Ian Holm

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Ian Holm Cuthbert

Holm in Edinburgh, August 2004.
Born Ian Holm Cuthbert
12 September 1931 (1931-09-12) (age 77)
Goodmayes, East London, England, United Kingdom
Years active 1957 - present
Spouse(s) Lynn Mary Shaw (1955–1965)
Sophie Baker (1982–1986)
Penelope Wilton (1991–2001)
Sophie de Stempel (2003-present)

Sir Ian Holm CBE (born 12 September 1931) is an English award-winning actor known for his stage work and for many film roles, including the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in the first and third films of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element and the android Ash in Alien.

Contents

[edit] Early years

Holm was born Ian Holm Cuthbert in Goodmayes, East London to Scottish parents, Jean Wilson Holm and James Harvey Cuthbert.[1] His mother was a nurse, and his father was a psychiatrist who worked as the superintendent of the West Ham Corporation Mental Hospital and was one of the pioneers of electric shock therapy.[2][3][4][5] He had an older brother, Eric, who died in 1943. Holm was educated at the independent Chigwell School in Essex and then at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

[edit] Career

Holm was an established star of the Royal Shakespeare Company before making an impact on television and film. In 1965, Holm played Richard III in the BBC serialisation of the Wars of the Roses plays, based on the RSC production of the plays, and gradually made a name for himself with minor roles in films such as Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) and Young Winston (1972). In 1967, he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play, for playing the role of Lenny in The Homecoming by Harold Pinter. In 1977, Holm appeared in the TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth as the Sadducee Zerah, and in the following year played J M Barrie in the award-winning BBC TV series The Lost Boys, in which his son Barnaby played the young George Llewelyn Davies.

Holm's first film role to have a major impact was that of the treacherous android, Ash, in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). His portrayal of Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981), earned him a special award at the Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Back home in England, he won a BAFTA award, for Best Supporting Actor, for Chariots. In the 1980s, he had memorable roles in Time Bandits (1981), Greystoke - The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985). He played Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland in the Dennis Potter-scripted fantasy Dreamchild (1985).

In 1989 Holm was nominated for a BAFTA award for the TV series Game, Set, and Match. Based on the novels by Len Deighton this tells the story of an intelligence officer (Holm) who discovers that his own wife is an enemy spy. He continued to perform Shakespeare, and appeared with Kenneth Branagh in Henry V (1989) and as Polonius to Mel Gibson's Hamlet (1990). Holm was reunited with Kenneth Branagh in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), playing the father of Branagh's Victor Frankenstein.

Holm raised his profile in 1997 with two prominent roles, as the stressed but gentle priest Vito Cornelius in the The Fifth Element and the tormented plaintiff's lawyer in The Sweet Hereafter. Holm was knighted for his services to drama in 1998. In 2001 he starred in From Hell as the physician Sir William Withey Gull. The same year he appeared as Bilbo Baggins in the blockbuster film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, having previously played Bilbo's nephew Frodo Baggins in a 1981 BBC Radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. He reappeared in the trilogy in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), for which he shared a SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Holm has been nominated for an Emmy Award twice, for a PBS broadcast of a National Theatre production of King Lear, in 1999; and for a supporting role in the HBO film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells opposite Judi Dench, in 2001. Holm has provided voice-overs for many British TV documentaries and commercials.

Holm is a favorite actor of Terry Gilliam, having appeared in Time Bandits and Brazil. Holm has also appeared in two David Cronenberg films, Naked Lunch (1991) and eXistenZ (1999) and was Harold Pinter's favourite actor, the playwright once stating: "He puts on my shoe, and it fits!" Holm made a stir as Lenny in the first ever performance of Pinter's masterpiece The Homecoming.

He has played Napoleon Bonaparte three times. First, in the 1972 television series Napoleon and Love. Next, in a cameo comic rendition, in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits from 1981. He completed the set in 2001 playing the fallen and exiled leader in the fanciful film The Emperor's New Clothes.

