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{{Infobox comedian
{{Infobox comedian
| image = RowanAtkinsonMar07.jpg
| image = Mr.-Bean-at-Royal-Wedding.jpg
| caption = Atkinson in 2007
| caption = Atkinson going to Wstminster Abbey
| birth_name = Rowan Sebastian Atkinson
| birth_name = Rowan Sebastian Atkinson
| birth_date = {{Birthdate and age|1955|1|6|df=y}}
| birth_date = {{Birthdate and age|1955|1|6|df=y}}

Revision as of 03:38, 1 June 2011

Rowan Atkinson
File:Mr.-Bean-at-Royal-Wedding.jpg
Atkinson going to Wstminster Abbey
Birth nameRowan Sebastian Atkinson
Born (1955-01-06) 6 January 1955 (age 69)
Consett, County Durham, England, United Kingdom
MediumStand-up, television, film
Years active1978–present
GenresPhysical comedy, satire
Spouse
Sunetra Sastry
​
(m. 1990)​
Notable works and rolesNot the Nine O'Clock News
Blackadder
Mr. Bean
The Thin Blue Line
Template:Infobox comedian awards

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is an English comedian, screenwriter, and actor. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and The Thin Blue Line. He has been listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy,[3] and amongst the top 50 comedy actors ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians.[4]

Early life and education

Atkinson, the youngest of four sons, was born in Consett, County Durham, England.[5] His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945.[5] His three older brothers including Paul, who died as a baby, Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert.[6][7] Atkinson was brought up Anglican,[8] and was educated at Durham Choristers School, St. Bees School, and Newcastle University.[9] In 1975, he continued for the degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford, the same college his father matriculated at in 1935,[10] which made Rowan an Honorary Fellow in 2006.[11] First achieving notice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976,[9] while at Oxford he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis[9] and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.

Career

Radio

Atkinson starred in a series of comedy shows for BBC Radio 3 in 1978 called "The Atkinson People". It consisted of a series of satirical interviews with fictional great men, who were played by Atkinson himself. The series was written by Atkinson and Richard Curtis, and produced by Griff Rhys Jones.[12]

Television

After university, Atkinson toured with Angus Deayton as his funny man in an act that was eventually filmed for a television show. After the success of the show, he did a one-off pilot for ITV in 1979 called Canned Laughter. Atkinson then went on to do Not the Nine O'Clock News, produced by his friend John Lloyd. He starred on the show along with Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith, and was one of the main sketch writers.

The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to his starring in the medieval sitcom The Black Adder, which he also co-wrote with Richard Curtis, in 1983. After a three-year gap, in part due to budgetary concerns, a second series was written, this time by Curtis and Ben Elton, and first screened in 1986. Blackadder II followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era. The same pattern was repeated in the two sequels Blackadder the Third (1987) (set in the Regency era), and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) (set in World War I). The Blackadder series went on to become one of the most successful BBC situation comedies of all time, spawning television specials including Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988) and Blackadder: The Cavalier Years (1988).

Atkinson's other famous creation, the hapless Mr. Bean, first appeared on New Years Day in 1990 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. The character of Mr. Bean has been likened somewhat to a modern-day Buster Keaton.[13] During this time, Atkinson appeared at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal in 1987 and 1989. Several sequels to Mr. Bean appeared on television in the 1990s, and it eventually made into a major motion picture in 1997. Entitled Bean, it was directed by Mel Smith, his former co-star from Not the Nine O'Clock News. A second movie was released in 2007 entitled Mr. Bean's Holiday.

In 1995 and 1997, Atkinson portrayed Inspector Raymond Fowler in the popular The Thin Blue Line television series, written by Ben Elton, which takes place in a police station located in fictitious Gasforth.

Atkinson has fronted campaigns for Kronenbourg,[14] Hitachi electrical goods, [citation needed] Fujifilm, and Give Blood. Most famously, he appeared as a hapless and error-prone espionage agent in a long-running series for Barclaycard, on which character his title role in Johnny English and Johnny English Reborn was based.

He also starred in a comedy spoof of Doctor Who as the Doctor, for a red nose day benefit.

Film

Atkinson as Mr. Bean, in Brussels, next to the Manneken Pis.

Atkinson's film career began in 1983 with a supporting part in the 'unofficial' James Bond movie Never Say Never Again and a leading role in Dead on Time with Nigel Hawthorne. He appeared in former Not the Nine O'Clock News co-star Mel Smith's directorial debut The Tall Guy in 1989. He also appeared alongside Anjelica Huston and Mai Zetterling in Roald Dahl's The Witches in 1990. In 1993 he played the part of Dexter Hayman in Hot Shots! Part Deux, a parody of Rambo III, starring Charlie Sheen.

