Simon Russell Beale CBE (born January 12, 1961) is an award-winning British actor. Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions, in order of seniority: Knight or Dame Grand Cross... January 12 is the 12th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ...

Russell Beale's stocky frame and soft speaking style are essential elements of his stage persona. His performances have been lauded for their subtlety, wit, intelligence and emotional power.

Background

Beale was born in in Penang, Malaya, where his father was serving as a doctor in the military. Several members of his family had careers in medicine. He was first drawn to performance when, at the age of eight, he became a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral. State motto: Bersatu dan Setia (United and Loyal) State anthem: Untuk Negeri Kita (For Our State) Capital George Town Ruling party Barisan Nasional  - Yang Di-Pertua Negeri Abdul Rahman bin Haji Abbas  - Ketua Menteri Dr Koh Tsu Koon History    - Ceded by Kedah to British 11 August 1786   - Japanese occupation 1942... Map of Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia (Malay: Semenanjung Malaysia) is the part of Malaysia which lies on the Malay Peninsula, and shares a land border with Thailand in the north. ... This article is about the cathedral church of the diocese of London. ...

At the age of fourteen he gave his first theatre performance playing Desdemona in Othello at Clifton College's Redgrave theatre; in the sixth form he also performed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. After Clifton, he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and obtained a first in English, after which he was offered a place to do a PhD. He graduated from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1983. Othello and Desdemona by Alexandre-Marie Colin. ... An 1898 etching of the College Close Clifton College (grid reference ST569737) is a major coeducational public school in Clifton, Bristol, England. ... Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a humorous, absurdist, tragic and existentialist play by Tom Stoppard, first staged in 1966. ... Full name Gonville and Caius College Motto Named after Edmund Gonville & John Caius Previous names Gonville Hall (1348), Gonville & Caius (1557) Established 1348, refounded 1557 Sister College(s) Brasenose College Master Sir Christopher Hum Location Trinity St Undergraduates 468 Postgraduates 291 Homepage Boatclub Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge is a... Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in the City of London, UK. The first Guildhall School was housed in an old warehouse in Aldermanbury, but these premises soon proved too small. ...

He is President of the Anthony Powell Society. The Anthony Powell Society is an international literary society dedicated to the works of the world-famous English novelist Anthony Powell. ...

Career

Stage roles

Russell Beale first came to the attention of theatre-goers in the late 1980s with a series of lauded comic performances, on occasion extremely camp, in such plays as The Man of Mode by George Etherege and Restoration by Edward Bond at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He broadened his range in the early 1990s with moving performances as Konstantin in Chekhov's The Seagull, as Oswald in Ibsen's Ghosts and as Edgar in King Lear. It was at the RSC that he first worked with Sam Mendes who directed him there as Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, as Richard III and as a striking Ariel in The Tempest, in the last of which he revealed a fine tenor voice. Sir George Etherege (1635? - c. ... Edward Bond (born July 18, 1934) is an English playwright, theatre director, theorist and screenwriter. ... Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a British theatre company. ... Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: , IPA: ) was a Russian short story writer and playwright. ... Chekhov in an 1898 portrait by Osip Braz. ... Ibsen redirects here. ... Ghosts (original Norwegian title: Gengangere) is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. ... King Lear and the Fool in the Storm by William Dyce (1806-1864) King Lear is based on the legend of King Lear, a legendary king of Britain, and is considered to be one of William Shakespeares greatest tragedies. ... Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a British theatre company. ... Sam Mendes Samuel Alexander Mendes, CBE (born August 1, 1965) is an English stage and film director born in Reading, Berkshire, England. ... In Greek mythology, Thersites, son of Agrius, was a rank-and-file soldier of the Greek army during the Trojan War. ... The History of Troilus and Cressida is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1602, shortly after the completion of Hamlet. ... Frontispage of the First Quarto Richard The Third. ... Ariel taking on an illusionary form, at Prosperos command Ariel is a fictional sprite who appears in William Shakespeares play The Tempest. ... Prospero and Ariel from a painting by William Hamilton The Tempest is a play written by William Shakespeare. ...

