Trivia: Laurence Olivier -- Sir Laurence after 1947, Lord Laurence after 1970 -- has been variously lauded as the greatest Shakespearean interpreter of the 20th century, the greatest classical actor of the era, and the greatest actor of his generation. Although his career took a rather desperate turn toward the end when he seemed willing to appear in almost anything, the bulk of Olivier's 60-year career stands as a sterling example of extraordinary craftsmanship. Olivier was the son of an Anglican minister, who, despite his well-documented severity, was an unabashed theater lover, enthusiastically encouraging young Olivier to give acting a try. The boy made his first public appearance at age nine, playing Brutus in an All Saint's production of Julius Caesar. No member of the audience was more impressed than actress Dame Sybil Thorndike, who knew then and there that Olivier had what it took. Much has been made of the fact that the 15-year-old Olivier played Katherine in a St. Edward's School production of The Taming of the Shrew; there was, however, nothing unusual at the time for males to play females in all-boy schools. (For that matter, the original Shakespeare productions in the 16th and 17th centuries were strictly stag.) Besides, Olivier was already well versed in playing female roles, having previously played Maria in Twelfth Night. Two years after The Taming of the Shrew, he enrolled at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, where one of his instructors was Claude Rains. Olivier made his professional London debut the same year in The Suliot Officer, and joined the Birmingham Repertory in 1926; by the time Olivier was 20, he was playing leads. His subsequent West End stage triumphs included Journey's End and Private Lives. In 1929, he made his film debut in the German-produced A Temporary Widow. He married actress Jill Esmond in 1930, and moved with her to America when Private Lives opened on Broadway. Signed to a Hollywood contract by RKO in 1931, Olivier was promoted as "the new Ronald Colman," but he failed to make much of an impression onscreen. By the time Greta Garbo insisted that he be replaced by John Gilbert in her upcoming Queen Christina (1933), Olivier was disenchanted with the movies and vowed to remain on-stage. He graduated to full-fledged stardom in 1935, when he was cast as Romeo in John Gielgud's London production of Romeo and Juliet. (He also played Mercutio on the nights Gielgud assumed the leading role himself.) It was around this time that Olivier reportedly became fascinated with the works of Sigmund Freud, which led to his applying a "psychological" approach to all future stage and screen characters. Whatever the reason, Olivier's already superb performances improved dramatically, and, before long, he was being judged on his own merits by London critics, and not merely compared (often disparagingly) to Gielgud or Ralph Richardson. It was in collaboration with his friend Richardson that Olivier directed his first play in 1936, which was also the year he made his first Shakespearean film, playing Orlando in Paul Czinner's production of As You Like It. Now a popular movie leading man, Olivier starred in such pictures as Fire Over England (1937), 21 Days (1938), The Divorce of Lady X (1938), and Q Planes (1939). He returned to Hollywood in 1939 to star as Heathcliff in Samuel Goldwyn's glossy (and financially successful) production of Wuthering Heights, earning the first of 11 Oscar nominations. He followed this with leading roles in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940),Pride and Prejudice (1940), and Alexander Korda's That Hamilton Woman (1941), co-starring in the latter with his second wife, Vivien Leigh. Returning to England during World War II, Olivier served as a parachute officer in the Royal Navy. Since he was stationed at home, so to speak, he was also able to serve as co-director (with Ralph Richardson) of the Old Vic. His most conspicuous contribution to the war effort was his joyously jingoistic film production of Henry V (1944), for which he served as producer, director, and star. Like all his future film directorial efforts, Henry V pulled off the difficult trick of retaining its theatricality without ever sacrificing its cinematic values. Henry V won Olivier an honorary Oscar, not to mention major prizes from several other corners of the world. Knighthood was bestowed upon him in 1947, and he served up another celluloid Shakespeare the same year, producing, directing and starring in Hamlet. This time he won two Oscars: one for his performance, the other for the film itself. The '50s was a transitional decade for Olivier: While he had his share of successes -- his movie singing debut in The Beggar's Opera (1953), his 1955 adaptation of Richard III -- he also suffered a great many setbacks, both personal (his disintegrating relationship with Vivien Leigh) and professional (1957's The Prince and the Showgirl, which failed despite the seemingly unbeatable combination of Olivier's directing and Marilyn Monroe's star performance). In 1956, Olivier boldly reinvented himself as the seedy, pathetically out-of-step music hall comic Archie Rice in the original stage production of John Osborne's The Entertainer. It was a resounding success, both on-stage and on film, and Olivier reprised his role in a 1960 film version directed by Tony Richardson. Thereafter, Olivier deliberately sought out such challenging, image-busting roles as the ruthless, bisexual Crassus in Spartacus (1960) and the fanatical Mahdi in Khartoum (1965). He also achieved a measure of stability in his private life in 1961 when he married actress Joan Plowright. In 1962, he was named the artistic director of Britain's National Theatre, a post he held for ten years. To periodically replenish the National's threadbare bank account, Olivier began accepting roles that were beneath him artistically, but which paid handsomely; in the early '70s, he even hawked Polaroid cameras on television. During this period, he was far more comfortable before the cameras than in the theater, suffering as he was from a mysterious bout of stage fright. He also committed two more directorial efforts to film, Othello (1965) and Dance of Death (1968), both of which were disappointingly stage-bound. In 1970, he became Lord Olivier and assumed a seat in the House of Lords the following year. Four years later, suffering from a life-threatening illness, he made his last stage appearance. From 1974 until his death in 1989, he seemingly took whatever film job was offered him, ostensibly to provide an income for his family, should the worst happen. Some colleagues, like director John Schlesinger, were disillusioned by Olivier's mercenary approach to his work. Others, like Entertainer director Tony Richardson, felt that Olivier was not really a sellout as much as he was what the French call a cabotin -- not exactly a ham: a performer, a vulgarian, someone who lives and dies for acting. Amidst such foredoomed projects as The Jazz Singer (1980) and Inchon (1981), Olivier was still capable of great things, as shown by his work in such TV productions as 1983's Mister Halpern and Mister Johnson and, in 1984, King Lear and Voyage Round My Father. In 1979, he was once more honored at Academy Awards time, receiving an honorary Oscar "for the full body of his work." His last appearance was in the 1988 film War Requiem.

