Age: 88
male
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins CBE (born December 31, 1937) is a Welsh and American actor, film director, and film producer. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards and a British Academy Television Award. He has also received an honorary Golden Globe Award and the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 1993, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts, and in 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his achievements in the motion picture industry. After graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 1957, Hopkins trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and was then spotted by Laurence Olivier who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre in 1965. Productions at the National included King Lear, his favourite Shakespeare play. His last stage play was a West End production of M. Butterfly in 1989. In 1968, Hopkins achieved recognition in film, playing Richard the Lionheart in The Lion in Winter. In the mid-1970s, Richard Attenborough, who directed five Hopkins films, called him "the greatest actor of his generation." In 1991, he portrayed Hannibal Lecter in the psychological horror film The Silence of the Lambs, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor. He reprised the role in its sequel Hannibal and the prequel Red Dragon. Other notable films include The Elephant Man (1980), 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), Howards End (1992), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Shadowlands (1993), Legends of the Fall (1994), Meet Joe Black (1998), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), and Thor: Ragnarok (2017). He received four more Academy Award nominations for The Remains of the Day (1993), Nixon (1995), Amistad (1997) and The Two Popes (2019) before winning a fourth BAFTA Award and a second Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of an elderly man diagnosed with dementia in The Father (2020), becoming the oldest Best Actor Oscar winner to date. Since making his television debut with the BBC in 1967, Hopkins has continued to appear on television. In 1973 he received a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his performance in War and Peace. In 2015, he starred in the BBC film The Dresser alongside Ian McKellen. In 2018, he starred in King Lear opposite Emma Thompson. In 2016 and 2018, he starred in the HBO television series Westworld, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Harry had only two loves in his life: magic and Bess. But despite all his efforts, his loved ones rarely got along ... One of the world's most famous illusionists and stuntmen was born in Budapest in 1874 as Erik Weisz, and a few years later he and his family boarded a steamer bound for the United States. He started performing at the age of nine, but at that time he devoted himself to a hanging bar and only as a teenager he switched to magic. Not to mention, his pseudonym is a tribute to the founder of modern magic named Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin. But before he broke through with his new nickname, Harry Houdini subsisted on everything possible - including acting as a "wild man" at a fairground attraction on Coney Island. However, the real turning point came thanks to two coincidences: when he discovered his talent for escapist pieces and when he met his future wife, Bess. The American biographical film benefits not only from the fascinating story of the magician who often tried to die in his pieces, but also from the central acting duo. From his beginnings as a "wildman" carnival act to the internationally famous feat of escaping from a locked trunk in an ice-jammed river, the great Harry Houdini emerged as the world's most captivating magician and escape artist.
