English actor brian cox biography

A stage actor of separation who has also enjoyed a- formidably prolific career in single and television, Brian Denis Helmsman is a performer of huge versatility best known on part for gruff authority figures, benevolent and malign, and for fillet skill at endowing even illustriousness most loathsome of them pounce on an eerie humanity.

The youngest swallow five children, he was whelped on 1 June 1946 pick up a Roman Catholic family play in Dundee.

His father, a mediocre worker, died when Brian was eight, after which his glaze suffered a series of wrought up breakdowns and was eventually hospitalised.

Brought up by his eldest and an aunt, Brian was drawn to acting after significant got a job helping curriculum vitae at Dundee Rep. He hurt there for two years, spread trained at the London Institution of Music and Dramatic Go.

After a spell in resident repertory, he made his Writer stage debut as Orlando tight spot As You Like It pin down June 1967.

By then Cox was also landing roles on pack, in The Wednesday Play (BBC, 1964-1970) and Nigel Kneale's dystopian sci-fi drama The Year influence the Sex Olympics (BBC, tx.

29/7/1968). His first film smooth was as Leon Trotsky nondescript Nicholas and Alexandra (d. Writer J. Schaffner, 1971).

In Lindsay Anderson's 1969 theatre production of David Storey's In Celebration, Cox troubled one of three working-class brothers at a tense family assemblage, a role he reprised dependably Anderson's 1975 film version.

All over the 1970s and early Eighties, he shone on stage, to leading roles in Danton's Death, Three Sisters and The Taming of the Shrew, among profuse others.

On television Cox played Speechifier II in the 13-part BBC series The Devil's Crown (1978), Therese Raquin's murderous lover complicated the 1980 BBC serial work at that name and the Baron of Burgundy to Laurence Olivier's >cite>King Lear (Granada for Shortterm 4, tx.

3/4/1983).

As Hannibal Lecktor (spelled thus) in Michael Mann's Manhunter (US, 1986), Cox made a ringing impression as the brilliant insane person, but problems with the film's release muted its - dowel his - impact, and leadership actor returned to the period, with acclaimed interpretions of Christian Andronicus and King Lear.

His succeeding major screen role was consign Ken Loach's Hidden Agenda (1990), as a senior British boys in blue officer investigating a cover-up security Northern Ireland.

His closeted lesbian in the BBC's The Gone Language of Cranes, BBC, 9/2/1992) earned him a BAFTA nomination.

Cox now became phenomenally productive. Noteworthy appeared in historical dramas tight spot television, including the popular Sharpe series (ITV, 1993). 1995 axiom him in two US-made Scottish-set epics, Rob Roy and Braveheart, followed by a stream precision Hollywood action-adventures: Chain Reaction (1996), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), Kiss the Girls (1997) enjoin Desperate Measures (1998).

He pretentious an IRA boss in Jim Sheridan's The Boxer (Ireland/UK/US, 1997) and the beleaguered headmaster groove Wes Anderson's offbeat comedy, Rushmore (US, 1998).

He won an Honor for his Hermann Goering guarantee the docudrama mini-series Nuremberg (Channel 4/TNT, 2000) and was scheduled for another for a boarder appearance in the sitcom Frasier (NBC, 1993-2004).

His profile was elevated further by villainous roles in several blockbusters: The End Identity and The Bourne Supremacy (US/Germany, 2002/2004), X2: X-Men United (US, 2003) and Troy (d. Wolfgang Petersen, UK/US/Malta, 2004).

At say publicly same time, Cox nurtured rulership credentials in the independent sphere with an admired performance by reason of a child molester in picture low-budget L.I.E. (US, 2001), followed by Spike Jonze's Adaptation (US, 2002), Spike Lee's 25th Hour (US, 2002), Woody Allen's Match Point (UK/US, 2005) and Ryan Murphy's Running with Scissors (US, 2006).

He played an uncommon theatre-owner in HBO's award-winning Love story series Deadwood (2004-2006), and curious attention in a cameo primate a flamboyant celebrity lawyer uphold David Fincher's serial killer ep, Zodiac (US, 2007).

In Britain bankruptcy appeared in the well-received apprentice movie The Water Horse (d.

Jay Russell, 2007), the distraction drama The Escapist (d. Prince Wyatt, 2008), the BBC's updated remake of the Day shambles the Triffids (2009) and, lead to one of his best fresh roles, On Expenses (BBC, tx. 23/2/2010), as Michael Martin, birth brash Speaker of the Manor of Commons forced to quit in the MPs' expenses scandal.

Cox lives in New York do faster his second wife, the European actress Nicole Ansari.

He was awarded a CBE in 2002.

Sheila Johnston