Contemporary Actors
Edward MacLiam was born in Mallow, Co Cork in 1976. He trained at RADA in London and graduated in 2001. His film debut was in “Conspiracy of Silence” in 2003. Has featured in such drama series as “Wakingth Dead” and “Coronation Street”. Recently starred in “Holby City” and “Paula” and “Cucumber”. His agency page here.
William Baldwin was born in 1963 in New York. He is the younger brother of Alec Baldwin. His films include “Flatliners”, “Backdraft” and opposite Cindy Crawford in “Fair Game” in 1995. He also starred opposite Sharon Stone in “Sliver”.
TCM overview:
This strikingly handsome lead of the 1990s is notable for his bedroom eyes and lean physique. The third of the acting Baldwin brothers (including the older Alec and Daniel and younger Stephen), William Baldwin left law school and began modeling. He first gained attention as an actor for his performance as convicted killer Robert Chambers in the TV-movie “The Preppie Murder” (ABC, 1989). That same year, Baldwin made his feature film debut (virtually as an extra) as a member of Tom Cruise’s Marine platoon in Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July.”
Baldwin subsequently appeared as Richard Gere’s hapless partner and accomplice in “Internal Affairs” and as a death-defying, womanizing medical student in “Flatliners” (both 1990) before landing a leading role as a rookie fireman in Ron Howard’s “Backdraft” (1991). He worked with some of contemporary Hollywood’s most intriguing leading ladies in two very different 1993 features: as a male escort involved in a triangle with two estranged lesbian lovers (Kelly Lynch and Sherilyn Fenn) in the romantic comedy “Three of Hearts” and as a wealthy bachelor involved with Sharon Stone in the thriller “Sliver”.
A small-scale critical hit and a big-scale bomb marked 1995 for Baldwin. He starred in Joshua Brand’s well-received dark comedy “A Pyromaniac’s Love Story”, as one third of an unhealthy triangle with Sadie Frost and John Leguizamo. Later that year, he supported supermodel Cindy Crawford in her film debut, the ill-advised actioner “Fair Game”. Baldwin’s penchant for odd little projects was also displayed in “Curdled” (1996), where he played a sexy serial killer obsessed over by the heroine.
In 1995, Baldwin married singer-actress Chynna Phillips.
This TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Emily Watson was born in London in 1967. She was nominated for an Oscar for her breakthrough performance in “Breaking the Waves” in 1995. Her movies since then have included “The Boxer”, “Hilary and Jackie”, “Red Dragon”, “Gosford Park”, and “Oranges and Sunshine”.
TCM Overview:
Right from the beginning, when she made her feature debut in Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” (1996), actress Emily Watson found herself an international star. Watson came out of nowhere to charm the audiences at the Cannes Film Festival that year, resulting in a slew of awards and nominations, including a nod for Best Actress at the Academy Awards. She proved that her sudden acclaim was no fluke when two years later, she turned in another Oscar-nominated performance in “Hilary and Jackie” (1998). From there, Watson was in constant demand, though she took great strides to avoid the trappings of celebrity by taking roles in serious dramas like “Angela’s Ashes” (1999), quirky, offbeat films like “Trixie” (2000), or talky ensemble pieces like “Gosford Park” (2001). She did dabble in the occasional Hollywood film – most notably playing the blind target of a serial killer in “Red Dragon” (2002) and the love interest of Adam Sandler in “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002). But Watson remained grounded with challenging roles in films like “Synecdoche, New York” (2008), which indulged her creative impulses, rather than increased her profile or bank account.
Raised by her creatively involved parents – her father was an architect and her mother was a teacher – Watson was born on Jan. 14, 1967 in London, England. She was a precocious child who slogged through War and Peace before reaching puberty and studying Sanskrit and meditation alongside traditional subjects at the St. James Independent School for Girls. She moved on to study English literature at Bristol University, but left after two years when she discovered acting and began learning the craft at the London Drama Studio while living off of a career development loan from the bank. A year later, she was living hand-to-mouth while doing bit parts for the Royal Shakespeare Company, delving into such challenging roles as a spear-carrier, while also meeting her future husband, screenwriter Jack Waters. She did, however, appear in productions of “All’s Well That Ends Well,” “The Taming of the Shrew” (1992) and “The Children’s Hour” (1994). Meanwhile, she made one of her first appearances on television with a role in “Summer Day’s Dream” (BBC, 1994).