Trivia: Raised in Scotland and then Cornwall, Robert Shaw was drawn to acting and writing from his youth. Shaw trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1949 he debuted onstage at the Shakespeare Memorial Theater at Stratford-on-Avon. From 1951 he appeared in British and (later) American films as a character actor, frequently playing heavies. He became better known internationally after appearing in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love (1963), and he received a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons. (1966). In the mid '70s he suddenly became a highly paid star after his appearances in several blockbuster movies, including The Sting (1973), Jaws (1975), and The Deep (1977). He wrote a play and several novels, including The Man in the Glass Booth (1967), which he adapted into a play; it was successful in both London and New York, and in 1975 was made into a film. His novel The Hiding Place (1959) was the source material for the screen comedy Situation Hopeless -- But Not Serious (1965). He died of a heart attack at age 51. His second wife (of three) was actress Mary Ure.

Trivia: Icon of British cool in the 1960s, leading action star in the late '70s, and knighted into official respectability in 1993, Michael Caine has enjoyed a long, varied, and enviably prolific career. Although he played a part in some notable cinematic failures, particularly during the 1980s, Caine remains one of the most established performers in the business, serving as a role model for actors and filmmakers young and old. The son of a fish-porter father and a charwoman mother, Caine's beginnings were less than glamorous. Born Maurice Micklewhite in 1943, in the squalid South London neighborhood of Bermondsey, Caine got his first taste of the world beyond when he was evacuated to the countryside during World War II. A misfit in school, the military (he served during the Korean War), and the job pool, Caine found acceptance after answering a want ad for an assistant stage manager at the Horsham Repertory Company. Already star struck thanks to incessant filmgoing, Caine naturally took to acting, even though the life of a British regional actor was one step away from abject poverty. Changing his last name from Micklewhite to Caine in tribute to one of his favorite movies, The Caine Mutiny (1954), the actor toiled in obscurity in unbilled film bits and TV walk-ons from 1956 through 1962, occasionally obtaining leads on a TV series based on the Edgar Wallace mysteries. Caine's big break occurred in 1963, when he was cast in a leading role in the epic, star-studded historical adventure film Zulu. Suddenly finding himself bearing a modicum of importance in the British film industry, the actor next played Harry Palmer, the bespectacled, iconoclastic secret agent protagonist of The Ipcress File (1965); he would go on to reprise the role in two more films, Funeral in Berlin (1966) and The Billion Dollar Brain (1967). After 12 years of obscure and unappreciated work, Caine was glibly hailed as an "overnight star," and with the success of The Ipcress Files, advanced to a new role as a major industry player. He went on to gain international fame in his next film, Alfie (1966), in which he played the title character, a gleefully cheeky, womanizing cockney lad. For his portrayal of Alfie, Caine was rewarded with a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. One of the most popular action stars of the late '60s and early '70s, Caine had leading roles in films such as the classic 1969 action comedy The Italian Job (considered by many to be the celluloid manifestation of all that was hip in Britain at the time); Joseph L. Manckiewic's Sleuth (1972), in which he starred opposite Laurence Olivier and won his second Oscar nomination; and The Man Who Would Be King (1976), which cast him alongside Sean Connery. During the 1980s, Caine gained additional acclaim with an Oscar nomination for Educating Rita (1983) and a 1986 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters. He had a dastardly turn as an underworld kingpin in Neil Jordan's small but fervently praised Mona Lisa, and two years later once again proved his comic talents with the hit comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, in which he and Steve Martin starred as scheming con artists. Although Caine was no less prolific during the 1990s, his career began to falter with a series of