Sir Ian Holm CBE | |
|---|---|
| File:Ian Holm.jpg Holm in Edinburgh, August 2004 | |
| Born | Ian Holm Cuthbert 12 September 1931 Goodmayes, Essex, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1957–2014 |
| Spouse(s) | Lynn Mary Shaw (m. 1955–65) Sophie Baker (m. 1982–86) Penelope Wilton (m. 1991–2001) Sophie de Stempel (m. 2003) |
| Children | 5 |
Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert CBE (born 12 September 1931), known as Ian Holm, is an English actor known for his stage work and many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear. He won the 1981 BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role as athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire, for which he was also nominated for an Academy Award.
His other well-known film roles include Ash in Alien, Sir William Gull in From Hell, Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element, and the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.
Early years[]
Holm was born Ian Holm Cuthbert on 12 September 1931 in Goodmayes, in Essex, to Scottish parents, Jean Wilson (née Holm) and James Harvey Cuthbert.[1] His mother was a nurse, and 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.[2][3][4][5] He had an older brother, Eric, who died in 1943. Holm was educated at the independent Chigwell School in Essex. His parents retired to Mortehoe, Devon and then Worthing where he joined an amateur dramatic society.[6]
A visit to the dentist led to an introduction to Henry Baynton, a well-known provincial Shakespearean actor who helped Holm train for admission to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he secured a place in 1949. His studies there were interrupted a year later when he was called up for National Service in the British Army, during which he was posted to Klagenfurt, Austria and attained the rank of Lance Corporal. They were then interrupted a second time when he volunteered to go on an acting tour of the United States in 1952.[6]
He finally graduated from RADA in 1953; whilst there he had been offered 'spear-carrying' roles at Stratford and he stayed there for 13 years, soon graduating to more significant roles and abandoning plans to move on after Peter Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1960.[6]
Career[]
Holm was an established star of the Royal Shakespeare Company before making an impact on 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 played the lead in Dennis Potter's Moonlight on the Highway and gradually he made a name for himself with minor roles in films such as Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) and Young Winston (1972). In 1967, he 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 TV 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 TV series The Lost Boys, in which his son Barnaby played the young George Llewelyn Davies.
In 1981, he played Frodo Baggins in BBC radio adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.[7]
Holm's first film role to have a major impact was that of the treacherous android, Ash, in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). His portrayal of Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981), earned him a special award at the Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Back home in England, he won a BAFTA award, for Best Supporting Actor, for Chariots. In the 1980s, he had memorable roles in Time Bandits (1981), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985). He played Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland in the Dennis Potter-scripted fantasy Dreamchild (1985).
In 1989, Holm was nominated for a BAFTA award for the TV series Game, Set and Match. Based on the novels by Len Deighton, this tells the story of an intelligence officer (Holm) who discovers that his own wife is an enemy spy. He continued to perform Shakespeare, and appeared with Kenneth Branagh in Henry V (1989) and as Polonius to Mel Gibson's Hamlet (1990). Holm was reunited with Kenneth Branagh in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), playing the father of Branagh's Victor Frankenstein.
Holm raised his profile in 1997 with two prominent roles, as the stressed but gentle priest Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element and the tormented plaintiff's lawyer 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 a 1981 BBC Radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. He reappeared in the trilogy in 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 reprised his role as the elder Bilbo Baggins in the movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Martin Freeman portrayed the young Bilbo Baggins in those films.
Holm has been 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. Holm has provided voice-overs for many British TV documentaries and commercials.
Holm has appeared in two David Cronenberg films: Naked Lunch (1991) and eXistenZ (1999). He was Harold Pinter's favourite actor, the playwright once stating: "He puts on my shoe, and it fits!"[8] Holm played Lenny in the first performance of Pinter's masterpiece The Homecoming.
He has played Napoleon Bonaparte three times: first, in the 1972 television series Napoleon and Love; next, in a cameo comic rendition, in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits from 1981; third, in 2001 he played the fallen and exiled leader in the fanciful film The Emperor's New Clothes.
