Denholm Elliott

Denholm Elliott CBE
Elliott as Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Born	Denholm Mitchell Elliott (1922-05-31)31 May 1922 Ealing, Middlesex, England
Died	6 October 1992(1992-10-06) (aged 70) Santa Eulària des Riu, Ibiza, Spain
Cause of death	Tuberculosis caused by AIDS
Resting place	Cremains scattered in Ibiza
Nationality	British
Education	Malvern College
Alma mater	Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1949–1992
Spouse(s)	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 more than 120 film and television credits. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. In the 1980s, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in three consecutive years, the only actor ever to have achieved this. He is perhaps best known for portraying Dr Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and as Coleman in Trading Places (1983).

Early life

Elliott was born in London, the son of Nina (née Mitchell) and Myles Laymen Farr Elliott. His elder brother Neil was land agent to Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck. Myles

was a barrister who had read Law and Arabic at Cambridge before fighting with the Glosters at Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia. In 1930 Myles Elliott was appointed Solicitor-General to the Mandatory Government in Palestine. Three years later, following a series of controversial government prosecutions, he was assassinated outside the King David Hotel, and buried in the Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion.

Denholm Elliott attended Malvern College and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He was asked to leave RADA after one term. As Elliott later recalled: "They wrote to my mother and said, 'Much as we like the little fellow, he's wasting your money and our time. Take him away!'"

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.

On the night of 23/24 September 1942, his Handley Page Halifax DT508 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. Elliott and two other crew members survived and he spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp in Silesia. While imprisoned he became involved in amateur dramatics.

Career

After making his film debut in Dear Mr. Prohack (1949), he went on to play a wide range of parts, often ineffectual and occasionally seedy characters, such as the drunken journalist Bayliss in Defence of the Realm, the criminal 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.

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. There is also a statue dedicated to Marcus outside of Marshall College, the school where Indy teaches. In 1988, Elliott was the Russian mole Povin, around whom the entire plot revolves, in the television miniseries Codename: Kyril.

Having filmed Michael Winner's 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 worked with Sinden's father, Sir Donald Sinden, in the film The Cruel Sea (1953). He co-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, and a well acclaimed turn as the twin brothers in Jean Anouilh's Ring Round the Moon. His scene-stealing abilities led Gabriel Byrne, his co-star in Defence of the Realm, to say: "Never act with children, dogs, or Denholm Elliott."

Despite being described by Screenonline as an actor of "versatile understanding and immaculate technique", Elliott described himself as an instinctive actor and was a critic of Stanislavski's system of acting, saying: "I mistrust and am rather bored with actors who are of the Stanislavski school who think about detail."

Personal life

Privately bisexual, Elliott was married twice; first to actress Virginia McKenna for a few months in 1954, and later, in an open marriage, to American actress Susan Robinson (7 March 1942 – 12 April 2007), with whom he had two children, Mark and Jennifer. Jennifer committed suicide by hanging in 2003.

Death

Elliott was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and died of AIDS-related tuberculosis at his home in Santa Eulària des Riu on Ibiza, Spain, on 6 October 1992 at the age of 70. Tributes were paid by actors Sir Donald Sinden and Sir Peter Ustinov, playwright Dennis Potter and former wife Virginia McKenna. Sinden said, "He was one of the finest screen actors and a very special actor at that. He was one of the last stars who was a real gentleman. It is a very sad loss." Ustinov said, "He was a wonderful actor and a very good friend on the occasions that life brought us together." Potter commented, "He was a complicated, sensitive and slightly disturbing actor. Not only was he a very accomplished actor, he was a dry, witty and slightly menacing individual. As a man, I always found him very open, very straightforward and very much to the point." McKenna added: "It is absolutely dreadful, but the person I am thinking of at the moment more than anybody is his wife. It must be terrible for her." Ismail Merchant described Elliott as "an all-giving person, full of life ... He had an affection and feeling for other actors, which is very unusual in our business."

