Denholm Elliott

At 70 years old, Denholm Elliott has this physical status:

Denholm Mitchell Elliott, (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992), was an English actor with more than 120 film and television credits.

Mr. Emerson in A Room with a View (1985) - One of his well-known roles include the abortionist in Alfie (1966), Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Elliott's later career earned him critical acclaim.

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Support Actor in a Supporting Role for three years in a row, becoming the only actor to have achieved this honor.

Roger Ebert, an American film critic, characterized him as "the most dependable of all British character actors." The New York Times called him "a celebrity among supporting players" and "an excellent scene-stealer."

Early life

Elliott was born in Kensington, London, in 1922, the son of Nina (née Mitchell), and Myles Layman Farr Elliott, MBE (1890–1966), a barrister who had read law and Arabic before battling with the Gloucestershire Regiment in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia. Myles Elliott was appointed solicitor general to Palestine's Mandatory Government in 1930. He was assassinated outside the King David Hotel and buried in Mount Zion's Protestant Cemetery three years later, following a string of controversial government trials. Neil Emerson Elliott (1920–2003), Elliott's elder brother, was a land agent for Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck.

Elliott studied at Malvern College and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London (RADA). After a year, he was asked to leave the academy. "They wrote to my mother and said, 'Much as we love the little fellow, they's wasting your money and our time," Elliott said later.

Take him away!'"

He joined the Royal Air Force, training as a wireless operator/air gunner and serving with No. 2 in the Second World War. 76 Squadron RAF under the command of Leonard Cheshire. His Handley Page Halifax DT508 bomber, which was on the night of 23/24 September 1942, took part in an air raid on the U-boat pens at Flensburg, Germany. The plane was then abandoned in the North Sea near Sylt, Germany, after it was struck by flak and subsequently ditched in the North Sea. Elliott and two crewmen survived, but the remainder of the war in Stalag Luft VIIIb, a prisoner-of-war camp in Lamsdorf (now ambinowice), Silesia, was carried out by the soldier. He became involved in amateur dramas while detained. He formed a theatre company that was so popular that it toured other POW camps playing Twelfth Night.

Personal life

Elliott was married twice, first to actress Virginia McKenna in 1954 and then in an open marriage to American actress Susan Robinson, the latter of whom died by suicide in 2003.

Elliott was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and died of AIDS-related tuberculosis at his house in Santa Eulàrs, Spain, on October 6th, 1992 at the age of 70. Sir Donald Sinden and Sir Peter Ustinov, playwright Dennis Potter, and former wife Virginia McKenna all paid their tributes.

"He was one of the finest screen actors and a very special actor at that," Sinden said. He was one of the few actors to be a true gentleman. It's a sad loss." "He was a wonderful actor and a really good friend on the occasions that life brought us together," Ustinov said.

"He was a complicated, sensitive, and marginally disturbing actor," Potter said. Not only was he a natural actor but also a sarcastic, witty, and marginally menacing individual. "I always found him very open, straightforward, and right on the point." McKenna said, "It's absolutely dreadful, but the person I am thinking about right now is more concerned than his wife." It must be traumatic for her." Elliott was described by Ismail Merchant as "an all-giving person with a full of life." He had a fascination and admiration for other actors, which is highly unusual in our industry."

His widow established the Denholm Elliott Project, a charity, and he wrote about him. She worked closely with the UK Coalition Against HIV and AIDS. Susan Robinson Elliott, 65, died in a fire in her London flat on April 12th.

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Career

He went on to appear in a number of roles, including an officer in The Cruel Sea (1953 film) and then ineffective and occasionally seedy characters such as alcoholic journalist Bayliss in Defence of the Realm, the criminal abortionist in Alfie's, and Duddy Kravitz's washed-up film director. In the 1955 television film The Apollo of Bellac, Elliott and Natasha Parry played the leading roles. For one season of The Man in Room 17 (1966), he took over for an ill Michael Aldridge.

Elliott appeared on several television shows, including those by Dennis Potter like Follow the Yellow Brick Road (1972), Brimstone and Treacle (1976), and Blade on the Feather (1980). In Charles Dickens' adaptation of his short story The Signalman (1976), he appeared on the BBC. He also appeared in the made-for-TV series. film The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Jack Palance, was directed by Dan Curtis, and conducted by Robert Cobert. [1966-1971] The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Curtis and Cobert, Jr.]

He received three consecutive British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards: Best Supporting Actor for Trading Places, Dan Aykroyd's kindly butler, A Private Function, and Defence of the Realm. For A Room with a View, he received an Academy Award nomination. In Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Marcus Brody, the well-meaning but confused Dr. Marcus Brody. In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a photograph of his character is included, and a nodal reference is given to Brody's burial. In addition, a statue was unveiled outside Marshall College, the school where Indy teaches. In the television miniseries Codename: Kyril, Elliott was the Russian mole Povin, around whom the entire plot revolves.

Elliott was interviewed in a BBC Radio interview as saying that Marc Sinden and he "are the only two British actors I am aware of who have ever worked with Winner more than once," despite his fact that it wasn't for love. However, I never, ever saw any of the crew twice" on "Spacious in the sense that they were never united."

(Elliott in You Must Be Joking!

In The Wicked Lady and Decadence (1965) and The Wicked Lady and Sinden. Elliott appeared in the film The Cruel Sea (1953), where he was reunited with Sinden's father, Sir Donald Sinden. In the television film Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry (1986) and with Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton (1989), he co-starred Katharine Hepburn and Harold Gould.

Elliott was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1988 for his service to acting. His career included many stage appearances, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and a well-known appearance as the twin brothers in Jean Anouilh's Ring Round the Moon. Gabriel Byrne, his co-star in Defence of the Realm, said, "Never play with children, dogs, or Denholm Elliott."

"I mistrust and am rather bored with actors who are not of Stanislavski's method of acting, despite being referred to by the British Film Institute as an actor of "versatile knowledge and immaculate technique," Elliott said of himself as an instinctive actor and a critic of Stanislavski's acting style.

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