DENHOLM ELLIOTT Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

Biography » actors and actresses » denholm elliott

DENHOLM ELLIOTT

Name: Denholm Mitchell Elliott                                                     
Born: 31 May 1922 Ealing, London, England                                         
Died: 6 October 1992 Ibiza, Spain                                                 
                                                                                   
Denholm Mitchell Elliott (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992) was a distinguished     
English actor of stage and screen, with over 120 major film and TV credits.       
                                                                                   
Elliott was born in London, England to Nina Mitchell and Myles Layman Elliott.     
He attended Malvern College, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in       
London and afterwards served as a radio operator and gunner in the Royal Air       
Force during World War II. In 1942, he was shot down over Denmark and spent       
the rest of the war in a P.O.W. camp in Silesia.                                   
                                                                                   
After the war, he made his film debut in Dear Mr. Prohack (1949). He went on to   
play a large range of parts, often playing ineffectual and occasionally seedy     
characters, such as the journalist Bayliss in Defence of the Realm, the           
abortionist in Alfie, and the washed-up film director in The Apprenticeship of     
Duddy Kravitz.                                                                     
                                                                                   
He made many television appearances, notably in plays by Dennis Potter,           
including Follow The Yellow Brick Road (1972), Brimstone and Treacle (1976) and   
Blade on the Feather (1980). He took over from an ill Michael Aldridge for one     
season of The Man in Room 17 (1966) and also appeared in series such as Thriller   
(1975).                                                                           
                                                                                   
In the 1980s he won three consecutive BAFTA awards as best supporting actor for   
Trading Places as Dan Aykroyd's kindly butler, A Private Function and Defence of   
the Realm, as well as an Academy Award nomination for A Room with a View. He       
also became familiar to a wider audience as the well meaning but ineffectual Dr.   
Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.   
                                                                                   
In 1988, Elliott was awarded the CBE for his services to acting. His career       
included many stage performances, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company.