Edward Fox (actor)

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Edward Fox

Born Edward Charles Morrice Fox
April 13, 1937 (1937-04-13) (age 71)
Chelsea, London, UK
Years active 1958 - present
Spouse(s) Tracy Reed (1958 - 1961)
Joanna David (2004 - present)

Edward Charles Morrice Fox, OBE (born 13 April 1937) is an English stage, film and television actor. He is generally associated with the role of an upper-class Englishman. He is known particularly for playing the title role in the film The Day of the Jackal (1973) and for his portrayal of Edward VIII in the television miniseries Edward and Mrs Simpson (1978).

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Fox was born in Chelsea, London to Robin Fox, a theatrical agent, and actress Angela Worthington. He is the elder brother of actor James Fox and film producer Robert Fox. He is also a paternal half-brother of Daniel Chatto and a half-brother-in-law of Lady Sarah Chatto. His maternal grandfather was the dramatist Frederick Lonsdale. Fox is also the great grandson of industrialist Samson Fox. He was educated at Harrow and served as a Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards.

[edit] Career

Fox's theatre debut was in 1958, and his first film appearance in 1963, as an extra in This Sporting Life. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he established himself with roles in major British films such as Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Battle of Britain (1969) and The Go-Between (1970), however, it was as the assassin in The Day of the Jackal (1973) that he made his greatest impression. From then onwards, he was much sought after, appearing in such films as A Bridge Too Far (1977) and Force 10 From Navarone (1978), with Robert Shaw and Harrison Ford. In 1978 he portrayed King Edward VIII in the television drama, Edward and Mrs Simpson. In the 1982 film Gandhi, Fox portrayed the controversial Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, responsible for the Amritsar Massacre in India. He then appeared as M in the unofficial 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, and then with Sir Laurence Olivier in The Bounty (1984) and Wild Geese II (1985).

More recently, Fox has appeared in The Importance of Being Earnest (2002), Nicolas Nickleby (2002), and Stage Beauty (2004). He has consolidated his reputation with regular appearances on stage in London's West End. He has received particular acclaim for his rendition of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets at major festivals at home and abroad accompanied by the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach performed by Christine Croshaw.

He was made an OBE in 2003.

[edit] Personal life

Fox has been married twice, to actresses Tracy Reed (1958-1961) and Joanna David (from July 2004, after a long-standing relationship). He has a daughter, Lucy, Viscountess Gormanston, by Reed, and two children, actress Emilia Fox and Freddie Fox, with David.

Fox is a Savilian.

[edit] Selected filmography

Awards
Preceded by
Brad Dourif
for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest		 BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
1978
for A Bridge Too Far		 Succeeded by
John Hurt
for Midnight Express
Preceded by
Colin Welland
for Kes		 BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
1972
for The Go-Between		 Succeeded by
Ben Johnson
for The Last Picture Show

[edit] Appearances in popular culture

The post-punk band Smack released the single "Edward Fox" in the early 1980s. The song set a newspaper biography concerning Edward Fox to a musical score. The biography was published in New Manchester Review, and the single was produced by Rowland Jones at Drone Studios in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, owned by the late Paul Roberts.

[edit] External links