In traditional Chinese culture, qi, also spelled chi or ch'i in English, is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Other spellings include . Qi is pronounced in English; in Standard Chinese; Korean: gi; Japanese: ki; Vietnamese: khí, ) The approximate English pronunciation of qi, similar to "chee" in cheese, should also be distinguished from the pronunciation of the Greek letter chi, which has a hard c sound. like "c" in car, and a long i, similar to other Greek letters phi, psi, xi.

Qi is frequently translated as "energy flow". Qi is often compared to Western notions of energeia or élan vital (vitalism), as well as the yogic notion of prana, meaning vital life or energy, and pranayama, meaning control of breath or energy. The literal translation of "qi" is air, breath, or gas. Compare this to the original meaning of the Latin word "spiritus", meaning breathing; or the Koine Greek "πνεῦμα", meaning air, breath, or spirit; and the Sanskrit term "prana", meaning breath.

Term and character

The etymological explanation for the form of the qi logogram in the traditional form is “steam () rising from rice () as it cooks”. The earliest way of writing qi consisted of three wavy lines, used to represent one's breath seen on a cold day. A later version, 气, identical to the present-day simplified character, is a stylized version of those same three lines. For some reason, early writers of Chinese found it desirable to substitute for 气 a cognate character that originally meant to feed other people in a social context such as providing food for guests. Appropriately, that character combined the three-line qi character with the character for rice. So 气 plus 米 formed 氣, and that is the traditional character still used today (the oracle bone character, the seal script character and the modern "school standard" or Kǎi shū characters in the box at the right show three stages of the evolution of this character).

character qì, also used in Korean hanja. In Japanese kanji, this character was used until 1946, when it was changed to .]]

In the Japanese language, the Chinese character corresponding to "qi" (氣) is pronounced 'ki'. The Japanese language contains over 11,442 known usages of "ki" as a compound. As a compound, it tends to represent syllables associated with the mind, the heart, feeling, the atmosphere, and flavor.

Definition

References to things analogous to the qi taken to be the life-process or flow of energy that sustains living beings are found in many belief systems, especially in Asia. In Chinese legend, it is Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor) who is identified as the one who first collected and formalized much of what subsequently became known as traditional Chinese medicine.

Philosophical conceptions of qi from the earliest records of Chinese philosophy (5th century BC) correspond to Western notions of humours. The earliest description of qi in the current sense of vital energy is due to Mencius (4th century BC).

Manfred Porkert described relations to Western universal concepts:

Within the framework of Chinese thought no notion may attain to such a degree of abstraction from empirical data as to correspond perfectly to one of our modern universal concepts. Nevertheless the term qi comes as close as possible to constituting a generic designation equivalent to our word "energy". When Chinese thinkers are unwilling or unable to fix the quality of an energetic phenomenon, the character qi (氣) inevitably flows from their brushes.

The ancient Chinese described it as "life-force" and for good reason. They believed qi permeates everything and links the parts of our surroundings together. The tai chi practitioner and acupuncturist are said to understand qi energy. They likened it to the flow of energy around and through the body, linking each part forming a cohesive and functioning unit. By understanding its rhythm and flow they believe they can guide exercises and treatments to give us stability and longevity.

Although the concept of qi has been very important within many Chinese philosophies, over the centuries their descriptions of qi have been varied and may seem to be in conflict with each other. Understanding of these disputes is complicated for people who did not grow up using the Chinese concept and its associated concepts. Until China came into contact with Western scientific and philosophical ideas (primarily by way of Catholic missionaries), they knew about things like stones and lightning, but they would not have categorized them in terms of matter and energy. Qi and li (理, li, pattern) are their 'fundamental' categories much as matter and energy have been fundamental categories for people in the West. Their use of qi (lifebreath) and li (pattern, regularity, form, order) as their primary categories leaves in question how to account for liquids and solids, and, once the Western idea of energy came on the scene, how to relate it to the native idea of qi. If Chinese and Western concepts are mixed in an attempt to characterize some of the problems that arise with the Chinese conceptual system, then one might ask whether qi exists as a "force" separate from "matter", whether qi arises from "matter", whether "matter" arises from qi, or whether qi really exists at all.

