British Actors Archives - Page 79 of 129

Judi Dench

Judi Dench, although an acclaimed stage performer for many years, she not achieve major recognition on film until she was in middle age. She was born in 1934 in York. She made her stage debut with the Old Vic in 1957. She made her film debut in 1964 in “The Third Secret” with Stephen Boyd. She made sporadic film appearances throughout the remainder of the sixties and early seventies. In 1985 she begain making regular film appearances in increasingly larger roles. These movies include “Wetherby” with Vanessa Redgrave, “A Room With A View” with Maggie Smith and “84 Charing Cross Road” with Anthony Hopkins. In 1995 she began her regular appearances in the James Bond series as M in “GoldenEye” with Pierce Brosnan. She won an Oscar for “Shakespeare in Love”. Recent movies include “Nine” and “Jane Eyre” and”Philomena”.

TCM Overview:

A distinguished talent widely recognized as one of Great Britain’s greatest modern actresses, Dame Judi Dench spent much of her career concentrating on stage and television in her native England. From her early years with the Old Vic Theater Company in London, Dench proved a commanding stage performer in both classic drama and musical comedy, and at the same time, was known by non-theatergoers for starring roles on the British comedy series “As Time Goes By” (BBC, 1992-2005) and “A Fine Romance” (1981-84). It was not until Dench hit her fifties that she began finding film roles that enabled international audiences the opportunity to appreciate her commanding gifts. Dench was one of the most frequently nominated actresses in Academy Award history, earning a statue for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in “Shakespeare in Love” (1998) and nominations for a wide range of screen performances in “Chocolat” (2000), “Iris” (2001) and “Notes on a Scandal” (2006). A national treasure, Dench was honored by the British government with the title of Dame Commander of the British Army, and her homeland recognized her outstanding contributions to British Theater with a Laurence Olivier Award – officially proving that Dame Judi Dench was what critics had claimed for years: the modern, female equivalent of Sir Laurence Olivier, both onscreen and under the bright glare of the footlights.

The daughter of Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor, and Eleanora Olave, a native of Dublin, Dench was born on Dec. 9, 1934 and raised as a Quaker in York, North Riding of Yorkshire. She made her acting debut in the city’s cycle of mystery plays, in which both her father and older brother Jeffrey also appeared. After graduating from London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, she made an auspicious debut with the Old Vic Theatre Company as Ophelia in “Hamlet” in 1957. The following year, Dench made a Broadway appearance with the Old Vic and remained with the troupe until 1961, excelling in such roles as Hermia in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1960) and Isabella in “Measure for Measure” (1962). Throughout the 1960s, she made one strong stage characterization after another, but only in rare instances appeared on film. She was memorable as a young wife in the little-seen “Four in the Morning” (1965) and was majestic as Titania in Peter Hall’s filming of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1968).

As Sally Bowles in the 1968 London staging of “Cabaret,” Dench delivered what many felt was the definitive interpretation of the role. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1969, spending much of the next two decades amassing an impressive body of work and earning numerous accolades. After notable roles as Lady Macbeth (opposite Ian McKellen) in “Macbeth” (1977-78) and Lady Bracknell in “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1982), Dench’s screen presence increased. She held a starring turn on the television series “A Fine Romance,” starring opposite her husband Michael Williams, and on the big screen in David Hare’s provocative “Wetherby” (1985), in which she and Ian Holm played a married couple who become caught up in the personal turmoil of their friend (Vanessa Redgrave). In further film outings, she demonstrated her range with diverse portrayals of a flighty romance novelist in “A Room with a View” (1986), and Anthony Hopkins’ jealous wife in “84 Charing Cross Road” (1987).

Dench returned to the stage to play Cleopatra in “Antony and Cleopatra” (1987-88), and followed up with a pair of film roles as a materialistic mother in “A Handful of Dust” (1988) and the lusty Mistress Quickly in Kenneth Branagh’s “Henry V” (1989). She was back on stage the same year as Ranyevskaya in “The Cherry Orchard” (1989-1990). The solidly booked actress showed no signs of slowing with each advancing year, taking on a starring role on the long running British television comedy “As Time G s By” in 1992. In her most mainstream role to date, she was cast as M, the superior of James Bond (Pierce Brosnan), in “GoldenEye” (1995), which unveiled a revamped version of the franchise that successfully brought the international spy into modern times. In 1996, Dench became the first actress to win two Olivier Awards in the same year; for the play “Absolute Hell” and for her musical turn as Desiree in “A Little Night Music.” In 1997, she earned raves as an aging actress in David Hare’s acclaimed “Amy’s View” and reprised M alongside Brosnan in “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997).

Remarkably, in a career that spanned some 40 years, Dench had never played the lead in a film until she was cast as the widowed Queen Victoria who embarks on a questionable relationship with her Scottish manservant (Billy Connolly) in the John Madden-directed “(Her Majesty) Mrs. Brown” (1997). The film was originally intended as a made-for-British-TV movie, with the role of the monarch earmarked for Elizabeth Taylor. When Taylor fell ill, Dench was cast and it was released theatrically. Her performance earned the actress some of the best reviews of her career to that point, including a richly deserved Best Actress Academy Award nomination. As a follow-up, director Madden cast her as another venerable British monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, in “Shakespeare in Love” (1998). Although Dench only appeared in a handful of scenes totaling approximately eight minutes, she made such a strong impression as the Virgin Queen that she was awarded that year’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

The newly minted Oscar winner took on the title stage role of “Filumena” (1998) and reprised M in the Bond offering “The World Is Not Enough” (1999). Now recognized internationally, Dench returned to the New York stage for the first time in close to four decades, reprising her triumphant portrayal of a famous actress clashing ideologically with her daughter in “Amy’s View,” for which she earned a Tony Award. Her run was briefly interrupted when she returned to England to care for her longtime husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer. At that time, she was also seen on the big screen as an eccentric artist living as an expatriate in 1930s Italy in “Tea with Mussolini” (1999). The following year, Dench headlined the HBO original “The Last of the Blonde Bombshells,” earning a Golden Globe award for playing a feisty widow reflecting on her life as a saxophone player in a WWII-era swing band. The actress agreed to provide the narration for the affecting Holocaust documentary “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport” (2000) before gracing screens again in the pivotal role of a crusty villager who welcomes free-spirited Juliette Binoche in Lasse Hallstrom’s “Chocolat” (2000). The latter netted Dench yet another Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress.

