British Actors Archives - Page 80 of 130

Sam Wanamaker

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.

Mike Sarne was born in Paddington in 1940 in London. He started his career as a pop singer and he had a popular hit with the song “Come Outside” with Wendy Richard in 1962. He moved into acting and starred opposite Rita Tushingham in “A Place to Go”. In 1968 he directed the film “Joanna” and went to Hollywood to direct “Myra Breckinridge” staring Mae West & Raquel Welch. The film was not a success and he returned to Britain and began acting occasionally.

IMDB entry:

Michael Sarne was born on August 6, 1939 in London, England as Michael Scheuer. He is an actor and director, known for Eastern Promises (2007), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and Les Misérables (2012). He was previously married to Tanya Sarne.

Achieved brief success as a pop singer in 1961 whilst still a student at university.

Fluent speaker of several Eastern European languages – hence, is often cast as Russians or Germans in TV episodes.

Spent some years as a director of commercials.

Was an occasional film critic in the 1960s, mostly for the magazine “Films And Filming”. He returned to reviewing after the disastrous reception of his film, Myra Breckinridge(1970).

Took his professional name from his mother’s maiden name, De Sarne

His first hit record “Come Outside” featured an uncredited Wendy Richard

[on Myra Breckinridge (1970)] Myra Breckinridge, in fact, is the last dying gasp of the 1960s before the cynical seventies closed in, and people said ‘Don’t be so romantic. Don’t be so crazy. And all the shutters came down as people said ‘Stop being so silly! Behave yourselves! We’re not like that anymore!’ And that’s how the world changed…

Sinead Keenan was born in Dublin in 1977. She is best know for her role as Nina on TV in “Being Human”. She starred first on the Irish television series “Fair City”. Film roles include “On the Nose” in 2001 and “Conspiracy of Silence”.

Max Irons was born 1985. He is the son of Sinead Cusack and Jeremy Irons and the grandson of Cyril Cusack. His films include “Red Riding Hood” in 2011 and the upcoming “Vivaldi”.

Interview with “Independent.ie”:

STEPHEN MILTON – UPDATED 17 JUNE 2013 02:43 PMHowever, the decision to either go with his commanding family name and forever risk association with his Oscar-winning father or adopt a new moniker and start anew posed a dilemma for the fledgling star.”I toyed around with adopting my middle name as my surname,” he says. “It’s Diarmuid, so, I don’t know… it was a thought.”But when I’d introduce myself as ‘Diarmuid’, people would hear ‘Dermot’. I’d correct them and say ‘Diarmuid’, and straight away ‘Dermot’ would come back to me. There was always going to be a problem there.”Irons glances out of the window. The familial connection is a topic he’s finding difficult to escape. I’m not ashamed of it,” he says. “I wouldn’t be the first actor who has famous actor parents. I just want to concentrate on my own work, and hopefully ‘the Jeremy Irons‘ son’ business will become less and less.”That remains to be seen. With a towering 6ft 2in stature and yawning, hollowed cheekbones, he’s unmistakably his father’s son. It’s uncanny.

But there’s a warmth and a brightness in young Irons, inherited from his mother, renowned actress Sinead Cusack. “I’m much more like her,” he says. “From far off you can see my dad, but when you see my face, it’s far more Cusack.”

Prior to today’s meeting, a stern warning was issued from his publicist: only one solitary question about family is permitted.

Sitting opposite the spawn of an Oscar-winner who’s best known for ‘The Mission’, ‘The Lion King‘ and ‘Reversal of Fortune’, and heir to the Cusack dynasty, this poses a problem. It’s a captivating legacy that betrays a flourishing future.

I immediately apologise for running over my allotted quota, but the incredibly likeable star courteously says: “I’ll talk about my family all day long, particularly the Cusacks, and Cyril. I don’t get as much about them.

“It’s when I hear, ‘What’s it like to have Jeremy Irons as your father?’ – what do you say to that? I don’t know, what’s it like having your father as your father?”

Parked in his agent’s office just off London’s Regent Street, all high gloss and mahogany furnishing, the conversation flows with ease while the rain lashes against the window pane on a miserable afternoon.

Having just nipped out for a quick cigarette, the 27-year-old is in chipper mood, periodically smacking his right knee and clapping his hands at the climax of a joke.

He’s as pleasantly responsive as when I interviewed him more than two years ago for fabled flop ‘Red Riding Hood’. Back then, he fielded relentless questions about his clan with an elegant grace, and does the same today while chatting about his challenging role as King Edward IV in the Beeb’s lavish adaptation of ‘The White Queen’, based on Philippa Gregory‘s best-selling novel series ‘The Cousins’ War’.