lackluster films. Among the disappointments were Steven Seagal's environmental action flick On Deadly Ground (1994) and Blood and Wine, a 1996 thriller in which he starred with Jack Nicholson and Judy Davis. In the late '90s, Caine began to rebound, appearing in the acclaimed independent film Little Voice (1998), for which he won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of a seedy talent agent. In addition, Caine -- or Sir Michael, as he was called after receiving his knighthood in 2000 -- got a new audience through his television work, starring in the 1997 miniseries Mandela and de Klerk. The actor, who was ranked 55 in Empire Magazine's 1997 Top 100 Actors of All Time list, also kept busy as the co-owner of a successful London restaurant, and enjoyed a new wave of appreciation from younger filmmakers who praised him as the film industry's enduring model of British cool. This appreciation was further evidenced in 2000, when Caine was honored with a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of an abortionist in The Cider House Rules. After launching the new millennium with both a revitalized career momentum and newfound popularity among fans who were too young to appreciate his early efforts, Caine once again scored a hit with the art-house circuit as the torturous Dr Royer-Collard in director Phillip Kaufman's Quills. Later paid homage by Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone when the muscle-bound actor stepped into Caine's well-worn shoes for a remake of Get Carter (in which Caine also appeared in a minor role) the actor would gain positive notice the following year for his turn as a friend attempting to keep a promise in Last Orders. As if the Get Carter remake wasn't enought to emphasize Caine's coolness to a new generation of moviegoers, his turn as bespectacled super-spy Austin Powers' father in Austin Powers in Goldfinger proved that even years beyond The Italian Job Caine was still at the top of his game. Moving seamlessly from kitsch to stirring drama, Caine's role in 2002's The Quiet American earned the actor not only some of the best reviews of his later career, but another Oscar nomination as well. Caine had long demonstrated an unusual versatility that made him a cult favorite with popular and arthouse audiences, but as the decade wore on, he demonstrated more box-office savvy by pursuing increasingly lucrative audience pleasers, almost exclusively for a period of time. The thesp first resusciated the triumph of his Muppet role with a brief return to family-friendly material in Disney's Secondhand Lions, alongside screen legend Robert Duvall (Tender Mercies, The Apostle). The two play quirky great-uncles to a maladjusted adolescent boy (Haley Joel Osment), who take the child for the summer as a guest on their Texas ranch. The film elicited mediocre reviews (Carrie Rickey termed it "edgeless as a marshmallow and twice as syrupy") but scored with ticket buyers during its initial fall 2003 run. Caine then co-starred with Christopher Walken and Josh Lucas in the family issues drama Around the Bend (2004). In 2005, perhaps cued by the bankability of Goldfinger and Lions, Caine landed a couple of additional turns in Hollywood A-listers. In that year's Nicole Kidman/Will Ferrell starrer Bewitched, he plays Nigel Bigelow, Kidman's ever philandering warlock father. Even as critics wrote the vehicle off as a turkey, audiences didn't listen, and it did outstanding business, doubtless helped by the weight of old pros Caine and Shirley Maclaine. That same year's franchise prequel Batman Begins not only grossed dollar one, but handed Caine some of his most favorable notices to date, as he inherited the role of Bruce Wayne's butler, a role he would return to in both of the film's sequels, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Caine contributed an elegiac portrayal to Gore Verbinski's quirky late 2005 character drama The Weatherman, as Robert Spritz, the novelist father of Nic Cage's David Spritz, who casts a giant shadow over the young man. In 2006, Caine joined the cast of the esteemed Alfonso Cuaron's dystopian sci-fi drama Children of Men, and lent a supporting role to Memento helmer Christopher Nolan's psychological thriller The Prestige. In 2009 Caine starred as the title character in Harry Brown, a thriller about a senior citizen vigilante, and the next year worked with Nolan yet again on the mind-bending Inception.

