The Beautiful Country” (2004) and the supernatural thriller “Dark Water” (2005), Roth joined an ensemble all-star cast that included Danny DeVito, Kim Basinger and Ray Liotta for “Even Money” (2006), a compelling, but flawed drama that depicts various lives being destroyed by drugs and gambling during the weeks leading up to a championship basketball game. Roth then starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s return to directing, “Youth Without Youth” (2007), playing a septuagenarian professor struck by lighting who suddenly finds himself aging backwards and going on the run from international authorities.
Returning to the blockbuster world, Roth played Emil Blonsky/Abomination, chief adversary to Edward Norton’s “The Incredible Hulk” (2008) – a major blockbuster that became one of the summer’s biggest hits despite relatively mixed reviews. From there, the actor took on a rare leading role on the small screen with “Lie to Me” (Fox, 2009-2011), a procedural drama where he played a clinical researcher who uses his skills of interpreting facial expressions and body language to solve crimes for police and the FBI. The show received mainly good reviews from critics and started its three season run on a positive note with enough of an audience to make it a hit. But by the end of that initial season, however, viewership dropped off significantly – a trend that continued throughout the following two seasons until the network finally canceled the show in May 2011. Meanwhile, Roth continued to appear on the big screen, starring as an owl-like angel in the British-made suburban fantasy “Skellig” (2009). After playing a legendary action director who winds up dead in the indie showbiz comedy “Pete Smalls Is Dead” (2010), Roth was a New York detective who holds a key piece of evidence that can take down a shady businessman (Richard Gere) in the financial thriller “Arbitage” (2012).
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Tom Hardy is one the rising young actors of British movies who is now making an international reputation with his roles in “Inception”, “Thinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and especially “The Dark Knight Rises”. He is currently making “Mad Max 4 : Fury Road” in the role undertaken previously by Mel Gibson. He was born in Hammersmith, London in 1977 . His first major acting role was in TV’s Band of Brothers” in 2001. Since then he has made his mark in such films as “Layer Cake”. An actor on the rise is Tom Hardy.
TCM overview:
Tom Hardy set tongues wagging in the U.K. with raw-nerved performances in “Stuart: A Life Backwards” (BBC, 2007) and “Bronson” (2009), and in the U.S. as well with a scene-stealing performance in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi blockbuster, “Inception” (2010). With this trifecta of projects, he found himself vaulted from rising U.K. heartthrob to Hollywood breakout-star-in-the-making. A native of suburban London, Hardy stumbled through an adolescence of recidivist juvenile delinquency and drug-addiction to channel his energies into drama. He won some high-profile early acting jobs, seeing his first major screen time in the youthful ensemble of the epic HBO miniseries, “Band of Brothers” (2001), and turning in an intense performance as the intergalactic villain in “Star Trek: Nemesis” (2002). A crack cocaine habit nearly derailed his career, but upon sobering up, he served notice he was a dramatic force to be reckoned with, winning raves and awards for his 2003 performances in the West End productions of “In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings” and “Blood.” He won the romantic lead of the Earl of Leicester in the 2005 BBC miniseries “The Virgin Queen,” the first of a series of critically lauded prestige television projects that would include “Stuart: A Life Backwards” and classic film remakes “A for Andromeda” (BBC, 2006), “Oliver Twist” (BBC, 2007) and “Wuthering Heights” (ITV, 2009). He would show a distinct penchant for playing tough guys in U.K.-produced indie features such as Guy Richie’s “RocknRolla” (2008) and “Bronson” before his hilarious turn as a dream-walking thief in “Inception” put him on the fast-track to higher-profile films, including Nolan’s much-anticipated third Batman film series installment and the title character in a “Mad Max” reboot. A sinewy ball of thespian intensity, Hardy earned his growing renown not only as a simmering bad boy, but as a ferociously charismatic leading man.
He was born Edward Thomas Hardy on Sept. 15, 1977, the son of Edward and Anne Hardy, a writer and artist, respectively, in Hammersmith, London, U.K. Growing up in East Sheen, an adolescent Hardy had developed a rebellious streak as he bridled against his suburban environs and rigid boarding school protocols. He developed an alcohol abuse problem as a teenager, wound up expelled from one school, periodically spent nights in jail cells for disorderly conduct, and even found himself arrested and facing serious charges for stealing a car and gun possession – all while still a teenager. He avoided doing hard time, he later said, only because his co-conspirator was the son of a British diplomat. At 19, his distinctive physiognomy landed him on a supermodel search competition on the U.K. morning show “The Big Breakfast” (Channel 4, 1992-2002), which he won, initiating a brief career in modeling. He attempted to focus his energies on acting, attending Richmond College for the Performing Arts, but wound up expelled again after skipping too many classes. He studied Method acting at Drama Centre London, but he continued to live on impulse; in 1999 he married a woman he had known only three weeks. He cut his studies short when he won one of a raft of plum parts for young actors who populated Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg’s ambitious “Band of Brothers,” the HBO miniseries that put faces on ordinary grunts of one U.S. Army company amid their journeys through WWII-torn Europe. A similar casting call would land him back in U.S. military garb for Ridley Scott’s telling of the U.S. military debacle in Somalia, “Black Hawk Down” (2001), and the military theme to his career continued with the lead in the French Foreign Legion drama, “An English Legionnaire” (2002).
Hardy’s next job had the potential of being a true breakthrough role, as he went shorn-headed to play the twisted, scheming young clone of Capt. Jean Luc Picard in the latest entry in the Star Trek franchise, “Star Trek: Nemesis.” But the film opened to bad reviews and concurrent with Peter Jackson’s much-anticipated “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” and wound up severely under-delivering at the box-office. At one point in 2002, Hardy’s boozing and drug addictions caught up with him, and, as he recalled in the London Telegraph, he blacked out and woke up on a Soho street “with a crack pipe, covered in blood and vomit.” His marriage collapsed and, with his parents help, he checked himself into detox and submitted to a regimen of psychotherapy. He channeled his pathos into his craft, returning in 2003 to live theater by taking roles in “In Arabia We’d All Be Kings” and “Blood.” His performances lit up the critical radar, prompting The Evening Standard to bestow upon him its “Most Promising Newcomer Award” in 2003 and the Society of London Theatre to make him a nominee for its Olivier Award in the same category the next year. He picked up some inauspicious indie film parts in “The Reckoning” (2003), “Dot the I” (2003), “LD 50 Lethal Does” (2004), “EMR” (2004) and “Layer Cake” (2004), a caper film starring future-James-Bond Daniel Craig. But he would draw more buzz for his ongoing London theatrical work, including a turn in the visceral play about a family haunted by incest, “Festen,” in which he “exudes a dangerous unpredictability,” per the The Independent newspaper.
