Death
Howard died on 14 February 2015 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, of pneumonia. [11] His grave is on the east side of Highgate Cemetery, where Sally Beauman, who died a year later, is also buried.
Alan Howard | |
|---|---|
| Born | Alan MacKenzie Howard 5 August 1937 |
| Died | 14 February 2015 (aged 77) Hampstead, London, England |
| Burial place | Highgate Cemetery |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Spouse(s) | Stephanie Hinchliffe Davies (1965–1976; divorced) Sally Beauman (2004–2015; his death) |
| Parents |
|
| Website | www |
Alan MacKenzie Howard, CBE (5 August 1937 – 14 February 2015) was an English actor. He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1966 to 1983 and played leading roles at the Royal National Theatre between 1992 and 2000.
Howard was born in Croydon, Surrey, the only son of actor Arthur Howard and his wife Jean Compton (Mackenzie). His uncle was Leslie Howard, the film star, [1] while his aunt was the casting director Irene Howard. On his mother's side he was also a great-nephew of the actress Fay Compton [2] and the novelist Sir Compton Mackenzie. He was educated at the independent school Ardingly College in Ardingly, West Sussex.
Alan Howard made his first stage appearance at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, in April 1958, as a footman in Half In Earnest. He remained with the company until 1960, where his roles included Frankie Bryant in Arnold Wesker's Roots in June 1959. The production first transferred to the Royal Court Theatre and then the Duke of York's Theatre in July 1959, where he made his West End debut in the role.
Returning to the Belgrade he played Dave Simmonds in Wesker's I'm Talking About Jerusalem in April 1960. This was followed by Monty Blatt in Chicken Soup with Barley at the Royal Court during June and July 1960, completing the Wesker Trilogy with a revival of Roots and the transfer of I'm Talking About Jerusalem (as 1st Removal Man).
At the Pembroke Theatre in Croydon he played Kenny Baird in A Loss of Roses during January 1961, and the following month a return to the Royal Court as de Piraquo in Tony Richardson's production of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's Jacobean tragedy The Changeling , then little known. [3]
In 1962 he was cast as the Duke of Ferrara in John Fletcher's The Chances and Nearchus in John Ford's The Broken Heart, both at the Chichester Festival Theatre in its inaugural season. A year later in April 1963 he played Loveless in Virtue in Danger, a musical version of Vanbrugh's The Relapse , first at the Mermaid Theatre before transferring to the Strand Theatre in June 1963. He ended the year playing Fotheringham in Anthony Powell's Afternoon Men at the New Arts Theatre in August 1963.
Engaged by H.M. Tennent Productions, 1964 brought him an international tour of South America and Europe, [4] playing both Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice and Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream . Staged by Wendy Toye and starring Ralph Richardson, the productions were first seen at the Theatre Royal, Brighton. [5]
At the Phoenix Theatre in May 1965 he was "boldly playing" Simon Challoner in Julian Mitchell's fine stage adaptation of A Heritage and Its History ; [6] ending the year at the Nottingham Playhouse as Angelo in Measure for Measure and Bolingbroke in Richard II , co-starring with Judi Dench and Edward Woodward.
Howard first joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1966, cast as Orsino in Twelfth Night , Burgundy in Henry V and Lussurioso in The Revenger's Tragedy . Subsequent RSC roles, all at Stratford unless otherwise stated, included:
Howard then played Eric von Stroheim in The Ride Across Lake Constance at the Hampstead Theatre in November 1973, transferring to the May Fair Theatre in December; and again played Cyril in The Black and White Minstrels, revived at Hampstead in January 1974, before returning to the RSC, where his roles included:
Alan Howard then left the Royal Shakespeare Company. Subsequent performances included:
A complete listing of Alan Howard's theatre credits, including early work at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, appears on his career website, qv. [8]
Howard played all Shakespeare's consecutive eponymous English kings; though the distinction depends on a Henry IV played (as Henry Bolingbroke) in Richard II (at Nottingham) rather than in Henry IV, Part 1 .