Atkinson gained further recognition with his turn as a verbally bumbling vicar in the 1994 hit Four Weddings and a Funeral. That same year he was featured in Walt Disney's The Lion King as Zazu the Red-billed Hornbill. Atkinson continued to appear in supporting roles in successful comedies, including Rat Race (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002), and Love Actually (2003).

In 2005, he acted in the crime/comedy Keeping Mum, which also starred Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith and Patrick Swayze.

In addition to his supporting roles, Atkinson has also had success as a leading man. His television character Mr. Bean debuted on the big screen in 1997 with Bean to international success. A sequel, Mr. Bean's Holiday, was released in March 2007 and may be the last time he plays the character.[15] He has also starred in the James Bond parody Johnny English in 2003. Its sequel, Johnny English Reborn will be released in 2011.

Theatre

Rowan Atkinson appeared in the 2009 revival of the West End musical Oliver! as Fagin.[16] The production was directed by Rupert Goold. A year prior he starred in a pre-West End run of the show in Oxford, directed by Jez Bond.

Comedic style

Best known for his use of physical comedy in his trademark character of Mr. Bean, Atkinson's other characters rely more heavily on language. Atkinson often plays authority figures (especially priests or vicars) speaking absurd lines with a completely deadpan delivery.

One of his better-known trademark comic devices is over-articulation of the "B" sound, such as his pronunciation of "Bob" in a Blackadder episode. Atkinson suffers from stuttering, and the over-articulation is a technique to overcome problematic consonants.[citation needed]

Atkinson's style is often visually-based. This visual style, which has been compared to Buster Keaton,[13] sets Atkinson apart as most modern television and film comedies rely heavily on dialogue, and stand-up comedy is mostly based on monologues. This talent for visual comedy has led to Atkinson being called "the man with the rubber face": comedic reference was made to this in an episode of Blackadder the Third, in which Baldrick (Tony Robinson) refers to his master, Mr. E. Blackadder, as a "lazy, big nosed, rubber-faced bastard".

Personal life

Marriage and children

Atkinson first met Sunetra Sastry in the 1980s, who was working as a make-up artist with the BBC.[17] Sastry is of mixed descent, being the daughter of an Indian father and a British mother.[18] The couple married at the Russian Tea Room in New York City in 1990. They have two children and live in Northamptonshire as well as Oxfordshire and North London.[citation needed] In October 2010, his Blackadder co-star Stephen Fry confessed on The Rob Brydon Show that he had contemplated asking Sastry out (she was a make-up artist on the series), but discovered she was going on a date with Atkinson and kept quiet. Fry was best man at Atkinson's wedding in 1990. Atkinson was formerly in a relationship with actress Leslie Ash.[19]

Politics

In June 2005, Atkinson led a coalition of the UK's most prominent actors and writers, including Nicholas Hytner, Stephen Fry, Colin Farrell, Julia Roberts, David Attenborough and Ian McEwan, to the British Parliament in an attempt to force a review of a Bill which they felt would give overwhelming power to religious groups to impose censorship on the arts.[20]

In 2009, he criticised homophobic speech legislation, saying that the House of Lords must vote against a government attempt to remove a free speech clause in an anti-gay hate law.[21]

Cars

With an estimated wealth of £100 million, Atkinson is able to indulge his passion for cars that began with driving his mother's Morris Minor around the family farm. He has written for the British magazines Car, Octane, Evo, and "SuperClassics", a short-lived UK magazine, in which he reviewed the McLaren F1 in 1995.

Atkinson holds a category C+E (formerly 'Class 1') lorry driving licence, gained in 1981, because lorries held a fascination for him, and to ensure employment as a young actor. He has also used this skill when filming comedy material.

A lover of and participant in car racing, he appeared as racing driver Henry Birkin in the television play Full Throttle in 1995. In 1991, he starred in the self-penned The Driven Man, a series of sketches featuring Atkinson driving around London trying to solve his car-fetish, and discussing it with taxi drivers, policemen, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists.[22]

Atkinson has raced in other cars, including a Renault 5 GT Turbo for two seasons for its one make series. He owns a McLaren F1, which was involved in an accident in Cabus, near Garstang, Lancashire with an Austin Metro. He also owns a Honda NSX.[23] Other cars he owns include an Audi A8,[24] and a Honda Civic Hybrid.[25]

The Conservative Party politician Alan Clark, himself a devotee of classic motor cars, recorded in his published Diaries this chance meeting with a man he later realised was Atkinson while driving through Oxfordshire in May 1984: "Just after leaving the motorway at Thame I noticed a dark red DBS V8 Aston Martin on the slip road with the bonnet up, a man unhappily bending over it. I told Jane to pull in and walked back. A DV8 in trouble is always good for a gloat." Clark writes that he gave Atkinson a lift in his Rolls Royce to the nearest telephone box, but was disappointed in his bland reaction to being recognised, noting that: "he didn't sparkle, was rather disappointing and chétif."[26]

