Denholm Elliott

Denholm Mitchell Elliott (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992) was an English actor. He appeared in numerous productions on stage and screen, receiving BAFTA Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Trading Places, A Private Function (1984) and Defence of the Realm (1986), and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Mr. Emerson in A Room with a View (1985). He is also known for his performances in Alfie (1966), A Doll's House (1973), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Maurice (1987), September (1987), and Noises Off (1992). He portrayed Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). On television, Elliott won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor in 1981 and was nominated for a second for Hotel du Lac (1986).

The American film critic Roger Ebert described Elliott as "the most dependable of all British character actors." The New York Times called him "a star among supporting players" and "an accomplished scene-stealer". He was appointed a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.

Early life and education Elliott was born 31 May 1922, in Kensington, London, a barrister who had read law and Arabic at Cambridge before fighting with the Gloucestershire Regiment on Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia. In 1930, Myles Elliott was appointed solicitor-general to the Mandatory Government in Palestine. Three years later, following a series of controversial government prosecutions, he was assassinated outside the King David Hotel and buried in the Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion. Elliott's elder brother Neil Emerson Elliott (1920–2003) was a land agent to Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck.

Elliott attended Malvern College and joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. He was asked to leave after one term. As Elliott later recalled, "They wrote to my mother and said, 'Much as we like the little fellow, he's wasting your money and our time. Take him away!'"

In the Second World War, he joined the Royal Air Force, training as a wireless operator/air gunner and serving with No. 76 Squadron RAF under the command of Leonard Cheshire. On the night of 23/24 September 1942, his Handley Page Halifax DT508 bomber took part in an air raid on the U-boat pens at Flensburg, Germany. The aircraft was hit by flak and subsequently ditched in the North Sea near Sylt, Germany. Elliott and four of his crewmen survived, and he spent the rest of the war in Stalag Luft VIIIb, a prisoner-of-war camp in Lamsdorf (now Łambinowice), Silesia. While imprisoned, he became involved in amateur dramatics. He formed a theatre group that was so successful it toured other POW camps playing Twelfth Night.

Career After making his film debut in Dear Mr. Prohack (1949) Elliott went on to play a wide range of parts, including an officer in The Cruel Sea (1953), and often ineffectual and occasionally seedy characters, including the criminal abortionist in Alfie (1966) and the washed-up film director in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974). Elliott and Natasha Parry played the main roles in the 1955 television play The Apollo of Bellac. He took over for an ill Michael Aldridge for one season of The Man in Room 17 (1966).

Elliott made many television appearances, which included plays by Dennis Potter such as Follow the Yellow Brick Road (1972), Brimstone and Treacle, (1976) and Blade on the Feather (1980). He starred in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens's short story The Signalman (1976). He also co-starred with Jack Palance in the Canadian-American television film The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968).

In the 1980s, Elliott won three consecutive British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards for Best Supporting Actor, for playing the butler to Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy in the American comedy film Trading Places (1983), Dr. Swaby in the British comedy film A Private Function (1984), and the drunken journalist Vernon Bayliss in the British political thriller film Defence of the Realm (1986). He received an Academy Award nomination for playing Mr. Emerson in A Room with a View (1985). He also played Dr. Marcus Brody, an academic and friend of Indiana Jones, in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). A photograph of his character appears in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and a reference is made to Brody's death. A statue was also dedicated to Brody outside Marshall College, the school where Indiana Jones teaches. In 1988 Elliott played the Russian mole Povin, around whom the entire plot revolves, in the television miniseries Codename: Kyril.

Having filmed Michael Winner's The Wicked Lady (1983), Elliott was quoted in a BBC Radio interview as saying that Marc Sinden and he "are the only two British actors I am aware of who have ever worked with Winner more than once, and it certainly wasn't for love. But curiously, I never, ever saw any of the same crew twice." (Elliott in You Must Be Joking! (1965) and The Wicked Lady and Sinden in The Wicked Lady and Decadence). Elliott had worked with Sinden's father, Donald Sinden, in The Cruel Sea. He co-starred with Katharine Hepburn and Harold Gould in the television film Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry (1986) and with Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton (1989).

In 1988, Elliott was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to acting. His career included many stage performances, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and an acclaimed turn as the twin brothers in Jean Anouilh's Ring Round the Moon. His scene-stealing abilities led Gabriel Byrne, his co-star in Defence of the Realm, to say, "Never act with children, dogs, or Denholm Elliott."

Described by the British Film Institute's Screenonline as an actor of "versatile understanding and immaculate technique," Elliott described himself as an instinctive actor and was a critic of Stanislavski's system of acting, saying, "I mistrust and am rather bored with actors who are of the Stanislavski school who think about detail."

Personal life and death Elliott married twice and was secretly bisexual. He was first married to actress Virginia McKenna from 1954 to 1957. In 1962, he married American actress Susan Robinson, 20 years his junior, with whom he would have an open marriage and two children.

Elliott was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 Ismail Merchant described Elliott as "an all-giving person, full of life ... He had an affection and feeling for other actors, which is very unusual in our business."

Elliott's widow set up a charity, the Denholm Elliott Project, and collaborated on his biography. She worked closely with the UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS. She died on 12 April 2007, aged 65, in a fire in her flat in Hornsey, London.

Acting credits Film

Awards and nominations Year Award Category Nomination Result1986 Academy Awards Best Supporting Actor A Room with a View 1973 British Academy Film Awards Best Supporting Actor A Doll's House 1979 Saint Jack 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark 1983 Trading Places 1984 A Private Function 1985 Defence of the Realm 1986 A Room with a View 1981 British Academy Television Awards Best Actor BBC2 Playhouse: Gentlefolk & In Hiding Blade on the Feather Tales of the Unexpected: The Stinker 1986 Screen Two: Hotel du Lac

State and military awards