Sam Mendes also directed him as Iago in Othello at the Royal National Theatre and in Mendes' farewell productions at the Donmar Warehouse, Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, in which he played the title role and Twelfth Night, in which Beale played Malvolio. In the spring of 2009 the same team will be collaborating on The Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard, in which Russell Beale will play Leontes and Lopakhin respectively, at the Old Vic Theatre. Othello and Iago. ... Othello and Desdemona by Alexandre-Marie Colin. ... The Royal National Theatre from Waterloo Bridge The Royal National Theatre is a building complex and theatre company located on the South Bank in London, England immediately east of the southern end of Waterloo Bridge. ... The Donmar Warehouse is a small theatre in the Covent Garden area of the West End of London. ... Anton Chekhov (left) and Maxim Gorky in Yalta. ... Twelfth Night has at least three meanings: Twelfth Night (holiday), celebrated by some Christians Twelfth Night, or What You Will, a comedic play by William Shakespeare Twelfth Night (band), a progressive rock band This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share... Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare. ... Florizel and Perdita by Charles Robert Leslie. ... Bust of Anton Chekhov at Badenweiler, Germany The Cherry Orchard (Вишнëвый сад or Vishniovy sad in Russian) is Russian playwright Anton Chekhovs last play. ... The Old Vic is a theatre in the Waterloo area of London. ...

Since 1995 he has been a regular at the Royal National Theatre where his roles have included Mosca in Ben Jonson's Volpone opposite Michael Gambon, George in Tom Stoppard's Jumpers and the lead in Humble Boy by Charlotte Jones written especially for him. In 1999 he was a key part of Trevor Nunn's ensemble, playing in Leonard Bernstein's Candide, Edward Bulwer Lytton's Money and Maxim Gorky's Summerfolk. In autumn 2006 he played Galileo in David Hare's adaption of Brecht's Life of Galileo and Face in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist. At the end of 2007 he is due to play Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing directed by Nicholas Hytner. For other persons of the same name, see Ben Johnson (disambiguation). ... An illustration for an 1898 edition of Volpone by Aubrey Beardsley. ... Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE (born October 19, 1940), is an acclaimed Irish-British actor who has worked in television, film and theatre. ... Sir Tom Stoppard, OM, CBE (born as Tomáš Straussler on July 3, 1937)[1] is an Academy Award winning British playwright of more than 24 plays. ... Jumpers is a 1972 play by Tom Stoppard. ... Sir Trevor King (born 14 January 1940) is a loser and film director. ... Leonard Bernstein (IPA pronunciation: )[1] (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, and pianist. ... Candide is a comic operetta by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. ... Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (May 25, 1803 - January 18, 1873) was an English novelist, playwright, and politician. ... Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov (In Russian Алексей Максимович Пешков) (March 28 [O.S. March 16] 1868–June 18, 1936), better known as Maxim Gorky (Максим Горький), was a Soviet/Russian author, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. ... Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who is closely associated with the scientific revolution. ... David Hare (born June 5, 1947) is an English dramatist and director. ... Bertolt Brecht Brecht redirects here. ... Life of Galileo, also known simply as Galileo, is a play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht which was first published in 1940. ... The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. ... Title page of the first quarto (1600) Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare. ... Nicholas Hytner (born May 7, 1956) is an award-winning British theatrical and opera producer and director. ...

His performance at the National as Hamlet attracted attention and provoked commentary; some considered Russell Beale an unlikely choice to embody the quintessentially youthful and contemplative hero once played by virile actors like Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, and Mel Gibson. Beale's performance, more restrained and conversational in nature, was a resounding success, becoming one of the most noteworthy Hamlets of recent decades. Hamlet and Horatio in the cemetery by Eugène Delacroix For other uses, see Hamlet (disambiguation). ... Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and four-time Emmy winning English actor, director, and producer. ... Richard Burton CBE (November 10, 1925 – August 5, 1984) was a Welsh actor. ... Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson AO (born January 3, 1956) is an American born Australian actor, director, and producer. ...

In 2007 he reprised his Broadway role as King Arthur in the Monty Python musical Spamalot at the Palace Theatre, London. Broadway theatre[1] is the most prestigious form of professional theatre in the U.S., as well as the most well known to the general public and most lucrative for the performers, technicians and others involved in putting on the shows. ... A bronze Arthur in plate armour with visor raised and with jousting shield wearing Kastenbrust armour (early 15th century) by Peter Vischer, typical of later anachronistic depictions of Arthur. ... Monty Python, or The Pythons, is the collective name of the creators of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. ... Monty Pythons Spamalot is a comedic musical lovingly ripped off from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). ... The Palace Theatre, London, is an imposing red-brick building that dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus, and is located near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. ...