Hardy made the jump to Brit TV in 2005, reuniting with “Band of Brothers” star Damien Lewis in the ITV World War II drama, “Colditz,” the tale of Allied POWs held in the notorious German prison camp, specifically focusing on Lewis’ character’s escape to Britain to woo the woman Hardy loves and to surreptitiously thwart the latter’s own escape attempts. Hardy would turn up in a succession of BBC productions, including “Gideon’s Daughter” (2005); the remake of the opera “Sweeney Todd” (2006); a remake of the 1961 Brit sci-fi classic “A for Andromeda,” and the lavish serial retelling of Queen Elizabeth’s history, “The Virgin Queen,” with Hardy playing the Earl of Leicester, the love of the monarch’s life. Hardy diversified his résumé somewhat, founding his own repertory company, Shotgun Theatre Company, for which he directed a production of his father’s first play, “Blue on Blue.” He also earned paychecks for some low-budget sci-fi outings, “Minotaur” (2006) and “Flood” (2007); bolstered his indie credentials with turns in Sofia Coppola’s revisionist take on the notorious French queen, “Marie Antoinette” (2006) and the Brit ensemble romantic comedy “Scenes of a Sexual Nature” (2006); and ventured into series television as a handyman with an unseemly agenda in the BBC’s eerie small-town drama, “Cap Wrath” (2007). In 2007, he won the central role of the womanizing libertine Dormiant in the National Theatre’s production of George Etherege’s classic play, “The Man of Mode.” Also that year, Hardy had a supporting turn as a sleazy street thug in the indie crime thriller “w Delta z” (2007). It began a run of gritty roles in which he would bring texture and depth to unsavory characters: the scurrilous Bill Sikes in a BBC retread of “Oliver Twist;” a gay gangster in Guy Richie’s slick London underworld caper film “RocknRolla;” and notoriously violent Brit convict Charles Bronson in “Bronson,” for which he won the British Independent Film Award for best actor.
Largely hailed as his tour de force was Hardy’s portrayal of Stuart Shorter in the 2007 BBC outing, “Stuart: A Life Backwards,” dazzling critics and viewers in the role of a muscular dystrophy-stricken, homeless alcoholic who recounts a violent menagerie of abuse and crime that brought him to his low station. In 2008, the performance earned Hardy a BAFTA Award nomination. He showed true range in 2009, upping the ante on his bad-boy ethos in “The Take” (Sky, 2009), a crime-thriller miniseries in which he played an ex-con out to right all the wrongs done to his family while he was in prison. He also put his smoldering stamp on the role of Heathcliff in a dark ITV update of “Wuthering Heights,” playing the erstwhile Olivier role such that Kathryn Flett, writing in The Observer, referred to his portrayal as “thoroughly dangerous to know in all the right ways the man is sex on fire.” His co-star on both projects, Charlotte Riley, shared the sentiment, and she and Hardy began a relationship, eventually to be engaged in 2010. Early that year, he took his first major American theater lead in the U.S. world premiere of Bret Leonard’s play “The Long Red Road” at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. In summer 2010, he showed up in director Christopher Nolan’s special-effects thriller “Inception,” which starred Leonardo DiCaprio as a corporate espionage specialist specializing in raiding people’s minds in their dreams. DiCaprio hatches a one-last-heist scenario to reclaim his life, bringing along a team of dream specialists, including Hardy with his rapier-sharp patter as an in-dream shapeshifter. Nolan was impressed enough with his work that he would cast Hardy as the ferocious, chemically enhanced muscleman Bane in the third outing of Warner Bros.’ rebooted Batman film series, “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012). Hardy was also tapped to take over for the real-life scandal-prone Mel Gibson as the lead in George Miller’s long-anticipated fourth entry in his “Mad Max” series, “Mad Max 4: Fury Road.”
The above TCM overview can now be accessed online here.
Stanley Baker is one of the most under-appreciated actors on film. He specialised in tough guy roles in war movies and gritty thrillers, mainly in the UK in the 1950’s and 60’s. He is interesting in that he produced many of his films. From Wales, he was born in the Rhonda in 1928, he was a contemporary of Richard Burton but I think he was a far better actor and brought great shades of nuance to his many characters.
He was a terrific actor and one of my favourites. Thankfully many of his films are on DVD and I have included here the covers of the more interesting ones. He is best known for “Zulu” but I especially like “Hell’s Drivers” from 1957 and “Hell Is A City” from 1960. Sadly he died at the early age of 48 in 1976 in Malaga, Spain. Robert Shail has written a very good biography which is available.
“Quinlan’s Movie Stars”
Forecful Welsh-born actor whose career progressed predictably from villains you love to hate to tough and sometimes crooked central characters. His hard incompromising crime films of the early 1960s pioneered the way for a new realism, especially in terms of dialogue. His star faded in the 1970s.
TCM overview:
Commanding Welsh leading man who began his career as a teen in 1943 and bristled through a series of British actioners and crime thrillers of uneven merit as tough villains and criminals throughout the 1950s. “The Cruel Sea” (1953) established Baker as a screen presence and won him a long-term Rank contract. In the late 1950s and early 60s he broke out of his typecasting in several exceptional films by both Cy Endfield and Joseph Losey (“Blind Date” 1959, “Accident” 1967) and co-produced several of his own films. He was knighted in 1976, just before his death
IMDB entry:
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 R.N. (1951) to his modern-day counterpart in The Cruel Sea (1953), to the arch villains inHell Below Zero (1954) and Campbell’s Kingdom (1957) to the dastardly Mordred inKnights 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), andHell 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 inSodom and Gomorrah (1962) and the unscrupulous mobster Johnny Bannion in 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 ex-patriot director of The Criminal, Joseph Losey. Stanley Baker also established a fruitful working relationship with the Canadian 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 BBC Play of the Month: The Changeling (1974) and BBC Play of the Month: 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-nine. 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.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: David WishartOften played tough working class characterAwarded a knighthood in Harold Wilson‘s resignation Honour’s List in June 1976. At the time his knighthood was announced, Baker thought he had beaten his lung cancer following surgery in February of that year. However, although the tumour in his lung had been removed, it had spread into his chest and attached itself to his heart. Since no further surgery was possible, he had only a maximum of nine weeks to live anyway. Three weeks after the announcement of his knighthood, Baker was hospitalized in Spain with pneumonia. As he had died without making the journey to be formally knighted at Buckingham Palace, he cannot be referred to as Sir Stanley, but Queen Elizabeth IIagreed that his widow Ellen Martin could use the title “Lady Baker”.
A dedicated socialist, he made political broadcasts for Harold Wilson‘s Labour Party in Wales and was active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).He was warned not to address a CND rally prior to the release of Zulu (1964), in case his left-wing political activism hurt the film’s performance in the United States.At the beginning of his career he was typecast as villains until Laurence Olivier invited him to play Henry Tudor in Richard III (1955).In November 2006 a Lounge dedicated to his life and work was opened by his widow, Lady Ellen Baker and his sons at Ferndale Rugby club in the village of his birth.At the beginning of his career he struggled to break into films, but a few days before his 22nd birthday he was given the role of the bosun in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.(1951).At the time of his death he had been planning to play a rapist in a film, with his Zulu(1964) co-star Michael Caine playing a detective.At his peak he earned £120,000 for each film he made, at a time when the average house cost just £3,000. He owned a large house in London and a holiday villa in Spain, while his children attended private schools in England.His wife Ellen and Richard Burton believed Baker’s performance in How Green Was My Valley (1975) was so good because he was playing his own father.In May 1972 he was one of the co-organisers of the Great Western Bardney Pop Festival in Lincoln.
He formed Diamond Films for the making of Zulu (1964). And later Oakhurst Productions.He was a close friend of Richard Burton from childhood until they fell out in 1967.With the success of Concrete Jungle (1960), Baker all but displaced his polar oppositeDirk Bogarde to become Britain’s most popular star. However, Zulu (1964) was his last huge success. His career was damaged by the commercial failure of Sands of the Kalahari(1965) and Robbery (1967), although the latter received favourable reviews.His breakthrough as an actor came in 1950 in Christopher Fry‘s anti-war play “A Sleep of Prisoners” alongside Denholm Elliott and Leonard White.