Set against the backdrop of the War of the Roses, it’s the story of the ongoing conflict for the throne of England between the House of York and the House of Lancaster and focuses on three women in their quest for power: Elizabeth Woodville (Rebecca Ferguson) Margaret Beaufort (Amanda Hale) and Anne Neville (Faye Marsay).

And after largely ‘guy candy’ work in teen fare ‘Red Riding Hood’ and recentSaoirse Ronan sci-fi misfire ‘The Host’, the sumptuous saga offers Irons the opportunity to employ a powerful presence as Edward IV. A deeply complex historical figure, he was a ruler who exercised a balance between nobility and treachery to maintain the crown.

“I fell in love with him,” Max explains. “Opinions are split as to what kind of person he was, whether he was reckless, foolish and irresponsible, while others say he was politically very savvy and militarily, very successful. He was a moderniser and a modern thinker.”

Did this complexity prove an attraction? “That’s what we wanted for the first episode, to quite not nail his initial intentions. To marry Elizabeth, a virtual commoner, was such an unusual thing for him to do, but he was besotted,” he says.

“In those days, love had nothing to do with it; it was simply about alliances. And I guess Edward was a bit of a swine, but a sort of loveable one. He didn’t play by the rules. He did what he did very successfully until the day he died.”

The royal role points the former Burberry model, who recently ended his relationship with ‘Sucker Punch’ beauty Emily Browning, in a more mature direction.

“I got some feedback recently from an audition: ‘Very good, bit too old, not quite pretty enough,'” he grins. “Naturally I was offended, but then you think, maybe I’m getting to a place where I can sort of leave that teen place behind.”

Surely this was that one of the harshest critiques he’s received? “That was quite mild. A friend of mine didn’t get a job because he was told he was too hairy.”

Born and raised in north London, Irons attended the Dragon School in Oxford before winning a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, cultivating a distinctly Anglicised clutch of manners and personality.

He spent his summers at the family’s west Cork abode of Kilcoe Castle – briefly a shade of hot pink during the mid-1990s, “which was only an undercoat”, the actor protests.

These get-togethers with the Cusack clan farmed his Hibernian roots.

“I’m probably not as Irish as I would like to be. I can’t speak the language and God knows I can’t do the accent. I’ve always lived [in London], but my sensibilities are far more like my mother and her side of the family.”

Grandfather Cyril, who starred in ‘Harold and Maude’, ‘My Left Foot’ and ‘Strumpet City’, passed away after a lengthy battle with motor neurone disease when Max was only five. Does he treasure memories of the legendary performer?

“Cyril loved to laugh and had so many stories. And he was proud of all his family, especially watching his daughters following in his footsteps,” he says.

Pride might not necessarily be the word used to describe Max’s feelings for his father’s opinions of late, however.

A man of strong, impulsive words, Irons senior has blithely vented his views on several controversial subjects including same-sex marriage, branding it ‘incestuous’, and claiming he felt sorry for high-profile figures such as ‘Coronation Street‘ actor William Roache, accused of sexual abuse in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

“I don’t stand by everything he says, but it’s important that we have people who throw out ideas, if not for us to reject,” says Max. “My father says what he thinks, even if some of it is a little off kilter. But God knows it’s a lot more interesting than just saying what people want to hear constantly. That’s boring.”

His next film is ‘Posh’, a screen adaptation of Laura Wade’s play based on the clandestine movements of the Oxford Bullingdon Club – whose members once included British prime minister David Cameron, chancellor George Osborneand London mayor Boris Johnson – while the actor has several other projects in the offing.

Armed with a deadly combination of Celtic charm and Austen propriety, it’s surely a balance he calls upon in his quest to conquer the heights ofHollywood?

“That would be the ideal,” he chuckles, “being able to bounce between the two. But it’s just the accent really screws me over. I can’t walk into a meeting and say, [in Queen’s English] ‘Hello, I’m Max Irons and I’m Irish’ with this voice; that isn’t going to work.

“The English card gets you quite far over there [in LA]. You think the Irish get the royal treatment, but being British works a treat, too. Turn up the poshness, turn it down to Cockney – just do whatever you need to do to get that part.”

Clapping his hands together, he throws his head back and makes a laboured sigh.

“That’s going to end up as the headline of this piece, isn’t it? I’m really my own worst enemy at the best of times.”

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

Michael Goodliffe was a wonderful British character actor who made many contributions on film from the 1940’s for thirty years. He was born in 1914 in Cheshire. His film debut was in 1947 in “The Small Back Room”. His other movies include “Stop Press Girl”, “The Wooden Horse”, “Cry, the Beloved Country”, “Sea Devils”. “The Battle of the River Plate” and “Carve Her Name with Pride”. He died in 1976.

“Wikipedia” entry:

Lawrence Goodliffe (1 October 1914 – 20 March 1976) was an English actor best known for playing suave roles such as doctors, lawyers and army officers. He was also sometimes cast in working class parts.