Personal life[]
Holm has been married four times.[9] His first three marriages ended in divorce. In 1991, he married his third wife, actress Penelope Wilton, in Wiltshire.[10] They appeared together in The Borrowers (1993) on British television. They divorced in 2001.[9] He is currently married to artist Sophie de Stempel, a protégée and life model of Lucian Freud.[11]
Holm has five children; three daughters (Jessica, Sarah-Jane and Melissa) and two sons (Barnaby and Henry) from three women, including the first two of his four wives.[9]
He was treated for prostate cancer in 2001.[9]
Filmography[]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | The Bofors Gun | Flynn | BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role |
| The Fixer | Grubeshov | ||
| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Puck/Robin Goodfellow | ||
| 1969 | Oh! What a Lovely War | President Raymond Poincaré | |
| 1970 | A Severed Head | Martin Lynch-Gibbon | |
| 1971 | Nicholas and Alexandra | Commissar Vasily Yakovlev | |
| Mary, Queen of Scots | David Rizzio | ||
| 1972 | Young Winston | George E. Buckle | |
| 1973 | The Homecoming | Lenny | |
| 1974 | Napoleon and Love | Napoleon I | TV |
| Juggernaut | Nicholas Porter | ||
| 1976 | Robin and Marian | King John | |
| Shout at the Devil | Mohammed | ||
| 1977 | The Man in the Iron Mask | Duval | |
| March or Die | El Krim | ||
| Jesus of Nazareth | Zerah | ||
| 1978 | Les Misérables | Thénardier | |
| Do You Remember? | Walter Street | TV Nominated — British Academy Television Award for Best Actor | |
| The Lost Boys | J. M. Barrie | TV Royal Television Society Award for Best Performance Nominated — British Academy Television Award for Best Actor | |
| Holocaust | Heinrich Himmler | TV | |
| 1979 | All Quiet on the Western Front | Himmelstoss | TV film |
| Alien | Ash | Reprised physical role in Alien: Isolation | |
| S.O.S. Titanic | J. Bruce Ismay | ||
| 1980 | We, the Accused | Paul Pressett | TV |
| 1981 | Chariots of Fire | Sam Mussabini | BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Cannes Film Festival Award Best Supporting Actor (Special Award) Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — American Movie Award for Best Supporting Actor |
| Time Bandits | Napoleon | ||
| 1982 | The Bell | Michael Meade | TV |
| The Return of the Soldier | Doctor Anderson | ||
| Inside the Third Reich | Joseph Goebbels | ||
| 1984 | Laughterhouse | Ben Singleton | |
| Greystoke - The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes | Capitain Philippe D'Arnot | Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role | |
| Terror in the Aisles | Ash | ||
| 1985 | The Browning Version | Andrew Crocker-Harris | CableACE Award for Best Actor in a Theatrical or Dramatic Special |
| Dreamchild | Reverend Charles L. Dodgson/Lewis Carroll | Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Fantasporto's International Fantasy Film Award for Best Actor Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor | |
| Wetherby | Stanley Pilborough | Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — National Society of Film Critics Award Best Supporting Actor (3rd place) | |
| Brazil | Mr Kurtzmann | Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — National Society of Film Critics Award Best Supporting Actor (3rd place) | |
| Dance with a Stranger | Desmond Cussen | Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — National Society of Film Critics Award Best Supporting Actor (3rd place) | |
| Mr and Mrs Edgehill | Eustace Edgehill | ||
| 1986 | Murder by the Book | Hercule Poirot | TV |
| 1988 | Game, Set and Match | Bernard Samson | TV Nominated — British Academy Television Award for Best Actor |
| Another Woman | Ken Post | ||
| 1989 | Henry V | Fluellen | |
| 1990 | Hamlet | Polonius | |
| 1991 | Uncle Vanya | Astrov | BBC TV |
| Naked Lunch | Tom Frost | ||
| Kafka | Doctor Murnau | ||
| 1992 | Blue Ice | Sir Hector | |
| The Borrowers | Pod Clock | TV | |
| 1993 | The Hour of the Pig | Albertus | Also known as The Advocate |
| The Return of the Borrowers | Pod Clock | TV | |
| 1994 | Mary Shelley's Frankenstein | Baron Alphonse Frankenstein | |
| The Madness of King George | Dr. Francis Willis | Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role | |
| 1996 | Big Night | Pascal | |
| Loch Ness | Water Bailiff | ||
| 1997 | Night Falls on Manhattan | Liam Casey | |
| The Sweet Hereafter | Mitchell Stephens | Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor National Board of Review Award for Best Cast Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated — National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor (3rd place) Nominated — New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor (2nd place) Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor | |
| The Fifth Element | Father Vito Cornelius | ||
| A Life Less Ordinary | Naville | ||
| Incognito | John | ||
| 1998 | Alice Through the Looking Glass | White Knight | |
| King Lear | Lear | Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor Evening Standard Award for Best Actor Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie | |
| 1999 | Animal Farm | Squealer | Voice |
| Shergar | Joseph Maguire | ||
