Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and many film roles. He
received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The
Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the
title role of King Lear. He was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actor for his role as athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire. Other well-known
film roles include Ash in Alien, Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element, and the hobbit
Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.
Early years Holm was born Ian Holm Cuthbert on 12 September
1931 in Goodmayes, in Essex, to Scottish parents, Jean Wilson and James Harvey Cuthbert. His
mother was a nurse, and his father was a psychiatrist who worked as the superintendent of the West
Ham Corporation Mental Hospital and was one of the pioneers of electric shock therapy.
He had an older brother, Eric, who died in 1943. Holm was educated at the independent
Chigwell School in Essex. His parents retired to Mortehoe, Devon and then Worthing where
he joined an amateur dramatic society. A visit to the dentist led to an introduction to Henry
Baynton, a well-known provincial Shakespearean actor who helped Holm train for admission
to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he secured a place in 1949. His studies there
were interrupted a year later when he was called up for National Service in the British
Army, during which he was posted to Klagenfurt, Austria and attained the rank of Lance Corporal.
They were then interrupted a second time when he volunteered to go on an acting tour of
the United States in 1952. He finally graduated from RADA in 1953; whilst there he had been
offered 'spear-carrying' roles at Stratford and he stayed there for 13 years, soon graduating
to more significant roles and abandoning plans to move on after Peter Hall founded the Royal
Shakespeare Company in 1960. Career
Holm was an established star of the Royal Shakespeare Company before making an impact
on television and film. In 1965, he played Richard III in the BBC serialisation of The
Wars of The Roses, based on the RSC production of the plays, and gradually made a name for
himself with minor roles in films such as Oh! What a Lovely War, Nicholas and Alexandra,
Mary, Queen of Scots and Young Winston. In 1967, he won a Tony Award for Best Featured
Actor in a Play as Lenny in The Homecoming by Harold Pinter. In 1977, Holm appeared in
the TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth as the Sadducee Zerah, and a villainous Moroccan
in March or Die. The following year he played J. M. Barrie in the award-winning BBC TV series
The Lost Boys, in which his son Barnaby played the young George Llewelyn Davies.
In 1981 he played Frodo Baggins in the BBC radio adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord
of the Rings. Holm's first film role to have a major impact
was that of the treacherous android, Ash, in Ridley Scott's Alien. His portrayal of
Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire, earned him a special award at the Cannes Film Festival
and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Back home in England, he won a BAFTA
award, for Best Supporting Actor, for Chariots. In the 1980s, he had memorable roles in Time
Bandits, Greystoke - The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes and Terry Gilliam's Brazil.
He played Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland in the Dennis Potter-scripted fantasy
Dreamchild. In 1989 Holm was nominated for a BAFTA award
for the TV series Game, Set and Match. Based on the novels by Len Deighton, this tells
the story of an intelligence officer who discovers that his own wife is an enemy spy. He continued
to perform Shakespeare, and appeared with Kenneth Branagh in Henry V and as Polonius
to Mel Gibson's Hamlet. Holm was reunited with Kenneth Branagh in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,
playing the father of Branagh's Victor Frankenstein. Holm raised his profile in 1997 with two prominent
roles, as the stressed but gentle priest Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element and the tormented
plaintiff's lawyer in The Sweet Hereafter. In 2001 he starred in From Hell as the physician
Sir William Withey Gull. The same year he appeared as Bilbo Baggins in the blockbuster
film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, having previously played Bilbo's
nephew Frodo Baggins in a 1981 BBC Radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. He reappeared in
the trilogy in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, for which he shared a
SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. He reprised his
role as the elder Bilbo Baggins in the movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Holm has been nominated for an Emmy Award twice, for a PBS broadcast of a National Theatre
production of King Lear, in 1999; and for a supporting role in the HBO film The Last
of the Blonde Bombshells opposite Judi Dench, in 2001. Holm has provided voice-overs for
many British TV documentaries and commercials. Holm has appeared in two David Cronenberg
films: Naked Lunch and eXistenZ. He was Harold Pinter's favourite actor, the playwright once
stating: "He puts on my shoe, and it fits!" Holm played Lenny in the first performance
of Pinter's masterpiece The Homecoming. He has played Napoleon Bonaparte three times:
first, in the 1972 television series Napoleon and Love; next, in a cameo comic rendition,
in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits from 1981; third, in 2001 he played the fallen and exiled
leader in the fanciful film The Emperor's New Clothes.
Personal life Holm has been married four times. His first
three marriages ended in divorce. In 1991, he married his third wife, actress Penelope
Wilton, in Wiltshire. They appeared together in The Borrowers on British television. They
divorced in 2001. He is currently married to artist Sophie de Stempel, a protégée
and life model of Lucian Freud. Holm has five children; three daughters and
two sons from three women, including the first two of his four wives.
He was treated for prostate cancer in 2001. Filmography
Honours and awards Nominations and awards for films and TV roles
are listed in filmography. Honours
1990: Commander of the Order of the British Empire
1998: Knight Bachelor for services to drama Awards
1965: Evening Standard Award for Best Actor – Henry V
1967: Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play – The Homecoming
1993: Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor – Moonlight
1993: Evening Standard Award for Best Actor – Moonlight
Bibliography Holm, Ian; Jacobi, Steven. Acting my Life.
London: Bantam Press. ISBN 0-593-05214-5. References
External links Ian Holm at the Internet Broadway Database
Ian Holm at the Internet Movie Database Ian Holm at the TCM Movie Database