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| EDDIE IZZARD - COMEDIAN & ACTOR |
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Eddie Izzard 1962-
Eddie was born on February 7th
in Yemen, the youngest son of John and Ella Izzard. In 1963, shortly before
Britain abandoned the capital of Aden, the Izzards moved to Bangor in Northern
Ireland. By 1967, troubles started brewing there as well, so the Izzards
gathered their two boys - older brother Mark and Eddie - and headed for Skewen,
in South Wales. Unfortunately, troubles could not be dodged a third time and in
1968, Eddie's mum died of cancer.
Eddie's early years are a bit of a haze
comprising mostly of 10 years of trying and failing to get into school plays. As
revenge on the teacher who always made him play the clarinet instead of Romeo,
Eddie decided he would be famous and chose comedy as his path.
His own
brand of "talking bollocks with more bollocks on top" was honed first as a
sketch comedian at the Edinburgh Festival, a street performer in Covent Garden
and then indoors at the London Comedy Clubs.
Sticking up two fingers to
the one-eyed god television, Eddie then toured relentlessly around the country
making people laugh and becoming a cult so that people would don paccamacs and
worship his name.
All of this paid off and he began to win a string of
awards to decorate his bathroom: a Perrier Award nomination at the Edinburgh
Festival and a Time Out Award in 1991. Eddie decided that he wanted to play in
the West End and really make that teacher feel sorry.
He made his first
stage appearance in London's West End in 1993 with his one-man comedy show 'Live
at the Ambassadors.' The show earned Izzard an Olivier Award nomination for
“Outstanding Achievement” and garnered Izzard his first British Comedy Award for
“Top Stand-Up Comedian.”
He returned to the West End the next year with
his second one-man show 'Unrepeatable', followed by his dramatic West End debut
as the lead in the world premiere of David Mamet's 'The Cryptogram' with Lindsay
Duncan, which landed Izzard his second starring role in '900 Oneonta'.
Izzard remained on stage in 1995 portraying the title character in
Christopher Marlowe's groundbreaking 'Edward II'. In 1996 Izzard made his big
screen debut alongside Bob Hoskins and Robin Williams in 'Secret Agent' and
staged another one-man show, 'Definite Article', for which he received his
second British Comedy Award.
He then took 'Definite Article' to major
cities outside the UK and returned to the West End with a new show, 'Glorious,'
which included a month in New York City at PS122.
By 1998 Izzard took on
another film, 'Velvet Goldmine', with Ewan McGregor, as well as staging his US
breakthrough one-man show, 'Dress to Kill', which aired on HBO and went on to
earn Izzard two Emmy Awards in 2000.
At the end of the decade Izzard
took on Lenny Bruce securing the lead in Sir Peter Hall's West End production of
'Lenny'. Izzard started 2000 touring the world with his most recent one-man show
'Circle', and continued to develop his acting resume with roles in 'The
Criminal', 'Shadow of the Vampire' with John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe,
co-starring opposite Kirsten Dunst in the Peter Bogdanovich-directed 'Cat's
Meow' as Charlie Chaplin and taking the male lead in 'A Day in the Death of Joe
Egg' on the London stage.
In 2003 Izzard can be seen on the big screen
in the French production 'Muraya- Expanded Reality' and Alex Cox's 'A Revenger's
Tragedy' and on the small screen in a BBC mini-series titled '40'. Izzard will
be making his dramatic Broadway debut in the spring of 2003, reprising his West
End role in 'A Day in the Death of Joe Egg'. He will also be embarking upon
another world tour with a new one- man show late this summer.
Eddie is a
frequent visitor to Bexhill where he spent many years as a child (his father
still lives in the town), returning for performances and charity
events. |
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| DESMOND LLEWELLYN - ACTOR |
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Desmond Llewellyn 1914-1999
Desmond Wilkinson
Llewellyn was born in South Wales, the son of a coal-mining engineer, and was
educated at Radley. He trained as an accountant, but then went to RADA and began
acting in rep in 1936. When the war began he joined The Royal Welsh Fusiliers,
but he was captured before Dunkirk and interned. He attempted to escape by
tunnelling but was caught, and afterwards stuck to entertaining fellow
prisoners.
After the war he had small parts, including one in in Burton
and Taylor's Cleopatra, before landing the role of Q. Cubby Broccoli, the Bond
director, had wanted an actor with a Welsh accent, but Llewellyn insisted that
he be a toffee-nosed Englishman in tweeds. "At the risk of losing the part and
with silent apologies to my native land, I launched into Q's lines using the
worst Welsh accent, followed by the same in English."
Despite his role
as Q, Llewellyn was actually rather cackhanded. "In real life, most gadgets
expire or explode as I touch them," he said in a recent interview.
The
loveable, slightly exasperated quartermaster in the James Bond films, Q has been
as much of a fixture as the famous Bond girls and the more faithful Miss
Moneypenny. The part was played, from 1963 by Llewellyn, with the one exception
of 'Live and Let Die'. The longest serving member of the cast, he worked with
four different 007s: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce
Brosnan.
If the character of 'Q' was rather frustrated, so was the
actor. For Llewellyn was typecast from the moment he played Q in 'From Russia
With Love' in 1963. He acted in eighteen more Bond films and precious little
else apart from 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' in 1968. Working for a daily rate and
receiving no royalties, he lived in somewhat straitened circumstances in
Bexhill-on-Sea.
Llewellyn was was killed in a car crash near Lewes aged
85. |
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