Denholm Elliott

Denholm Mitchell Elliott (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992) was an English actor. He appeared in numerous productions on stage and screen, receiving BAFTA awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for ''Trading Places'' (1983), '' A Private Function'' (1984) and ''Defence of the Realm'' (1986), and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Mr. Emerson in '' A Room with a View'' (1985). He is also known for his performances in '' Alfie'' (1966), ''A Doll's House'' (1973), '' A Bridge Too Far'' (1977), '' Maurice'' (1987), ''September'' (1987), and ''Noises Off'' (1992). He portrayed Marcus Brody in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (1981) and ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'' (1989). On television, Elliott won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in 1981 and was nominated for a second for ''Hotel du Lac'' (1986).

The American film critic Roger Ebert described Elliott as "the most dependable of all British character actors." ''The New York Times'' called him "a star among supporting players" and "an accomplished scene-stealer". He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.

Early life

Elliott was born 31 May 1922, in Kensington, London, the son of Nina ( ''née'' Mitchell; 1893–1966) and Myles Layman Farr Elliott, MBE (1890–1933), a barrister who had read law and Arabic at Cambridge before fighting with the Gloucestershire Regiment on 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.
Elliott's elder brother Neil Emerson Elliott (1920–2003) was a land agent to Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck.

Elliott attended Malvern College and joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. He was asked to leave 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 the Second World War, he joined the Royal Air Force, training as a wireless operator/air 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 DT508Record for Halifax DT508
LostAircraft.com 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 four of his crewmen survived, and he spent the rest of the war in Stalag Luft VIIIb, a prisoner-of-war camp in Lamsdorf (now Łambinowice), Silesia. While imprisoned, he became involved in amateur dramatics. He formed a theatre group that was so successful it toured other POW camps playing ''Twelfth Night''.

Career

After making his film debut in '' Dear Mr. Prohack'' (1949) Elliott went on to play a wide range of parts, including an officer in '' The Cruel Sea'' (1953), and often ineffectual and occasionally seedy characters, including the criminal abortionist in '' Alfie'' (1966) and the washed-up film director in '' The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'' (1974). Elliott and Natasha Parry played the main roles in the 1955 television play '' The Apollo of Bellac''."Giraudoux Play On Television 'The Apollo Of Bellac'", ''The Times'', 13 August 1955. He took over for an ill Michael Aldridge for one season of '' The Man in Room 17'' (1966).

Elliott made many television appearances, which included plays by Dennis Potter such as '' Follow the Yellow Brick Road'' (1972), '' Brimstone and Treacle'', (1976) and '' Blade on the Feather'' (1980). He starred in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens's short story '' The Signalman'' (1976). He also co-starred with Jack Palance in the Canadian-American television film '' The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'' (1968).

In the 1980s, Elliott won three consecutive British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards for Best Supporting Actor, for playing the butler to Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy in the American comedy film ''Trading Places'' (1983), Dr. Swaby in the British comedy film '' A Private Function'' (1984), and the drunken journalist Vernon Bayliss in the British political thriller film ''Defence of the Realm'' (1986). He received an Academy Award nomination for playing Mr. Emerson in '' A Room with a View'' (1985). He also played Dr. Marcus Brody, an academic and friend of Indiana Jones, in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (1981) and ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'' (1989). A photograph of his character appears in ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'' (2008), and a reference is made to Brody's death. A statue was also dedicated to Brody outside Marshall College, the school where Indiana Jones teaches. In 1988 Elliott played 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 Marc Sinden and he "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, Donald Sinden, in ''The Cruel Sea''. 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 an 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."

Described by the British Film Institute's 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 and death

While Elliott married twice, he was secretly bisexual. He was first married to actress Virginia McKenna from 1954 to 1957. In 1962, he married American actress Susan Robinson, 20 years his junior, with whom he would have an open marriage and two children.

Their daughter Jennifer committed suicide on Ibiza in 2003. In 1995, ''News of the World'' had published an article exposing her addiction to heroin and alleging that she was a beggar and prostitute, a piece which the tabloid's former deputy features editor Paul McMullan later admitted had "totally humiliated and destroyed her."

Elliott was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and died of AIDS-related tuberculosis at his home in Santa Eulària des Riu on Ibiza, on 6 October 1992, aged 70. Tributes were paid by actors Donald Sinden and Peter Ustinov, the dramatist Dennis Potter, and 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 called him "a complicated, sensitive, and slightly disturbing actor" and "a dry, witty, and slightly menacing individual." 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."

Elliott's widow set up a charity, the Denholm Elliott Project, and collaborated on his biography.Elliott, Susan; Turner, Barry (1994). ''Denholm Elliott: Quest for Love''. She worked closely with the UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS. She died on 12 April 2007, aged 65, in a fire in her flat in Hornsey, London.

Filmography

Film

Television

Stage

Awards and nominations

See also

* List of British actors
* List of people from Kensington
* List of RADA alumni

Notes

References

External links

*

Denholm Elliott
at the British Film Institute
*
*

Performances in the Theatre Archive University of Bristol

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elliott, Denholm
1922 births
1992 deaths
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
20th-century English LGBTQ people
20th-century English male actors
Actors from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
AIDS-related deaths in Spain
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Best Actor BAFTA Award (television) winners
Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award winners
British World War II prisoners of war
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Donaldson Award winners
English bisexual male actors
English expatriates in Spain
English male film actors
English male Shakespearean actors
English male stage actors
English male television actors
English male voice actors
English people with disabilities
LGBTQ people from London
Male actors from London
Military personnel from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
People educated at Malvern College
People from Ibiza
People from Kensington
People with HIV/AIDS
Royal Air Force airmen
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
Royal Shakespeare Company members
Shot-down aviators
Tuberculosis deaths in Spain
World War II prisoners of war held by Germany