Trivia: From his 1950 debut onward, Christopher Plummer has been regarded as one of the most brilliant Canadian actors of his generation. His portrayal of Hamlet was a major ratings coup when telecast over the CBC in the early '60s. Following his first Broadway appearance in 1954 (among his New York stage credits are JB, Royal Hunt of the Sun and The Good Doctor), efforts were made to convert Plummer into an American matinee idol, most of these attempts were resisted by Plummer himself. His first two films, Stage Struck (1957) and Wind Across the Everglades (1958), set no new box office records, although the latter, directed by Nicholas Ray, did earn strong critical notices. Plummer was shown to better advantage in such live network-TV presentations as The Prisoner of Zenda and A Doll's House.In 1965, the actor was cast as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, an assignment he despised, reportedly referring to the musical blockbuster as The Sound of Mucus. Nonetheless, and as Plummer has ruefully noted on many occasions, this one film did more to make the actor bankable in Hollywood than any previous effort. He went on to do steady, if varied, work throughout the rest of the century. Among Plummer's more notable films were The Return of the Pink Panther (1974), the British Empire extravaganza The Man W ho Would Be King (1975), 1979's Murder by Decree (in which he starred as Sherlock Holmes), Somewhere in Time (1980), the legendary 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds, 1991's Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and 1995's Dolores Claiborne and Twelve Monkeys. In 1999, Plummer received some of the strongest notices of his career for his uncannily accurate portrayal of 60 Minutes anchor Mike Wallace in Michael Mann's The Insider. Throughout his long career, the actor has won many awards, including Tonys for the musical Cyrano and the one-man stage show Barrymore, and an Emmy for his work in the TV miniseries The Moneychangers. Genie nominated for performances in the films Ararat and Blizzard in 2002 and 2003 respectively, Plummer and his daughter Amanda were both nominated for Emmy awards for their television performances in 2005. Though the father would ultimately walk away empty-handed, the award would stay in the family when Amanda was bestowed the honor for her memorable guest appearance in an episode of Law and Order: Special Victim's Unit. With roles in such high profile theatrical releases including The New World, Inside Man, and The Lake House keeping Plummer very much in the spotlight, it was obvious that his talent and passion for acting were still as strong as ever. 2009 turned out to be one of his busiest and most successful years in a very long time. In addition to appearing in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Plummer voiced the bad guy in Pixar's mega hit Up, and portrayed the legendary author Leo Tolstoy in Michael Hoffman's The Last Station. His work in that film, opposite Helen Mirren, earned the Canadian his first Academy Award nomination, as well as nods from the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and the Independent Spirit Awards.He followed up and improved on that awards success in 2011 with his role as a senior citizen who comes out of the closet in Beginners. That performance garnered him the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Supporting Actor, as well as an Oscar in that same category. He also scored a box-office success as the head of the feuding Vanger clan in David Fincher's adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.Talent seems to run in Plummer's family: he and first wife, actress Tammy Grimes, are the parents of acclaimed actress Amanda Plummer.