Though she was resigned to being a struggling actress, Watson suddenly emerged onto the international stage with an Oscar-nominated performance in Lars Von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” (1996). Bleak to the point of almost being depressing, “Breaking the Waves” cast her as Bess, a simple and deeply spiritual woman who engages in numerous affairs with other men at the behest of her paralyzed husband (Stellan Skarsgard), who was injured in a freak oil rig accident and believes that her sexual encounters will heal their broken relationship. Originally, Von Trier wanted Helena Bonham Carter to play Bess, but the actress bowed out before shooting began due to the explicit nudity required of her. The then-unknown Watson filled the void and earned rave reviews after the film’s debut at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. Over the course of its festival run and international release, Watson was named Best Actress by both the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics, while earning nods at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.
Building off of her sudden success, Watson began landing a wide variety of roles in both her native England and in America. After playing the headstrong Maggie Tulliver in the British television production of “The Mill on the Floss” (1997), she starred opposite a puffy Christian Bale in “Metroland” (1997), a comedic drama about an unconventional couple in 1970s-era London. Watson was next cast in “The Boxer” (1997), playing an Irish lass whose former lover (Daniel Day-Lewis) – an IRA member recently released from a 14-year prison term – returns home to pick up where he left off with her and his boxing career. The following year, she offered a showy tour-de-force as the eccentric cellist Jacqueline du Pre in the biopic “Hilary and Jackie” (1998), whose musical genius led her to international stardom, though not without damaging the relationship she had with her older, less-talented sister, Hilary (Rachel Griffiths). But the sisters try to reach reconciliation when Jackie reveals she has multiple sclerosis. Though the film itself failed to live up to the material, Watson scored another triumph, earning her second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
In just a few years, Watson had become one of the rare preeminent British actresses who had achieved international fame. She next starred in the sad, but ultimately hopeful adaptation of Frank McCourt’s best-selling memoir, “Angela’s Ashes” (1999), in which she delivered a strong performance as the hard-luck mother of an Irish brood living in squalor because of her alcoholic husband (Robert Carlyle). In the caper comedy “Trixie” (2000), she was a bumbling casino security guard who unwittingly stumbles upon a scam perpetrated by an assorted cast of corrupt characters. Watson followed by joining the talented ensemble cast for Robert Altman’s award-winning upstairs-downstairs comedy of manners, “Gosford Park” (2001), playing Elsie, a housemaid and sometimes lover to upstairs denizen, Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon). Continuing to appear in the unlikeliest of places, she starred opposite Adam Sandler in Paul Thomas Anderson’s well-received romantic comedy, “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002). Watson next co-starred in the Hannibal Lector thriller “Red Dragon” (2002), playing a blind woman who becomes the target of a serial killer nicknamed The Tooth Fairy (Ralph Fiennes).
After being seen in the science fiction actioner, “Equilibrium” (2002), Watson returned to the stage, where she was nominated for Best Actress by the Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards for her performance in “Uncle Vanya” (2002) at the Donmar Warehouse. In a rare small screen role, she starred in “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers” (HBO, 2004), playing actress Anne Howe, the first wife of the difficult, but brilliant actor Peter Sellers (Geoffrey Rush). Turning to animation, she voiced Victoria Everglot in “Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride” (2005), which she followed with a turn as an unhappy woman who indulges in an affair with another man (Rupert Everett), resulting in a tragic turn of events, in the compelling thriller “Separate Lies” (2005). In “The Proposition” (2006), she was the fragile wife of a captain (Ray Winstone) trying to tame the wild outback of 1880s Australia. She next played the sister of an eccentric young woman (Renée Zellweger) eschewing love and marriage in “Miss Potter” (2006).
Despite her auspicious beginnings, Watson settled down in smaller films that allowed her to continue working while maintaining a lower public profile. She co-starred in the German-Dutch co-production, “Crusade: A March Through Time” (2007), a time-traveling children’s fantasy that bounced between the 13th and 21st centuries. Continuing to appear in more children’s fare, she next co-starred in “The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep” (2007), a sparkling fantasy about a young boy (Alex Etel) who discovers and befriends a creature that grows into the Loch Ness Monster. She returned to adult drama with “Synecdoche, New York” (2008), a gloomy psychological drama from the quirky, twisted mind of writer-turned-first time director Charlie Kaufman, which starred Philip Seymour Hoffman as an ill and depressed theater director whose obsession with building a model of New York City reaches epic proportions. Watson next co-starred in “Fireflies of the Garden” (2009), a drama about love and commitment in the face of tragedy, which she followed with the unusual “Cold Souls” (2009), an existential comedy about a famous American actor (Paul Giamatti, playing himself) who deals with burdens of his every day life.