Howard won his first Plays and Players award in 1969, voted by the London theatre critics as the Most Promising Actor in the RSC repertoire. His second came in 1977, again voted for by the London critics, when he won as Best Actor for his RSC performances in Wild Oats, the three parts of Henry VI and Coriolanus . In 1981 he again received the Plays and Players critics' award for Best Actor for his roles in Richard II and Good by C.P. Taylor.
He twice gained the Evening Standard Award Best Actor trophy for his performances in Coriolanus (1978) and Good (1981).
He also won the Society of West End Theatre award for Best Actor (1976) for his performances as Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part One and Part Two and Henry V and in 1978 as Best Actor in a Revival for Coriolanus (these are now known as the Olivier Awards).
Other awards include the 1980 Variety Club Best Actor Award for the title roles in Richard II and Richard III ; and the Drama magazine (British Theatre Association) Award for Best Actor (joint) 1981, for Richard II, Good and The Forest.
Television performances include Philoctetes, The Way of the World and Comets Among the Stars.
He played a spymaster in the Thames Television six-hour spy story Cover, written by Philip Mackie, 1981; and played John Osborne's father, Tom Osborne, in A Better Class of Person, Thames 1985. He also played the title role of Coriolanus in the 1984 BBC Shakespeare production.
Howard played the lead character of Sam McCready, an intelligence agent, in the 1989-1990 television movie series Frederick Forsyth Presents . He was also seen in such series as Notorious Woman , The Return of Sherlock Holmes , Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War . He was Spenlow in David Copperfield (2000) and Maurice Wilkins in Life Story .
He made occasional film appearances, including a significant role in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) as Michael, "The Lover" who carries on a doomed affair with "The Wife" Georgina played by Helen Mirren. [9] He also supplied the voice of Sauron and the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King . [10]
He first married actress and theatre designer Stephanie Hinchcliff Davies in 1965 (marriage dissolved). He met his second wife, the novelist and journalist Sally Beauman, when she interviewed him about his performance as Hamlet at Stratford in 1970. They became lovers not long afterwards, and married in 2004. They had one son and two grandchildren. Howard was appointed CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1998.
Howard died on 14 February 2015 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, of pneumonia. [11] His grave is on the east side of Highgate Cemetery, where Sally Beauman, who died a year later, is also buried.
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Victim | Frank | |
| 1963 | The V.I.P.s | Second Reporter | Uncredited |
| 1964 | The Americanization of Emily | Port Ensign | |
| 1965 | The Heroes of Telemark | Oli | |
| 1968 | Work Is a Four-Letter Word | Reverend Mort | |
| 1984 | Oxford Blues | Simon Rutledge | |
| 1989 | The Return of the Musketeers | Oliver Cromwell | |
| 1989 | Strapless | Mr. Cooper | |
| 1989 | The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover | Michael (The Lover) | |
| 1990 | Antigone/Rites of Passion | Haemon & Polynices | Voice |
| 1992 | Dakota Road | Alan Brandon | |
| 1993 | The Secret Rapture | Tom French | |
| 2001 | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring | Sauron / The One Ring | Voice |
| 2003 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Notorious Woman | Prosper Merimee | Miniseries, 2 episodes |
| 1984 | The Tragedy of Coriolanus | Caius Marcius | TV movie |
| 1985 | Screen Two | Clement Scott | Episode: "Poppyland" |
| 1986 | The Return of Sherlock Holmes | The Duke of Holdernesse | Episode: "The Priory School" |
| 1987 | A Perfect Spy | Jack Brotherhood | Miniseries |
| 1987 | Life Story | Maurice Wilkins | TV movie |
| 1989 | Agatha Christie's Poirot | Benedict Farley/Hugo Cornworthy | Episode: "The Dream" |
| 1989-1990 | Frederic Forsyth Presents: A Casualty of War | Sam McCready | 3 episodes |
| 2000 | David Copperfield | Mr. Spenlow | TV movie |
| 2001 | Midsomer Murders | Owen August | Episode: "Dark Autumn" |
| 2003 | Death in Holy Orders | Father Sebastian Morell | Miniseries |
| 2003 | Foyle's War | Stephen Beck | Episode: "War Games" |
| 2012 | Parade's End | Tietjens Senior | Miniseries, 3 episodes |
Dame Dorothy Tutin, was an English actress of stage, film and television. For her work in the theatre, she won two Olivier Awards and two Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress. She was made a CBE in 1967 and a Dame (DBE) in 2000.