Following her husband’s death in January 2001, the widowed Dench turned in two rich, very different screen performances. Hallstrom cast her as a Canadian woman who assists her nephew (Kevin Spacey) on a journey of self-discovery in the film adaptation of the bestselling novel “The Shipping News” (2001). Dench then undertook the demanding role of British novelist Iris Murdoch in the biopic “Iris” (2001), based on the memoirs of Murdoch’s husband John Bayley. The actress rose to the challenge of playing a vibrant, intelligent woman who gradually succumbs to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. As with all her work, Dench offered an impeccable and deeply moving performance that the members of the Academy recognized with a Best Actress nomination. She was back in period clothing for her follow-up, portraying the indomitable Lady Bracknell in a remake of Oscar Wilde’s classic play “The Importance of Being Earnest” (2002). Also in 2002, Dench returned as M in the James Bond action feature “Die Another Day,” starring Brosnan and Halle Berry.

Once finished with a brief sabbatical from onscreen roles, during which she lent her voice to the animated feature “Home on the Range” (2004) and several James Bond video games, Dench made a welcome return to the big screen in 2004 in the unlikely vehicle “The Chronicles of Riddick,” director David Twohy’s sci-fi/action sequel to his cult hit “Pitch Black.” Dench played Aereon, an ethereal Elemental who helps Riddick (Vin Diesel) learn the secrets of his origin. She essayed an appropriately imperious Lady Catherine de Bourg in 2005’s “Pride and Prejudice,” director J Wright’s lively adaptation of the Jane Austen classic starring Keira Knightley. That same year, the busy actress also headlined director Stephen Frears’ “Mrs. Henderson Presents,” starring as Laura Henderson, a widow who becomes a partner in Britain’s Windmill Theater during World War II and, in attempts to provide a spark for her downtrodden nation, hopes to allow her actresses to perform in the nude. For her performance, she earned award nominations from SAG, the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards – all for Best Actress.

Dench revived M for a fifth time in “Casino Royale” (2006), her first outing opposite Daniel Craig, successor to the iconic role after Pierce Brosnan left the franchise in 2002. Though she missed working with Brosnan, she heaped praise upon the new keeper of the flame, telling The Evening Standard how “frighteningly good” Craig was in the role. For her part, Dench maintained her usually blunt and stiff-upper-lipped performance as the head of MI6, sending him on a mission to Montenegro in order to join a high-stakes poker game with Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), banker to the world’s terrorist organizations in what many critics called one of the best films in the series. Dench made a startlingly decisive departure in her next project, “Notes on a Scandal” (2006), where she essayed a treacherous school teacher who habitually stalks younger women in a desperate attempt to find love. Once again, she accrued award nominations from the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards.

Dench returned to television the following year in the 1840s-set drama series “Cranford” (BBC, 2007), earning an Emmy nomination for her performance as a financially strapped spinster in a remote village about to be thrust into the modern age with the impending arrival of the railroad. And, not surprisingly, given the actress’ loyalty and lack of vanity in regards to size of part, she returned to the Bond fold as M for the second Daniel Craig outing, “Quantum of Solace” (2008). While basking in the international success of the latest Bond installment, Dench received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie for her performance in “Cranford.” She reprised her role for the miniseries sequel, “Return to Cranford” (PBS, 2010), and received similar honors, earning another Golden Globe nomination in December 2010. Back on the big screen, she portrayed British actress Sybil Thorndike in “My Weekend with Marilyn” (2011) and was the mother of J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) in Clint Eastwood’s uneven biopic “J. Edgar” (2011). After reprising M for the last time opposite Daniel Craig’s James Bond in “Skyfall” (2012), Dench was part of an excellent ensemble cast in John Madden’s winning comedy “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (2012), which focused on a group of British pensioners retiring at a lesser-than-advertised hotel in India. Dench’s performance as a newly widowed housewife forced to sell off her home to cover her dead husband’s debts was singled out for praise and earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical. Dench’s next starring role came in the drama “Philomena” (2013), the true-life tale of an elderly Irish woman’s search for the son she had been forced to give up for adoption a half-century before. The film was directed by Stephen Frears and co-written by Steve Coogan, who co-starred opposite Dench as an investigative journalist.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Rupert Hill was born in 1978 in Southampton. He appeared first as Jamie Baldwin in “Coronation Street” in 2004. He has also appeared in such series as “The Bill”, “Holby City” and “Doctors”.

IMDB entry:Rupert Hill was born on June 15, 1978 in London, England as Rupert Sinclair Hill. He is an actor and director, known for Coronation Street (1960), Family Affairs (1997) and Entity(2012). He has been married to Jenny Platt since May 11, 2013. They have one child.

Joe Absolom is one of the best young actors working in Britain to-day. He was born in 1978 in Lewisham, London. He made his acting debut in the 1991 movie “Antonia & Jane”. His other credits include “Long Time Dead” and the television series “Vincent” with Ray Winstone and “Doc Martin” with Martin Clunes.

2011 “MailOnline” interview:

What drew you to Doc Martin?