The following year, Watson played Ralph Fiennes’ wife for a small part in the Ricky Gervais-Stephen Merchant comedy-drama “Cemetery Junction” (2010) before starring in the docudrama “Oranges and Sunshine” (2010). Watson’s performance as Margaret Humphreys, a social worker who exposed Britain’s scandalous deportation of poor children to Australia decades earlier, once again earned her critical accolades, including a Satellite Award for Best Actress. She next appeared on television as Janet Leach, the titular “Appropriate Adult” (ITV, 2011) in the two-part U.K. miniseries about one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers, Fred West (Dominic West) and the woman (Watson) assigned to make sure he understood questions put to him during police interrogation. She ended the year with a supporting turn in director Steven Spielberg’s epic drama “War Horse” (2011) as the mother of a young man (Jeremy Irvine) whose remarkable bond with his horse is interrupted after the steed is sold to the cavalry during World War I.
Lee Ingleby was born in Burnley in 1976. He played Stan Shunpike in “Harry Potter and the Prisioner of Azkaban”. He is well known for his portrayal of Detective John Bachus in the BBC series “George Gently”.
Bryan Murray was born in Dublin in 1949. He began his acting career in the famed Abbey Theatre. He has had an extensive television career in Britain and Ireland including leading roles in “Strumpet City” in 1980, “The Irish R.M.” as Flurry Knox opposite Peter Bowles, “Brookside”, “Bread” and “Fair City”. His films include “Mrs Santa Claus” with Angela Lansbury.
Wikipedia entry:
Bryan Murray (born 13 July 1949) is an Irish actor. He plays Bob Charles in the soap opera Fair City.
Murray was born in Dublin, Ireland. As a stage actor, he began his career in Dublin at the Abbey Theatre where, as a member of The Abbey Company, he appeared in over 50 productions. In London, he has been a member of The Royal National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company and has been in many productions in the West End. He has appeared many times at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, most recently in 2013 in My Cousin Rachel adapted for the stage by Joseph O’Connor. In the 2010 Dublin Fringe Festival, he appeared in the award winning production of Medea at The Samuel Beckett theatre.
He is widely known for his extensive television work which includes Fitz in Strumpet City, Flurry Knox in The Irish RM, Shifty in Bread (for which he won BBC TV Personality of the Year), Harry Cassidy in Perfect Scoundrels, Trevor Jordache in Brookside and Bob Charles in Fair City. He appeared on the second season of Charity You’re a Star where he sang duets with his Fair City co-star Una Crawford O’Brien. The duo were voted off the show after performing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart“.[1] He played the role of Lynch in the film, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1977).
Recently he presented the highly acclaimed and IFTA nominated documentary for TV3 The Tenements, a four-part series charting the rise and fall of the Tenements in Dublin from the 1800s to the mid-1970s. He fronted the BBC1 children’s religious affairs programmes Knock Knock and Umbrella for three years.
On RTÉ, he had his own prime time TV talk shows Encore and Caught in the Act and presented Saturday Night Live. His nine-part radio series The Sound of Movies was aired on RTÉ Radio 1 in 2008. Most recently he has been a semi regular presenter of Late Date on RTÉ Radio 1. In the US, he presented the ‘Irish Spring’ commercial on network TV for six years, the award winning ‘Pioneer Press’ commercials for three years and hosted the St Patrick’s Day Parade for PBS Television. His latest series ‘The Big House’ will be shown on TV3 in the spring of 2013.
He co-created and co-devised the ITV series Perfect Scoundrels which ran for three years. He has co-written two musicals performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and Irish Theatre Company Dublin; A Happy Go Likeable Man, after Molière, and Thieves Carnival, after Anouilth. Most recently Murray took part in the ‘One City One Book’ celebrationBread and Roses; Strumpet City Revisited reading extracts from the book with the RIAAM orchestra playing the theme music from the TV series conducted by the composer Proinnsias O’Duinn at Dublin Castle.
Although Murray’s fame increased in the eighties thanks to his role as Flurry Knox in The Irish R.M. and Shifty Boswell in the popular sitcom Bread, his role in Brookside is easily the best remembered, even though he was only in the show for eleven episodes in 1993. His character, the wife beater and child abuser Trevor Jordache, was famously stabbed and killed by his wife, Mandy (Sandra Maitland) and daughter Beth (Anna Friel). They later buried his body under the patio, where it was discovered in 1995.
He plays Bob Charles, once owner of McCoys pub but now the owner of The Hungry Pig restaurant, in the RTÉ soap opera Fair City.
Recently he took part in the ‘One City-One Book’ celebration Bread and Roses; Strumpet City Revisited in which he read extracts from the book with the RIAM orchestra playing the theme music from the TV series conducted by the composer Proinnsias O’Duinn at Dublin Castle.
The above Wikipedia entry can also be accessed online here.
