Ian Holm | |
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![]() Holm in Edinburgh in 2004 | |
Born | Ian Holm Cuthbert 12 September 1931 Goodmayes, Essex, England |
Died | 19 June 2020 88) London, England | (aged
Resting place | Highgate Cemetery |
Alma mater | Royal Academy of Dramatic Art |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1957–2014 |
Spouses |
|
Children | 5 |
Awards |
Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert CBE (12 September 1931 – 19 June 2020) was an English actor. After beginning his career on the British stage as a leading member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he became a successful and prolific performer on television and in films. He received numerous accolades including two BAFTA Awards and a Tony Award, along with nominations for an Academy Award and two Emmy Awards. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 by Queen Elizabeth II. [1] [2]
Holm won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in the Harold Pinter play The Homecoming . He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role in the 1998 West End production of King Lear . For his television roles he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for King Lear (1998), and the HBO film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2003).
He gained acclaim for his role in The Bofors Gun (1968) winning the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and won a second BAFTA Award for his role as athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981). Other notable films he appeared in include Alien (1979), Brazil (1985), Henry V (1989), The Madness of King George (1994), The Fifth Element (1997), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and The Aviator (2004). He gained wider appreciation for his role as the elderly Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. He also voiced Chef Skinner in the Pixar animated film Ratatouille (2007).
Ian Holm Cuthbert was born on 12 September 1931 in Goodmayes, Essex, to Scottish parents, James Harvey Cuthbert and his wife Jean Wilson (née Holm). [3] His father was a psychiatrist who worked as the superintendent of the West Ham Corporation Mental Hospital and was one of the pioneers of electric shock therapy; his mother was a nurse. [4] [5] [6] [7] He had an older brother, who died when Ian was 12 years old. [8] Holm was educated at the independent Chigwell School in Essex. [8] [9] His parents retired to Mortehoe in Devon and then to Worthing, where he joined an amateur dramatic society. [10]
A chance encounter with Henry Baynton, a well-known provincial Shakespearean actor, helped Holm train for admission to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he secured a place from 1950. [9] [11] His studies were interrupted a year later when he was called up for National Service in the British Army, [11] during which he was posted to Klagenfurt, Austria, and attained the rank of Lance Corporal. They were interrupted a second time when he volunteered to go on an acting tour of the United States in 1952. [10] Holm graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1953. [9]
He made his stage debut in 1954, at Stratford-upon-Avon, playing a spear-carrier in a staging of Othello . [12] Two years later, he made his London stage debut in Love Affair. [12]
Holm was an established star of the Royal Shakespeare Company before gaining notice in television and film. In 1965, he played Richard III in the BBC serialisation of The Wars of The Roses , based on the RSC production of the plays. In 1969, he appeared in Moonlight on the Highway . [13] He appeared in minor roles in films such as Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), [14] Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), [15] Mary, Queen of Scots (1972) [16] and Young Winston (1972). [17]
In 1967 Holm won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play as Lenny in The Homecoming by Harold Pinter. In 1977, Holm appeared in the television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth as the Sadducee Zerah, and a villainous Moroccan in March or Die . The following year he played J. M. Barrie in the award-winning BBC mini-series The Lost Boys , [18] In 1981, he played Frodo Baggins in the BBC radio adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings . [19]
Holm's first film role to gain much notice was that of Ash, the "calm, technocratic" science officer - later revealed to be an android - in Ridley Scott's science-fiction film Alien (1979). [20] His portrayal of the running coach Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981) earned him a special award at the Cannes Film Festival, a BAFTA award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. [20] [21] [22] In the 1980s, Holm had memorable roles in Time Bandits (1981), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Brazil (1985). He played Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland , in Dreamchild (1985). [23] [24]
In 1989, Holm was nominated for a BAFTA award for the television series Game, Set and Match . Based on the novels by Len Deighton, this tells the story of an intelligence officer (Holm) who learns that his own wife is an enemy spy. He also continued to perform Shakespeare in films. He appeared with Kenneth Branagh in Henry V (1989) and as Polonius to Mel Gibson's Hamlet (1990). Holm was reunited with Branagh in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), playing the father of Branagh's Victor Frankenstein. [25]
Holm raised his profile in 1997 with two prominent roles, as the priest Vito Cornelius in Luc Besson's sci-fi The Fifth Element and lawyer Mitchell Stephens in The Sweet Hereafter . In 2001 he starred in From Hell as the physician Sir William Withey Gull. The same year, he appeared as Bilbo Baggins in the blockbuster film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring , having previously played Bilbo's nephew Frodo Baggins in the 1981 BBC Radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. He returned for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), for which he shared a SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. He later reprised his role as the elderly Bilbo Baggins in the movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies . [11] Martin Freeman portrayed the young Bilbo Baggins in those films. [26]
Holm was nominated for an Emmy Award twice, for a PBS broadcast of a National Theatre production of King Lear , in 1999; and for a supporting role in the HBO film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells opposite Judi Dench, in 2001. [27] He appeared in two David Cronenberg films: Naked Lunch (1991) and eXistenZ (1999). [20] He was Harold Pinter's favourite actor: the playwright once said: "He puts on my shoe, and it fits!" [28] Holm played Lenny in both the London and New York City premieres of Pinter's The Homecoming . [22] He played Napoleon Bonaparte three times: in the television mini-series Napoleon and Love (1974), Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits (1981), and The Emperor's New Clothes . [18]
Holm also received royal recognition for his contributions: He was made CBE in 1989 and knighted in 1998. [9]
Holm was married four times: [29] to Lynn Mary Shaw in 1955 (divorced 1965); to Sophie Baker in 1982 (divorced 1986); to actress Penelope Wilton, in Wiltshire, [30] in 1991 (divorced 2002); and to the artist Sophie de Stempel in 2003. He had two daughters from his first marriage, a son from his second marriage, and a son and daughter from his 15-year relationship with photographer Bee Gilbert. [31]
Holm and Wilton appeared together in the BBC miniseries The Borrowers (1993). His last wife, Sophie de Stempel, is a protégée and was a life model of Lucian Freud, [32] as well as an artist in her own right.
