Nigel Hawthorne

Hawthorne was born on 5 April 1929 in Coventry, Warwickshire (now West Midlands), the second of four children of Agnes Rosemary (née Rice) and Charles Barnard Hawthorne, a physician.[http://www.filmreference.com/film/47/Nigel-Hawthorne.html "Nigel Hawthorne Biography], FilmReference.com. Retrieved 18 August 2009.

When Hawthorne was 3 years old, the family moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where his father had bought a practice. Initially they lived in Gardens and then moved to a newly built house near Camps Bay.Kathleen Riley (2004) [https://books.google.com/books?id=ucs-FWpTjp8C Nigel Hawthorne on Stage], University of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield; {{ISBN|978-1-90280-629-7}}

He attended St George's Grammar School, Cape Town, and, although the family was not Catholic, at a now-defunct Christian Brothers College,[http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant.jsp?spid=83138&apid=0 Biography for Nigel Hawthorne]{{dead link|date=April 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, TCM.com. Retrieved 18 August 2009. where he played in the rugby team.Michael Green (2004) Around and About: Memoires of a South African Newspaperman, David Philip Publishers, Cape Town; {{ISBN|0-86486-660-7}} He described his time at the latter as not being a particularly happy experience.

He enrolled at the University of Cape Town, where he met and sometimes acted in plays with Theo Aronson (later a well-known biographer), but withdrew and returned to the United Kingdom in the 1950s to pursue a career in acting.

Hawthorne made his professional stage debut in 1950, playing Archie Fellows in a Cape Town production of The Shop at Sly Corner. Unhappy in South Africa, he decided to move to London, where he performed in various small parts including a 1969 appearance in Series 3 Episode 1 of the classic TV comedy series Dad's Army before becoming recognised as a great character actor.

Finding success in London, Hawthorne decided to try his luck in New York City and eventually got a part in a 1974 production of As You Like It on Broadway. Around this time, he was persuaded by Ian McKellen and Judi Dench to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. He also supplemented his income by appearing in television advertisements, including one for Mackeson Stout, and in the early 1990s starred alongside Tom Conti in a long-running series of commercials for Vauxhall.

He returned to the New York stage in 1990 in Shadowlands and won the 1991 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.{{cite news |author=Staff and agencies |title=Actor Sir Nigel Hawthorne dies |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/dec/26/filmnews |work=The Guardian |date=26 December 2001 |access-date=17 October 2017 |issn=0261-3077}}

Although Hawthorne had appeared in small roles in various British television series since the late 1950s, his most famous role was as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary of the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs in the television series Yes Minister (and Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister), for which he won four BAFTA awards during the 1980s. He became a household name throughout the United Kingdom, which finally opened the doors to film roles. In 1982, Hawthorne appeared in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, alongside a distinguished international cast including Martin Sheen, John Mills, Candice Bergen, John Gielgud, Ian Charleson and Ben Kingsley. That same year, he starred opposite Clint Eastwood in the Cold War thriller Firefox, where he played a dissident Russian scientist.

Other film roles during this time included Demolition Man, which he detested for being "brainless" and a "cheap picture". This period led into his most famous role: that of King George III in Alan Bennett's stage play The Madness of George III (for which he won a Best Actor Olivier Award) and then the film adaptation titled The Madness of King George, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and won the BAFTA Film Award for Best Actor. (The title was changed lest US audiences misunderstand ‘III’.)

After this success his friend Ian McKellen asked him to play his doomed brother, Clarence, in Richard III, and Steven Spielberg asked him to play lame-duck president Martin Van Buren in Amistad. He won a sixth BAFTA for the 1996 TV mini-series The Fragile Heart. He also drew praise for his role of Georgie Pillson in the London Weekend Television series Mapp and Lucia.

Hawthorne was also a voice actor and lent his voice to two Disney films: Fflewddur Fflam in The Black Cauldron (1985) and Professor Porter in Tarzan (1999). He also voiced Captain Campion in the animated film adaptation of Watership Down (1978).