Anne Reid was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1935. She achived national fame in the UK for her performance as Val wife to Ken Barlow in “CoronationStreet” who was electrocuted by her hairdryer. Her film debut was in 1958 in “Passport to Shame”. She has had a steady career as a character actress but in the past ten years she has become very prolific in major roles both on television and in film e.g the film “The Mother” with Daniel Craig in 2003.
“MailOnline” article:
Anne Reid was the envy of older women everywhere when she played Daniel Craig’s lover in The Mother. She also starred in Coronation Street, and more recently as Mrs Thackeray the cook in Upstairs Downstairs. Now 75 and an MBE, she has one son and lives in central London.
I was born in Newcastle in May 1935, but my family moved to Redcar when the war started and this is me, aged eight, at White House School.
My nursery school was called John Emmerson Batty – wonderful name, wasn’t it? Then came White House primary, where my lasting memory was performing, as Juliet, the last act of Romeo And Juliet with a girl called June Laverick, who went on to become a well-known actress.
All my family were journalists – and indeed, so was my late husband, Peter Eckersley. My grandfather wrote a column in the Bolton Echo; my uncle was on the Manchester Evening News. My father, Colin, was a special correspondent in the Middle East for the Daily Telegraph and my three brothers followed the tradition.
When I was 11 my life changed completely. My mother flew out to join my father abroad and I was sent away to boarding school – to Penrhos College in North Wales.
I don’t remember being unduly worried at all. I must have been quite a strong character, but it must have been horrendously hard for my mother to leave me behind.
She left before term began so couldn’t even accompany me to school. My tin trunk and I were put on a train by one of my brothers and off I chugged towards the unknown.
Happily I adored Penrhos, and the odd thing was that we had a brother-school nearby called Rydal, where William Roache went – something I found out only when I joined the cast of Coronation Street.
I was so happy at school and I made it my home as I no longer had a family home in England. I saw my parents only once a year during the summer.
I either flew to the Middle East or spent time with them in London. When that happened they lived at the Imperial Hotel, Russell Square.
Strangely enough, the flat I live in now is not far from the hotel. I was very average at school. I passed my exams, but I don’t think I shone. The school offered elocution lessons with a Miss Monica Beardsworth, and my father had me enrolled to iron out my North East accent. That’s how I discovered acting.
I never got into the school plays, but the elocution lessons opened another door because, as part of the training, I started doing bits of plays with my teacher.
I remember when I was about 12, learning the lines of a play and thinking, ‘I know how to make this interesting. I know how to act. I can do this better than other people.’ You do know when an inner talent gives you that ease. It’s not a remarkable thing – just a knack that has given me a very nice life.
In the end Miss Beardsworth wrote to my parents saying, ‘I think Anne is talented and she should take up acting. I’d like to get the forms and send her to RADA.’
My grandmother had been on the stage in variety choruses, so my father agreed with the idea at once. And that’s how it all happened. Not everyone at the school agreed with the diagnosis.
My French teacher, Miss Clark, was astonished when I told her, aged 12, that I was going to be an actress.
She said, ‘Oh no. You’ll never make an actress. You’re not the type.’ I don’t think she was being intentionally unkind, but these things stick in your mind, don’t they? She obviously thought I wasn’t flamboyant enough.
People, at that time, imagined that an actress should be vivid and flamboyant, but I don’t believe acting is about that. It’s about being a blank canvas and being able to play lots of different characters.
I always wanted that diversity, and the great thing is that, since I did The Mother, my life has changed dramatically. I’ve had such variety, from Ladies Of Letters to playing Barbara Cartland in the story of her life.
It was a wrench to leave Penrhos at 16. I loved it so much. I was in the school choir and we always had choir picnics in the mountains of Snowdonia.
For a long time after I left, I used to dream I was back at school. I was very content there and it was traumatic to be thrust out into the world. Though I had travelled a lot, I was still very naive – a schoolgirl in high heels and earrings.
I did enjoy RADA, but I wish I’d been more worldly-wise. I didn’t make the most of it and I didn’t even know what an agent was. I didn’t know anything about the business and hadn’t even been to the theatre much. It took me a long time to grow up.
I don’t know if I have quite managed it, even now. I always played the character parts at drama school – the sort of roles I play now, but of course that doesn’t really equip you to find jobs when you come out. I didn’t know how to play a juvenile lead.
I was a stage manager for a long time and worked in repertory theatre, but gradually things began to happen. My first TV job was doing sketches with Benny Hill.
My parents came back to England in 1960, just before I went into Coronation Street playing Valerie Tatlock.