Goodliffe was born in Bebington, Cheshire, the son of a vicar, and educated at St Edmund’s School, Canterbury, and Keble College, Oxford. He started his career in repertory theatre in Liverpool before on to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon. He joined the British Army at the beginning of World War II, and received a commission as a Second Lieutenant in theRoyal Warwickshire Regiment in February 1940. He was wounded in the leg and captured at the Battle of Dunkirk. Goodliffe was incorrectly listed as killed in action, and even had his obituary published in a newspaper.^[1] He was to spend the rest of the war a prisoner in Germany.

Whilst in captivity he produced and acted in (and in some cases wrote) many plays and sketches to entertain fellow prisoners. These included two productions of William Shakespeare‘s Hamlet, one in Tittmoning and the other in Eichstätt, in which he played the title role. He also produced the first staging of Noël Coward‘s Post Mortem at Eichstätt. A full photographic record^[2] of these productions exists.

After the war he resumed his professional acting career. As well as appearing in the theatre, he worked in film and television. He appeared in The Wooden Horse in 1950 and in other POW films. His best-known film was A Night to Remember (1958), in which he played Thomas Andrews, designer of the RMS Titanic. His best-known television series was Sam (1973–75) in which he played an unemployed Yorkshire miner. He also appeared with John Thaw and James Bolam in the 1967 television series Inheritance.

Suffering from depression, Goodliffe had a breakdown in 1976 during the period that he was rehearsing for a revival of Equus. He committed suicide a few days later by leaping from a hospital fire escape, while a patient at the Atkinson Morley Hospital inWimbledon, London.^[1]

The above “Wikipedia” entry can also be accessed online here.

One Sheet; Movie Poster; Film Poster; Cinema Poster;

by Pete Stampede (with David K. Smith and Alan Hayes)

Born 1 October 1914 in Bebington, Cheshire, England, Michael Goodliffe was a regular player in films from the 1950s to the 1970s. He appeared in over fifty during this period, notably Von Ryan’s Express (1965), The Thirty-Nine Steps (1959) and Michael Powell’s highly controversial Peeping Tom (1960). He also featured in To The Devil a Daughter (1976) with Honor Blackman, Sink the Bismark! (1960) with Ian Hendry, and Battle of the River Plate (1956) with Patrick Macnee.

In the Second World War, Goodliffe was captured at Dunkirk by the German Army in 1940 and transferred to a prisoner of war camp. Whilst captive, Goodliffe organised a number of theatrical productions, designed to keep his fellows’ spirits up. He was incarcerated in Germany for five years.

In 1958, Goodliffe played Thomas Andrews, the designer of the ill-fated passenger liner the S.S. Titanic, in the classic A Night To Remember. When the account of the Titanic’s sinking was adapted and performed live on Canadian TV a few years earlier, guess who played Andrews? Why, someone called Patrick Macnee!

Goodliffe’s television work included guest roles on many ITC/ATV film series, including Man in a Suitcase, Danger Man, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Jason King (with Peter Wyngarde). He was in one of ITC’s first productions, Heaven and Earth (1956), a filmed, feature-length tale of a deranged preacher running amok on a transatlantic flight. Clearly a precursor of the dreaded disaster genre, then, but it is notable as very probably the first British TV movie, and one of the first anywhere—and it certainly had distinguished theatrical connections, being directed by Peter Brook and starring Paul Scofield (years before their famous collaboration on King Lear), with Leo McKern, Lois Maxwell and Goodliffe supporting. The latter was also in the first episode of H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man, “Secret Experiment” (ATV/ITC, 1959), as a nasty rival scientist who makes off with the unseen hero’s notes for the invisibility formula, and then has to apparently fight with himself in a very silly scene. Apart from the films already mentioned, Goodlife was notable in Michael Powell’s enjoyably sick Peeping Tom (1959), as a character based on John Davis, the notoriously philistine and parsimonious chief executive of the Rank Organisation; judging by the published comments of Powell, Alec Guinness and others, Davis seemed reluctant to back any project that wasn’t a Norman Wisdom vehicle. Accordingly, Goodliffe’s studio boss here had lines like, “If you can see it and hear it, the first take’s OK,” and so no-one missed the point, was named Don Jarvis. Also, in Ken Hughes’ honourable The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), Goodliffe was one of the prosecuting counsels, his aggressive questioning leading to Peter Finch as Wilde delivering the famous “love that dare not speak its name” speech.