His widow set up a charity, the Denholm Elliott Project, and collaborated on his biography. She worked closely with the UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS. Susan Robinson Elliott died on 12 April 2007, aged 65, following a fire in her flat in London.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1949	Dear Mr. Prohack	Oswald Morfrey
1952	The Sound Barrier	Christopher Ridgefield	Released as Breaking the Sound Barrier in USA
	La bergère et le ramoneur
	The Ringer	John Lemley
	The Holly and the Ivy	Michael Gregory
1953	The Cruel Sea	Morell
	The Heart of the Matter	Wilson
1954	They Who Dare	Sergeant Corcoran
	Lease of Life	Martin Blake
1955	The Man Who Loved Redheads	Denis
	The Night My Number Came Up	Fl. Lt. Mckenzie
1956	Pacific Destiny	Arthur Grimble
1960	Scent of Mystery	Oliver Larker
1963	Station Six-Sahara	Macey
1964	Nothing But the Best	Charlie Prince
1965	The High Bright Sun	Lt. Charlie Baker
	You Must Be Joking!	Captain Tabasco
	King Rat	Larkin
1966	Alfie	The Abortionist
	The Spy with a Cold Nose	Pond-Jones
1967	Maroc 7	Inspector Barrada
1968	Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush	Mr Beauchamp
	The Night They Raided Minsky's	Vance Fowler
	The Sea Gull	Dorn, a doctor
1970	Too Late the Hero	Captain Hornsby
	The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer	Peter Niss
1971	Percy	Emmanuel Whitbread
	The House That Dripped Blood	Charles Hillyer	(segment 1 "Method for Murder")
	Quest for Love	Tom Lewis
1972	Madame Sin	Malcolm De Vere
1973	The Vault of Horror	Diltant	(segment 5 "Drawn and Quartered")
	A Doll's House	Krogstad
1974	The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz	Friar
	Percy's Progress	Sir Emmanuel Whitbread
1975	Russian Roulette	Commander Petapiece
1976	A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Signalman	The Signalman	Television series, 6 episodes
	To the Devil a Daughter	Henry Beddows
	Robin and Marian	Will Scarlet
	Partners	John Grey
	Voyage of the Damned	Admiral Canaris
1977	A Bridge Too Far	R.A.F. Met. Officer
	The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It	English Delegate
1978	Sweeney 2	Jupp
	The Hound of the Baskervilles	Stapleton
	La petite fille en velours bleu (Little Girl in Blue Velvet)	Mike
	The Boys from Brazil	Sidney Beynon
	Watership Down	Cowslip	Voice
1979	Saint Jack	William Leigh
	Zulu Dawn	Colonel Pulleine
	A Game for Vultures	Ragan Thistle
	Cuba	Donald Skinner
1980	Bad Timing	Stefan Vognic
	Rising Damp	Charles Seymour
	Sunday Lovers	Parker	(segment "An Englishman's Home")
1981	Raiders of the Lost Ark	Dr. Marcus Brody
1982	Brimstone and Treacle	Tom Bates
	The Missionary	The Bishop
1983	The Wicked Lady	Sir Ralph Skelton
	Trading Places	Coleman
1984	The Razor's Edge	Elliott Templeton
	A Private Function	Dr Charles Swaby
1985	Underworld	Dr. Savary
	A Room with a View	Mr Emerson
1986	Defence of the Realm	Vernon Bayliss
	The Whoopee Boys	Col. Phelps
1987	Maurice	Doctor Barry
	September	Howard
1988	Stealing Heaven	Fulbert
	Hanna's War
	Keys to Freedom	Inspector Basil Crisp
1989	Return from the River Kwai	Colonel Grayson
	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	Marcus Brody
	Killing Dad	Nathy
1991	Toy Soldiers	Headmaster
1992	Scorchers	Howler
	Noises Off	Selsdon Mowbray	(Last appearance)

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1958-59	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	John Manbridge/Jack Lyons	2 episodes
1966	The Man in Room 17	Defraits	13 episodes
1972	The Persuaders!	Roland	Episode: A Death in the Family
	Follow the Yellow Brick Road	Jack Black	Television play
1976	Brimstone and Treacle		Television play
	Clayhanger	Tertius Ingpen	9 episodes
1977	Ripping Yarns	Mr Gregory	Episode: Across The Andes by Frog
1980	Blade on the Feather	Jack Hill	TV film
1982	Marco Polo	Niccolo Polo	8 episodes
1984	Camille	Count de Noilly	TV film
1985	Bleak House	John Jarndyce	7 episodes
1986	Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry	George Parker	TV film
1987	Hotel du Lac		TV film
	Scoop	Mr. Salter	TV film
	A Child's Christmas in Wales	Old Geraint	TV film
1988	Codename: Kyril	Povin	4 episodes
	The Bourne Identity	Dr Geoffrey Washburn	TV mini-series
	Noble House	Alastair Struan	4 episodes
1989	Bangkok Hilton	Hal Stanton	3 episodes
1991	A Matter of Quality	George Smiley	TV film
	A Murder of Quality	George Smiley	TV film
	One Against the Wind	Father LeBlanc	TV film
	The Black Candle	William Filmore	TV film

See also

• List of British actors and actresses
• List of people from Ealing
• List of RADA alumni

External links

• Denholm Elliott at the BFI's Screenonline
• Denholm Elliott at Find a Grave
• Denholm Elliott at the Internet Broadway Database
• Denholm Elliott at IMDb
• Denholm Elliott BFI
• Performances in the Theatre Archive University of Bristol