My father enjoyed that enormously – he loved the fact that I was famous. It was only after he died that I left the Street. Then I married, became pregnant and gave up acting for about 12 years, and started again in 1986. Since then everything has turned out wonderfully well.
Yvonne Swann Marchlands starts on Thursday, ITV1 at 9pm.
The above “Mail Online” article can be accessed online here.
Fionnaula Flanagan was born in Dublin in 1941. She made her film debut in 1967 in the Irish made “Ulysses”. The same year she was on Broadway in Brian Friel’s “Lovers”. She concentrated her career in the U.S. and settled in Hollywood. Throughout the 1970’s and 80’s she was featured in many of the major television series such as “Bonanza”, “Mannix”, “Shaft”, “The Streets of San Francisco”, “Kojack” and “Marcus Welby M.D. She won particular acclaim for her performance in the mini-series “Ricxh Man, Rich Man Poor Man”. From the 1990’s onwards she has become a wonderful presence on film are “Some Mother’s Son”, “Waking Ned”, “The Others”, “Transamerica” and “The Guard”.
TCM Overview:
Before moving to the USA from her native Ireland, the intense, attractive Fionnula Flanagan made her feature debut as Gerty McDowell in Joseph Strick’s fascinating but uneven filming of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” (1967). On Broadway, she won critical acclaim and a Tony nomination as Molly Bloom in “Ulysses in Nighttown” (1974), co-starring Zero Mostel and staged by Burgess Meredith. Flanagan has also toured in her one-person show, “James Joyce’s Women,” in which she played among others, Nora Barnacle Joyce, Sylvia Beach, Harriet Shaw Weaver, and Molly Bloom. The play was adapted as a feature film in 1984, produced by Flanagan and her husband, Garrett O’Connor.
Her career, though, has not been limited to appearing in works by her countryman, but has also encompassed stage, screen and television. In 1968, the petite, auburn-haired Flanagan moved to America and landed her first stage role in “Lovers.” She segued to the small screen where she has had the most success to date. Flanagan has appeared in numerous TV longforms, beginning with the 1973 ABC remake of “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” She was the Irish maid of the famed, but acquitted suspected murderess in “The Legend of Lizzie Borden” (ABC, 1975), won an Emmy for a supporting role in the ratings winner “Rich Man, Poor Man” (ABC, 1976), and was the wife to writer William Allen White, mourning their teenaged daughter’s death “Mary White” (ABC, 1977). That same year, she created the role of Molly, a widow finding her way on the frontier in “How the West Was Won,” a role she reprised in the series spin-off. Flanagan was mother to Valerie Bertinelli in “Young Love, First Love” (CBS, 1979) and starred in George Lucas’ TV-movie, “The Ewok Adventure” (ABC, 1984). She played mother again, this time to one-armed baseball player Pete Gray (Keith Carradine) in “A Winner Never Quits” (ABC, 1986). Other notable roles include the tough-talking lieutenant in the short-lived drama series “Hard Copy” (CBS, 1987), was a smooth-talking madam in “Final Verdict” (TNT, 1991), and portrayed a widow seeking answers about her husband’s death in a rafting accident in “White Mile” (HBO, 1994).
While her feature film work has been sporadic, Flanagan did receive particular notice as a nun in the Oscar-winning short “In the Region of Ice” (1976). Her other credits have ranged from John Huston’s “Sinful Davey” (1969), as the daughter of the Duke of Argyll, to several maternal roles. Among the latter are as Molly Ringwald’s mom in “P.K. and the Kid” (lensed 1982, released in 1987), as Mary Stuart Masterson’s overbearing parent in “Mad at the Moon” (1992) and as John Cusack’s mother in “Money For Nothing” (1993). She had one of her best screen roles in another motherly part, as a gruff Irish Catholic whose son is imprisoned for terrorist activities in Northern Ireland in “Some Mother’s Son” (1996). After returning to series TV as the matriarch of an Irish-American family on the CBS drama series “To Have and To Hold” (1998), Flanaghan garnered additional praise as the morally grounded wife of a scheming villager (Ian Bannen) in the genial comedy “Waking Ned Devine” (1998). She offered perhaps one of her best turns as the slightly creepy housekeeper in “The Others” (2001). She added memorable humor to the role of Teensy Melissa Whitman in the independent feature “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” (2002), a light-hearted film about a group of women who set out to mend a broken relationship between their “Ya-Ya Sister” and her daughter.