Trivia: British character Harry Andrews, who has appeared in a wide assortment of British, American, and international films, is best remembered for his portrayals of stern fellows or military men in films such as The Red Beret (1952), and Sands of the Kalahari (1965). Though almost always a supporting player, his performances often overshadow those of the stars. Before making his cinematic debut in the early '50s, Andrews graduated from Wrekin College. During the 1930s he began his career as a distinguished stage actor noted for his portrayals of Shakespearean roles. Though he was often typecast as the tough guy in films, Andrews broke the mold in his brilliant portrayal of a flamboyant homosexual in the 1970 black comedy Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Andrews' son David was a well-known child actor who eventually became a television director.

Trivia: British actor Trevor Howard trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and while there he made his London stage debut in 1934; however, his subsequent work onstage gained little attention until the mid-'40s. While fighting World War II with the Royal Artillery, he was injured and discharged. Howard made his feature film debut in 1944; soon he attained star status as the result of playing the romantic lead in David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945). Thus began a long and consistently successful film career. At first, Howard was cast in romantic leads, but then began playing more heroic leads before eventually moving into character roles. Regardless of his role, he was known as a consistent, polished actor with an understated, true-to-life style. At first appearing exclusively in British films, he began appearing occasionally in Hollywood productions in the mid-'50s. For his performance as the father in Sons and Lovers (1960) he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. He was married to actress Helen Cherry, with whom he appeared in A Soldier for Christmas (1944).

Trivia: German actor Curd Jurgens worked as a journalist until his first wife, actress Louise Basler, persuaded him to take up acting. In 1935 he began appearing on the German stage and screen, and gradually increased his career status until 1944, when he was sent to a concentration camp at the order of Dr. Goebbels. After his release he continued to appear in German films, gaining international recognition with his work in The Devil's General (1955). Jurgens went on to be a leading star of the European stage and international films; onscreen he often played urbane villains, and sometimes was cast as a Nazi. Although he appeared in over 100 films, he considered himself primarily a stage actor. He directed a few films with limited success, and also wrote screenplays. Jurgens was married five times; one of his wives was actress Eva Bartok. He authored an autobiography, Sixty and Not Yet Wise.

Trivia: Another distinguished product of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Lancashire-born Ian McShane made his professional stage, film and TV debut all in the same year: 1962. McShane's subsequent stage credits were as extensive as they were impressive, ranging from centuries-old classics to Tennessee Williams and Joe Orton. His TV resumé includes any number of TV-movies and miniseries: he played Judas in the internationally produced Jesus of Nazareth (1977) and was seen as the title character in the British "mini" Disraeli (1979). In America, he was a regular on the 1989-90 season of Dallas, playing Don Lockwood. McShane gained an international fan following as a result of his starring role in the widely-distributed TV series The Lovejoy Mysteries, originally filmed in 1986, then brought back by popular demand in 1990. Throughout the 90s, McShane was mostly absent from both the big screen and the small one. However, in 2000, he received recognition for playing a tough crime boss in the critically acclaimed Sexy Beast. It was certainly this hard-edged persona that attracted the producers of HBO's Deadwood to McShane. In 2004, he found himself with a regular gig on the foul-mouthed Western series, starring as an unscrupulous tavern-owner in a lawless 19th-century American prospecting town. He stayed with the show for its entire run, soon moving on to star as Max in the Broadway revival of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, before signing on to star in the NBC drama Kings in 2008. Loosely based on the story of King David, the show followed the story of a dynastic family in present-day America, but was cancelled after just a season. He went on to appear in the quirky thriller A 44 Inch Chest, before joining the likes of Donald Sutherland in the fantasy mini-series The Pillars of the Earth in 2010. Sticking with the fantastical theme, McShane next signed on to play the legendary pirate Blackbeard in the 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.In years to come, McShane would appear in several films, like Snow White and the Huntsman, as well as the mini series Pillars of the Earth.From 1965 to 1968, Ian McShane was married to actress Suzanne Farmer.

Trivia: Sandy-haired British leading man Nigel Patrick was the son of actors. On-stage from 1932 and in films from 1939, Patrick specialized in sardonic, dry-witted characters. His film career gained momentum after he returned from WWII service, with starring parts in the Somerset Maugham omnibus films Trio (1950) and Encore (1952) and with such roles as Mr. Jingle in The Pickwick Papers (1953). A busy theatrical director, Patrick also helmed two films, the brisk black comedy How to Murder a Rich Uncle (1958) and the offbeat religious allegory Johnny Nobody (1961). In 1963, Patrick starred as a special investigator for the British airlines in the TV adventure series Zero One, which was briefly syndicated in the United States. Nigel Patrick's last screen appearance was in John Huston's The Mackintosh Man.

