Rowan Atkinson

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Rowan Atkinson

Rowan Atkinson on promotion tour for his movie Bean in Hürth, Germany August 1997, photo by Gerhard Heeke
Born 6 January 1955 (age 52)
Flag of England Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, England
Notable roles Mr. Bean
in Mr. Bean
Edmund Blackadder
in Blackadder
Johnny English
in Johnny English

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is an English comedian, actor and writer best known for playing Edmund Blackadder in Blackadder and for playing the title role in the British television comedy Mr. Bean.

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[edit] Early life

Atkinson was born to Ella May and Eric Atkinson, Anglican farmers in the town of Consett, north-west of the city of Durham. [1] His oldest brother is Rodney Atkinson, the outspoken eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election to Jeffrey Titford in 2000.[2][3]

He was educated at Durham Choristers School, followed by St Bees School, and studied electrical engineering at Newcastle University.[4] He continued with an MSc at Queens College, Oxford, first achieving notice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1976.[4] At Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis[4] and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.

[edit] Career

After university, Atkinson toured with Angus Deayton as his straight man. The show was filmed for television, and its success allowed him to develop a successful stand-up, writing and radio career.

In 1978 he was offered his own television series by ITV but turned it down in favour of Not the Nine O'Clock News, produced by his friend John Lloyd, in which he starred with Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith. Atkinson was one of the show's main sketch writers.

Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder.
Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder.

The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to his starring in the medieval sitcom The Black Adder, which he also co-wrote with Richard Curtis, in 1983. Despite a mixed reception, a second series was written, this time by Curtis and Ben Elton, and first screened in 1985. Blackadder II followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era. The same pattern was repeated in two sequels Blackadder the Third (1987) (set in the Regency era), and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), set in the First World War. The Blackadder series went on to become one of the most successful BBC situation comedies ever.

Atkinson's other famous creation, the hapless Mr. Bean, first appeared in 1988 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. The character of Mr. Bean has been likened somewhat to a modern-day Charlie Chaplin. Several sequels followed at irregular intervals, before the character transferred to film in 1997. Entitled Bean, it was directed by Mel Smith, his former co-star from Not the Nine O'Clock News. It supposedly made Atkinson £11 million in fees as writer and actor.[citation needed]

Atkinson has made appearances at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, which also airs on television. He was present at the fifth festival in 1987 and the seventh in 1989.

In 2003, Atkinson was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy,[5] and in a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

In June 2005, Atkinson led a coalition of the UK's most prominent actors and writers, including Nicholas Hytner and Ian McEwan, to the British Parliament in an attempt to force a review of the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill — on the grounds that the Bill would give religious groups a "weapon of disproportionate power" whose threat would engender a culture of self-censorship among artists.

[edit] Film work

Atkinson's film career began in 1983 with a supporting part in the James Bond vehicle Never Say Never Again and a leading role in Dead on Time with Nigel Hawthorne. He appeared in former Not the Nine O'Clock News co-star Mel Smith's directorial debut The Tall Guy in 1989 and gained further notice with his turn as a verbally bumbling vicar in the 1994 hit Four Weddings and a Funeral; the same year he featured in Walt Disney's Lion King as Zazu the Hornbill. His television character Mr. Bean debuted on the big screen in 1997 with Bean, an international success. 2001's Rat Race saw Atkinson continue in slapstick style. In 2002 he appeared on Scooby-Doo as Emile Mondavarious, the owner of the haunted amusement park, Spooky Island. He then took the lead role in the James Bond parody Johnny English (2003). That year he also appeared in a small role in the star-studded Love Actually. Keeping Mum (2005, released in the U.S. in 2006) was a departure for Atkinson, starring in a straight role. Work on a Bean sequel completed in 2006 and the film is set for a March 2007 release. Atkinson says it will be the last time he plays the character.[citation needed]

[edit] Advertising

A regular to appear in television advertising, he has fronted campaigns for Hitachi electrical goods, Fujifilm, and Give Blood. Most famously, he appeared as a hapless and error-prone espionage agent in a long-running series for Barclaycard, on which character his title role in Johnny English was based.

[edit] Comedic style

Atkinson was a stutterer as a child, a condition which sometimes returns when he is in stressful situations. In particular, the letter "B" posed a problem for him. He managed to overcome this through over-articulation; however, this evolved into one of his trademark comic devices (his pronunciation of "Bob" in Blackadder being a famous example). His other trademark is his Received Pronunciation (RP) British accent.

Atkinson's comedy style, which is rigorously planned and scripted — partly to ensure his stress and stutter is minimised — is often visually-based. It results in comedy as performance — like Charlie Chaplin — rather than as observation or discussion, as many of the routines of the time were. Atkinson's talent for visual comedy has seen him described as "the man with the rubber face".

[edit] Private life

Atkinson married Sunetra Sastry in 1990 in a quiet ceremony in the Russian Tea Room in New York City; Stephen Fry was best man. The couple live in a manor house in the Oxfordshire village of Waterperry, and have two children, Lily and Benjamin.

[edit] Cars

A millionaire with an estimated wealth of £65 million, his major hobby is fast cars. His mother owned a Morris Minor, which he drove around the family farm, as well as tractors. He has written for the British magazines Car and Evo, and also holds a UK HGV licence, gained because trucks held a fascination for him, and to ensure employment as a young actor.

A lover of and participant in car racing, he appeared in the straight role of racing driver Henry Birkin in the television play Full Throttle in 1995. While in 1991, he starred in the self-penned "Driven Man", a series of sketches featuring Atkinson driving around London trying to solve his car-fetish, and discussing it with taxi drivers, policemen, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists. [1]

Rowan has a fancy for Aston Martins, and a majority of his collection includes Aston Martins, including the DB7 used in Johnny English.

His large car collection includes: [2]

One car he will not own is a Porsche: "I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people — and I wish them no ill — are not, I feel, my kind of people. I don't go around saying that Porsches are a pile of dung, but I do know that psychologically I couldn't handle owning one."

[edit] Selected television appearances

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

[edit] Compilations

  • The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979)
  • Not The Nine O'Clock News – The Album (1980)
  • We Are Most Amused: The Best of British Comedy (1981)

[edit] Awards

  • Variety Club Award for BBC Personality of the Year - 1980[6]
  • BAFTA Best Light Entertainment Performance - 1989[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ The bbc.co.uk Guide to Comedy, "Rowan Atkinson On Location In Boston", retrieved 7 January 2007
  2. ^ Foreign Correspondent - 22 July 1997: Interview with Rodney Atkinson, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, retrieved 27 January 2007
  3. ^ Profile: UK Independence Party, BBC News, 28 July 2006, retreived 27 January 2007
  4. ^ a b c The bbc.co.uk Guide to Comedy, "Rowan Atkinson", retrieved 7 January 2007
  5. ^ "The A-Z of laughter (part one)", The Observer, 7 December 2003, retrieved 7 January 2007
  6. ^ a b The Museum of Broadcast Communications - Rowan Atkinson article, retrieved 7 January 2007

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:


Mr. Bean
Writers/Performers
Rowan Atkinson | Richard Curtis | Robin Driscoll | Ben Elton
Episode / Film
List of Mr. Bean episodes | Animated series | Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie | Mr. Bean's Holiday
Miscellaneous
Howard Goodall | Matilda Ziegler | John Howard Davies | Mel Smith | Steve Bendelack
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