Screen roles

In 1997 he portrayed the pivotal role of Kenneth Widmerpool in a television adaptation of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, for which he won the Best Actor award at the British Academy Television Awards in 1998. He also played the King of Hearts in a 1999 television adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Kenneth Widmerpool is a fictional character in Anthony Powells sequence of novels, A Dance to the Music of Time. ... Anthony Dymoke Powell, CH (December 21, 1905 - March 28, 2000) was a British novelist best known for his A Dance to the Music of Time duodecalogy published between 1951 and 1975. ... A Dance to the Music of Time is a twelve volume roman à clef by Anthony Powell, published between 1951 and 1975. ... The British Academy Television Awards, also known as the BAFTAs or, to differentiate them from the BAFTA Film Awards, the BAFTA Television Awards, are the most prestigious awards given in the British television industry, analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States. ... Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) – believed to be a self-portrait Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer. ... Alice in Wonderland is the widely known and used title for Alices Adventures in Wonderland, a book written by Lewis Carroll -- as well as several movie adaptations of the book -- and is also the setting for several short stories. ...

• John and Abigail Adams: America's First Power Couple (2006) (TV) - John Adams
• Dunkirk (2004) (TV) - Winston Churchill
• The Young Visiters (2003) (TV) - Prince of Wales
• The Gathering (2002) - Luke Fraser
• Blackadder Back & Forth (1999 short) - Napoleon
• An Ideal Husband (1999) - Sir Edward
• Alice in Wonderland (1999) (TV) - King of Hearts and Society Man
• The Temptation of Franz Schubert (1997) (TV) - Franz Schubert
• A Dance to the Music of Time (1997) (TV) - Kenneth Widmerpool
• Hamlet (1996) - Second gravedigger
• Persuasion (1995) - Charles Musgrove
• The Mushroom Picker (1993) (TV) - Anthony
• Downtown Lagos (1992) (TV)
• Orlando (1992) - Earl of Moray
• A Very Peculiar Practice (1988) (TV)
• Art and Illusion (1988) - Mark Stibbs

American Experience (sometimes abbreviated AmEx) is a television program airing on the PBS network in the United States. ... John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) served as Americas first Vice President (1789–1797) and as its second President (1797–1801). ... Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can) (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician, soldier in the British Army, orator, and strategist, and is studied as part of the modern British and world history. ... Daisy Ashford (1881-1972) was an English writer who is most famous for writing The Young Visiters (ISBN 0-89733-365-9), a novella that parodies upper class society of late 19th century England, when she was just nine years old. ... The Prince of Wales Feathers. This Heraldic badge of the Heir Apparent is derived from the ostrich feathers borne by Edward, the Black Prince. ... The Gathering film poster The Gathering is a 2002 thriller/horror film directed by Brian Gilbert. ... For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ... An Ideal Husband is a 1999 feature film based on the play by Oscar Wilde. ... Alice in Wonderland is the widely known and used title for Alices Adventures in Wonderland, a book written by Lewis Carroll -- as well as several movie adaptations of the book -- and is also the setting for several short stories. ... Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828) was an Austrian composer. ... A Dance to the Music of Time is a twelve volume roman à clef by Anthony Powell, published between 1951 and 1975. ... William Shakespeares Hamlet is a 1996 film version of William Shakespeares classic play of the same name, adapted and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also starred in the title role. ... Jane Austens novel Persuasion (1818) was produced as a film in 1995, and was directed by Roger Michell. ... Orlando is a 1992 movie, based on Virginia Woolfs novel Orlando: A Biography, starring Tilda Swinton as Orlando, and Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth. ... A Very Peculiar Practice was a BBC comedy-drama series, first shown in 1986. ...

Awards and accomplishments

He has won the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award three times (for his performances in Volpone, Candide and Uncle Vanya). In 2003 he was appointed CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. The Laurence Olivier Awards, previously known as The Society of West End Theatre Awards, were renamed in honour of British actor Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier in 1984, having first been established in 1976. ... The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross (GBE) Knight Commander... The honours system of the United Kingdom is a means of rewarding personal bravery, achievement or service to the country. ...

Personal Life

In the Independent on Sunday 2006 Pink List - a list of the most influential gay men and women - he came no. 30, up from 34

Links

• Simon Russell Beale at the Internet Movie Database
• Simon Russell Beale at the Internet Broadway Database
• National Theatre: Platforms
• Russell Beale news
• Broadway.com Interview