The production later toured the United States.His father lost a leg in an accident in the mine and was thereafter unemployed until the Second World War took men away into the services. His elder brother Freddie, a miner, died of pneumoconiosis early in 1976 after many years of debilitation and sickness.He was awarded the freedom of Ferndale, and in a ceremony which he attended in 1970, the local council placed a plaque on the house where he was born.
He had intended to produce Zulu Dawn (1979).He was offered the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962), but turned it down because he was unwilling to commit to a three-picture contract. Baker may have regretted this decision, since a few years later he asked producer Albert R. Broccoli about the possibility of playing a villain in a Bond movie.Turned down many Hollywood offers during the 1950s because he wanted to keep the British film industry going. Nevertheless he was much in demand for American films. The producers of Helen of Troy (1956) were so desperate to cast him that they did not mind which part he played.
Although born in Wales, Baker spent most of his formative years in England since his parents moved to London in the mid-1930s.In a floral tribute sent to Stanley Baker’s funeral, Zulu leader Chief Mangosuthu Butheleziwho had worked with him in Zulu (1964) described him as “the most decent white man I have ever met”.Baker served in the Royal Army Service Corps from 1946-1948.Although he regretted not accepting the part of James Bond himself, Baker was a friend of and outspoken admirer of Sir Sean Connery‘s work in the role.Bore a striking resemblance to his contemporary fellow actor, Australian Rod Taylor.The part that would have been played by Baker in 1979’s “Zulu Dawn” was enacted by Burt Lancaster.
Personal Quotes
It’s impossible to direct yourself in a movie.I’m a dedicated Socialist first of all, I suppose, because … I saw the things that happened to … my family, and to the people around me. That sort of existence must stay in your mind.I made up my mind years ago, that the best parts in films always went to the villain. I was determined to corner the bad man’s market.If it hadn’t been for one man, just one man who luckily took me up, I would have always hated school and I would probably have ended up as one of the criminals I’ve played too many times on the screen.I was a complete dud at school. I hated school. I got into awful trouble. Before I met Welsh school teacher Glyn Morris every teacher thought of me as a good-for-nothing.[on Anthony Quinn] I personally like big acting, like that of Anthony Quinn. He is the quintessence, if you’ll pardon the pun, of the actor who is able to control big emotion for the screen. A lot of lightweight performances on the screen don’t work for me because I can’t see anything behind them. With Quinn, it’s difficult not to see everything behind it.[on Elia Kazan] He chose the actors that he wanted, made the film he wanted to make, and he made it the way he wanted to make it with absolutely no contribution or interference from the major distributors at that time. That was a major step forward at that time in the film industry. He was a pioneer and he made it possible for other people.Mine is a hell of a face, but ;it keeps me in work because there aren’t many like it.[Of Sybil Williams] We came from the same village. We were close friends. When I heard that Rich [Richard Burton] and Sybil had got together, I thought, “The lucky bastard”. She was the best thing that ever happened to him.I thought, “Yes, Rich [Richard Burton] has gone a little further than usual, but he’s going to be his old self again before long. Oh, what a fool he made of us. Well, not really us. Only himself . . . I loved Rich very much, and thank God we became friends again, but I didn’t like what he did to Sybil. He lost himself when he met Elizabeth Taylor. The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Stanley Baker
Simon Heffer in The Telegraph
Images
Stanley Baker was one of British cinema’s outstanding figures in the 1950s and 1960s, but he might never have become a star had it not been for his friend and fellow Welshman, Richard Burton. Like Burton, Baker came from a mining family, and like him his talent was spotted by a schoolmaster. Burton’s mentor found a way for him to get into Oxford; Baker’s got him on to the stage at aged 14, in 1942, where he was spotted by a casting director at Ealing Studios. After that he made ends meet as an apprentice electrician, and then did his National Service, emerging as a sergeant in the Royal Army Service Corps. After demobilisation, he gave acting another go, thanks to Burton, who tipped him for a small part in Terence Rattigan’s play Adventure Story (1949). As Burton put it, Baker “hated to lose at anything – and rarely did”.
Baker was a natural athlete and had aspired to be a footballer or boxer: in his films he exuded a no-nonsense masculinity in which, paradoxically, he drew attention to himself precisely by not drawing attention to himself. Like most British film actors of the time, he began in forgettable roles in forgettable B-movies, but his big break came playing the bosun’s mate in the 1951 film Captain Horatio Hornblower, alongside a starry Hollywood cast led by Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo.
Baker went on to appear in a procession of landmark films of the 1950s, starting with The Cruel Sea – which, as I have mentioned before, I regard as the greatest of all British war films. In it, Baker played a character much against type: there was nothing genuinely manly about the bullying and manipulative first officer Bennett, who turns out to be a coward.
Probably the film for which he is best remembered – and it remains a masterpiece, though doubtless will soon be cancelled because of what bigots will consider its unacceptable depiction of colonialism – was Zulu in 1964. . It was an exception to the gritty black-and-white films he was making in the late 1950s and early 1960s, anticipating the “kitchen sink” genre. He was excellent in Lewis Gilbert’s The Good Die Young (1954) as a boxer (the role came to him naturally) who turns to crime because of an injury. Two years later, after being cast by Laurence Olivier as Henry Tudor in Richard III, he played a crook again in Child in the House.
But Baker as the sympathetic hard-nut was at his best in Hell Drivers, an enormously entertaining if bizarre tale about a group of lorry drivers – most of whom seem to be criminals or psychopaths – employed to transport gravel around middle England for the big road building programme of the time. Those who have not seen it may deduce from that description that it is thoroughly boring, but thanks to the stunt driving, the depiction of tensions between men of various degrees of odiousness trapped in a grim way of life and, above all, Baker’s performance as a working-class hero of real moral force, Hell Drivers is rather irresistible.
Amid this run of earthy films – others worth catching are Violent Playground (1958), in which he plays a policeman tackling juvenile gangsterism, and The Criminal (1960), in which he plays an old lag – came what I think is his best film, Hell Is a City, about Manchester low-life, also released in 1960. Baker plays Inspector Martineau, who awaits the arrival in Manchester of an escaped criminal whom he suspects, rightly, of returning to the city to pick up his loot. The criminal (played by the American John Crawford) then tries to rob a bookie’s assistant on her way to the bank with a bag of money – she is a young woman, and he accidentally kills her (in a scene of explicit violence, unusual for the time). Martineau puts his marriage under serious strain in trying to catch the murderer, and in a gripping scene on precipitous rooftops, eventually does. The penultimate scene reports the man’s hanging, with Martineau not batting the proverbial eyelid.
Baker, like too many hard-bitten, heavy-smoking men of his generation, died of lung cancer, aged just 48. The British cinema rather went off in the late 1970s and 1980s: one wonders whether Baker might have redeemed it, had he lived to his full span.
Allen Leech is one of Ireland’s most promising young actors. He was born in 1981 in Dublin. He had a major role in 2003 in the movie “Cowboys and Angels” followed by “Man About Dog”. He also starred in the 2011 film “Re-Wind” with Owen McDonnell and Amy Huberman. He is currently best known for his part as Branson the driver in the highly popular television series “Downton Abbey”.
“MailOnline” interview:
Tom Branson has emerged as one of the major characters in Downton Abbey. Are you pleased?
It came out of nowhere. When I first joined, I thought I’d be the chauffeur for a couple of episodes, and now here I am running the estate! I love that you can find Branson downstairs chatting to Mr Carson or upstairs having a whisky with Lord Grantham. He’s the only character who transcends the classes. Incidentally, the ‘whisky’ we drink on camera is burnt sugar and water, so when you see Tom having a drink, it’s not alcoholic.