Holm was treated for prostate cancer in 2001 [29] and was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. [33] [34] [35] He died in hospital in London on 19 June 2020 at the age of 88. [36] His ashes are interred on the western side of Highgate Cemetery.[ citation needed ]
Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
1972–74 | BBC Play of the Month | Khrushchov/Oedipus | 2 episodes | [43] [44] |
1974 | Napoleon and Love | Napoleon I | 9 episodes | [45] |
1974–75 | The Lives of Benjamin Franklin | Wedderburn | 3 episodes | [46] |
1975 | Private Affairs | David Garrick | Episode: Mr Garrick and Mrs Woffington | [47] |
1977 | The Man in the Iron Mask | Duval | Television film | [37] |
Jesus of Nazareth | Zerah | Parts 1 & 2 | [9] | |
Jubilee | Bill Ramsey | Episode: Ramsey | [37] | |
1978 | Do You Remember? | Walter Street | Episode: Night School | [48] |
The Lost Boys | J. M. Barrie | 3 episodes | [37] | |
Holocaust | Heinrich Himmler | 2 episodes | [37] | |
Les Misérables | Thénardier | Television film | [37] | |
The Thief of Baghdad | The Gatekeeper | Television film | [49] | |
1979 | All Quiet on the Western Front | Himmelstoss | Television film | [37] |
S.O.S. Titanic | Bruce Ismay | Television film | [50] | |
1980 | We, the Accused | Paul Pressett | Miniseries; 5 episodes | [37] |
The Misanthrope | Alceste | Television film | [37] | |
1981–2008 | Horizon | Narrator | Television documentary | [51] [52] |
1982 | The Bell | Michael Meade | TV | [37] |
Play for Today | Alexie | Television play (episode: Soft Targets) | [37] | |
1982 | Tales of the Unexpected | Alan Corwin | Television play (episode: Death Can Add) | [37] |
1985 | Television | Narrator | Television documentary series | [53] |
1986 | Murder by the Book | Hercule Poirot | Television film | [37] |
1988 | Game, Set and Match | Bernard Samson | 13 episodes | [37] |
1989 | The Tailor of Gloucester | The Tailor | Television film | |
1989 | The Endless Game | Control | 2 episodes | [37] |
1991 | Uncle Vanya | Astrov | BBC TV | [37] |
1992 | The Borrowers | Pod Clock | 6 episodes | [37] |
1993 | The Return of the Borrowers | Pod Clock | 6 episodes | [37] |
1999 | Animal Farm | Squealer (voice) | Television film | |
2003 | Monsters We Met | Narrator | Television documentary | [54] |
2004 | The Last Dragon | Narrator | Television film | [37] |
2005 | The Adventures of Errol Flynn | Narrator | Television documentary | [37] |
2009 | 1066: The Battle for Middle Earth | Narrator | 2 episodes [55] [56] | [37] |
Year | Title | Role | Venue |
---|---|---|---|
1960 | Troilus and Cressida | Troilus | Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon |
1962 | Measure for Measure | Claudio | |
1963 | The Tempest | Ariel | |
1967 | The Homecoming [11] | Lenny | Music Box Theatre, Broadway |
1967 | Romeo and Juliet | Romeo | Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon |
1997 | King Lear [11] | Lear | Cottesloe Theatre, London |
Bilbo Baggins is the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, a supporting character in The Lord of the Rings, and the fictional narrator of many of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. The Hobbit is selected by the wizard Gandalf to help Thorin and his party of Dwarves to reclaim their ancestral home and treasure, which has been seized by the dragon Smaug. Bilbo sets out in The Hobbit timid and comfort-loving, and through his adventures grows to become a useful and resourceful member of the quest.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a 2001 epic fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson from a screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Jackson, based on 1954's The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of the novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. The film is the first installment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It features an ensemble cast including Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Sean Bean, Ian Holm, and Andy Serkis.
