Topic Page: Courtenay, Tom (1937 - )
1937-
♦ English actor
Born in Hull, he trained at RADA and made his professional debut, as Konstantin in Chekhov's The Seagull, with the Old Vic company in Edinburgh in 1960. He has since appeared in a variety of roles, including Hamlet at the 1968 Edinburgh Festival and Norman in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy trilogy The Norman Conquests (1974). Other stage appearances include leading roles in The Dresser (1980), the title role in the musical Andy Capp (1982), Harpagon in a translation of Molière's Le Misanthrope (1991, "The Misanthropist") and Art (1996). A distinguished film actor, he made his first appearance in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1962), becoming one of the stars of the 1960s British New Wave. Subsequent films include Billy Liar (1963), King Rat (1965), Dr Zhivago (1965), One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (1971), The Dresser (1983) and Last Orders (2001). On television he won a BAFTA Best Actor award for A Rather English Marraige (1998) and starred in the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit (2008). He was knighted in 2001, the same year he published an autobiography based on his mother's early letters, Dear Tom: Letters from Home.
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Not conventionally handsome, with a northern accent, Courtenay played Konstantin in an Old Vic production of Chekhov 's ...
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English, born in Hull. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he made his film debut as the working-class rebel in The Loneliness...
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MEDIUM: bromide print MEASUREMENTS: 9 3/4 in. x 7 7/8 in. (248 mm x 200 mm) image size ID: x165895