How do you kill time between scenes?
We’ve discovered a great game called Bananagrams. It’s a bit like Scrabble, and Maggie Smith is the champion.
Are you afraid of being killed off, like Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) or Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay)?
Yes, it’s pot luck! Any of us could be caught under a falling tree, or poisoned by Mrs Patmore [the cook]. If I was going to go, I’d like Thomas [Downton’s underbutler] to kill me. We could have a wrestle for the knife and Thomas could win. But don’t make that happen – I don’t want to be killed off!
Tell us about your new film, In Fear…
It couldn’t be further from Downton – and that’s exciting. It’s set in Ireland and is very contained, claustrophobic and frightening. I went to watch it and it genuinely made me jump, which was a bit daft as I knew what was coming.
Do you ever get starstruck?
I was lucky enough to go to the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles earlier this year – Downton won Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Drama Series.
Jeff Daniels had been looking in my direction but I assumed he was looking at the cast of Breaking Bad, who were on the next table. I couldn’t believe he’d know who I was when he came up and said hello. We had a drink and I turned into a crazy fan and told him how much I loved him.
What was the last party you went to?
My friend’s birthday last week. We got through the Groucho Club’s entire cocktail menu. I’m not going to lie to you, I didn’t feel great the next day.
What do you do in your spare time?
I run a lot. I was supposed to do a marathon this year but unfortunately I got injured beforehand. I’m toying with the idea of doing my first triathlon next year instead.
Do you have a hidden talent?
If I do, it’s so hidden, even I don’t know about it!
What plans do you have for the rest of the year?
I’m going to Australia to watch the Melbourne Cup, which I’m really excited about. Horse racing is big in my family: my mum and brother both own horses. My older brother is going to come with me and that should make the trip even more special.
In Fear is in cinemas now
The above “MailOnline” interview can also be accessed online here.
Dennis Watcrman has specialised in playing cheeky hard-men, usually from the East-End of London. He is currently starring in the very popular BBC TV series “New Tricks”. He began his career as a child actor and starred in the “Just William” series. While in his early teens he was brought to Hollywood to star in a short-lived TV series. He returned to Britain and in 1968 starred in “Up the Junction” with Suzy Kendall and “My Son, My Son” with Romy Schneider. In the mid 1970’s he had a huge success with the crime series “The Sweeney” and ten years later as ‘Arthur Daly’s’ side kick ‘Terry’ in the terrific “Minder”.
“Independent” article in 2013 by Anthony Barnes:
New Tricks star Dennis Waterman has revealed show bosses keep chase scenes to a minimum – because viewers would struggle to believe the veteran actors could keep up with criminals.
The 65-year-old star – who has been a familiar face on TV for four decades – will shortly be seen in a new run of the programme 10 years after it was first screened.
But in an interview with Radio Times, he suggested it would be too much of a leap to imagine they could keep pace with a younger generation.
He said: “We’re still fit enough as long as they don’t put in too many chase scenes. I do a chase as best I can, but I can’t be seen catching them. I’m 60 odd – I couldn’t catch anyone who was 40, let alone 20.”
The show was initially due to be merely a one-off pilot but expanded to a series and became popular with viewers. But Waterman claimed the BBC did not warm to the idea initially, saying: “The BBC wasn’t very keen when we started out because the programme had old people in it.”
The former star of Minder and The Sweeney is the only member of the original New Tricks cast who will make it through the next series with Amanda Redman soon to bow out, while Alun Armstrong and James Bolam have already left. But he said newcomers Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Tamzin Outhwaite would help the show move into a new era.
“Obviously it’s very sad that I’m the last one left of the original New Tricks lineup, because we were such a team,” Waterman said in the new edition of Radio Times, published today.
“But I think we can re-evolve with the new additions. We all knew Denis Lawson would be fine because we knew him socially. And my wife kept on about how fantastic Nicholas Lyndhurst had been playing Uriah Heep in David Copperfield back in the 90s, but I’d only seen him in lightweight roles.
“He’s come up with the goods, though – this guy who’s really steely and off the wall. Tamzin Outhwaite has only done two episodes, but she’s going to be great.
The above “Independent” article can also be accessed online here.
Dennis Waterman obituary in The Ti mes in May 2022
For 15 years in the 1970s and 1980s he had star billing in The Sweeney and Minder, two of the most successful television series of the time. In both he played essentially the same character, the rough-hewn, streetwise but likeable Londoner, and it was a persona from which he rarely escaped.
By the age of 16 Dennis Waterman could boast a CV that included Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, The Music Man in the West End, Richmal Crompton’s William on television and a sitcom in Hollywood. Yet unlike many child actors he went on to an even more successful adult career.
In The Sweeney, a drama based on the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad, his tough-nut DS George Carter was teamed with John Thaw’s DI Jack Regan, both attired in modish flared trousers and kipper ties. It was one of the first police shows in which the cops behaved as badly as the villains and, with its staple diet of car chases, fisticuffs and gunfights, set new levels of violence on television, albeit mitigated by a vein of dark humour to which Waterman strongly contributed.
Almost as soon as The Sweeney had finished he signed up for Minder. “They said, ‘It’s set in west London,’ and I thought, ‘Hmm, should I do this, or should I actually be thinking of veering away from the Sweeney image?’ And then I read it and thought, ‘Sod the image! This is going to be massive, it’s so funny and so good’.”
As Terry McCann, former prisoner 147639 who becomes bodyguard to Arthur Daley, a used-car salesman, he was nominally the lead character. However, he was soon eclipsed by George Cole, who made Daley a by-word for dodgy dealing. Yet, stooge or not, Waterman’s role was invaluable. He also sang the Minder theme, I Could be so Good For You, taking it to No 3 in the charts in October 1980.
Despite a lifetime on the screen and stage, Waterman was modest about his career longevity, shrugging it off as nothing more than luck. “I’ve been unbelievably lucky that I keep falling into really good work. I’ve never thought, ‘I must play Hamlet before I’m 70,” he said in 2009, with a guffaw. “And now I’m not really thinking of Lear.”
Dennis Waterman was born into a working-class family in Clapham, south London, in 1948, the youngest of nine children of Rose (née Saunders) and her husband Harry, an upholsterer, railway ticket collector and amateur boxer who encouraged his sons in the art of pugilism. His siblings were Allen, who died at a young age, Joy, Ken, Myrna, Norma, Peter, who boxed at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Stella and Vera.
With John Thaw in The Sweeney
They grew up on a Putney council estate and Dennis was encouraged by his thespian sisters to tread the boards. “We were all dragged into Joy’s amateur theatricals,” he said. “I made my debut at Brixton town hall when I was nine, wrestling with a snake as Moth in Love’s Labour’s Lost.”
After Waterman failed the 11-plus, Norma paid for him to join the Corona Stage School, where his contemporaries included Francesca Annis and Susan George. “It was thought best to have a posh accent at the Corona,” he said. “South London was out. Streatham and Stockwell became St Reatham and St Ockwell. Very genteel.” Within months he was centre forward in the school’s football team.
His professional career started in the film Night Train for Inverness (1960). As Ted he was kidnapped by his father, who has just been released from jail but is unaware that his son is diabetic and needs regular insulin injections. That same year he made his Shakespeare debut in The Taming of the Shrew and at 14 he flew to Hollywood to play Neville Finch in the comedy series Fair Exchangeabout two families, one American the other British, who swap teenage daughters for a year. He was earning £340 a week, while his father was still making £8 a week clipping tickets.
