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Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins CBE (born 31 December 1937) is an Academy Award,
Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning film, stage and television actor. He was born
and raised in Wales, but became an American citizen in 2000.
 Early
life
Hopkins was born in Margam, Port Talbot in Wales to Muriel Anne (née Yeats) and
Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His mother is a distant relative of the Irish poet
William Butler Yeats. His schooldays were unproductive. A loner with dyslexia, he
found that he would rather immerse himself in art, such as painting and drawing or
playing the piano, than attend to his studies. In 1949, to instill some discipline,
his parents insisted that he attend Jones' West Monmouth Boys' School in Pontypool.
He remained there for five terms, of which Hopkins does not have fond memories. He
was then educated at Cowbridge Grammar School.
Hopkins was influenced and encouraged to become an actor by compatriot Richard
Burton, whom he met briefly at the age of 15. To that end, he enrolled at the
College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, from which he graduated in 1957. After a
two-year spell in the Army, he moved to London where he trained at RADA, at the
suggestion of Roy Marsden.
Career
In 1965, after several years spent performing and honing his craft in repertory, he
was spotted by Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the National Theatre.
Hopkins was given the opportunity to be Olivier's understudy, and got his chance to
shine when the actor was struck down with appendicitis during a production of
August Strindberg's The Dance of Death. Olivier later noted in his memoir,
Confessions of an Actor:
"A new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was
understudying me and walked away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse
between its teeth."
Despite his success at the National, Hopkins tired of repeating the same roles
nightly and yearned to be in movies. In 1968, he got his break in The Lion in
Winter playing Richard I, along with future James Bond star Timothy Dalton, who
played Philip II of France.
Although Hopkins continued in theatre (most notably in the Broadway production of
Peter Shaffer's Equus, directed by John Dexter) he gradually moved away from it to
become more established as a television and film actor. He has since gone on to
enjoy a long career, winning many plaudits for his performances. He was made a
Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987, and a Knight Bachelor in 1993. In
1996 Hopkins was awarded an honorary fellowship from the University of Wales,
Lampeter.
Hopkins has stated that his role as Burt Munro, whom he portrayed in his 2005 film
The World's Fastest Indian, was his favourite role ever in his career. Hopkins also
asserted that Munro was the easiest role that he had ever played because both men
have a similar outlook on life.
In 2006, Hopkins was the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for
lifetime achievement.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Sir Anthony
Hopkins - Generator - Biography
