Denholm Elliott

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Denholm Mitchell Elliott , CBE (born May 31, 1922 in Ealing , Middlesex , England , † October 6, 1992 in Santa Eulària des Riu , Ibiza , Spain ) was a British actor . For many years he was one of the most successful character actors in Great Britain. His best-known role is that of museum director Marcus Brody, whom he played in two Indiana Jones films.

Life

After graduating from Malvern College , Denholm Mitchell Elliott initially studied at the renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) , but gave up in 1940 in favor of the Royal Air Force . In 1942 his plane was shot down and Elliott was interned in a German main camp in Silesia .

After being a prisoner of war in 1945, Elliott returned to London and took acting lessons there. Laurence Olivier eventually discovered him for the stage, and Elliott's theater debut came in 1949, also in London. For many years he was a member of the renowned Royal Shakespeare Company in England, but also had engagements in America, among others. a. 1950 on New York Broadway .

He made his film debut in 1949 in the comedy film Dear Mr. Prohack . From then on, he was seen regularly as an actor in cinema productions, in which he embodied complex, colorful characters from upper-middle-class gentlemen to butlers and professors to greasy eccentrics who love to drink . He played Colonel Larkin in King Rat (1965) after James Clavell , Will Scarlet alongside Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn in Robin and Marian (1976) and Wilhelm Canaris in Journey of the Damned (1978). Nevertheless, it took several decades for the celebrated theater actor to achieve international film fame. In 1981, his role as the bumbling but gracious archaeologist and friend of Indiana Jones , Marcus Brody , made him known around the world in the American blockbuster Raiders of the Lost Ark .

In the following years Elliott received the prestigious British BAFTA Award three times and was nominated for an Oscar for his role in James Ivory's Room with a View (1985) . In The Soldiers of Fortune he played the deeply humorous butler of Dan Aykroyd and in several comedies by and with Michael Palin ( The Missionary , Lean Times ) as well as in an episode of Palin's television series Ripping Yarns . Along with Dianne Wiest , he was 1987 in the film drama September from Woody Allen to see also next to the then-unknown Nicole Kidman in the three-part television production Bangkok Hilton (1989) and again as Marcus Brody in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989 ). In 1991 he took over the role of secret agent George Smiley for the television production The Murderer with the Silver Wings based on John le Carré . His last of more than 120 film and television appearances was as a dropped actor Selsdon in Noises Off! - The sheer madness based on a theater comedy by Michael Frayn .

In 1988, he was named Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the arts .

Private

Denholm Elliott was married twice, in the only eight month long first marriage (1954) with the actress Virginia McKenna and in the second marriage from 1962 to 1992 with the American Susan Robinson, with whom he had two children, Mark and Jennifer. Elliott died in 1992 in Ibiza from complications from AIDS. Elliot's widow Susan wrote a biography about him two years after his death called Quest for Love , in which she wrote that she and the bisexual Elliott had an open marriage. She also founded the Denholm Elliott Project Foundation. Susan Elliott died on April 12, 2007 of the aftermath of a fire in her home.

In 1995, The News of the World's journalist Paul McMullan wrote a series about Elliott's daughter Jennifer, stating that she was a drug addict prostitute who lived on the street. In 2003, Jennifer hanged herself.

Awards

  • BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Award 1984 for Best Supporting Actor for Trading Places (The Soldiers of Fortune)
  • BAFTA Award 1985 for Best Supporting Actor in A Private Function (Magere Zeiten)
  • BAFTA Award 1986 for Best Supporting Actor for Defense of the Realm
  • 1985 Peter Sellers Award for Comedy (presented by the Evening Standard British Film Award )
  • 1981 Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actor in Bad Timing , Rising Damp and Zulu Dawn
  • 1986 Mystfest as best actor in Defense of the Realm

Filmography (selection)

biography

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Susan Elliott . April 20, 2007, ISSN  0307-1235 ( telegraph.co.uk [accessed April 11, 2018]).
  2. ↑ a b Susan Elliott (Obituary) . In: The Daily Telegraph , April 24, 2007. 

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Elliott, Denholm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Elliott, Denholm Mitchell (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actor
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Ealing , Middlesex , England
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 1992
Place of death Santa Eulària des Riu , Ibiza , Spain