While still in his teens he was at the Royal Court Theatre, appearing in a season of plays by new writers, the most notorious of which was Edward Bond’s Saved, in which Waterman was one of a group of youths who stone a baby to death. His first starring role was in Up the Junction (1968), Nell Dunn’s study of working-class life in Battersea, which took him back to his roots. The premiere was at the Granada in Clapham Junction, which was packed, he recalled, with the local lads: “At that point in the film where I said, in huge close-up, to Suzy Kendall, ‘Do me a favour, seduce me,’ the cinema erupted with catcalls and laughter. That brought me back to earth.”
He starred alongside George Cole in Minder until 1989
Waterman’s personal life was rarely out of the public gaze and the tabloid press seized gleefully on the heavy drinking of “Dennis the menace”. It led to two driving bans and a string of well-documented affairs. Cheerfully conceding that he found it difficult to be either faithful or abstemious, Waterman did little to contradict a reputation for a laddish lifestyle centred on booze, women and football.
His marriages to the actresses Penny Dixon (in 1967), Patricia Maynard (1977) and Rula Lenska (1987), whom he met on the set of Minder, were dissolved. The break-up with Lenska led to public recriminations and he was later criticised for trivialising domestic violence when he described how he hit her but insisted that she was not “a beaten wife”.
He is survived by his fourth wife, Pam Flint, whom he married in 2011, and by his daughters, both from his second marriage: Hannah, who played the nanny Laura Dunn in EastEnders, and Julia, who leads a private life. He once told how he had been convinced that Hannah would be a boy. “I got all this blue-and-white Chelsea stuff for the baby’s room,” he told The Sunday Times, referring to the team he supported passionately. “I mean, being a sports freak and a drinker, it was only logical that I’d have a son. You take your son to football, then the pub. But the baby was a f***ing girl.” Those feelings did not last.
With his wife, Pam, at Cole’s funeral in 2015
In 1972 Waterman joined Denholm Elliott, Billie Whitelaw and others in The Sextet, a BBC initiative to create a TV repertory company with the same six actors appearing in a season of plays. Then came The Sweeney, for which he was chosen after appearing in Special Branch.
During a break from Minder he starred in, and part-financed, The World Cup: a Captain’s Tale (1982), an engaging fact-based television film about an amateur football team from the Durham coalfields that won an early (1910) version of the World Cup by beating Juventus in Italy.
Meanwhile, in the Dennis Waterman XI charity football team he was known as the centre-forward Terry McCann, after his character in Minder. Their matches always ended in the local hostelry, with Waterman/McCann picking up the tab. “As soon as I’m in company with a drink in my hand, I’m the life and soul of the party,” he explained. “I do enjoy and need that.”
As Gerry Standing in New Tricks
BBC
By the end of the 1980s he had gone into film production, setting up East End Films with two colleagues. He sank much of his own money into its inaugural project, Cold Justice (1991), in which he played a boxer-turned-priest and co-starred with Roger Daltrey, but the film was a commercial disaster and its failure left him with large debts.
After leaving Minder he played another of his cheery duckers and divers in the ITV comedy drama Stay Lucky and starred in the BBC sitcom On the Up as a self-made cockney millionaire at odds with his socially superior wife. When they ended, he tried for a grittier image in Circles of Deceit, playing an SAS man who goes undercover for the intelligence services.
During the 1990s Waterman was increasingly seen in the theatre. He played the legendary Soho drunk in Keith Waterhouse’s Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell in Australia and on a British tour, appeared in a West End revival of the 1960s musical A Slice of Saturday Night, and toured in another Waterhouse play, Bing Bong. When appearing in My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he built a bar in the corner of his dressing room. “Everyone would pile in after the show,” a friend said.
Although Waterman was lampooned on the sketch show Little Britain as an actor who keeps losing contracts because he insists on singing the theme song for his shows, he did just that again on his next long-running television show, New Tricks, in which he played the old-school Cockney detective Gerry Standing. It ran for 12 series from 2003 to 2014 featuring the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad, a fictional division within the Met responsible for re-examining unsolved crimes.
On stage in 2006 with David Walliams and Matt Lucas, who had lampooned him in Little Britain. Lucas described the moment as “the absolute highlight of my career”
Looking back on his characters in Sweeney and The Minder, Waterman said that he could have done either of them in his sleep because neither required him to stray much outside a version of himself. “I’m about as far removed from an intellectual actor as you can get,” he said. “My method is mostly based on heart and bollocks.”
Dennis Waterman, actor, was born on February 24, 1948. He died on May 8, 2022, aged 74
Charlotte Rampling began her film career in the 1960’s and became a delight of the critics with some key films in the 1970’s and 80’s. Her first film was the Boulting Brothers “Rotten to the Core”. She supported Alan bates, James Mason and Lynn Redgrave in “Georgy Girl”. In 1969 she made”The Damned” in Luchino Visconti” and then later in Hollywood “Farewell My Lovely” opposite Robert Mitchum and “The Verdict” with Paul Newman.
TCM overview:
An alluring presence in features and on television since the 1960s, actress Charlotte Rampling defined sexual freedom and fearlessness over the ensuing decades in such films as “Georgy Girl” (1966), “The Damned” (1969), “Vanishing Point” (1971) and “The Night Porter” (1974). Though her immediate appeal was her physicality, Rampling became a cinematic icon in the 1970s, thanks to a screen presence that was at the same time confident, passionate and reserved. After star turns in “The Verdict” (1982) and “Angel Heart” (1987), her star waned in the late 1980s due to personal turmoil, though she rebounded in the late 1990s as Aunt Maude in “Wings of a Dove” (1997). Rampling went on to impress audiences with performances as Miss Havisham in “Great Expectations” (BBC, 1999), as well as critical darlings “Under the Sand” (2000) and “Swimming Pool” (2003). As she entered her sixties, Rampling’s career was in full bloom, with steely supporting turns in “The Duchess” (2008) and “Never Let Me Go” (2010). The definition of class for many a moviegoer the world over, Rampling’s formidable body of work made her one of the most respected actresses on two continents.
She was born Tessa Charlotte Rampling on Feb. 5, 1946 in the village of Sturmer, in Essex county, England. Her father was Godfrey Rampling, a Royal Army officer and three-time gold medalist in the 400 meter and 4×400 meter relays in the 1932 and 1936 Summer Olympics, while her mother, Anne Isabelle Gurten, was a painter from France. Her childhood was spent in transit, moving throughout the U.K., France and Gibraltar with her father’s reassignments. She was educated in part at the Jeanne d’Arc Academie Pour Jeunes Filles in Versailles, which she later described as a lonely experience due to the language barrier. Happiness was found in a cabaret act she enjoyed with her older sister, Sarah, who died by her own hand in Argentina in 1967 after the premature birth of her daughter. She briefly studied Spanish at a college in Madrid before dropping out in 1963 to travel with a cabaret troupe. Upon her return to England in 1964, she modeled to support herself while learning the craft of acting at the Royal Court Stage School. At 17, she made her television debut in a commercial for Cadbury’s chocolates; her feature debut came with a bit role of a water skier in Richard Lester’s 1965 film “The Knack And How to Get It.” More supporting roles preceded her breakthrough in “Georgy Girl” (1966) as Lynn Redgrave’s glamorous yet shallow flatmate, who gives up her baby to pursue a hedonistic life. The character’s combination of icy beauty, open sexuality, and disregard for responsibility – which the press dubbed “The Look,” per a comment from her frequent co-star, Dirk Bogarde – would serve as a template for many of her future performances.
