Robert Stephens Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family
Sir Robert Graham Stephens (14 July 1931 – 12 November 1995) was a leading English actor in the early years of Britain's Royal National Theatre. He was one of the most respected actors of his generation and was at one time regarded as the natural successor to Laurence Olivier.
Toby Stephens, Chris Larkin, Lucy Dilon, Michael Stephens
Nicknames
Robert Stephens, Sir Robert Stephens, Stephens, Robert
IMDB
Awards
Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor
Nominations
Tony Award for Best Lead Actor in a Play, Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Movies
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Romeo and Juliet, A Taste of Honey, Travels with My Aunt, The Duellists, Cleopatra, Empire of the Sun, The Asphyx, The Shout, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Henry V, The Fruit Machine, England, My England, Chaplin, The Bonfire of the ...
TV Shows
Fortunes of War, Dandelion Dead, The Box of Delights, Lizzie's Pictures, QB VII, Hell's Bells
Star Sign
Cancer
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Quote
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[on Anthony Hopkins] He has all those stutters, scratches and coughs and mini-splutters; it's always the same and it's awful. He's a much better actor than that, but these days he always seems to be doing the same irritating, mannered thing. He's forever coughing and spitting and winking and blinking.
2
[on Dame Thora Hird] An extremely adroit, skillful actress--John Osborne's favorite actress, for what that's worth--with an extraordinary ability, rather like Maggie Smith, to twist on a sixpence from being terribly funny to terribly touching. She's a bit mawkish, sometimes, but a brilliant comedienne. The tops.
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[on Laurence Harvey] An appalling man and even more unforgivably, an appalling actor.
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[1993, to a journalist about to review his performance in "King Lear"] Enjoy the show, it gets funnier in the second half.
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Film acting is difficult to do properly. I remember I once said to George Cukor that I think it's as difficult to be Spencer Tracy as it is to be Laurence Olivier. He said, "Wrong, it's much more difficult to be Spencer Tracy".
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[on Tony Richardson] He convinced me (wrongly of course) that anyone can make a movie. All Tony Richardson ever did was come in and ask his cameraman what he should do . . . He was a useless, unpleasant creature.
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[on comedian Sonnie Hale] A gross, unfunny person offstage and someone, on the whole, to avoid.
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One reason I've never chased after films is that once you become a film star, you can't really stop, because you have to be before the public's eye all the time. I wouldn't care for that. Also, in films the material can't be that good all the time. You have to make mostly bad films, or films that aren't frightfully good. That wouldn't interest me - not that I've ever been offered that opportunity.
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[on "Hamlet"] It is undoubtedly the greatest part ever written, but it's so complex. You can't really play it, you just give an opinion of it.
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[on "The Method"] I once asked two old Russian actors about the Method, because I'd seen American actors in New York use their version of it and it was so awful, amateur and inept and stupid. And they said to me, "If you have a copy of ['Konstantin Stanislavski' 's] "My Life in Art" or "An Actor Prepares", just take it out and throw it in the river". If it was no use to them, it was certainly of no use to me.
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Fact
1
Ironic that in "Fortunes of War" (BBC- 1987), his character ("Castlebar," a famous poet) dies during surgery for a perforated intestine.
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Considered for the roles of Fallanda, Bukosvky, Sir Percy and Dr. Armstrong in Lifeforce (1985).
3
Variety Club of Great Britain Stage Actor Award for 1965 for his performances at the National Theatre, notably in Royal Hunt of the Sun and Trelawney of the Wells.
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Provided the voice of Aragorn in the acclaimed 1981 BBC Radio serialisation of The Lord of the Rings.
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He was awarded the Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 1995 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to drama.
Appeared with his then-wife, Maggie Smith, in Much Ado About Nothing (1967), which was, at least, the second film based on a William Shakespeare play, featuring a real-life husband and wife, that was later remade with another real-life husband and wife. The Taming of the Shrew (1929) starred then-husband-and-wife, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, and was remade in 1967 with then-husband-and-wife Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. The Taming of the Shrew (1967) was directed by Franco Zeffirelli, who also directed the stage "Much Ado" with Stephens and Smith which was adapted for television in the same year, with only one recorded change from the stage cast. The 1993 remake of "Much Ado" starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. Stephens worked jointly with Banagh and Thompson in Fortunes of War (1987) and Henry V (1989), while Smith worked with them both separately in the "Harry Potter" films. He and Smith also appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in (possibly separate) productions of "Othello", in which they played "Iago" and "Desdemonda", respectively. In the 1943 American production, those roles were played by then husband-and-wife José Ferrer and Uta Hagen.
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Was nominated for Broadway's 1959 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "Epitaph for George Dillon."
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He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1993 (1992 season) for Best Actor for his performance as Falstaff in "Henry IV, parts I & II" at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
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One of eight actors profiled by Roger Lewis in his 1989 book, "Stage People": the interview with Stephens takes place in the Dirty Duck pub in Stratford-on-Avon.