The blue skies and the surfing-golf-work ratio. Plus the chance to work with lovely people such as Martin Clunes, Ian McNeice [his screen father Bert] and Dame Eileen Atkins [who has joined the cast as Martin’s Aunt Ruth]. Eileen has so many theatre anecdotes. And she’s met the Queen.

So why did you swap the Cornish sun for the Arctic in last year’s celebrity challenge series 71 Degrees North?

Because my dad said that when I’m 60 I’ll want to talk about the things I’ve done rather than the ones I haven’t. It was an amazing, life-affirming experience – even when my beard froze and there were six of us huddled in a tent for warmth.

How do you relax on set?

My Doc Martin scenes [as Al Large, who owns the local restaurant with his dad] aren’t shot every day, and there’s lots of waiting around between takes. So I play my guitar and listen to my favourite Who or Oasis tracks.

What was it like adjusting to life after soap stardom?

After I left EastEnders [from 1997 to 2000 he played Matthew Rose, who was framed for murder by gangster Steve Owen], I spent six months thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ because I left a regular income without a job to go to. But I’m enjoying the variety of being a jobbing actor.

What is your USP?

I’m punctual. I’m good at getting to a job on time and also at leaving on time; it’s the middle bit I struggle with.

Plan B, career-wise?

I’d be a postman – because I’m good at getting up early.

Anything you’re not so good at?

I’m useless at laughing on camera. I end up with a rather forced har-har-har guffaw that sounds as if I’m imitating Sid James in the Carry On films – handy if I’m ever cast as a middle-aged lecher.

What did you want to be when you were ten years old?

A skateboarder. I was inspired by Tony Hawk, the American professional skateboarder who invented most of the modern tricks. I became an actor instead after my father, who’s an artist, sent photos of me and my baby sister to a children’s acting agency. I was so shy at first that I didn’t realise the catering on film sets was for everyone – I just watched other people eat the food.

Can you remember your first kiss?

Yes, it was on top of a garden shed in Brockley, South London, when I was nine. It felt momentous at the time, but the shed didn’t move.

Your partner Liz is a great cook, so who are your dream dinner party guests?

Rock and rollers such as Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Keith Moon and Noel Gallagher, and the jazzman Miles Davis. They’d bring great music and great times. And I would get Keith to bring some pretty ladies along, too.

You and Liz share childcare for Lyla, five, and Casper, one. What makes a good parent?

Listening to children – they mean what they say 100 per cent; they are not talking rubbish like adults sometimes do. And being patient, which I find difficult at times! I enjoy fatherhood a lot more the second time round; I was always petrified I was going to drop Lyla when she was a baby.

What’s the secret of a happy relationship?

Listening and patience – the same tactics as with children – and laughing a lot. Seeing Liz’s eyes light up when she laughs always makes me smile.

Your worst nightmare to be stuck in a lift with?

Smug people such as Piers Morgan or Simon Cowell. But my dream lift companion would be Cindy Crawford – I’ve always had a thing about her.

How would you like to be remembered?

I won’t care, because in the afterlife, I will be up there jamming on my guitar.

The above “MailOnline” interview can also be accessed online here.

Patti Boulaye was born in Nigeria in 1954. She achieved fame in Nigeria in the film “Bisi, Daughter of the River”. She came to Britain in the mid 1970’s and won the TV talent contest “New Faces”. She went on to star in the movie “The Music Machine” in 1979.

2007 article in “Independent”:

Laydeez an’ gen’lemen, put your hands together please for International Singing Star Miss Patti Boulaye!!! Yay! Rah! Wooh! No, actually there’s nobody whooping as she comes to the door, in a quiet cul-de-sac in Gerrards Cross. It would upset the neighbours. And she’s feeling a bit fragile anyway, having been on her hands and knees in the lounge at three o’clock in the morning trying to sort out a last-minute crisis with hospitality at the Royal Albert Hall, the grand (and, frankly, cavernous) venue that Miss Boulaye has personally hired for tonight.

“They said: ‘You have no staff, no money behind you, it’s for HIV and Africa. Are you crazy?” she says, laughing only slightly wildly. If the seats don’t sell she could lose £160,000 – which she says she can’t afford, despite the silver Jaguar in the drive with the number plate BOO. It sounds like a huge risk, but the diminutive singer loves grand gestures, and is already dressed this morning as if to receive yet another of the many big showbiz introductions she has been given over the years, in the West End and on the telly: her eye make-up, for example, is a full-on, two-tone Cleopatra sweep of powder that sharpens the cheekbones and gives her face a feline look.

There may well be another grand gesture tonight from the other star of her show: Didier Drogba, the Chelsea footballer still reeling from the departure of his coach and mentor Jose Mourinho. Drogba is a passionate, articulate man from the Ivory Coast who is loved as a singer back home as well as as a sportsman. He will appear with his own band – but with a microphone in his hand and a sympathetic audience listening, it’s easy to imagine the apparently furious striker telling the world what he really thinks of Roman Abramovich.

Boulaye, of course, would prefer him to talk about the Aids clinic he is opening in the Ivory Coast, one of four started by her charity Support For Africa.”Football is the only language that men in Africa understand,” she says, explaining why she has recruited Drogba to help get her message across to young black men here and on her home continent. A team’s worth of Premiership stars have said they will try to be at the concert. “You know what it’s like with footballers: they don’t turn up for anything. But they will this time.”

Would they dare do otherwise? Boulaye is an overwhelming personality who may smile a lot but is also ferociously determined. Sceptics beware: she believes she has God on her side. “I wake up every morning and I say, ‘Lord, send the ministering angels to help me. I can’t do it on my own.'”

She tells how the Lord (and the Professional Footballers’ Association) led her to big, intimidating Lauren the Arsenal defender who is a pussycat really and even turned up to a reception at the House of Lords on crutches and has opened another of the clinics and if all this sounds a bit breathless it is because that is how she makes you feel as she lurches quickly from one topic of conversation to the next, as if there is so much to say and so little time to say it. She did, after all, think she would be dead by now. “I survived a genocide,” she says of a childhood ravaged by the Biafra war. “I saw things that made me feel that if I live to be 35, that’s a miracle.”