Rampling’s smoldering intensity was best served in roles that required her to plumb the depths of the human experience. In Luchino Visconti’s “The Damned” (1969), she was the wife of a German company’s vice president, who paid for his opposition to the Nazi regime by being sent to the Dachau concentration camp with her children. Her Anne Boleyn in “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” (1972) also trod a delicate line between seductiveness and sadness as she attempted to bend the will of Henry (Keith Michell) to hers before meeting her fabled end. Her most famous role during this period was in “The Night Porter” (1974), Liliana Cavani’s controversial film about a Holocaust survivor (Rampling) who became immersed in a sado-masochistic relationship with an SS officer (Bogarde) while interned at a camp, only to resume their tortured couplings years after the war. The film was condemned and celebrated with equal fervor during its release, but all parties agreed that Rampling’s performance, which featured her in feverish scenes of morbid fetishism, was the film’s highlight. The picture did much to cement Rampling as the thinking man’s sex symbol, as did a 1973 layout for Playboy shot by Helmut Newton and a widespread rumor that she lived in a ménage-a-trois with her then-husband, publicist Bryan Southcombe, and male model Randall Laurence.
“Night Porter” would prove a difficult film to surpass for any actress, but Rampling wisely sidestepped the problem by focusing on films that satisfied her as an actress, rather than those that simply generated more publicity. She criss-crossed the Atlantic on numerous occasions, playing an alluring femme fatale who ensnared Robert Mitchum’s world-weary Philip Marlowe in “Farewell, My Lovely” (1975), then made her American TV debut as Irene Adler, the ideal woman for Sherlock Holmes (Roger Moore) in the 1976 TV movie “Sherlock Holmes in New York” (NBC). Little needed to be said about films like “Orca” (1977), which pitted Rampling against a killer whale, but these were largely forgotten in the wake of pictures like “Stardust Memories” (1980), writer-director Woody Allen’s bittersweet tribute to his cinematic idols, Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman, with Rampling cast as a psychologically troubled former lover of Allen’s whose memory of her he simply cannot shake. Rampling also shone in a pivotal role in Sidney Lumet’s “The Verdict” (1982) as lawyer Paul Newman’s lover, whom defense attorney James Mason hired to keep track of him.
In the latter half of the decade and for much of the 1990s, Rampling stepped away from Hollywood product, preferring to – or, perhaps, finding more opportunities in – international films with a decided arthouse bent, including collaborations with Claude Lelouch with “Viva le vie” (1984) and Nagisha Oshima, who cast Rampling as a diplomat’s wife who left her husband for a chimpanzee in “Max mon Amour” (1986). In 1985, she was nominated for a French Cesar as the mistress of a murder victim who seduced inspector Michel Serrault in Jacques Deray’s “On ne meurt que 2 fois.” There were also supporting turns in American features, most notably as a victim of a grisly murder in Alan Parker’s “Angel Heart’ (1987) and the moribund remake of “D.O.A.” (1988).
During this period, Rampling also suffered from depression, which led to a nervous breakdown in the early 1990s. Therapy helped her emerge from this dark period and, quite possibly, made it possible to deal with the very public fallout from tabloid reports that revealed numerous infidelities committed by her second husband, composer Jean Michel Jarre. The dissolution of their marriage came about in 1997, the same year the Oscar-nominated “The Wings of the Dove” (1997) was released; her most widely-seen film in years, she was cast as Helena Bonham Carter’s cautious aunt who was determined her young charge would not follow in the footsteps of her disgraced mother. The worldwide success of “Dove” launched a revival of interest in Rampling, who soon resumed a steady and impressive schedule of quality projects. She was a ravishingly ruined Miss Havisham in the BBC’s 1999 adaptation of “Great Expectations,” then joined Alan Bates and Gerard Butler in Michael Cacoyannis’ 1999 film version of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.”
Her most substantive work during this period, however, came in partnership with French director Francois Ozon. Their first collaboration, 2000’s “Under the Sun,” gave her talent a magnificent showcase as a woman crippled by grief and doubt over her husband’s mysterious disappearance. Critics raved over the complexity of her performance, which explored unsettling depths of denial in its attempt to make sense of the tragedy, and for her work, Rampling received her second Cesar nomination. Her sophomore project with Ozon, 2003’s “Swimming Pool,” was a deeply personal project for the actress, as it allowed her to finally come to terms with her sister’s suicide. Rampling and her father had kept the truth about Sarah’s death from her mother for decades, until her own death in 2001; in the aftermath, Rampling began to develop a better understanding of her sister’s life and actions, and used her as motivation for her performance in “Swimming Pool.” She even used her sister’s name for her character, a mystery author plagued by writer’s block whose retreat to a country house in France is interrupted by a seemingly unhinged young woman (Ludivine Sagnier) who claimed Sarah was her mother. Another critical success, the film brought Rampling a third Cesar and a European Film Award for Best Actress.
As Rampling reached her sixth decade, her career showed no signs of slowing down. A fourth Cesar nod came in 2005 with “Lemming,” a psychological thriller with Rampling as the neurotic dinner guest whose arrival signaled an explosion of ill feelings and violence. More prominent turns followed, including that of Keira Knightley’s chilly royal mother in “The Duchess” (2008), a self-loathing woman who endured a one-night stand with paroled child molester Ciaran Hinds in Todd Solondz’s “Life During Wartime” (2009), and an instructor at a mysterious boarding school in Mark Romanek’s well-received “Never Let Me Go” (2010). Rampling also made news during this period for launching a lawsuit in 2009 to prevent the publication of a biography, penned by a close friend, that detailed her emotional travails in the wake of her sister’s suicide and the infidelities inflicted upon her by Jarre.
Meanwhile, Rampling starred “Rio Sex Comedy” (2010) opposite Bill Pullman and Fisher Stevens, and joined an ensemble cast for the biblically-themed drama “The Mill and the Cross” (2011). After playing the mother of Kristen Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg in Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” (2011), she narrated the animated box office hit, “Cars 2” (2011), before earning critical kudos as the dying matriarch of a family struggling to maintain control over the affairs of those around her in “The Eye of the Storm” (2011), co-starring Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis. From there, Rampling was the superior of a Secret Service agent (Sean Bean) determined to stop a suicide bombing in the taut British thriller “Cleanskin” (2012). She went on to earn critical praise and A SAG award nod for her turn as a mother whose daughter investigates her past as a World War II spy in the made-for-cable movie “Restless” (Sundance Channel, 2012), which was adapted from William Boyd’s award-winning novel.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Craig Parkinson is one of the leading young actors coming up on British film and television. He was born in 1976 in Blackpool. He featured in such television series as “Dalziel and Pascoe”, “The Bill” and “Holby City”. On film he has starred in “Ghosted”, “SoulBoy” and the remake of “Brighton Rock”. He is married to actress to Susan Lynch.
Craig Parkinson
IMDB entry:
Craig Parkinson was brought up in his native Blackpool and attended Blackpool and Fylde College before, at age 17, moving to London to study at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
After several years in bit parts on TV, he came to notice as impresario Tony Wilson in the 2007 film ‘Control’ about the Joy Division singer Ian Curtis,played by Sam Riley (with whom he would again work in ‘Brighton Rock’) and made some impact on television in the second series of ‘Whitechapel’ as twins who were possibly descended from the Kray brothers.
