Tom Courtenay

Sir Thomas Daniel Courtenay (born 25 February 1937) is an English actor.

Courtenay was born on 25 February 1937 in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, the son of Annie Eliza (née Quest) and Thomas Henry Courtenay, a boat painter in Hull fish docks.

He attended Kingston High School and went on to study English at University College London, where he failed his degree.

After this he studied drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.

After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he achieved prominence in the 1960s as part of actors of the British New Wave.

Courtenay received numerous accolades including three BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Silver Bear, and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Emmy Award.

Courtenay made his stage debut in 1960 with the Old Vic theatre company at the Lyceum, Edinburgh, before taking over from Albert Finney in the title role of Billy Liar at the Cambridge Theatre in 1961.

This was followed by The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, directed by Tony Richardson and Billy Liar, two highly acclaimed films and performances which helped usher in the British New Wave of the early-to-mid-1960s.

Despite being catapulted to fame by the aforementioned films, Courtenay has said that he has not particularly enjoyed film acting; from the mid-1960s he concentrated more on stage work, although in a later Telegraph interview on 4/20/2005, he admitted "I slightly overdid the anti-film thing".

Courtenay earned the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his role in the coming-of-age film The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)⁠ and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in David Lean's epic Doctor Zhivago (1965).

Courtenay's film debut was in 1962 with Private Potter, directed by Finnish-born director Caspar Wrede, who had first spotted Courtenay while he was still at RADA.

For these performances Courtenay was awarded the 1962 BAFTA Award for most promising newcomer and the 1963 BAFTA Award for best actor respectively.

He also was the first to record the song Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter, doing so for the TV play The Lads.

The song was released by Decca on a 45 rpm record.

Other notable film roles during this period include Billy Liar (1963), King and Country (1964), King Rat (1965), and The Night of the Generals (1967).

In 1963, he played that same title role in the film version, directed by John Schlesinger.

He said of Albert Finney, "We both have the same problem, overcoming the flat harsh speech of the North."

For his role as the dedicated revolutionary leader Pasha Antipov in Doctor Zhivago (1965), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but was bested by Martin Balsam.

Among his other well-known films is King & Country, directed by Joseph Losey, where he played opposite Dirk Bogarde; the all-star war film, Operation Crossbow, directed by Michael Anderson (starring George Peppard and Sophia Loren); King Rat, directed by Bryan Forbes and costarring James Fox and George Segal; and The Night of the Generals, directed by Anatole Litvak with Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif.

He provided physical slapstick comedy in the ultimately chilling anti-nuke black comedy "The Day The Fish Came Out" in 1967.

In 1968, Courtenay began a long association with Manchester when he played in The Playboy of the Western World for the Century Theatre at Manchester University directed by Michael Elliott.

In 1969 and 1971, he was in two spy-comedies, Otley (in the title role) along with "Catch Me A Spy" (1970) starring Kirk Douglas and previously, in 1968, he co-starred in a serious film of that genre, A Dandy in Aspic (1968) opposite Laurence Harvey.

In 1969, Courtenay played Hamlet (John Nettles playing Laertes) for 69 Theatre Company at University Theatre in Manchester, this being the precursor of the Royal Exchange Theatre, which was founded in 1976 where he was to give many performances, firstly under the direction of Casper Wrede.

His first roles for the Royal Exchange were as Faulkland in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals and the hero of Heinrich von Kleist's The Prince of Homburg.

Courtenay's working relationship with Wrede returned to film when he played the title role in the latter's 1970 production of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Courtney originated the role of Norman in Ronald Harwood's The Dresser which was first produced in the West End in 1980.

The production started at Royal Exchange, Manchester before transferring to the Queen's Theatre.

Courtenay acted opposite Freddie Jones as Sir. The production earned the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play.

He then reprised his role on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in 1981, acting opposite Paul Rogers.

Courtenay received nominations for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play for his performance.

For his performance in the 1983 film adaptation of the play The Dresser, in which he reprised the role of Norman he originated both on the West End and Broadway, Courtenay won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and received Academy and BAFTA Award nominations.

He then was cast as Norman in the film adaptation of The Dresser (1983), acting opposite Albert Finney as Sir with performances from Eileen Atkins, Edward Fox, and Michael Gough.

Fame critic from the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert praised Courtenay for his performance writing, "He is perfect for playing proud, resentful, self-doubting outsiders."

Both Courtenay and Finney received nominations for Best Actor in the 1983 Academy Awards for their roles, losing to Robert Duvall in Tender Mercies.

He played the father of Derek Bentley (Christopher Eccleston) in the 1991 film Let Him Have It.

And for an actor known to be cast in good or great films, he surprisingly co-starred in what's been considered one of the worst movies ever, the infamous Leonard Part 6 starring Bill Cosby.

He received two British Academy Television Awards for his performances in the television film A Rather English Marriage (1998) and the first series of the crime drama Unforgotten (2015) as well as a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for the PBS miniseries Little Dorrit (2008).

Since then he has played a variety of roles, including in 1999 the leading role in the theatre's production of King Lear, and in 2001 Uncle Vanya.

He was knighted for his services to cinema and theatre in the 2001 New Year Honours.

His later roles include Last Orders (2001), Nicholas Nickleby (2002), Quartet (2012), 45 Years (2015), and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018).