It was God who gave her great success in show business, she says; then He took it away (with quite a lot of help from the Tory Party, as it turns out) so she could campaign against Aids, which she can talk about for ever. But ask about the genocide and the flow stops.

“Oh gosh. Oh. You want to open the can of worms?”

Her face becomes a mask. No smile now. I’m about to apologise in the silence and change tack when she says, “I saw something on television a while ago and suddenly I was four and a half and I was just reliving, again, a terror … seeing an explosion and seeing a body running down the road with no head, because the head has been cut off. Planes coming and bombing…”

The phone rings and the mood changes. When Boulaye returns she perches on a cushion on the edge of a vast white marble coffee table. She lives in this million-pound house with her husband, the promoter turned investor Stephen Komlosy. A devout Catholic, she’s big on blessings, lighting an altar-size candle in the hallway whenever a good thing happens. “Candles help you remember. Otherwise life is too full of bad things, dragging you down.”

The Biafra war had just ended when she came to London in 1970 as a 16-year-old. She joined what she thought was the queue for Madame Tussauds, but it was actually for an audition to take part in the musical Hair. Boulaye got a part. “My father disowned me.” Later she won New Faces and became one of the biggest black stars in Britain, starring in the definitive production of Carmen Jones and hosting her own television series for Channel 4. “Then suddenly – oof! – God cut it off. Everything just stopped. I didn’t understand it. Nobody called. No more bookings. My mother said: ‘He’s trying to tell you something.'”

There was a more earthly reason why she fell out of favour, surely? Like sharing a rally platform with Jim Davidson and Margaret Thatcher, when Thatcher was being accused of flirting with National Front policies and blamed for race riots? “I was politically unaware,” she says. “When I came here it was in the Winter of Discontent. To see the streets of the Mother Country looking like African streets, with rubbish everywhere, was frightening.”

She backed Thatcher – a steely, slightly manic go-getter like herself – to do something about it. This daughter of a prominent Nigerian politician also developed unlikely friendships in high circles, most notably Sir John Major. “I still adore him. He understands Africans.” In time William Hague asked her to help shift the image of the Tories during the race for Mayor of London. “Oh boy,” she says. “It was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

Newspapers assumed she was running for election, even though she says she wasn’t. Then a Guardian interview quoted her as saying she believed in sticking up loyally for unfashionable causes, including (quite astonishingly for a black Anglo-African) “apartheid”. The words the reporter misheard were “a party”, meaning the Tories. The Guardian apologised and paid damages. But Boulaye had acquired the image of a loose cannon with some dubious views.

“The Conservatives said I would have to look like I was running after all, otherwise it would seem as though another black person had been hounded out of the party. I said: ‘Oh, come on. This is ridiculous. I want to get my career back. You guys have destroyed it as far as the public is concerned.”

Was that true? “They did. It wasn’t their fault. Black people totally hated me for saying I was a Tory. The BBC didn’t want to touch me for many years. But I just thought: ‘Hey. God has his plans.’ When I saw those babies my life changed.”

There were 60 of them in a room in a village in Nigeria, which her brother took her to visit in 2001. “There was a tiny baby in the corner, skeletal. The woman who was there said: ‘That’s our little Victor. Pick him up, he loves to be held. He’s got two weeks to live. He’s got full-blown Aids.'” Boulaye wept as she was told where all the babies had come from. “The woman said: ‘The farmers picked them up from the forest. The villagers don’t understand what HIV is. They’e heard it is an evil spirit that kills you. To keep the spirit away from the rest of the family the witch doctor says the babies must be buried alive.'”

The mothers couldn’t bring themselves to do it, so abandoned the babies. “I just thought: ‘What can I do?'” Unimpressed by other “well-meaning but patronising” charities she chose, of course, to start one of her own. But how to fund it? Her husband’s business career was in a dip (from which she says he has recovered). She wasn’t making much money from singing (her website says she’s available for weddings). But she had a lot of nerve. So she booked the Albert Hall in 2002 and persuaded Sir Cliff Richard to sing with a choir of 3,000 children from schools, clubs and churches. The choir will be formed again tonight with each member paying £25 for a ticket, which is a masterstroke on her part.

That first event barely broke even, but in the following months £70,000 was raised. Since then four clinics have been built, for about £25,000 a time. “After that the people of the village have to start putting money into the account to pay for it. They are poor, yes, but… these are my people. I tell them: “It’s your clinic. I’ve done my bit. Don’t tell me you are helpless because there are people back in England who paint with a paintbrush in their teeth because they have no arms and legs. You can survive! If you waste this opportunity I will bring back the BBC and show them the most useless people in the world!'”

The clinics offer primary healthcare, counselling and advice about Aids. But not condoms. “Don’t be stupid,” she says. “That would encourage the spread of HIV. The villager would have one condom and use it form months, time and time again. He can’t go to Boots. You’re covering up the problem, putting make-up on an ugly woman. The answer is to talk to them frankly about what Aids really is.”

Couldn’t she get those super-rich footballers to pay up, rather than just turn up? Boulaye gives me that stare again. “I could take Didier Drogba’s money and open five clinics – but if Didier himself opens just one then his whole nation will listen to the message about Aids. Many more lives will be saved. You see?” Boulaye says with a smile fierce enough to light up the stalls tonight, “You have to think big.”

The above “Independent” article can also be accessed online here.

Peggy Ashcroft. TCM Overview.

The wonderful Peggy Ashcroft, although a celebrated theatre performer, achieived international fame on film and television late in life. She was born in 1907 in Croydon,, Surrey.