Also on television he appeared in the 2013 ghost drama ‘The Secret of Crickley Hall’ with actress Susan Lynch,his real life spouse by whom he has a son. His theatre work has been varied,ranging from ‘Measure For Measure’ at the National Theatre to Mike Leigh’s revival of ‘Ecstasy.’
Sir Ralph Richardson was most of that select group of English actors who became ‘knights of the realm’ and made major contributions to British theatre and film in the mid 20th Century. The group included Laurence Oliver,John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave and Alec Guinness. He was born in 1902 in Chelteham. In 1925 he joined Barry Jackson’s famed Birmingham Repertory Company. During the years of World War Two, he and Laurence Oliver had some major triumphs on stage at the ‘Old Vic’ in London. Richardson won widespread critical acclaim for his roles in “Uncle Vanya” and “An Inspector Calls”. His first film was “The Ghoul” in 1933 and his most noteworthy movies include “The Four Feathers” in 1939, “The Fallen Idol”, !”The Heiress” and “Doctor Zhivago”. He was a keen motor biker and rode his machine until e was in his late 70’s. He died in 1983.
ile on TCM:
Described by the Times of London as “equipped to make an ordinary character seem extraordinary, or an extraordinary one seem ordinary,” Sir Ralph Richardson was one of the most celebrated British actors of the 20th century. He regularly brought humor and humanity to every role he played, from unsympathetic fathers in “The Heiress” (1949) and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (1962) to nearly every great Shakespearean role and even playing God in Terry Gilliam’s “Time Bandits” (1981). A friend and frequent collaborator with the three great “knights” of the English acting profession – Lord Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud and Sir Alec Guinness – Richardson joined them in their domination of the stage in the 1940s and 1950s. And if his film career was not as celebrated as that of Olivier or Guinness, he rarely endured bad films or overwhelming critical expectations. Viewers knew that Richardson would deliver a quietly mesmerizing performance every time he appeared on stage or screen, capturing attentions through carefully considered gestures and inflections. In doing so, he remained a presence in films from the late 1930s until the early 1980s, when he received a posthumous Oscar nomination as the Earl of Greystoke in “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” (1984). A gently eccentric but extraordinarily focused actor, he was also endearingly self-effacing, once describing the secret of his acting talent as “the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.” His accomplishments as an actor remained the high water mark for his profession after nearly six decades.
Born Ralph David Richardson in the borough of Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire, England, on Dec. 19, 1902, he was the son of Arthur Richardson, an art teacher at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, and his wife, Lydia Russell. Richardson’s mother left his father when their son was still a baby, and she raised him in a series of homes in nearby Gloucester and other towns. He spent much of his childhood alone, and amused himself through play-acting, which spurred his interest in the theater. However, both parents had distinct ideas about Richardson’s career path; his father hoped that he would take up art, while Russell wanted him to become a priest. But after brief tenures at both art school and a Jesuit seminary, he took his inheritance of 500 pounds from a grandmother and auditioned for a theater company in Brighton. The tryout went poorly, and Richardson was forced to pay 10 shillings a week to remain in the company. He was initially put in charge of the sound props, but bungled the job badly.
But after a year’s time, he showed enough promise as an actor to graduate from walk-on roles to minor speaking parts and eventually, supporting and lead characters. He joined a Shakespearean repertory company and toured the United Kingdom for five seasons before joining the esteemed Birmingham Repertory Company, which counted Laurence Olivier, Paul Scofield and Derek Jacobi among its later members. In 1926, he made his London stage debut in “Oedipus at Colonus,” which was soon followed by his West End debut in “Yellow Sands,” which co-starred his wife, actress Muriel Hewitt. Richardson’s stage career hit its stride after he joined the Old Vic Theatre for two seasons; there, he performed with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier in celebrated productions of Shakespeare’s plays, which resulted in a lifelong friendship between the three men.
Richardson made his feature film debut in “The Ghoul” (1933), an atmospheric British horror film with Boris Karloff as a mystic who appeared to return from the grave, and Richardson as a seemingly harmless local vicar. By this point in his career, he was well established as one of the leading performers of the world stage, thanks to a series of acclaimed turns in W. Somerset Maugham’s “Sheppy,” the 1934 production of “Romeo and Juliet,” for which he replaced Orson Welles as Mercutio, and Barre Lyndon’s “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse,” which ran for 492 performances in 1936. That same year, he signed a multi-picture deal with producer Alexander Korda, which resulted in several classic films. In William Cameron Menzies’ adaptation of “The Shape of Things to Come” (1936), he was “The Boss,” a brutal, petty warlord who rose to power in the wake of global devastation, while in the Technicolor comedy “The Divorce of Lady X” (1938), he played a school friend of Laurence Olivier, who was convinced that the woman he had fallen in love with (Merle Oberon) was Richardson’s wife. And in the epic adventure The Four Feathers (1939), he gave one of the title objects, a sign of cowardice, to British officer John Clements, who in turn saved Richardson’s life in battle against the Sudanese. Richardson earned his first lead in “On the Night of the Fire” (1939), a dark drama about a town barber whose impulsive theft of 100 pounds led to devastating personal ruin.
During WWII, Richardson joined Olivier in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Volunteer Reserve, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander. The period was an emotionally devastating one for him; not only had his wife succumbed to sleeping sickness in 1942, but the Old Vic had been badly damaged during the German bombing raids on London. Both Richardson and Olivier were released early in 1944 to take over the company with director John Burrell. There, Richardson delivered what many would consider his finest performance, including Falstaff in a 1945 production of “Henry IV” and the title role in “Peer Gynt.” His tenure at the head of the Old Vic was regarded as the greatest period in the theater’s history – an opinion not shared by its board of governors, who sacked him and Olivier over fears that their popularity would overshadow that of the theater itself.
In 1947, Richardson was knighted for his contributions to the British theater. The following year, he appeared as Alexei Karenina, whose chilly relationship with his wife, Anna (Vivien Leigh) drove her to infidelity in the Korda-produced adaptation of Anna Karenina (1948). It preceded an acclaimed period in Richardson’s film career, which included Carol Reed’s The Fallen Idol (1948), which provided him with one of his best film roles as a butler whose young charge (Bobby Henrey) accidentally implicated him in his wife’s death. In 1949, he made his Hollywood film debut in William Wyler’s “The Heiress” (1949), for which he repeated his role from the stage production as Olivia de Havilland’s emotionally distant father, who bullied her into rejecting her suitor (Montgomery Clift). Richardson earned an Oscar nomination for his performance, as well as the National Board of Review’s award for best actor.
Richardson’s stage career took something of a downward turn in the early 1950s, with critically savaged turns in “The Tempest” and a Gielgud-directed “Macbeth.” He also turned down the chance to appear in the English-language debut of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” a decision he regretted for the rest of his career. Greater success was found in feature films, most notably in “Breaking the Sound Barrier” (1952), Carol Reed’s drama about a wealthy airplane designer whose single-minded drive to conquer the sound barrier resulted in the death of his daughter’s husband (Nigel Patrick). Richardson won his second National Board of Review Award for his stern performance, as well as the BAFTA and the New York Film Critics Award, but not the Oscar, as nearly all NYFC winners had done. Other superior film roles during this period came in “The Holly and the Ivy” (1952) as a clergyman who devoted more attention to his parish than his family, and as the corrupt Duke of Buckingham in Olivier’s celebrated 1955 film version of “Richard III.”
