Derek Jacobi

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Sir Derek Jacobi
Born 22 October 1938 (1938-10-22) (age 69)
Leytonstone, London, England
Occupation Actor, Director

Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE (IPA: /ˈdʒækəbi/) (born 22 October 1938) is an English actor and director, knighted in 1994 for his services to the theatre. Like Laurence Olivier, he bears the distinction of holding two knighthoods, Danish and British. [1]

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Jacobi, an only child, was born in Leytonstone, London, England to Alfred George Jacobi, who ran a sweet shop and was a tobacconist in Chingford, and Daisy Gertrude, who worked in a drapery store in Leyton High Street. His great-grandfather emigrated to England from Germany during the 19th century.[2] His family was working class. [3] Although a war baby, he claims a happy childhood. In his teens he went to the Leyton County High School and became an integral part of the drama club, The Players of Leyton.

At 18, he won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he studied history. Other younger members of the university at the time included Ian McKellen (who had an "undeclared and unrequited" crush on him) and Trevor Nunn. During his stay at Cambridge, he played many parts including Hamlet, which was taken on a tour to Switzerland where he met Richard Burton. As a result of his performance of Edward II at Cambridge, he was invited to become a member of the Birmingham Rep immediately upon his graduation in 1960.

Jacobi quickly came to the fore, and his talent was recognised by Laurence Olivier, who invited him back home to London to become one of the eight founding members of the new National Theatre, even though at the time he was relatively unknown. He played Laertes in the National Theatre's inaugural production of Hamlet opposite Peter O'Toole in 1963, and Olivier gave him the role of Cassio in his 1965 film of Othello and of Andrei in Three Sisters in 1970.

After eight years at the National Theatre, Jacobi left in 1971 to pursue different roles and mediums of expression. In 1972, he starred in the BBC serial Man of Straw, directed by Herbert Wise. Most of his theatrical work in the 70's was with the touring classical Prospect Theatre Company, with which he undertook many roles, including Ivanov, Pericles, Prince of Tyre and A Month in the Country.

Although Jacobi's name was becoming known and he was increasingly busy with stage and screen acting, his big breakthrough did not come until 1976. It was the title role of the BBC's blockbuster series I, Claudius that finally cemented his popular reputation with his performance as the stammering, twitching Emperor Claudius winning him many plaudits. In 1977, thanks to his international popularity he brought Hamlet on a tour through England, Egypt, Sweden, Australia, Japan and China. He was then invited to play it at Kronborg Castle, better known as Elsinore Castle, the setting of the play itself. In 1978 he played in the BBC's production of Shakespeare's Richard II, with Sir John Gielgud and Dame Wendy Hiller.

In 1980 Jacobi took the leading role in the BBC's Hamlet, made his Broadway debut in The Suicide, and then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) from 1982 to 1985 where he played four demanding roles simultaneously: Benedick in Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing, for which he won a Tony; Prospero in The Tempest; Peer Gynt; and Cyrano de Bergerac. In 1986, he made his West End debut in Breaking the Code with the role of Alan Turing. The play was taken to Broadway. In 1988 Jacobi alternated in West End the title roles of Shakespeare's Richard II and Richard III in repertoire.

His TV career saw him measure with Inside the Third Reich (1982), where he played Hitler; Mr Pye (1985); Little Dorrit (1987), from Charles Dickens's book; The Tenth Man (1988) with Anthony Hopkins and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Jacobi continued to play Shakespeare, notably in Kenneth Branagh's 1989 film of Henry V (as the Chorus) and made his directing debut as Branagh's director for the 1988 Renaissance Theatre Company's touring production of Hamlet, which also played at Elsinore and as part of a Renaissance repertory season at the Phoenix Theatre in London. The 1990s saw Jacobi keeping on with repertoire stage work in Kean at the Old Vic, Becket in the West End (the Haymarket Theatre) and Macbeth at the RSC in both London and Stratford.