One car Atkinson has said he will not own is a Porsche: "I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people—and I wish them no ill—are not, I feel, my kind of people. I don't go around saying that Porsches are a pile of dung, but I do know that psychologically I couldn't handle owning one."[27][28]

Television appearances

Rowan Atkinson demonstrating a famous scene from the Mr. Bean series on a Mini at Goodwood Circuit in 2009

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1979 The Secret Policeman's Ball Various roles
1981 Fundamental Frolics Himself
1982 The Secret Policeman's Other Ball Himself & Various Roles
1983 Dead on Time Bernard Fripp
Never Say Never Again Nigel Small-Fawcett
1989 The Appointments of Dennis Jennings Dr. Schooner Short Film
The Tall Guy Ron Anderson
1990 The Witches Mr. Stringer
1991 The Driven Man Himself TV
Also Writer
1993 Hot Shots! Part Deux Dexter Hayman
1994 Four Weddings and a Funeral Father Gerald
The Lion King Zazu Voice Only
1997 Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie Mr. Bean Also Writer/Executive Producer
2000 Maybe Baby Mr. James
2001 Rat Race Enrico Pollini
2002 Scooby-Doo Emile Mondavarious
2003 Johnny English Johnny English
Love Actually Rufus Nominated – Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Ensemble Acting
2005 Keeping Mum Reverend Walter Goodfellow
2007 Mr. Bean's Holiday Mr. Bean Also Writer
2011 Johnny English Reborn[29] Johnny English Also Executive Producer

Live comedy albums

Awards

Atkinson has won the following awards:

References

  1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-11082430
  2. ^ Blackadder Hall Blog » Blog Archive » Rowan Interview – no more Bean… or Blackadder
  3. ^ "The A-Z of laughter (part one)", The Observer, 7 December 2003. Retrieved 7 January 2007.
  4. ^ "Cook voted 'comedians' comedian'". BBC News. 2 January 2005.
  5. ^ a b Barratt, Nick (25 August 2007). "Family Detective – Rowan Atkinson". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  6. ^ Foreign Correspondent – 22 July 1997: Interview with Rodney Atkinson, Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
  7. ^ Profile: UK Independence Party, BBC News, 28 July 2006. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
  8. ^ Mann, Virginia (28 February 1992). "For Rowan Atkinson, comedy can be frightening". The Record. Retrieved 10 December 2007. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  9. ^ a b c "BBC – Comedy Guide – Rowan Atkinson". BBC. 4 December 2004. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
  10. ^ http://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/old-members/files/newsletters/newsletter3.pdf page 6: "The donation was given in memory of Rowan Atkinson's father, Eric Atkinson, who matriculated at Queens in 1935."
  11. ^ http://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/old-members/files/newsletters/newsletter8.pdf page 5, issue date Trinity Term 2006: "The College has recently elected seven more Old Members to Honorary Fellowships. They are well-known actor and writer Rowan Atkinson (1975, Engineering);"
  12. ^ "Pick of the Day", The Guardian, 31 January 2007.
  13. ^ a b Museum.tv
  14. ^ Kronenbourg Commercial
  15. ^ Wong, Tony (22 August 2007). "It's not easy being Bean". Toronto Star. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
  16. ^ "Denise Van Outen leads celebs in standing ovation as Oliver! arrives with a bang". London: BBC. 15 January 2009. Retrieved 19 April 2010.
  17. ^ Profile: Beany Wonder, 10 June 2007, The Hindu
  18. ^ MY DELICIOUS MRS BEAN; Shy Rowan was struck dumb on chaotic first date., 7 August 1997, The Mirror
  19. ^ Adams, Guy (24 March 2007). "Rowan Atkinson: Comic engima - Profiles, People - The Independent". The Independent. UK. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
  20. ^ Freeman, Simon (20 June 2005). "Rowan Atkinson leads crusade against religious hatred Bill". The Times. UK. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
  21. ^ Rowan Atkinson attacks gay hate law
  22. ^ Dargis, Manohla. "Rowan Atkinson: The Driven Man – Trailer – Cast – Showtimes". The New York Times.
  23. ^ "Mr Bean crashes sports car". BBC News. 27 October 1999.
  24. ^ Nemonis.net
  25. ^ Stars & their Cars:Rowan Atkinson – Celebrity Fun | MSN Cars UK
  26. ^ Alan Clark Diaries (Phoenix, 1993) p80
  27. ^ Wormald, Andrew (6 October 2005). "Stars & their Cars:Rowan Atkinson". MSN. p. 1. Retrieved 1 July 2007. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  28. ^ a b c Museum.tv
  29. ^ Tatiana Siegel (8 April 2010). "Universal signs up for more English". Variety. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
  30. ^ Nominations at Olivier Award 2010
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