Richardson’s stage career rebounded in the late 1950s with acclaimed turns in “The Flowering Cherry” in London and “The Waltz of the Toreadors” on Broadway, which brought him a Tony nomination. He also settled into a string of character turns in Hollywood and British features, most notably as the mysterious operative “C” in Reed’s “Our Man in Havana” (1959) and an English general overseeing a Jewish internment camp in “Exodus” (1960). In 1962, he received one of his best screen roles as the miserly ex-actor and patriarch in Sidney Lumet’s adaptation of “Long Day’s Journey into Night” (1962). Abetted by Katherine Hepburn, as well as Jason Robards – the leading interpreter of O’Neill on the American stage – and Dean Stockwell, Richardson gave a searing portrait of a man no longer able to abide reality, who has descended into drink and dissolution. He and each of his castmates were each rewarded with the Best Actor and Actress Awards at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, and he soon followed it with a string of expert turns in historical epics like “The 300 Spartans” (1962) for Rudolph Mate, and “Woman of Straw” (1964), Basil Dearden’s tense British noir with Sean Connery and Gina Lollobrigida as scheming lovers who plan to murder Connery’s cruel uncle (Richardson). In 1965, he played Sasha Gromeko, the kindly medical professor who took Omar Sharif under his wing in David Lean’s epic “Doctor Zhivago” (1965).
After “Zhivago,” Richardson devoted more time to rebuilding his stage career than on screen, and his ’60s era features were relegated to small but notable supporting turns as government officials in “Khartoum” (1966), opposite Olivier and Charlton Heston, “The Battle of Britain” (1969), and the espionage thriller The Looking Glass War (1969), based on a novel by John le Carre. He also appeared in the black comedy The Wrong Box (1966) alongside Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, John Mills and Michael Caine and in Spike Milligan’s surreal anti-war film, “The Bed-Sitting Room” (1969), as an English lord who transformed, due to nuclear fallout, into the title room. The stage continued to be his greatest showcase, and he proved his mastery of the art in the 1960s in productions of Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” and the original 1969 production of Joe Orton’s controversial “What the Butler Saw” as a doctor overseeing an outbreak of sexual hysteria at a psychiatrist’s office. He also teamed with Gielgud in “Home” (1970), which was filmed for broadcast on the BBC series “Play for Today” (1970-1984). The TV version was historic in that it was the sole recording of Richardson’s monumental work on stage. The pair later appeared together in Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land,” which, like “Home,” traveled to Broadway for a successful run.
Richardson became remarkably active on film and in television during the 1970s at an age when most actors would consider a slower pace. In interviews, he stated that he could not afford to retire, not for financial reasons, but to sate his own boundless curiosity about his fellow man. There were oddities along the way, like a turn as the malevolent Crypt Keeper in the 1972 horror anthology “Tales from the Crypt,” and as the Caterpillar in a 1972 adaptation of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” But he lent considerable charm and wisdom to offbeat films like Lindsay Anderson’s “O Lucky Man!” (1973) and “Rollerball” (1975), and brought the weight of his theater experience to a little-seen production of “A Doll’s House” (1975) with Anthony Hopkins. He also appeared alongside nearly every leading English actor, including Olivier, James Mason, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Ian McShane and Michael York in “Jesus of Nazareth” (NBC, 1977).
Richardson’s career eventually wound down on a positive note. After appearing as an ancient wizard in the costly, Disney-produced fantasy “Dragonslayer” (1981), he gave a charming comic performance as a disinterested Supreme Being in Terry Gilliam’s “Time Bandits.” He then filmed his final screen appearances – as a mysterious and possibly supernatural old man in the Paul McCartney vanity project, “Give My Regards to Broadstreet” (1984) and then as the aged Earl of Greystoke in “Greystoke” The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.” Richardson’s warm and thoughtful performance was the high point of the latter film, which introduced audiences to Christopher Lambert. The stage was never very far away, even at this late point in his life, and he was earning rave reviews as the lead in 1983’s “Inner Voices” before falling ill. On Oct. 10, 1983, he suffered a stroke and died. Both “Greystoke” and “Broad Street” were released after his passing, and Richardson earned a posthumous Oscar nomination for the former film.
The above TCM profile can also be accessed online here.
Stanley Baker was one of British cinema’s outstanding figures in the 1950s and 1960s, but he might never have become a star had it not been for his friend and fellow Welshman, Richard Burton. Like Burton, Baker came from a mining family, and like him his talent was spotted by a schoolmaster. Burton’s mentor found a way for him to get into Oxford; Baker’s got him on to the stage at aged 14, in 1942, where he was spotted by a casting director at Ealing Studios. After that he made ends meet as an apprentice electrician, and then did his National Service, emerging as a sergeant in the Royal Army Service Corps. After demobilisation, he gave acting another go, thanks to Burton, who tipped him for a small part in Terence Rattigan’s play Adventure Story (1949). As Burton put it, Baker “hated to lose at anything – and rarely did”.
Baker was a natural athlete and had aspired to be a footballer or boxer: in his films he exuded a no-nonsense masculinity in which, paradoxically, he drew attention to himself precisely by not drawing attention to himself. Like most British film actors of the time, he began in forgettable roles in forgettable B-movies, but his big break came playing the bosun’s mate in the 1951 film Captain Horatio Hornblower, alongside a starry Hollywood cast led by Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo.
Baker went on to appear in a procession of landmark films of the 1950s, starting with The Cruel Sea – which, as I have mentioned before, I regard as the greatest of all British war films. In it, Baker played a character much against type: there was nothing genuinely manly about the bullying and manipulative first officer Bennett, who turns out to be a coward.
Probably the film for which he is best remembered – and it remains a masterpiece, though doubtless will soon be cancelled because of what bigots will consider its unacceptable depiction of colonialism – was Zulu in 1964. . It was an exception to the gritty black-and-white films he was making in the late 1950s and early 1960s, anticipating the “kitchen sink” genre. He was excellent in Lewis Gilbert’s The Good Die Young (1954) as a boxer (the role came to him naturally) who turns to crime because of an injury. Two years later, after being cast by Laurence Olivier as Henry Tudor in Richard III, he played a crook again in Child in the House.
But Baker as the sympathetic hard-nut was at his best in Hell Drivers, an enormously entertaining if bizarre tale about a group of lorry drivers – most of whom seem to be criminals or psychopaths – employed to transport gravel around middle England for the big road building programme of the time. Those who have not seen it may deduce from that description that it is thoroughly boring, but thanks to the stunt driving, the depiction of tensions between men of various degrees of odiousness trapped in a grim way of life and, above all, Baker’s performance as a working-class hero of real moral force, Hell Drivers is rather irresistible.
Amid this run of earthy films – others worth catching are Violent Playground (1958), in which he plays a policeman tackling juvenile gangsterism, and The Criminal (1960), in which he plays an old lag – came what I think is his best film, Hell Is a City, about Manchester low-life, also released in 1960. Baker plays Inspector Martineau, who awaits the arrival in Manchester of an escaped criminal whom he suspects, rightly, of returning to the city to pick up his loot. The criminal (played by the American John Crawford) then tries to rob a bookie’s assistant on her way to the bank with a bag of money – she is a young woman, and he accidentally kills her (in a scene of explicit violence, unusual for the time). Martineau puts his marriage under serious strain in trying to catch the murderer, and in a gripping scene on precipitous rooftops, eventually does. The penultimate scene reports the man’s hanging, with Martineau not batting the proverbial eyelid.
Baker, like too many hard-bitten, heavy-smoking men of his generation, died of lung cancer, aged just 48. The British cinema rather went off in the late 1970s and 1980s: one wonders whether Baker might have redeemed it, had he lived to his full span.