Goodliffe also appeared as a regular on the gritty and highly successful Thames series Callan, where he played Hunter from “Red Knight, White Knight” (1969), the first episode in its second season, also with John Savident, through to the charmingly titled “Let’s Kill Everybody” (also 1969). His performance in an episode of Man In A Suitcase, “All That Glitters” (1967), was highly impressive and believable as well as timeless, given that there will always be corruptible and hypocritical politicians like the one he played. The episode was, for the record, directed by Herbert Wise, later to helm I, Claudius; Goodliffe played an apparently principled, speechifying politician, seen as a potential party leader and married to wealthy Barbara Shelley (seen in “Dragonsfield” and “From Venus With Love“). He calls in McGill to help locate a kidnapped small boy, explaining confidentially that the boy is actually his lovechild; when McGill asks why he doesn’t simply pay the ransom, Goodliffe’s character replies that he hasn’t any money of his own, that he married Shelley for hers, and she mustn’t know about the son or his political career is finished. As I said, how amazingly unlike real-life politicians, then or now.

One of Goodliffe’s most significant later roles was in Sam (Granada, 1973-75), a period drama series about a young man growing up in the North of England, curiously played by the very Scottish Mark McManus, later a TV icon as the tough cop Taggart; Goodliffe reputedly did much scene-stealing as Sam’s grandad. However, his role in The Man With The Golden Gun (1975) was practically as an extra, and he went unbilled as the Chief of Staff; this is odd for an actor of his stature—perhaps he did have a larger role originally, and it ended up being cut.

Michael Goodliffe became a victim of severe depression and this lead to his suicide on 20 March 1976 at a hospital in Wimbledon, South West London

Steven Waddington. TCM Overview.

Steven Waddington was born in 1968 in Leeds. He made his movie debut in 1991 in Derek Jarman’s “Edward the 2nd”. The following year he garnered very positive reveiws for his performance as the doomed major in “The Last of the Mohicans”. His other movies include “Carrington”, “Prince of Jutland” and “Sleepy Hollow”. Interview with Steven Waddington on “Loose Women” here.

TCM Overview:

Born and raised a steelworker’s son in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, actor Steven Waddington enjoyed a long, if somewhat unsung career. After portraying the title lead in “Edward II” (1991), an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s play about Britain’s only acknowledged gay monarch – a conflict which eventually led to civil war – Waddington came to prominence with “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992). In Michael Mann’s historical adventure, Waddington played the persistent, but ultimately spurned suitor of the daughter (Madeline Stowe) of an English officer (Maurice Roeves) rescued in the woods by the adopted son of the Mohican, Chingachgook (Daniel Day-Lewis). He continued his period pieces trend with the dismal “1492: The Conquest of Paradise” (1992), before returning to a contemporary setting in “Don’t Get Me Started” (1993), playing the old friend of a former mob hit man (Trevor Eve) who is threatening to expose his criminal past on national television.

After an unceremonious role as a construction worker in the NBC movie, “Take Me Home Again” (1994), Waddington returned to the past with “Royal Deceit” (1994), Saxo Grammaticus’ 12th century chronicle about a young prince who sees his father and brother murdered by his uncle and feigns madness to exact revenge – the very story William Shakespeare based Hamlet on. In another period film, “Carrington” (1995), Waddington played a strapping young army officer who marries painter Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson), but attracts the attention of literary critic and author, Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce). He next played a British SAS officer sent with a team to destroy SCUD missiles inside Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in “The One That Got Away” (A&E, 1996), before portraying the onetime cellmate of a leftist political activist (Robert Carlyle) who plans the robbery of a major London security firm in “Face” (1997). Another unceremonious role – this time as a cowboy in a bank in “Breakdown” (1998) – was followed by a meatier role as a ruthless explorer trying to find the lost city of Opar in “Tarzan and the Lost City” (1998).

Following a bit part in Tim Burton’s creepy “Sleepy Hollow” (1999), Waddington appeared in “The Parole Officer” (2001), playing a former boxer-turned-fisherman and only one of three convicts ever rehabilitated by a klutzy parole officer (Steve Coogan). Waddington was little more than window dressing in “The Hole” (2003), a straight-to-video thriller about four private school students who investigate a mysterious hole leading to an abandoned World War II bomb shelter.

He next played King Prasutagus in “Warrior Queen” (PBS, 2003), leader of a Celtic tribe on the British Isles in the 1st century A.D. who dies and leaves his queen (Alex Kingston) to defend his people against the Roman emperor Nero (Andrew Lee Potts). Waddington next portrayed Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex and chief minister to King Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in “The Tudors” (2007- ), Showtime’s lavish 10-part series depicting the brutal monarch in younger, thinner times, before he split with the Catholic Church. The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Collection of Classic Brittish Actors

Sam Wanamaker

Shirley Abicair

Dominic West

Sian Philips

Mike Sarne

Sinead Keenan

Max Irons

Michael Goodliffe

Steven Waddington

Steven Waddington. TCM Overview.

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