Robert Stephens

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Sir Robert Graham Stephens (born July 14, 1931 in Bristol , Somerset , England , † November 12, 1995 in London , England) was a British film and theater actor .

Life

Robert Stephens completed his acting training at the Northern Theater School in Bradford . In 1956 he was seen for the first time on a London stage with Arthur Miller's drama Witch Hunt . Stephens became known as a Shakespeare actor from the late 1950s and worked for many years at the Royal National Theater . He was considered one of the most renowned and well-known theater actors in England of his generation. Among other things, he was in Hamlet , Much Ado About Nothing and Heinrich V on stage. For the latter play he was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award in 1993.

Stephens also took part in numerous films and television series, but unlike other British theater greats, he never achieved great success there. Billy Wilder gave him his probably most important leading role in cinema in his film satire The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), where Stephens played the title character of the master detective. Otherwise, Stephens played mostly supporting roles, for example as "the prince" in Franco Zeffirelli's classic Shakespeare film Romeo and Juliet (1968) or in the role of Mr. Lockwood in Steven Spielberg's Das Reich der Sonne (1987).

Private life

Stephens has been married four times. While his first two wives, Nora Ann Simmonds and Tarn Bassett, did not work in the show business, the third, Maggie Smith and fourth wife Patricia Quinn are better known. Through Maggie Smith, Stephens became the father of both actors Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin . He had a long-standing, close friendship with actor Jeremy Brett .

Robert Stephens was at times considered an alcoholic . The Shakespeare actor nicknamed himself " Knight Errant ". This was also the title of his autobiography: Knight Errant: Memoirs of a Vagabond Actor, which appeared in Great Britain on November 2, 1995, just a few days before his death. He died at the age of 64 from complications after a liver and kidney transplant. On March 7, 1995, seven months before his death, Queen had him Elizabeth II. To Knight Bachelor beaten ( "Sir").

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary for Robert Stephens
  2. ^ Robert Stephens at Allmovie
  3. ^ Obituary for Robert Stephens in the Independent
  4. Knights and Dames at Leigh Rayment's Peerage