He was appointed the joint artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre, with the West End impresario Duncan Weldon in 1995 for a three year tenure. As an actor at Chichester, he also starred in four plays, including his first Uncle Vanya in 1996 (he took a second run in 2000). Jacobi's work during the 90's included the 13 episodes series TV adaptation of the novels by Ellis Peters Cadfael (1994-1998) and a televised version of Breaking the Code (1996). Film appearances included performances in Kenneth Branagh's Dead Again (1991), Branagh's Hamlet (1996) as King Claudius, in John Maybury's Love is the Devil (1998), a portrait of painter Francis Bacon, and as "The Duke" opposite Christopher Eccleston and Eddie Izzard in a post-apocalyptic version of Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy (2002).

In 2001, he won an Emmy by mocking his Shakespearean background in the television sitcom Frasier episode "The Show Must Go Off", in which he played the world's worst Shakespearean actor: the hammy, loud, untalented Jackson Hedley. This was his first guest appearance on an American television programme.

Jacobi has done the narration for an audio book version of the Iliad and for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. In 2002, Jacobi toured Australia in The Hollow Crown with Sir Donald Sinden, Ian Richardson and Dame Diana Rigg. Jacobi also played the role of Senator Gracchus in Gladiator and starred in the 2002 miniseries The Jury.

In 2003, he was involved with Scream of the Shalka, a webcast based on the science fiction series Doctor Who. He played the voice of the Master alongside Richard E. Grant as the Doctor. In the same year, he also appeared in Deadline, an audio drama also based on Doctor Who. In that, he played Martin Bannister, an ageing writer who makes up stories about "the Doctor", a character who travels in time and space, the premise being that the series had never made it on to television. Jacobi later followed this up with an appearance on the Doctor Who BBC TV series itself, in the June 2007 episode "Utopia". Jacobi appears as the kindly Professor Yana, who by the end of the episode is revealed to actually be the Doctor's arch-nemesis, the Master.

In 2004, Jacobi starred in Friedrich Schiller's Don Carlos at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, in an acclaimed production, which transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in London in January 2005. The London production of Don Carlos gathered rave reviews. Also in 2004, he starred as Lord Teddy Thursby in the first of the four-part BBC series The Long Firm, based on Jake Arnott's novel of the same name. In Nanny McPhee (2005), he played the role of the colourful Mr. Wheen, an undertaker. He played the role of Alexander Corvinus in the 2006 movie Underworld: Evolution.

In March 2006, BBC Two broadcast Pinochet in Suburbia, a docudrama about former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the attempts to extradite him from Great Britain; Jacobi played the leading role. In September 2007, it was released in the U.S., entitled Pinochet's Last Stand. In 2006, he appeared in the children's movie Mist, the tale of a sheepdog puppy, he also narrated this movie. In July-August 2006 he played the eponymous role in A Voyage Round My Father at the Donmar Warehouse, a production which then transferred to the West End.

In February 2007, his feature film The Riddle, directed by Brendan Foley, in which he stars alongside Vinnie Jones and Vanessa Redgrave, was screened at Berlin EFM. Jacobi plays twin roles. First, as a present day London tramp and then the ghost of Charles Dickens. In March 2007, the BBC's children's programme In the Night Garden started its run of 200 episodes, with Jacobi as the narrator.

In March 2006, after 27 years together, he registered his civil union with long-term partner Richard Clifford, four months after such unions became legal in England and Wales.

Theatre

Television

Film

As part of an ensemble:

  1. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Shakespeare: Jacobi, Sir Derek. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.. Retrieved on 2007-07-13.
  2. ^ Crown him with many crowns - Daily Telegraph 15 July 2002
  3. ^ 'I already knew I was a tetchy beast' — Guardian 19 September 2006
  4. ^ London Gazette: no. 53527, page 2, 30 December 1993, Retrieved on 2007-11-21.

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