[edit] Personal life

Holm has been married four times.[6] In 1991 he married his third wife, popular actress Penelope Wilton, and they appeared together in The Borrowers (1993) on British television. They divorced in 2001.[6] He is currently married to artist Sophie de Stempel, a protégée and life model of Lucian Freud.[7]

Holm has five children, three daughters and two sons, from three women, including the first two of his four wives.[6] His eldest daughter, Jessica, is presenter of the Crufts Dog Show. Sarah-Jane Holm played Jenny Rodenhurst Simcock in A Bit of a Do. Barnaby Holm acted as a child but now lives in Los Angeles as a Hollywood club owner, while Harry Holm is a filmmaker most notable for his music videos. Melissa Holm is a casting director.

He was made a CBE in 1990. He was made a Knight Bachelor in 1998 for Services to Drama.

He was treated for prostate cancer in 2001, which currently appears to be in complete remission.[6]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Awards and nominations

Awards
Nominations

[edit] Bibliography

  • Holm, Ian; Jacobi, Steven (2004). Acting my Life. London: Bantam Press. ISBN 0593052145. 

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Ian Holm Biography". filmreference. 2008. http://www.filmreference.com/film/41/Ian-Holm.html. Retrieved on 2009-01-22. 
  2. ^ "Ian Holm". Channel 4 Film. 2008. http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/person.jsp?id=12990. Retrieved on 2009-01-22. 
  3. ^ "Ian Holm - Family and Companions". Yahoo!7 Movies. 2008. http://au.movies.yahoo.com/Ian+Holm/biography/122636/family. Retrieved on 2009-01-22. 
  4. ^ "Excerpts from Loch Ness Presskit (1995)". aboutjamesfrain. 18 April 2004. http://www.aboutjamesfrain.com/pr28.html. Retrieved on 2009-01-27. 
  5. ^ Matthew Sweet (16 January 2004). "Film: Napoleon Complex". The Independent. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040116/ai_n9684235. Retrieved on 2009-01-27. 
  6. ^ a b c d Holm, Ian; Jacobi, Steven (2004). Acting my Life. London: Bantam Press. pp. 220, 224, 313ff. ISBN 0593052145. 
  7. ^ "Portrait of the actor and his fourth wife". The Daily Telegraph. 2004-02-07. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/02/07/dp0701.xml. Retrieved on 2008-07-14. 

[edit] External links


Awards
First BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
1969
for The Bofors Gun		 Succeeded by
Laurence Olivier
for Oh! What a Lovely War
Preceded by
Robert Duvall
for Apocalypse Now		 BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
1982
for Chariots of Fire		 Succeeded by
Jack Nicholson
for Reds
v • d • e
Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor

Antony Sher (1985) · Albert Finney (1986) · Michael Gambon (1987) · Oliver Ford Davies (1990) · Ian McKellen (1991) · Nigel Hawthorne (1992) · Robert Stephens (1993) · Mark Rylance (1994) · David Bamber (1995) · Alex Jennings (1996) · Antony Sher (1997) · Ian Holm (1998) · Kevin Spacey (1999) · Henry Goodman (2000) · Conleth Hill (2001) · Roger Allam (2002) · Simon Russell Beale (2003) · Matthew Kelly (2004) · Richard Griffiths (2005) · Brian Dennehy (2006) · Rufus Sewell (2007) · Chiwetel Ejiofor (2008) Derek Jacobi (2009)
v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play

Arthur Kennedy (1949) · Eli Wallach (1951) · John Cromwell (1952) · John Williams (1953) · John Kerr (1954) · Francis L. Sullivan (1955) · Ed Begley (1956) · Frank Conroy (1957) · Henry Jones (1958) · Charlie Ruggles (1959) · Roddy McDowall (1960) · Martin Gabel (1961) · Walter Matthau (1962) · Alan Arkin (1963) · Hume Cronyn (1964) · Jack Albertson (1965) · Patrick Magee (1966) · Ian Holm (1967) · James Patterson (1968) · Al Pacino (1969) · Ken Howard (1970) · Paul Sand (1971) · Vincent Gardenia (1972) · John Lithgow (1973) · Ed Flanders (1974) · Frank Langella (1975)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Holm"
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