Trivia: The son of British actor Roy Redgrave, Michael Redgrave attended Clifton College and Cambridge University. While teaching high school, Redgrave became involved with amateur theatricals. A professional by 1934, Redgrave made his London debut in Love's Labours Lost in 1936, and that same year appeared in his first film, Hitchcock's The Secret Agent (1936). It was thanks to his leading role in another Hitchcock effort, The Lady Vanishes (1938), that Redgrave achieved stardom. He was excellent in several starring vehicles of the 1940s, and at his very best in his 20-minute turn as a paranoid ventriloquist in Dead of Night (1946). An attempt to become a Hollywood star via Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) was scuttled due to the film's poor box office take, though Redgrave did earn an Oscar nomination for his performance. After starring in The Dam Busters, Britain's most popular 1955 movie release, Redgrave settled into film character roles, continuing all the while to headline on stage. He also wrote and directed several theatrical productions throughout his career, and was the author of four books: the instructional The Actor's Ways and Means, the novel The Mountebank's Tale, and two autobiographies. In 1959, Redgrave was knighted for his achievements in his chosen field. Long married to actress Rachel Kempson, Michael Redgrave was the father of actors Vanessa, Corin and Lynn Redgrave; and the grandfather of actresses Jemma Redgrave, Natasha and Joely Richardson.

Trivia: Sir Ralph Richardson was one of the most esteemed British actors of the 20th century and one of his country's most celebrated eccentrics. Well into old age, he continued to enthrall audiences with his extraordinary acting skills -- and to irritate neighbors with his noisy motorbike outings, sometimes with a parrot on his shoulder. He collected paintings, antiquities, and white mice; acted Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Sophocles; and instructed theatergoers on the finer points of role-playing: "Acting," he said in a Time article, "is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing." Like the Dickens characters he sometimes portrayed, Richardson had a distinctly memorable attribute: a bulbous nose that sabotaged his otherwise noble countenance and made him entirely right for performances in tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies. In testament to his knowledge of poetry and rhyme, he married a woman named Meriel after his first wife, Muriel, died. Fittingly, Ralph David Richardson was born in Shakespeare country -- the county of Gloucestershire -- in the borough of Cheltenham on December 19, 1902. There, his father taught art at Cheltenham Ladies' College. When he was a teenager, Ralph enrolled at Brighton School to take up the easel and follow in his father's brushstrokes. However, after receiving an inheritance of 500 pounds, he abandoned art school to pursue his real love: creating verbal portraits as an actor. After joining a roving troupe of thespians, the St. Nicholas Players, he learned Shakespeare and debuted as Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice in 1921. By 1926, he had graduated to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and, four years later, appeared on the stage of England's grandest of playhouses, London's Old Vic. Ralph had arrived -- on the stage, at least. But another four years passed before he made his first film, The Ghoul, about a dead professor (Boris Karloff) who returns to life to find an Egyptian jewel stolen from his grave. Richardson, portraying cleric Nigel Hartley, is there on the night Karloff returns to unleash mayhem and mischief. From that less-than-auspicious beginning, Richardson went on to roles in more than 70 other films, many of them classics. One of them was director Carol Reed's 1948 film, The Fallen Idol, in which Richardson won the Best Actor Award from the U.S. National Board of Review for his portrayal of a butler suspected of murder. Three years later, he won a British Academy Award for his role in director David Lean's Breaking the Sound Barrier, about the early days of jet flight. In 1962, Richardson won the Cannes Film Festival's Best Actor Award for his depiction of James Tyrone Sr., the head of a dysfunctional family in playwright Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. Because of Richardson's versatility, major studios often recruited him for demanding supporting roles in lavish productions, such as director Laurence Olivier's Richard III (1954), Otto Preminger's Exodus (1960), David Lean's Dr. Zhivago (1965), and Basil Dearden's Khartoum (1966). While making these films, Richardson continued to perform on the stage -- often varooming to and from the theater on one of his motorbikes -- in such plays as Shakespeare's Henry IV (Part I and II), Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, and Sheridan's School for Scandal. He also undertook a smorgasbord of movie and TV roles that demonstrated his wide-ranging versatility. For example, he played God in Time Bandits (1981), the Chief Rabbit in Watership Down (1978), the crypt keeper in Tales From the Crypt (1972), the caterpillar in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972), Wilkins Micawber in TV's David Copperfield (1970), Simeon in TV's Jesus of Nazareth (1977), and Tarzan's grandfather in Greystoke: the Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). In his spare time, he portrayed Dr. Watson on the radio. Sir Ralph Richardson died in 1983 of a stroke in Marylbone, London, England, leaving behind a rich film legacy and a theater presence that will continue to linger in the memories of his audiences.