The following year, Flanagan displayed her serious side by taking on the role of Nurse Grace in Antione Fuqua’s “Tears of the Sun” (2003). An epic tale dedicated to, as director Fuqua stated, “all the men and women you protect us and go into places and do great things about which too little is said.” She then played the adoptive mother of four boys (two black, two white) seeking revenge for her murder after a grocery store robbery in “Four Brothers” (2005). Directed by John Singleton and starring Mark Wahlberg, Andre 3000, Tyrese Gibson and Garrett Hedlund as the avenging sons, “Four Brothers” was a straight-forward and often violent revenge thriller that either pleased or disappointed critics for its simplistic narrative. She then had a terrific supporting turn as the domineering, disapproving mother of a preoperative transexual (Felicity Huffman) who seeks shelter with her estranged family while traveling cross-country with the newly discovered son she fathered in her early life as a man in “Transamerica” (2005).
The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.
Michael Crawford was born in 1942 in Salisbury, England. He is fondly remembered for his role of Frank Spencer in “Some Mothers Do Have Them” which began its run on British television in 1973. Already Crawford had been on film, “”The War Lover” in 1963 with Steve McQueen and Shirley Anne Field and in Hollywood, “Hello Dolly” with Barbra Streisand in 1969. He played the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” to enormous acclaim.
TCM Overview:
An enormously gifted singer-actor, Michael Crawford became a child star of radio, stage and screen thanks to his soprano voice and innate acting talent. Maturing into a gifted adult performer, he charmed in such films as “The Knack and How to Get It” (1965), “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1966) and “Hello, Dolly!” (1969). Crawford became a sitcom star and household name as the accident-prone Frank Spencer on “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em” (BBC1, 1973-78), but found even more success as a musical theater actor, winning an Olivier Award in “Barnum” and becoming a worldwide icon as the titular star of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera.” An unprecedented global phenomenon, “Phantom” defined an era, earning Crawford another Olivier Award, a Tony and the status of Officer of the British Empire. Buoyed by all the adulation, Crawford launched a Grammy-nominated solo recording career, headlined the Las Vegas musical spectacular “EFX,” and filmed his own Emmy-nominated special, “Michael Crawford in Concert” (PBS, 1998). A born performer who only became more likable and charismatic with age, Michael Crawford continued to build upon his status as a beloved international icon and as one of the most respected English entertainers of all time.
Born Jan. 19, 1942 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, Michael Patrick Dumbell-Smith experienced a childhood of extreme highs and lows against the backdrop of wartime England. After his mother died young, he left his abusive stepfather and dedicated himself to the theater, going from performing in school plays to professional productions, due in part to his beautiful soprano singing voice. Adopting the stage name of Michael Crawford, he built an impressive career as a child star on the stage, television and radio before essaying his first teenage lead in the comedy “Two Left Feet” (1963), as an awkward young man who attempts to seduce a waitress. After an impressive stint on the satiric sketch show “Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life” (BBC1, 1964-65), he followed with a series of charming performances as clumsy, callow young men learning about love in the Richard Lester comedies “The Knack and How to Get It” (1965) and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1966), winning the Variety Club of Great Britain’s award for Most Promising Newcomer.
As the high-spirited Cornelius Hackl, he took lessons in love from matchmaker Dolly Levi (Barbra Streisand) in the Oscar-winning musical “Hello, Dolly!” (1969) and reteamed with director Richard Lester to star as an inept British Army officer who inadvertently kills off all of his men, including John Lennon, in “How I Won the War” (1967). That same year, he made his Broadway debut in “Black Comedy” opposite Lynn Redgrave and Geraldine Page and he went on to make a name for himself on the London stage as well in the sex farce “No Sex Please, We’re British” (1971) and the short-lived musicals “Billy” and “Flowers for Algernon.” After playing the White Rabbit in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (1972), the actor achieved U.K. pop culture immortality as the hilariously unlucky, lovable loser Frank Spencer on “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em” (BBC1, 1973-78), which proved not just a popular series, but an enduring U.K. cultural institution. For his wonderful work on the series, Crawford earned two BAFTA TV Award nominations, as well as the respect of cast and crew for doing his own stunts and pratfalls on the physical comedy-heavy series.
Back onstage, Crawford’s exuberant, Olivier Award-winning performance in the boisterous Cy Coleman musical “Barnum” helped him shed the trappings of his sitcom superstardom, transforming the actor into a popular musical theater star. Working tirelessly to train himself in circus arts like tightrope walking and juggling, Crawford so completely embodied the famed showman P.T. Barnum that he became synonymous with the show’s monstrous success and was even tapped by British ice dancing legends Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean to help them perfect a routine to music from the show. Still very much associated with his charming sitcom character, however, Crawford completed the transition to serious actor and saw his star flash supernova with his sensitive, captivating portrayal of the tormented, masked antihero of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “The Phantom of the Opera.” Although he was not Webber’s first choice for the role, Crawford’s opera-trained voice won the producer over when he and star Sarah Brightman overheard the actor in a music lesson, and it soon became obvious that this part of a lifetime was destined for Crawford.