Among her early film roles were as the crofter’s wife in the classic 1935 Hitchcock directed “The 39 Steps” and Dodie Smith’s “Dear Octopus”.

In her late 70’s she won superlative reviews for two roles set in India, the television series “The Jewel in the Crown” as Barbie Batchelor and David Lean’s last film “A Passage to India” as Mrs Moore. She won an Oscar for her performance. She died in 1991.

TCM overview:

Peggy Ashcroft was a leading light of London’s West End and widely considered one of the century’s greatest British stage actresses.

Her most famous early role was as Desdemona opposite Paul Robeson’s Othello in the early 1940s and her first film was the British Gaumont production “The Wandering Jew” (1933).

She was especially memorable as the quiet, emotionally suffocating village wife who briefly shelters the on-the-lam Robert Donat in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “The Thirty Nine Steps” (1935).

Along with frequent costar John Gielgud, Ashcroft’s leading men during her 65-year career included Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave and Ralph Richardson.

She enjoyed her greatest international acclaim and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her 1984 role in David Lean’s film adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel “A Passage to India” and subsequently won renown for the TV miniseries “The Jewel in the Crown” (1984-85).

Sam Wanamaker was born in 1919 in Chicago. His films include “My Girl Tisa” in 1948 and came to Britain in 1952 and made such movies as “Mr Denning Drives North”, “The Criminal”, “Man in the Middle”. He is well known for his restoration of the Globe Theatre in London. He died in 1993. His daughter is the actress Zoe Wamamaker.

“Independent” obituary by Nick Smurthwaite:

Samuel Wanamaker, actor, director and producer: born Chicago 14 June 1919; CBE 1993; married 1940 Charlotte Holland (three daughters); died London 18 December 1993

IF Sam Wanamaker wasn’t as famous or acclaimed an actor as he might have been, he only had himself to blame. Or rather, his obsession. For over 20 years he poured the lion’s share of his considerable energy into recreating Shakespeare’s wooden ‘O’, the Globe Theatre, on London’s south bank.

Born in Chicago in 1919, Wanamaker had a dogged entrepreneurial zeal that was often mistaken for American excess in the London theatrical establishment, especially since he was always aware of the commercial imperatives attendant upon his dream to rebuild the Globe. The need to make it a going concern was seen by many as thinly veiled Disneyism.

What his detractors often forgot was that Wanamaker was a genuine Shakespearean enthusiast, man and boy. Appropriately, his debut in Shakespeare was in a plywood and paper replica of the Globe at the Chicago World Fair in 1934, when he appeared as a teenager in condensed versions of the Bard’s greatest hits.

Wanamaker was 23 when he first played Broadway in Cafe Crown in 1942. The following year he was called up and spent the next three years doing his US military duty. Returning to the theatre in 1946, he took on a succession of headstrong juvenile leads in long-forgotten plays. What he hankered after was classical theatre of the kind that flourished in England. To this end he created the Festival Repertory Theatre in New York in 1950.

Two years later, by now blacklisted by Senator McCarthy’s

Commie- bashers, he came to London to join Laurence Olivier’s company at the St James’s Theatre, playing alongside Michael Redgrave in Winter Journey, which he also directed. One of the first things he did on arriving in London was to seek out the site of Shakespeare’s Globe. Instead of the elaborate memorial he’d always imagined, Wanamaker found a dirty plaque fixed to the wall of a Courage brewery bottling plant in a particularly drab Southwark back street.

From 1953 to 1960 he produced and acted in plays in London and the provinces, creating the New Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool, where his productions included A View From the Bridge, The Rose Tattoo, The Rainmaker and Bus Stop. Another American play, The Big Knife by Clifford Odets, was a personal success for Wanamaker as actor-director at the Duke of York’s in 1954. Perhaps his outstanding performance of this period, certainly the one for which he is best remenbered, was Iago to Paul Robeson’s Othello in Tony Richardson’s 1959 production at Stratford.

He first tackled opera in 1962, Tippett’s King Priam, twice revived at Covent Garden. Wanamaker later admitted he relied on others better acquainted with operatic production to tell him what to do, including the composer himself, ‘who kept laughing, patting me on the back and telling me not to worry’.

Later that year his radical reinvention of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino caused a sensation at Covent Garden, and led to many other operatic offers, including, much later, the opening production at Sydney Opera House, Prokofiev’s War and Peace. In 1977 he returned to Covent Garden to produce the premiere of Tippett’s The Ice Break.

Wanamaker’s track record shows a commendable lack of cultural elitism. He would happily go from producing Verdi to playing a cameo in a Goldie Hawn film (Private Benjamin, 1980), or directing an episode of Hawaii Five-0 (1978). He thrived on diversity and contrast, the more challenging the better. Though there were some memorable screen roles in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1964), The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1966), the 1978 television mini-series Holocaust and, most recently, Guilty by Suspicion (1991) with Robert De Niro, Wanamaker never took film seriously enough to claim the first- division status that was his due.

From the late 1960s his colleagues in almost every job he undertook were regaled, like it or not, with the latest chapter in the Globe saga, which sometimes seemed as if it would never reach its climax. From the moment he first presented the Architectural Association with a model of the Globe he had had made at Shepperton Studios in 1969, Wanamaker was a man with a mission – to create an international focus for the study and celebration of Shakespeare.

He found a staunch ally in Theo Crosby, who became chief architect of the scheme, sharing Wanamaker’s determination to make it both commercially viable (since government subsidy always seemed unlikely) and true to the Spartan style of its 16th-century blueprint – hard wooden benches, no heating, no amplification, and no roof to cover the hole in the middle.

Over two decades of fund-raising and bureaucratic battles, Wanamaker’s missionary zeal was stretched to the limit, mostly by the left-wingers of Southwark Council, who tried to sabotage what they saw as indulgent elitism by claiming the Globe site back for council housing. The matter was finally settled in court, where Wanamaker’s contention that the Globe project would bring employment to many and regeneration to a notably depressed area of London finally won the day.

