Age: 89
male
Brian Blessed OBE (born 9 October 1936) is an English actor. He is known for his distinctive bushy beard, booming voice, and exuberant personality and performances. He portrayed PC "Fancy" Smith in Z-Cars; Augustus in the 1976 BBC television production of I, Claudius; King Richard IV in the first series of Blackadder; Prince Vultan in Flash Gordon; Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in the 1981 original London production of Cats at the New London Theatre; Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, in Henry V; Boss Nass in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace; and the voice of Clayton and the Tarzan yell in Disney's Tarzan. In 2016, Blessed was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the arts and charity. Blessed was born on 9 October 1936 at Montagu Hospital in Mexborough, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of William Blessed, a socialist coal miner at Hickleton Main Colliery (and himself the son of a coal miner) and cricketer for the Yorkshire second team, and Hilda (née Wall). He had a brother Alan, seven years younger, and the pair "went everywhere together" when they were growing up. Alan Blessed died from leukaemia aged 52; their mother died aged 87, and their father died aged 99. Blessed's great-great-grandfather, Jabez Blessed, was the father of 13 children and worked as a china and glass dealer in Brigg, Lincolnshire; many of Blessed's relatives hail from Brigg. Blessed went to Bolton on Dearne Secondary Modern School, and completed his national service in the RAF, in Bicester, before enrolling at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1956.
Brian Blessed
Baron Harkonnen
for Baron Harkonnen in Peter Berg's Dune
Suggested by michaelcosby
In a distant future, the desert planet Arrakis is the sole source of the Spice Melange, the most valuable substance in the universe. When the Emperor decrees that House Atreides will take control of Arrakis from their mortal enemies, House Harkonnen, young Paul Atreides is torn from his lush homeworld and thrust into a web of political treachery. The handover is a trap: the Harkonnens, with secret Imperial aid, slaughter the Atreides forces and kill Paul's father, Duke Leto. Fleeing into the deep desert with his mother Jessica, Paul finds refuge among the Fremen, the planet's fierce native inhabitants. As he masters their ways and consumes the Spice, dormant powers awaken within him—visions of possible futures, terrible and vast. Embraced as a prophesied leader, Paul transforms from a reluctant heir into a messianic warlord. He leads the Fremen in a savage uprising against the Harkonnens, avenges his father, and seizes control of Arrakis. But victory demands a terrible price: to secure the imperial throne, Paul must marry Princess Irulan, a political union that betrays his love for the Fremen warrior Chani. The boy who never wanted power becomes Emperor, trapped in the same cycle of duty and compromise that destroyed his father, while Chani—pregnant with his child—watches with hollow eyes.