Now a household name, the enormously influential “Phantom” proved to be a smash in both the West End and on Broadway, with its soundtrack becoming a worldwide sensation and “Phantom Mania” sweeping the media. Fans fell deeply in love with the swooningly romantic story of the titular disfigured musical genius (Crawford) who went to murderous lengths to win the heart of the angelic Christine (Brightman), and the lush, dramatic production captured the imagination of millions. Gifted with dreamy numbers that showcased his soaring voice, Crawford was the heart of Phantom mania for millions, becoming a global sex symbol and icon. For giving unforgettable life to the “Phantom,” Crawford won a slew of awards from both sides of the pond, including an Olivier, a Tony, a New York Drama Desk Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the Variety Club of Great Britain’s Personality of the Year. So popular and acclaimed was Crawford’s performance that Queen Elizabeth II named him an Officer of the British Empire, and he launched a successful solo recording career, including 1991’s multiplatinum Michael Crawford Performs Andrew Lloyd Webber and 1993’s A Touch of Music in the Night, which included a Grammy-nominated duet with Barbra Streisand.
He went on to star in the enormously ambitious, special effects-laden musical spectacular “EFX” in Las Vegas, which cast Crawford in five starring roles: the EFX Master, Merlin the wizard, famed showman P.T. Barnum, magician Harry Houdini and science fiction author H.G. Wells. The show proved so demanding, however, that Crawford, who still insisted on doing his own stunts, had to leave early in the run due to injuries sustained while performing. When he left the intense “EFX,” the actor went on to star in his own Emmy-nominated special, “Michael Crawford in Concert” (PBS, 1998) and to pen his autobiography, 1999’s Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied with String. Continuing his lucrative recording and touring careers, Crawford scored further stage success in the musicals “Dance of the Vampires” and Webber’s “The Woman in White,” earning an Olivier Award nomination for his work. Crawford and Webber reteamed yet again for another hit when the actor played the titular role in Webber’s 2011-12 production of “The Wizard of Oz.”
By Jonathan Riggs
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Fritz Weaver, an actor who transmitted an air of patrician assurance in roles that took him from a regular presence in Golden Age television dramas to Broadway stardom, prominent characters in films including Fail-Safe in 1964, and an Emmy nomination for NBC’s acclaimed 1978 drama series Holocaust, died Saturday at home in Manhattan. He was 90.
In that mini-series, Weaver played Dr. Josef Weiss, a Jewish doctor sent first to the Warsaw ghetto and then to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, where he was murdered by the Nazis.
“Somebody sent us some photographs of Fritz and I the other day,” Rosemary Harris, who played his wife in the series that also starred Meryl Streep, Sam Wanamaker, Michael Moriarty and George Rose, told Deadline in a recent interview. “Oh, it all came flapping back. There’s a picture of me saying goodbye to him when he was getting on the train, and oh, it’s still painful. It filmed in Vienna and also in Berlin. And we spent a day at Mauthausen [the concentration camp in northern Austria]. George Rose and Meryl and I and Fritz, we’d all huddle together when we came back from filming and meet in the bar and just sort of sit there.”
Regarded for his ability to convey contained passion and commitment, Weaver in fact got his start in a comedy, earning a Tony Award nomination as an English butler in Enid Bagnold’s 1955 Broadway comedy of manners The Chalk Garden. From then on, he was a regular presence on Broadway and off, winning a Tony Award in 1970 for his leading performance in Child’s Play, a drama by Robert Marasco set in a Catholic boys’ school. An actor of range and subtlety, Weaver worked as comfortably in Shakespearean dramas, including the title roles in King Lear and Hamlet, as in the dramas of Arthur Miller and, later, Lanford Wilson, among others. Most recently, he had devoted himself to the development of a new play, Unexplored Interior, by the actor Jay O. Sanders (True Detective), an epic drama about the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
“Fritz was an extraordinary man and actor of great passion, elegance, broad literary reach, and impeccable craft,” Sanders told Deadline Sunday night. “Over the ten years of developing my play, in which he played Mark Twain, he would regularly call me out of the blue to check in on my progress. ‘It’s important!’ he would say…which kept me going.”
In addition to Fail-Safe, in which he played an Air Force colonel unhinged by an impending nuclear crisis, Weaver was known for Marathon Man (1976), Day Of The Dolphin (1973), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) and roles on countless prime-time television series, going back to such seminal programs as Omnibus, Playhouse 90 and The Twilight Zone.