By the late 1980s the Globe had beaten off its chief adversaries, and become virtually unassailable thanks to the patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh, Ronald Reagan, Michael Caine, Dustin Hoffman and a host of other victims of Wanamaker’s persuasive powers. No longer was he perceived as the cranky Yank building castles in the air; despite an unfavourable economic climate and constantly escalating costs, the Globe really would be rebuilt and Wanamaker’s dream vindicated.

In more recent years, the quest for funds took him, appropriately, all over the globe, shored up by his commitment to posterity and the firm belief that there was, just around the next corner, that elusive crock of gold. The first bays of the Globe Theatre were unveiled this year. It is scheduled to open for business in April 1995.

The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Shirley Abicair was born in 1930 in Merbourne, Australia. In 1953 she came to England and began a career as an entertainer. In 1954 she starred in the film “One Good Turn” with Norman Wisdom. In 1971 she moved to the U.S. and pursued her career there.

While studying in Sydney, Abicair began singing at parties and private functions to support her studies, accompanying herself on the zither. Self-taught, she is said to have found the zither whilst rummaging in a cupboard as a small child. She then entered and won a Sydney radio talent quest. This led to offers of engagements on radio and in theatre and cabaret. Abicair, a typist, became popular in Sydney in the late 1940s.

Around 1952,bAbicair left Sydney for London. She was photographed by a newspaper photographer looking for pretty faces while disembarking at London Airport. Her photo was spotted by a radio producer in the newspaper and within weeks this led to her appearing on BBC Television. Not much later that year she had her own programme in which she sang and played the zither. In December, she also appeared in the title role of the pantomime Cinderella with George Martin, the Casual Comedian, at the Empress Theatre in Brixton. The zither was, along with her Australian-ness, to become her trademark. She released her first record “Careless Love” that year. In 1953 the Empire theatre in Nottingham billed her as “TV’s zither girl”. In this period, she co-starred with comedian Norman Wisdom in the film One Good Turn (1955).

In 1956, Abicair recorded (produced by George Martin, later known for his work with the Beatles) the title song for the soundtrack of the Australian film Smiley. On 26 March 1956, Abicair appeared on BBC TV Off The Record. Through the middle/late 1950s she hosted (with help from her puppet friends, Australian indigenous children, Tea Cup and Clothespeg), a series called Children’s Hour, a children’s TV show. In the process, she became an unofficial ambassador and promoter of Australia to a generation of British children. This Australian image was reinforced by her release of records with titles such as “(I Love You) Fair Dinkum” and “Botany Bay”. Her rendering of the Australian folk song Little Boy Fishing off a Wooden Pier, released in 1956, become a regular on the BBCs Children’s Favourites request program.

In 1959 she returned to Australia briefly to record a series of television documentary films she had conceived, based on Australian folk songs, entitled Shirley Abicair in Australia, for the Australian ABC TV network. Abicair accepted a request to perform at The Variety Club of Great Britain eighth annual Star Gala at the Festival Gardens, Battersea Park, London, Saturday 13 May 1961. In 1962, she toured the Soviet Union, and in the same year, she gave a recital at the Festival Hall in London. Later that year in October she visited the United States for performances. It was in 1962 as well that her children’s book, Tales of Tumbarumba was published.

In June 1963, in the US, she appeared with the Smothers Brothers on Hootenanny and the panel game show To Tell the Truth, with Cicely Tyson on 25 March 1963. In December, for ABC Australia, she appeared on Comedy Bandbox.

In 1965, Abicair’s EP, “On the Nursery Beat“, was released. It was a number of nursery rhymes put to a Mersey beat. During 1965 she did a tour with British comedian Frankie Howerd to entertain the personnel of HMS Albion and 848 Naval Air Squadron, at Sibuairfield, Malaysia,^[18] and other British forces stationed on the Malay Peninsula and in Sarawak, Borneo, during the unrest there. This tour was filmed and later released as a TV special “East of Howerd“. During 1966–67 she released a number of more mature songs on record including her version of the Gerry Goffin–Carole King song “So Goes Love'” and Paul Simon‘s “Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall”. She had previously, in the early 1960s, released three albums of folk songs.

Abicair joined up with harmonica player Larry Adler in 1968 to do a children’s theatre show. She began her own one-woman theatre show in 1969 at the Arts Theatre in London.

In 1971, Abicair moved to Oregon in the United States, where she appeared in a series of college concerts with the American writer Ken Kesey. Abicair currently (2002–2007) lives in London and divides her time between Britain, the US and Australia

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Dominic West was born in 1969 in Sheffield, Yorkshire. He is well-known for his performance in the hughly popular series U.S. television series “The Wire” as Jimmy McNulty. In 2001 he had been featured in the film “Rock Star”.His other films include “The Mona Lisa Smile”, “28 Days” and “Chicago”.

TCM overview:

Hailing from the stage and screen of his native England, actor Dominic West made a name in the United States playing hard-drinking, anti-authoritarian homicide detective, Jimmy McNulty, on the gritty television crime drama, “The Wire” (HBO, 2002-08). Prior to that critically acclaimed role, West appeared in films like “Richard III” (1995), “Surviving Picasso” (1996) and “The Gambler” (1998). But it was his five years on “The Wire” that perhaps offered him the richest and most compelling performance of his career on a show numerous critics dubbed the greatest series in the history of television. Thanks to the critical adulation heaped upon “The Wire,” West nabbed plumber roles in higher-profile movies like “Mona Lisa Smile” (2003) and “The Forgotten” (2004). He had his first major co-starring role in the blockbuster adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel, “300” (2007), and continued along in that vein with “Punisher: War Zone” (2008) and “Centurion” (2010). Thanks to a ready charm and comedic flair mixed with serious acting chops, West was an extraordinary talent worthy of attention.