Trivia: On-stage from 1951, British actor Patrick Wymark is most fondly remembered for his frequent voice-over "appearances" as Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Wymark impersonated Churchill off-camera in the documentary features The Finest Hours (1964) and A King's Story, and appeared as "Winnie" in the flesh in Operation Crossbow (1965). His other film roles were equally authoritative: He was seen as Oliver Cromwell in The Conqueror Worm (1967), while in Cromwell (1969) he showed up as the Earl of Stafford. Disciples of Roman Polanski will immediately recognize Patrick Wymark as Catherine Deneuve's landlord in Polanski's Repulsion (1965).

Trivia: British actress Susannah York studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she won the Arthene Seyler and Ronson Awards. Several theatrical appearances and TV plays later, York was cast in her first film, 1960's Tunes of Glory. Her best early film roles included Sophie Western in Tom Jones (1963) and a profoundly disturbed patient in John Huston's Freud (1962). She created a mild tabloid sensation in 1968 when she gamely participated in scenes involving masturbation and lesbian lovemaking in The Killing of Sister George. Her performance as a bleach-blonde 1930's loser in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? won her the BFA award and an Oscar nomination; she would go on to collect a Cannes award for her work in Robert Altman's Images (1972). The biggest box-office successes with which she was associated were the first two Superman films, cast as the Man of Steel's Kryptonian mother. Adding writing to her long list of accomplishments, Susannah York co-authored the script for her 1980 film Falling in Love Again, and published several popular children's books. She died at age 72 in early 2011.

Trivia: Best remembered for his broad comical portrayals of British military officers and police inspectors, character actor Michael Bates worked on the stage, on television, and in feature films.

Trivia: As the grizzled warrior Campbell in Braveheart, James Cosmo impressed filmgoers worldwide. His impassioned performance made it seem possible that such a man as Campbell really existed 700 years ago, a man who cared so much about his beloved Scotland that he could endure the bite of an English arrow, break it off, and go on fighting with Achillean fury. But it was not only Cosmo's formidable acting skills -- honed in scores of film and television productions dating back to the '60s -- that animated his performance. It was also his real-life love of Scotland. He believes his native country, small as it is, has a thousand and one other stories to tell just as exciting as Braveheart, and he has enlisted himself as actor, producer, and financier to bring them to the movie screen. For example, he singlehandedly engineered a project to construct Scotland's first film studio on a 40-acre site near Inverness. Both novice and experienced filmmakers will be welcome to reserve any of its sound stages. A nearby William Wallace Theme Park, named after the rebel leader depicted in Braveheart, will present reenactments of Wallace's rebellion against England between 1297 and 1305. Cosmo also was the brainchild of a major film project about Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), a national hero who attracted 30,000 mourners to his funeral. Cosmo selected Edinburgh as the setting, Scottish writer Alan Sharp to pen the script, and Scottish composer Derek William Dick to write an overture. The film, entitled Clarinda, centers on the love affair between Burns and an Edinburgh woman, Agnes Maclehose. Another Scottish writer, the great historical novelist Sir Walter Scott, provided the material for a triumphal Cosmo performance in the TV miniseries Ivanhoe, shown worldwide. Cosmo portrayed Ivanhoe's estranged father, Lord Cedric, with the same fiery spleen of Campbell in Braveheart. However, Cosmo does not perform only in films about the age of the horse and sword. In the critically acclaimed Trainspotting, he played the father of an Edinburgh heroin addict. Cosmo also portrayed a World War II POW in the heralded 2001 film To End All Wars, Mr. Weston in the 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow version of Jane Austen's Emma, and an oil-rig worker in the 1994 TV series Roughnecks. In addition, he was the voice of Thelonius, an orangutan, in Babe: Pig in the City. Cosmo grew up in Clydebank in west central Scotland, where he received an education in a stalwart brick-and-mortar high school while the smell of the sea invaded classrooms and beckoned aspiring young adventurers to set sail for exotic climes. Clydebank was a shipbuilding city; there, craftsmen puzzled together great Cunard liners, including the Queen Elizabeth II. Although Cosmo did not go to sea, he did set sail for a journey through the world of drama. For his outstanding work onscreen and his charitable work off, he received the lifetime achievement award of the Sunday Mail/McEwan's People's Film Festival.