An intensely private person, he was annoyed at having been outed as gay in 1995 in the publicity surrounding the Academy Awards, but he did attend the ceremony with his long-time partner, Trevor Bentham, and afterwards he spoke openly about being gay in interviews and in his autobiography, Straight Face,Nigel Hawthorne (2002) Straight Face, Hodder & Stoughton, London {{ISBN|978-0-34076-942-3}} which was published posthumously.Hubbard, Michael; [http://www.musicomh.com/comment/straight-face.htm "Straight Face by Nigel Hawthorne"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061211122234/http://www.musicomh.com/comment/straight-face.htm |date=11 December 2006}} MusicOMH.com (Retrieved: 18 August 2009)

Hawthorne met Bentham in 1968 when the latter was stage-managing the Royal Court Theatre. From 1979 until Hawthorne's death in 2001 they lived together in Radwell and then at Thundridge, both in Hertfordshire. The two of them became fund-raisers for the North Hertfordshire hospice and other local charities.{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1366379/Sir-Nigel-Hawthorne-dies-of-heart-attack-aged-72.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1366379/Sir-Nigel-Hawthorne-dies-of-heart-attack-aged-72.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Sir Nigel Hawthorne dies of heart attack aged 72|last=Payne|first=Stewart|date=27 December 2001|work=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=24 November 2012}}{{cbignore}}

Hawthorne died from a heart attack at his home on 26 December 2001, aged 72. He had recently undergone several operations for pancreatic cancer, which he was diagnosed with in mid-2000, but had been discharged from hospital for the Christmas holidays. He was survived by Bentham, and his funeral service was held at St Mary's, the parish church of Thundridge near Ware, Hertfordshire, following which he was cremated at Stevenage Crematorium.Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 20441-20442). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition. His funeral was attended by Derek Fowlds, who had played Bernard in Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, Maureen Lipman, Charles Dance, Loretta Swit and Frederick Forsyth along with friends and local people. The service was led by the Right Reverend Christopher Herbert, the Bishop of St Albans. The coffin had a wreath of white lilies and orchids and Bentham was one of the pallbearers.[https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jan/10/filmnews 'Friends pay tribute to Nigel Hawthorne'] – The Guardian 10 January 2002

On hearing of Hawthorne's death Alan Bennett described him in his diary: "Courteous, grand, a man of the world and superb at what he did, with his technique never so obvious as to become familiar as, say, Olivier's did or Alec Guinness's."{{cite book|first=Alan|last=Bennett|author-link=Alan Bennett|title=Untold Stories|publisher=Faber & Faber|location=London, England|date=2005|page=302}}

He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1987 New Years Honours List{{cite web |title=1987 New Year Honours |url=https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/50764/supplement/8 |website=The London Gazette}} and was knighted in the 1999 New Years Honours List "for services to the Theatre, Film and Television."Barker, Dennis; [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/dec/27/guardianobituaries.media "Sir Nigel Hawthorne"] The Guardian, 27 December 2001 (Retrieved: 18 August 2009)UK list: {{London Gazette |date=31 December 1998 |supp=1 |issue=55354 |pages=2}}

{{reflist}}

{{commons category}}

• {{IMDb name|1329|Nigel Hawthorne}}
• {{IBDB name|nigel-hawthorne-44566|Nigel Hawthorne}}

{{Navboxes

|title = Awards for Nigel Hawthorne

|list =

{{BAFTA Award for Best Actor 1980-1999}}

{{British Academy Television Award for Best Actor 1980–1999}}

{{British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance}}

{{Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor}}

{{Empire Award for Best Actor}}

{{Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor}}

{{OlivierAward PlayActor 1985–2000}}

{{OlivierAward PlayActor SupportingPerformance 1976–2000}}

{{London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actor of the Year}}

{{London Film Critics Circle Award for British Supporting Actor of the Year}}

{{TonyAward PlayLeadActor 1976-2000}}

}}

{{British Triple Crown of Acting winners}}

{{Portal bar|Biography|Theatre|United Kingdom}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawthorne, Nigel}}

Category:1929 births

Category:2001 deaths

Category:20th-century English LGBTQ people

Category:20th-century English male actors

Category:21st-century English LGBTQ people

Category:Actors awarded knighthoods

Category:Audiobook narrators

Category:Best Actor BAFTA Award (television) winners

Category:Best Actor BAFTA Award winners

Category:Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners

Category:Burials in Hertfordshire

Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

Category:Critics' Circle Theatre Award winners

Category:English autobiographers

Category:English expatriates in South Africa

Category:English gay actors

Category:English male film actors

Category:English male Shakespearean actors

Category:English male stage actors

Category:English male television actors

Category:English male voice actors

Category:Knights Bachelor

Category:Laurence Olivier Award winners

Category:Male actors from Cape Town

Category:Male actors from Coventry

Category:Royal Shakespeare Company members

Category:Tony Award winners

Category:University of Cape Town alumni

Category:Walt Disney Animation Studios people