Born on Oct. 15, 1969 and raised in a wealthy Catholic home in Sheffield, England, West became involved with acting at an early age, appearing in amateur stage productions as a child alongside his mother and eldest sister. It was while attending Eton College – an independent school for teenage boys – that he fell into the mindset of becoming a professional actor, thanks to the passionate encouragement of drama department head Robert Freedman. West performed in several school productions; most notably as the melancholy lead in “Hamlet.” After graduating Eton, he moved on to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, where he earned his bachelor of arts in literature, before continuing his dramatic training at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. From the time he left Guildhall, West went to work as an actor straight away, honing his trade with London stage work, while landing turns in small British features and supporting parts in larger-scale productions. He made his big screen debut in the Oxford-set drama, “Wavelength” (1995), which he followed with a turn as Richmond in the 1930s-set take on “Richard III” (1995), starring Ian McKellen.

After a small part as the son of Pablo Picasso (Anthony Hopkins) in “Surviving Picasso” (1996), West returned to the stage to star in productions of “Cloud Nine” and “The Seagull” during director Peter Hall’s 1997 season at the Old Vic. That same year, West starred in Hungarian director Karoly Makk’s “The Gambler” (1997), a unique dramatization that intertwined the real life of Fyodor Dostoyevsky with his fiction. In scenes from the novel that were played out on screen, West portrayed a young man who becomes a high roller in a bid to secure the affections of a beautiful woman (Polly Walker). That same year he starred alongside Toni Collette in the romance “Diana & Me” (1997), playing an ambitious British paparazzo involved with an Australian Diana Spencer who shared her name and birthday with the famed Princess of Wales. West’s portrayal of the slimy photographer was nonetheless likeable and human, despite the victimizing nature of his livelihood. He played a photographer again the following year; this time with a cameo in the zany mockumentary on the girl group, the Spice Girls, “Spice World” (1998), but was thankfully left unassociated with the “movie.”

West followed with the pivotal role of Lysander in Michael Hoffman’s star studded adaptation of “William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1999), which increased the actor’s visibility to an American audience in more ways than one. Virtually naked for much of the film and given the unenviable task of nude bicycling, West still capably held his own alongside co-stars Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christian Bale, Calista Flockhart and Anna Friel. After the high-profile and rather revealing co-starring role, he landed a rather conventional and uncharacteristic bit part by uttering a single line as a mostly obscure palace guard in the summer blockbuster “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” (1999). While the role was barely noticeable, West considered the opportunity to be in such a monumental film as one not to pass up. Meanwhile, he marked his U.S. television debut as the nephew to Ebenezer Scrooge (Patrick Stewart) in the made-for-cable version of “A Christmas Carol” (TNT, 1999). Returning to the stage once again, West spent five months in the London production of “De La Guarda” (1999).

West’s profile continued to rise in 2000, beginning with his co-starring role in the dramedy, “28 Days,” which followed a New York City writer (Sandra Bullock) through her court-ordered rehab. West played Jasper, the writer’s fun-loving British boyfriend who shared her life of hard partying and forgotten evenings. West followed up the engaging performance playing a rhythm guitarist for popular hard rock band Steel Dragon in the fact-based comedy “Rock Star” (2001), starring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston, then got a major career boost when he played Fred Casely, the victim in the ballyhooed murder trial of Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) in director Rob Marshall’s acclaimed film version of the musical “Chicago” (2002). In his first turn on the small screen, West landed the role of a lifetime as one of the stars of David Simon’s gritty crime drama “The Wire” (HBO, 2002-08). Dropping the Queen’s English for a tough Baltimore twang, West played homicide detective Jimmy McNulty, a hard-drinking outsider who revels in bucking authority, sleeping with as many women as possible, and taking down murderers and drug dealers with good old fashioned police work. During the first season of “The Wire,” McNulty joins a joint homicide and narcotics team (Sonja Sohn, Wendell Pierce, Lance Reddick, among others) to take down a notorious drug kingpin (Wood Harris), but discovers that trying to make a difference can lead one to ruin.

Hailed by numerous critics as being the greatest television series of all time, “The Wire” offered West his most richly textured and compelling performances, which spanned the entire five seasons of the show’s run. Subsequent seasons of showed West’s McNulty demoted to the Marine Unit during an investigation of dock workers stealing shipping containers and retuning to walking a beat in uniform while helping to keep four high school students stay on the straight and narrow. Meanwhile, he maintains a riotous camaraderie with fellow hard-drinking, but far more sensible partner, Bunk (Pierce), while routinely making a sordid mess of his personal life, particularly with customs officer Beadie Russell (Amy Ryan). During his run on the show, West continued appearing in films, playing a predatory Italian language professor at an all-girls school who casually sleeps with his students in “Mona Lisa Smile” (2003). Next, he essayed the role of a man told his child never existed, who embarks on a harrowing investigation alongside similarly bereft parent (Julianne Moore) in the critically dismissed paranormal thriller “The Forgotten” (2004).

Returning to features, West had his first major blockbuster role, portraying Theron of Acragas, tyrant of Greek-occupied Sicily, in “300” (2007), a loose telling of the famed Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan warriors led by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) inflicted heavy damage to the massive Persian army of Xerxes I (Rodrigo Santoro). Based on the popular graphic novel by Frank Miller, “300” was a big box office hit while having a lasting impact on popular culture, all of which helped West make more of a name for himself. He followed that with a role as an inspector in “Hannibal Rising” (2007), which traced the early years of Hannibal Lecter (Gaspard Ulliel) and his transformation from a frightened boy who witnessed his family massacred into a fearsome serial killer. Once “The Wire” wrapped for good in 2008, leaving many hearts empty in front of and behind the cameras, West stayed with features for a while, co-starring as the horribly disfigured crime boss, Jigsaw, in the comic book adaptation, “Punisher: War Zone” (2008). He next starred in director Neil Marshall’s “Centurion” (2010), playing a Roman general who leads the famed Ninth Legion, which was rumored to have disappeared or been completely destroyed in battle.