Martin John Christopher Freeman is an English actor. Among other accolades, he has won an Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
The Return of the King is a 1980 animated musical fantasy television film created by Rankin/Bass and Topcraft. It is an adaptation of the 1955 high fantasy novel Lord of the Rings, taking its name from The Return of the King, the third and final volume of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien and is a sequel to the 1977 film The Hobbit.
The Hobbit is a 1977 American animated musical television special created by Rankin/Bass, a studio known for their holiday specials, and animated by Topcraft, a precursor to Studio Ghibli. The film is an adaptation of the 1937 book of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien, and was first broadcast on NBC in the United States on Sunday, November 27, 1977.
In 1981, BBC Radio 4 produced a dramatisation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in 26 half-hour stereo instalments. The novel had previously been adapted as a 12-part BBC Radio adaptation in 1955 and 1956, and a 1979 production by The Mind's Eye for National Public Radio in the USA.
"The Road Goes Ever On" is a title that encompasses several walking songs that J. R. R. Tolkien wrote for his Middle-earth legendarium. Within the stories, the original song was composed by Bilbo Baggins and recorded in The Hobbit. Different versions of it also appear in The Lord of the Rings, along with some similar walking songs.
Many adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, an epic by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien, have been made in the media of film, radio, theatre, video games and recorded readings.
The Hobbit is a series of three epic high fantasy adventure films directed by Peter Jackson. The films are subtitled An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). The films are based on the 1937 novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, with large portions of the trilogy inspired by the appendices to The Return of the King, which expand on the story told in The Hobbit, as well as new material and characters written especially for the films. Together they act as a prequel to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
The first authorised adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit was a stage production by St. Margaret's School, Edinburgh in March 1953. Subsequently, The Hobbit has been adapted for a variety of media including stage, screen, radio, board games and video games.
Gollum is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He was introduced in the 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, and became important in its sequel, The Lord of the Rings. Gollum was a Stoor Hobbit of the River-folk who lived near the Gladden Fields. In The Lord of the Rings it is stated that he was originally known as Sméagol, corrupted by the One Ring, and later named Gollum after his habit of making "a horrible swallowing noise in his throat".
Kiran Shah is a British actor and stunt double.
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, and one of the protagonists in The Lord of the Rings. Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly as "uncle", and undertakes the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor. He is mentioned in Tolkien's posthumously published works, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.
Hobitit is a nine-part Finnish live action fantasy television miniseries directed by Timo Torikka, originally broadcast in 1993 on Yle TV1.
J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), set in Middle-earth, have been the subject of numerous motion picture adaptations, whether for film (cinema), television, or streaming. There were many early failed attempts to bring the fictional universe to life on screen, some even rejected by the author himself, who was skeptical of the prospects of an adaptation. While animated and live-action shorts were made in 1967 and 1971, the first commercial depiction of the book onscreen was in an animated TV special in 1977. In 1978 the first big screen adaptation of the fictional setting was introduced in the animated The Lord of the Rings.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a 2012 epic high fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson from a screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro, based on the 1937 novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is the first instalment in The Hobbit trilogy, acting as a prequel to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a 2014 epic high fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson from a screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro, based on the 1937 novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. The sequel to 2013's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, it is the final instalment in The Hobbit trilogy, acting as a prequel to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Lego The Lord of the Rings is a Lego theme based on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. It is licensed from Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. The theme was first introduced in 2012. The first sets appeared in 2012, to coincide with a release of the video game Lego The Lord of the Rings. Subsequent sets based on The Hobbit film trilogy would also be released and the video game Lego The Hobbit was released in 2014. The product line was discontinued by the end of 2015. Later, the theme was relaunched in January 2023 with three new sets released as the part of the Lego BrickHeadz theme. In February 2023, The Lego Group unveiled a new Rivendell set that released on 8 March 2023 as the part of the Lego Icons theme.
Khraniteli is a Soviet television play miniseries based on J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring. It was broadcast once in 1991 by Leningrad Television and then thought lost. It was rediscovered in 2021. It includes scenes of Tom Bombadil and Goldberry that were omitted from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
he took the part of Frodo Baggins in BBC Radio 4's massive adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, which featured Holm alongside a host of other stars including Michael Hordern and Robert Stephens.