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Suggest pagesDenholm Elliott
| Denholm Elliott CBE |
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 Elliot as Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). |
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| Born | Denholm Mitchell Elliott 31 May 1922 Ealing, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 6 October 1992 (aged 70) Ibiza, Spain |
| Cause of death | AIDS |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Malvern College |
| Alma mater | Royal Academy of Dramatic Art |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1949–1992 |
| Spouse | Virginia McKenna (1954; divorced) Susan Robinson (1962–92; his death) |
Denholm Mitchell Elliott, CBE (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992) was an English film, television and theatre actor with over 120 film and television credits.[1] In the 1980s, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in three consecutive years.
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[edit] Early life
He was born in London, England, the son of Nina (née Mitchell) and Myles Laymen Farr Elliott.[2] He attended Malvern College and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
In World War II, he joined the Royal Air Force, training as a sergeant radio operator and gunner and serving with No. 76 Squadron RAF under the command of Leonard Cheshire.[3] On the night of 23/24 September 1942, his Handley Page Halifax bomber took part in an air raid on the U-boat pens at Flensburg, Germany. The aircraft was hit by flak and subsequently ditched in the North Sea near Sylt, Germany. Elliot and two other crew members survived and he spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp in Silesia, during which time he became involved in amateur dramatics.[4]
[edit] Career
After making his film debut in Dear Mr. Prohack (1949), he went on to play a wide range of parts, often such ineffectual and occasionally seedy characters as the journalist Bayliss in Defence of the Realm, the abortionist in Alfie, and the washed-up film director in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Elliott and Natasha Parry played the main roles in the 1955 television play, The Apollo of Bellac.[5]
Elliott made many television appearances, notably in plays by Dennis Potter, including Follow the Yellow Brick Road (1972), Brimstone and Treacle (1976), and Blade on the Feather (1980). He took over for an ill Michael Aldridge for one season of The Man in Room 17 (1966) and appeared in the series Thriller (1975).
In the 1980s, he won three consecutive British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards – Best Supporting Actor for Trading Places as Dan Aykroyd's kindly butler, A Private Function, and Defence of the Realm – as well as an Academy Award nomination for A Room with a View. He also became familiar to a wider audience as the well-meaning but addlepated Dr. Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. A photograph of his character appears in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and a reference is made to Brody's death. In 1988, Elliott was the Russian mole Povin, around whom the entire plot revolves, in the television miniseries Codename: Kyril.
Having filmed Michael Winners' The Wicked Lady (1983), Elliott was quoted in a BBC Radio interview as saying that he and Marc Sinden "are the only two British actors I am aware of who have ever worked with Winner more than once and it certainly wasn't for love. But curiously, I never, ever saw any of the same crew twice." (Elliott in You Must Be Joking! (1965) and The Wicked Lady and Sinden in The Wicked Lady and Decadence). Elliott had also worked with Sinden's father, Donald Sinden, in the film The Cruel Sea (1953).[6]
He also starred with Katharine Hepburn and Harold Gould in the television film, Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry (1986) and with Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton (1989).
In 1988, Elliott was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to acting. His career included many stage performances, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His scene-stealing abilities led to the popular saying in British acting circles: "Never act with children, dogs or Denholm Elliott." [7]
[edit] Personal life
Privately bisexual,[8] Elliott was married twice, the first to the British actress Virginia McKenna for a few months in 1954 and later, in an open marriage, to actress Susan Robinson, with whom he had two children, a son named Mark and a daughter named Jennifer (1964-2003). In 1995, Paul McMullan of The News of the World published a series of articles claiming that Jennifer was living on the street and working as a prostitute and hooked on heroin, by his own admission using information obtained illegally by bribing police officers. Her death in 2003 was suicide, by hanging.[8]
[edit] Death
Elliott was diagnosed with HIV in 1987[8] and died of AIDS-related tuberculosis at his home on Ibiza, Spain, in 1992. He was cremated. His widow set up a charity, the Denholm Elliott Project, in his honour and collaborated on his biography.[9] She also worked closely with the UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS. She died on April 12, 2007, following a fire in her flat in London.[8]
[edit] Filmography and television work
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "British Film Institute Biography". http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/452513/index.html. Retrieved 24 September 2007.
- ^[unreliable source?] "Denholm Elliott Biography (1922–1992)". Filmreference. http://www.filmreference.com/film/97/Denholm-Elliott.html.
- ^ "Encyclopaedia Britannica". http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9000778/Denholm-Elliott. Retrieved 24 September 2007.
- ^ Falconer, Jonathon (1998). The Bomber Command Handbook 1939–1945. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0750918195.
- ^ "Giraudoux Play On Television 'The Apollo Of Bellac'". The Times. 13 August 1955.
- ^ Woods, Judity (8 February 2011). "Michael Winner: 'The Life I've Lived, the Girls I've Had... Ht's Been Incredible'". The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/8309346/Michael-Winner-The-life-Ive-lived-the-girls-Ive-had...-its-been-incredible.html.
- ^ "Denholm Elliott, Actor, 70, Dies; A Star Among Supporting Players". The New York Times. October 7, 1992.. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/07/obituaries/denholm-elliott-actor-70-dies-a-star-among-supporting-players.html.
- ^ a b c d "Susan Elliott (Obituary)". The Daily Telegraph. 24 April 2007. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/04/21/db2102.xml.
- ^ Elliott, Susan; Turner, Barry (1994). Denholm Elliott: Quest for Love.
[edit] External links
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- 1922 births
- 1992 deaths
- 20th-century actors
- 20th-century British people
- Actors from London
- AIDS-related deaths in Spain
- Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
- Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award winners
- Bisexual actors
- Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- Deaths from tuberculosis
- English film actors
- English stage actors
- English television actors
- English voice actors
- LGBT people from England
- Old Malvernians
- People from Ealing
- Royal Air Force airmen
- Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
- World War II prisoners of war held by Germany