| eXistenZ | Kiri Vinokur | ||
| Simon Magus | Sirius/Boris/The Devil | ||
| Wisconsin Death Trip | Frank Cooper (voice) | ||
| The Match | Big Tam | ||
| 2000 | Joe Gould's Secret | Joe Gould | |
| The Miracle Maker | Pontius Pilate | Voice | |
| The Last of the Blonde Bombshells | Patrick | Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie | |
| Esther Kahn | Nathan Quellen | ||
| Beautiful Joe | George The Geek | ||
| Bless the Child | Reverend Grissom | ||
| 2001 | From Hell | Sir William Gull | |
| The Emperor's New Clothes | Napoleon/Sergeant Eugene Lenormand | ||
| The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring | Bilbo Baggins | Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast Nominated — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | |
| 2003 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King | Bilbo Baggins | Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast National Board of Review Award for Best Cast Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast |
| 2004 | The Day After Tomorrow | Professor Terry Rapson | |
| Garden State | Gideon Largeman | ||
| The Aviator | Professor Fitz | Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | |
| Monsters We Met | Narrator | TV documentary | |
| The Last Dragon | Narrator | TV | |
| 2005 | Strangers with Candy | Dr. Putney | |
| Chromophobia | Edward Aylesbury | ||
| Lord of War | Simeon Weisz | ||
| The Adventures of Errol Flynn | Narrator | TV documentary | |
| 2005–08 | Horizon | Narrator | TV documentary |
| 2006 | Renaissance | Jonas Muller | Voice |
| O Jerusalem | Ben Gurion | ||
| The Treatment | Dr. Ernesto Morales | ||
| 2007 | Ratatouille | Skinner | Voice Annie Award for Voice Acting in a Feature Production |
| 2009 | 1066: The Battle for Middle Earth | Narrator | TV[12][13] |
| 2012 | The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | Old Bilbo Baggins | |
| 2014 | The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies | Old Bilbo Baggins |
Honours and awards[]
Nominations and awards for films and TV roles are listed in filmography.
- Honours
- 1989: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1989 Birthday Honours.[14]
- 1998: Knight Bachelor in the 1998 Birthday Honours for services to drama.[15]
- Awards
- 1965: Evening Standard Award for Best Actor – Henry V
- 1967: Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play – The Homecoming
- 1993: Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor – Moonlight
- 1993: Evening Standard Award for Best Actor – Moonlight
Bibliography[]
- Holm, Ian; Jacobi, Steven (2004). Acting my Life. London: Bantam Press. ISBN 0-593-05214-5.
References[]
- ↑ "Ian Holm Biography". filmreference. 2008. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
{{cite web}}: - ↑ "Ian Holm". Channel 4 Film. 2008. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
{{cite web}}: - ↑ "Ian Holm – Family and Companions". Yahoo!7 Movies. 2008. Archived from the original on 14 January 2006. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
{{cite web}}: ; dead-url - ↑ "Excerpts from Loch Ness Presskit (1995)". aboutjamesfrain. 18 April 2004. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
{{cite web}}: - ↑ Sweet, Matthew (16 January 2004). "Film: Napoleon Complex". The Independent. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040116/ai_n9684235. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Ian Holm with Steven Jacobi (2004). Acting My Life – Ian Holm. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-593-05214-3.
- ↑ "The Tolkien Library review of the Lord of the Rings Radio Adaptation".
{{cite web}}: - ↑ Brantley, Ben. THEATER REVIEW; Talk About a Reality Show. A Pinter Classic Is It Archived 5 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. The New York Times 21 July 2001.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Holm, Ian; Jacobi, Steven (2004). Acting my Life. London: Bantam Press. pp. 220, 224, 313ff. ISBN 0-593-05214-5.
- ↑ England and Wales Marriages 1984–2005 Archived 20 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ "Portrait of the actor and his fourth wife". The Daily Telegraph (London). 7 February 2004. Archived from the original on 30 June 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20040630191135/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fopinion%2F2004%2F02%2F07%2Fdp0701.xml. Retrieved 14 July 2008.
- ↑ "1066 Now Arriving in May". myReviewer.com. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
{{cite web}}: - ↑ Billen, Andrew (19 May 2009). "1066 The Battle for Middle Earth Moving on the Trouble with Working Women". The Times (London). http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6313839.ece.
- ↑ No. 51772. 16 June 1989. p. 8. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/51772/supplement/8
- ↑ No. 55155. 15 June 1998. p. 2. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/55155/supplement/2
External links[]
- Ian Holm at the Internet Broadway Database
- Ian Holm at the Internet Movie Database
- Ian Holm at the BFI's Screenonline
- Ian Holm at the TCM Movie Database
Template:BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor 1968-1984
Template:OlivierAward PlayActor 1985–2000