Timothy Lancaster West, CBE is an English actor and presenter. He has appeared frequently on both stage and television, including stints in both Coronation Street and EastEnders, and also in Not Going Out, as the original Geoffrey Adams. He is married to the actress Prunella Scales; since 2014 they have been seen travelling together on British and overseas canals in the Channel 4 series Great Canal Journeys.
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and on tour across the UK and internationally.
Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE was an English theatre, opera and film director. His obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death, a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall's "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 2018, the Laurence Olivier Awards, recognizing achievements in London theatre, changed the award for Best Director to the Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director.
Sir Antony Sher was a British actor, writer and theatre director of South African origin. A two-time Laurence Olivier Award winner and a four-time nominee, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982 and toured in many roles, as well as appearing on film and television. In 2001, he starred in his cousin Ronald Harwood's play Mahler's Conversion, and said that the story of a composer sacrificing his faith for his career echoed his own identity struggles.
Michael Vivian Fyfe Pennington is a British actor, director and writer. Together with director Michael Bogdanov, he founded the English Shakespeare Company in 1986 and was its Joint Artistic Director until 1992. He has written ten books, directed in the UK, US, Romania and Japan, and is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is popularly known as Moff Jerjerrod in the original Star Wars trilogy film Return of the Jedi.
Jonathan Stephen Geoffrey King, known professionally as Jonathan "Nash" Hyde, is an Australian-English actor. Hyde is perhaps best known for roles as Herbert Arthur Runcible Cadbury in the 1994 comedy film Richie Rich, Samuel Parrish and Van Pelt in the 1995 fantasy adventure film Jumanji, J. Bruce Ismay in the 1997 epic romantic film Titanic, Culverton Smith in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Warren Westridge in creature feature film Anaconda, Dr. Allen Chamberlain in the 1999 adventure horror film The Mummy, and Eldritch Palmer in the FX TV series The Strain. Although an Australian citizen, he has mostly lived in the United Kingdom since 1969, after his family left Australia.
Walter Charles Dance is an English actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters and villains. His most notable film roles include Sardo Numspa in The Golden Child (1986), Dr. Jonathan Clemens in Alien 3 (1992), Benedict in Last Action Hero (1993), Lord Havelock Vetinari in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal (2010), the Master Vampire in Dracula Untold (2014), Alastair Denniston in The Imitation Game (2014), Alan Jonah in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and William Randolph Hearst in Mank (2020).
John Woodvine is an English actor who has appeared in more than 70 theatre productions, as well as a similar number of television and film roles.
Marilyn J. "Lynn" Farleigh is an English actress of stage and screen.
Jane Elizabeth Marie Lapotaire is an English actress.
Irene Worth, CBE was an American stage and screen actress who became one of the leading stars of the British and American theatre. She pronounced her given name with three syllables: "I-REE-nee".
Richard Moore is an English actor known for playing Jarvis Skelton on ITV's Emmerdale from 2002 to 2005.
Peter Gill is a Welsh theatre director, playwright, and actor. He was born in Cardiff to George John and Margaret Mary Gill, and educated at St Illtyd's College, Cardiff.
Jasper Britton is an English actor.
William Dudley is a British theatre designer.
Gregory Doran is an English director known for his Shakespearean work. The Sunday Times called him 'one of the great Shakespearians of his generation'.
The 1970 Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of A Midsummer Night's Dream was directed by Peter Brook, and is often known simply as Peter Brook'sDream. It opened in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon and then moved to the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End in 1971. It was taken on a world tour in 1972–1973. Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream for the RSC is often described as one of the 20th century's most influential productions of Shakespeare, as it rejected many traditional ideas about the staging of classic drama.
Paul Jesson is an English stage, television and film actor and an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Alison Mary Fiske was an English actress, who won Actress of the Year in a New Play at the 1977 Laurence Olivier Awards for playing Fish in Dusa, Fish, Stats and Vi. She was also nominated in the 1979 Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for playing Evie in For Services Rendered, and she won awards for her television performance in Helen: A Woman of Today.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Other | |