Trivia: British actor Robert Flemyng worked steadily in both London and Broadway after his stage debut in 1931. Head Over Heels (1936) was his first film, but he wouldn't return to moviemaking full time until after his World War II military service--a conspicuous period for Flemyng, who was awarded the Military Cross and the OBE. The actor settled into a long film career playing dignified character roles in 1947, starting with Bond Street. Perhaps his flashiest movie role (albeit still played with a measure of dignity) was the necrophiliac title character in The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock (1962). In 1992, Robert Flemyng was still pursuing his life's work, appearing with Jeremy Irons, Theresa Russell and Joel Grey in the moody biopic Kafka.

Trivia: Following his studies at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, Barry Foster worked briefly as a plastics chemist before making his first professional stage appearance in 1952. Foster's London debut occurred in 1955; the following year, he made his first film. While he lists his favorite stage role as Hamlet, for many years he was most familiar to audiences for his snippish comedy roles. He was cast spectacularly against type in Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972) as Bob Rusk, the outwardly charming grocer who turns out to be the sexually degenerate necktie murderer. On television, Barry Foster has appeared in such miniseries as A Woman Called Golda (1981) and Smiley's People (1982) and has starred as a methodical Dutch detective in the Van der Valk series.

Trivia: The brother of film star James Fox, British actor Edward Fox spent the first few years of his career in the shadow of his longer-established younger sibling. All this changed when Edward was cast as the charismatic but cold-blooded international assassin The Jackal in 1973's Day of the Jackal; so determined was Fox's character to go through with his assignment to kill Charles De Gaulle that at times the audience believed he was actually going to get away with it! Never a major box-office attraction, Fox has aged into a dynamic character player, busy throughout the 1980s in such films as Never Say Never Again (1983), The Shooting Party (1984) and Wild Geese II. In 1991, Fox could be seen by TV fans as King Richard in Robin Hood, the "rival" production to Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Trivia: British character actor Jack Gwillim first appeared onscreen in the '50s.

Trivia: Though born in Portugal, Duncan Lamont was a bone-bred Scotsman; and though a Scotsman, he effectively curbed his burr to appear in British films. After considerable stage experience, Lamont inaugurated his movie career during World War II. His resumé includes such popular United Kingdom efforts as The Man in the White Suit (1954) as well as such internationally produced films as Ben Hur (1959), in which he was featured in the role of Marius. Lovers of swashbucklers have reserved a special place in their hearts for Duncan Lamont's portrayal of Count William De la Marck, "The Wild Boar of Ardennes", in 1955's Quentin Durward.

Trivia: British lead actress, onscreen from the '50s.

Trivia: British actor Anthony Nicholls made the portraying of distinguished government officials a way of life in his films. Following extensive stage activity, Nicholls began working in movies on a regular basis with 1947's The Laughing Lady. Most American audiences first saw Nicholls in the company of Ronald Reagan, Richard Todd and Patricia Neal in The Hasty Heart (1949). Active in films until the early '70s (including the 1966 Oscar winner A Man For All Seasons), Anthony Nicholls was also seen in the role of W. I. Tremayne, the overseer of three superpowered secret agents on the 1968 British TV adventure series The Champions.

Trivia: British leading and supporting actor Nicholas Pennell found success on stage, screen, and television. As with many British actors, he started out on stage. The Hammer horror film Rasputin, the Mad Monk (1965) was Pennell's film debut. His most notable television role was that of Michael Mont in The Forsythe Saga. Pennell regularly performed at the Stratford Festival after the early '70s.