Curated category
Actors awarded knighthoods
- Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine. By 14, he had taken his own mother to an infirmary, watched her return to a mental…
- Ian McKellenIan McKellen was nine years old when his main Christmas present arrived: a fold-away wood and bakelite Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres, complete…
- Michael CaineMaurice Joseph Micklewhite was born on the 14th of March 1933 at St Olave's Hospital in Rotherhithe, a working-class district of London, the son of a fish…
- John GielgudOn the evening of the 20th of October 1953, John Gielgud was arrested in Chelsea for cruising for sex in a public lavatory, an act that was then a crime in…
- Kenneth BranaghKenneth Branagh was nine years old when his family packed up and left Belfast, fleeing the early violence of the Troubles.
- Laurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier was born on the 22nd of May 1907 in Dorking, Surrey, the youngest child of a nomadic Church of England clergyman who never quite found…
- Daniel Day-LewisDaniel Day-Lewis was born on the 29th of April 1957 in Kensington, London, to a poet and an actress. Before most people had ever heard his name, he was…
- Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce was born John Price on the 1st of June 1947 in Carmel, Flintshire, the son of a former coal miner who ran a small grocery shop.
- Ringo StarrRingo Starr was born on the 7th of July 1940 at 9 Madryn Street in Dingle, one of the oldest and poorest inner-city districts in Liverpool.
- Alec GuinnessAlec Guinness walked onto a stage for the first time on his 20th birthday, the 2nd of April 1934, earning a single pound a week and permitted to utter just…
- Ben KingsleyBen Kingsley was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji on the 31st of December 1943, in Snainton, North Riding of Yorkshire. He carries within him a world of…
- Idris ElbaIdris Elba was born Idrissa Akuna Elba on the 6th of September 1972 in the London Borough of Hackney, the only child of a Sierra Leonean father who worked at…
- Patrick StewartPatrick Stewart grew a moustache for the role of Macbeth, and when he looked in the mirror just before going on stage, he saw his father's face staring…