The year 2011 was a busy one for West who was seen as well as heard in theaters with supporting roles in the slapstick spy-comedy sequel “Johnny English Reborn” (2011) and the animated holiday adventure “Arthur Christmas” (2011). It was, however, on television that the actor once again achieved his greatest success. West gave a chilling performance as notorious U.K. serial killer Fred West in the British docudrama miniseries “Appropriate Adult” (ITV, 2011). Also that year, he joined the cast of the U.K. series “The Hour” (BBC, 2011), a period political-drama centering on an investigative current affairs program during the time of the Suez Canal crisis. For his role as charismatic anchorman Hector Madden, West earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance in a Miniseries.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Sian Philips was born in Port Talbot, Wales in 1933. She studied at the University of Wales and then to London for RADA. She appeared with her then husband Peter O’Toole in “Becket” in 1964. Her other films include “Young Cassidy”, “Goodbye .Mr Chips”, “Clash of the Titans” and “Dune”. She starred with Stanley Baker in the televised production of “How Green Was My Valley” in 1975 .

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

Born on May 14, 1933 in Bettws, Wales, veteran stage actress Sian Phillips is forever identified on television as the tarantula mother/empress Livia in the classic BBC series I, Claudius (1976), and as the Reverend Mother in the science fiction epic film Dune (1984). Her broad range of roles went from endearing to downright deadly. Sian was brought up bilingual in both English and Welsh and performed on the Welsh radio station at age 11. She toured extensively for the Arts Council in Wales, in original Welsh plays and in translations from the English classics, before becoming an award-winning television actress in her late teens. She attended the University of Wales and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, making her London debut as Hedda Gabler in 1957. She met and married actor Peter O’Toole two years later and appeared frequently with him on stage, including “Ride a Cock Horse” (1965) and “Man and Superman” (1965), and in the movies Becket (1964), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Murphy’s War (1971) and Under Milk Wood (1972).

While her resonant voice served her well as an announcer, newsreader and narrator at different stages of her career, her severe chiseled looks and arch, regal bearing has entitled her to perform some of the more notable classics, with critically-acclaimed turns in “Saint Joan”, “The Taming of the Shrew” and “The Duchess of Malfi”, being just a few. Her occasional aristocrats have also graced such well-mounted films as Young Cassidy(1965), Nijinsky (1980) and The Age of Innocence (1993). After 20 years of marriage, Sian divorced O’Toole, known for his hard-living ways. Since then, she has continued to delve into her stage work. In the 1980s, Sian began a new phase of her career — the musical. Her participation in such productions as “Pal Joey” (her musical debut), “Gigi” and “A Little Night Music” ultimately led to her acclaimed one-woman cabaret show “Marlene”, a tribute to legendary Marlene Dietrich, which opened to rave reviews in London in 1997. Two years later, she won a Tony Award nomination for this role on Broadway. She was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2000 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

TCM Overview:

This slender, willowy actress with hooded eyes and chiseled cheekbones has demonstrated her versatility in roles ranging from the bon vivant of Herbert Ross’ musical remake of “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (1969) to the bloodthirsty Livia in “I, Claudius” (BBC, 1976) to impersonating screen legend Marlene Dietrich on stage in the 1990s. Sian Phillips began her career as a child performer on the radio in her native Wales. She also did a stint as an announcer and newsreader in her early 20s before concentrating on an acting career. Almost from the outset of her stage work, she was landing major roles, whether it be playing Shaw’s “Saint Joan” in repertory or debuting in the West End as “Hedda Gabler”. Since the late 50s, Phillips has amassed an impressive resume, generally earning strong reviews for her performances.

In 1959, Phillips wed the tempestuous Irish actor Peter O’Toole and over the course of their 20-year union, the pair frequently collaborated. They starred as illicit lovers in the BBC production “Siwan” (1960) and acted alongside one another in four films, most notably “Becket” (1964), “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” and “Under Milk Wood” (1971). While her feature career lay dormant throughout the 70s, the small screen offered this marvelous character player several excellent roles. Phillips excelled as the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst in the acclaimed BBC drama “Shoulder to Shoulder” (1974) and won BAFTA Awards for her turns as the matriarch of a Welsh mining family in the series adaptation of “How Green Was My Valley” (BBC, 1975) and as a power-hungry Roman Empress in “I, Claudius”. As the 80s dawned, Phillips teamed with Alec Guinness for adaptations of John le Carre’s spy novels “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (PBS, 1980) and “Smiley’s People” (syndicated, 1982). Simultaneously, she revived her feature career offering nice turns often in material that was subpar (i.e., “Clash of the Titans” 1981). Occasionally, juicier roles, like Madame de Volanges in Milos Forman’s “Valmont” (1989) or Mrs. Archer in Martin Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence” (1993) reminded all of what this actress was capable.

In 1980, Phillips undertook her first stage musical role, that of Vera, in a London revival of “Pal Joey” and a new chapter in her career was born. In addition to appearing in classic roles like “Major Barbara” and “Ghosts”, she alternated parts in musicals like “Gigi” and “A Little Night Music”. Both aspects of her career dovetailed in “Marlene”, her superb impersonation of the Teutonic movie legend. The first half of the show was a behind-the-scenes look at preparations for one of the legendary concerts Dietrich gave late in her life, while the second act was a recreation of said concert. When the show opened in 1997 in London, it was a resounding success. A 1999 Broadway staging met a less receptive response, but Phillips justly received a Tony Award nomination for her performance.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed here.