Derek Jacobi

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Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek Jacobi as Gracchus in Gladiator
Born 22 October 1938
Leytonstone, London, England
Occupation Actor and Director

Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE (IPA: [ˈdʒækəbi]) (born 22 October 1938) is an English actor and director, knighted in 1994 for his services to the theatre. He is the second actor to hold two knighthoods, Danish and English (Sir Laurence Olivier was the other).

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Youth and early career

Jacobi was born in Leytonstone, London, England, and was the only child of a department store manager and a secretary who were of Christian German descent. Although a war baby, he claims a happy childhood. In his teens he went to the Leyton County High School and became an integral part of the drama club, The Players of Leyton.

At 18, he won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he studied history, as Drama was not a recognised course of study. Other younger members of the university at the time included Ian McKellen (who had an "undeclared and unrequited" crush on him) and Trevor Nunn.

During his stay at Cambridge, he played many parts including Hamlet, which was taken on a tour to Switzerland where he met Richard Burton.

As a result of his performance of Edward II at Cambridge, he was invited to become a member of the Birmingham Rep immediately upon graduation in 1960.

He quickly came to the fore, and his talent was recognised by Laurence Olivier, who invited him back home to London to become one of the eight founding members of the new National Theatre, even though at the time he was relatively unknown.

Olivier gave him the role of Cassio in his 1965 film of Othello and of Andrei in Three Sisters in 1970.

[edit] Success

After eight years at the National Theatre, Jacobi left in 1971 to pursue different roles and mediums of expression. In 1972, he starred in the BBC miniseries Man of Straw, directed by Herbert Wise. Most of his theatrical work in the 70's was with the touring classical Prospect Theatre Company, with which he undertook many roles, including Ivanov, Pericles and A Month in the Country. Although Jacobi's name was becoming known and he was increasingly busy with stage and screen acting, his big breakthrough did not come until 1976. It was the title role of the BBC's blockbuster series I, Claudius that finally cemented his popular reputation with his performance as the stammering, twitching Emperor Claudius winning him many plaudits.

In 1977 thanks to his international popularity he brought Hamlet on a tour through England, Egypt, Sweden, Australia, Japan and China where he was the first actor to perform it in English. He was then prestigiously invited to play it at Kronborg Castle, better known as Elsinore Castle, the setting of the play itself.

In 1978 he played in the BBC's production of Shakespeare's Richard II, with Sir John Gielgud and Dame Wendy Hiller.

[edit] Theatre, TV and Cinema

Derek Jacobi as "Brother Cadfael" (book cover)
Enlarge
Derek Jacobi
as "Brother Cadfael" (book cover)

In 1980 Jacobi took the leading role in the BBC's Hamlet and he made his Broadway debut in The Suicide, then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) from 1982 to 1985 where he alternated four demanding roles simultaneously: Benedick in Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing, for which he won a Tony, Prospero in The Tempest, Peer Gynt and Cyrano de Bergerac. In 1986, he made his West End debut in Breaking the Code with the role of Alan Turing (a mathematician who played a large part in deciphering the Enigma code). The play was taken to Broadway. In 1988 Jacobi alternated in West End the title roles of Shakespeare's Richard II and Richard III in repertoire. In 2001, Jacobi won an Emmy by mocking his Shakespearean background in the television sitcom Frasier episode The Show Must Go Off, when he played the world's worst Shakespearean actor: the hammy, loud, untalented Jackson Hedley. This was his first guest appearance on an American television program.

His TV career saw him measure with Inside the Third Reich (1982), where he played Hitler; Mr.Pye (1985); Little Dorrit (1987), from Charles Dickens's book; The Tenth Man (1988) with Anthony Hopkins and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Jacobi continued to play Shakespeare, notably in Kenneth Branagh's 1989 film of Henry V (as the Chorus) and as Branagh's director in the Renaissance Theatre Company's production of Hamlet.

The 1990's saw Jacobi keeping on with repertoire stage work in Kean at the Old Vic, Becket in the West End (the Haymarket Theatre) and Macbeth at the RSC in both London and Stratford.

He was appointed the joint artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre, with the West End impresario Duncan Weldon in 1995 for a three year tenure. As an actor at Chichester, he also starred in four plays, including his first Uncle Vanya in 1996 (he took a second run in 2000).

Jacobi's work during the 90's included the 13 episodes series TV adaptation of the novels by Ellis Peters Cadfael (1994-1998) and a televised version of Breaking the Code (1996).

Films included performances in Kenneth Branagh's Dead Again (1991), Hamlet (1996) as King Claudius and in John Maybury's Love is the Devil (1998), a difficult portrait of painter Francis Bacon.

[edit] Recent works

Jacobi remains one of Britain's foremost actors.

He has also done the narration for an audio book version of the Iliad by Homer and also for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.

In 2002, Jacobi toured Australia in The Hollow Crown with Sir Donald Sinden, Ian Richardson and Dame Diana Rigg. Jacobi also played the role of Senator Gracchus in Gladiator and starred in the 2002 miniseries The Jury.

In 2003, he was involved with Scream of the Shalka — a webcast based on the science fiction series Doctor Who. He played the voice of the Master alongside Richard E. Grant as the Doctor. In the same year, he also appeared in Deadline, an audio drama also based on Doctor Who. In that, he played Martin Bannister, an ageing writer who makes up stories about "the Doctor", a character who travels in time and space, the premise being that the series had never made it onto television.

In 2004, Jacobi starred in Friedrich Schiller's Don Carlos at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, in an acclaimed production, which opened at the Gielgud Theatre in London in January 2005. The London production of Don Carlos gathered rave reviews.

Still in 2004, he starred like Lord Teddy Thursby in the first of four parts BBC's series The Long Firm from Jake Arnott's novel.

In Nanny McPhee (2005), he played the role of the colourful Mr. Wheen, an undertaker.

He played the role of Alexander Corvinus in the 2006 movie Underworld: Evolution.

In March 2006, BBC2 broadcast Pinochet in Suburbia, a docudrama about former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the attempts to extradite him from Great Britain. Jacobi played the leading role.

In July-August 2006 he played the eponymous role in A Voyage Round My Father at the Donmar Warehouse, a production which then transferred to the West End.

[edit] Personal life

After 27 years together, he registered his civil partnership with long-term partner Richard Clifford in March 2006, four months after civil unions became legal in England and Wales.

[edit] Awards

[edit] Filmography

[edit] External links

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