But it was to the stage that he always returned. On Broadway, he played Sherlock Holmes in the 1965 musical Baker Street; Walter Franz in a 1979 revival of Miller’s The Price, and Deputy Governor Danforth in a 1991 revival of Miller’s The Crucible that was presented by the National Actors Theatre, the late Tony Randall’s earnest attempt to develop a theater ensemble comparable to England’s Royal Shakespeare Company. Weaver had prominent roles in two works by the late Lanford Wilson (Hot L Baltimore, Fifth Of July) — A Tale Told and, on Broadway, Angels Fall. Weaver’s last appearance on Broadway was in a 1999 revival of Jean Anouilh’s Ring Round The Moon.
Weaver is survived by his wife, the actress Rochelle Oliver; his daughter, Lydia Weaver; his son, Anthony; and a grandson.
Actress Maryann Plunkett, cast with Weaver in Randall’s revival of The Crucible, told Deadline Sunday night, “Fritz Weaver was an elegant, generous, supremely talented actor I was privileged to share the stage with and learn from. He was a dear friend who loved his family with passion. A good, good man.”
Weaver obituary.
Fritz Weaver, an actor who transmitted an air of patrician assurance in roles that took him from a regular presence in Golden Age television dramas to Broadway stardom, prominent characters in films including Fail-Safe in 1964, and an Emmy nomination for NBC’s acclaimed 1978 drama series Holocaust, died Saturday at home in Manhattan. He was 90.
In that mini-series, Weaver played Dr. Josef Weiss, a Jewish doctor sent first to the Warsaw ghetto and then to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, where he was murdered by the Nazis.
“Somebody sent us some photographs of Fritz and I the other day,” Rosemary Harris, who played his wife in the series that also starred Meryl Streep, Sam Wanamaker, Michael Moriarty and George Rose, told Deadline in a recent interview. “Oh, it all came flapping back. There’s a picture of me saying goodbye to him when he was getting on the train, and oh, it’s still painful. It filmed in Vienna and also in Berlin. And we spent a day at Mauthausen [the concentration camp in northern Austria]. George Rose and Meryl and I and Fritz, we’d all huddle together when we came back from filming and meet in the bar and just sort of sit there.”
Sutton Foster To Join Hugh Jackman in Broadway’s ‘The Music Man’
Regarded for his ability to convey contained passion and commitment, Weaver in fact got his start in a comedy, earning a Tony Award nomination as an English butler in Enid Bagnold’s 1955 Broadway comedy of manners The Chalk Garden. From then on, he was a regular presence on Broadway and off, winning a Tony Award in 1970 for his leading performance in Child’s Play, a drama by Robert Marasco set in a Catholic boys’ school. An actor of range and subtlety, Weaver worked as comfortably in Shakespearean dramas, including the title roles in King Lear and Hamlet, as in the dramas of Arthur Miller and, later, Lanford Wilson, among others. Most recently, he had devoted himself to the development of a new play, Unexplored Interior, by the actor Jay O. Sanders (True Detective), an epic drama about the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
“Fritz was an extraordinary man and actor of great passion, elegance, broad literary reach, and impeccable craft,” Sanders told Deadline Sunday night. “Over the ten years of developing my play, in which he played Mark Twain, he would regularly call me out of the blue to check in on my progress. ‘It’s important!’ he would say…which kept me going.”
In addition to Fail-Safe, in which he played an Air Force colonel unhinged by an impending nuclear crisis, Weaver was known for Marathon Man (1976), Day Of The Dolphin (1973), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) and roles on countless prime-time television series, going back to such seminal programs as Omnibus, Playhouse 90 and The Twilight Zone.
But it was to the stage that he always returned. On Broadway, he played Sherlock Holmes in the 1965 musical Baker Street; Walter Franz in a 1979 revival of Miller’s The Price, and Deputy Governor Danforth in a 1991 revival of Miller’s The Crucible that was presented by the National Actors Theatre, the late Tony Randall’s earnest attempt to develop a theater ensemble comparable to England’s Royal Shakespeare Company. Weaver had prominent roles in two works by the late Lanford Wilson (Hot L Baltimore, Fifth Of July) — A Tale Told and, on Broadway, Angels Fall. Weaver’s last appearance on Broadway was in a 1999 revival of Jean Anouilh’s Ring Round The Moon.
Weaver is survived by his wife, the actress Rochelle Oliver; his daughter, Lydia Weaver; his son, Anthony; and a grandson.
Actress Maryann Plunkett, cast with Weaver in Randall’s revival of The Crucible, told Deadline Sunday night, “Fritz Weaver was an elegant, generous, supremely talented actor I was privileged to share the stage with and learn from. He was a dear friend who loved his family with passion. A good, good man.”
Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.