Qi.]] Fairly early on, some Chinese thinkers began to believe that there are different fractions of qi, in the sense that different fractions can be extracted from crude oil in a catalytic cracker, and that the coarsest and heaviest fractions of qi form solid things such as rocks, the earth, etc., whereas lighter fractions form liquids, and the most ethereal fractions are the "lifebreath" that animates living beings.

Yuán qì is a notion of innate or pre-natal qi to distinguish it from acquired qi that a person may develop of their lifetime.

Early philosophical texts

The earliest texts that speak of qi give some indications of how the concept developed. The philosopher Mo Di, also known as Mo Zi or Master Mo, used the word qi to refer to noxious vapors that would in due time arise from a corpse were it not buried at a sufficient depth. He reported that early civilized humans learned how to live in houses to protect their qi from the moisture that had troubled them when they lived in caves. He also associated maintaining one's qi with providing oneself adequate nutrition. And, in regard to another kind of qi he recorded how some people performed a kind of prognostication by observing the qi (clouds) in the sky.

In the Analects of Confucius, compiled from the notes of his students sometime after his death in 479 B.C., qi can mean breath, and it can be combined with the Chinese word for blood (making 血氣, xue-qi, blood and breath), and that concept can be used to account for motivational characteristics. The Analects, 16:7, says:

Meng Ke, also known as Meng Zi, Master Meng, or Mencius, described a kind of qi that might be characterized as an individual's vital energies. This qi was necessary to activity, and it could be controlled by a well-integrated will power. But this qi could not adequately be characterized by English words like "lifebreath" or "bio-plasma" because when properly nurtured it was capable of extending beyond the human body to reach throughout the universe.

Not only human beings and animals were believed to have qi. Zhuang Zhou (also known as Zhuangzi or Master Zhuang) indicated that wind is the qi of the Earth. Moreover, cosmic yin and yang "are the greatest of qi." He describes qi as "issuing forth" and creating profound effects.

Zhuang Zi, a contemporary of Mencius, said, "Human beings are born [because of] the accumulation of qi. When it accumulates there is life. When it dissipates there is death... There is one qi that connects and pervades everything in the world."

Another passage traces life to intercourse between Heaven and Earth: "The highest Yin is the most restrained. The highest Yang is the most exuberant. The restrained comes forth from Heaven. The exuberant issues forth from Earth. The two intertwine and penetrate forming a harmony, and [as a result] things are born."

"The Guanzi essay 'Neiye' 內業 (Inward training) is the oldest received writing on the subject of the cultivation of vapor [qi] and meditation techniques. The essay was probably composed at the Jixia Academy in Qi in the late fourth century B.C."

Xun Zi, another Confucian scholar of the Jixia Academy, followed in later years. At 9:69/127, Xun Zi says, "Fire and water have qi but do not have life. Grasses and trees have life but do not have perceptivity. Fowl and beasts have perceptivity but do not have yi (sense of right and wrong, duty, justice). Men have qi, life, perceptivity, and yi." This passage gives us some insight into his idea of qi. Chinese people at such an early time had no concept of radiant energy. But they were aware that one can be heated by a campfire from a distance away from the fire. Clearly, something is emitted by the fire and reaches the camper. They called it "qi". At 18:62/122, he too uses "qi" to refer to the vital forces of the body that decline with advanced age.

Among the animals, the gibbon and the crane were considered experts in inhaling the qi. The Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu (ca. 150 BC) wrote in Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals: "The gibbon resembles a macaque, but he is larger, and his color is black. His forearms being long, he lives eight hundred years, because he is expert in controlling his breathing." ("猿似猴。大而黑。长前臂。所以寿八百。好引气也。")

Later, the syncretic text assembled under the direction of Liu An, the Huai Nan Zi, or "Masters of Huainan", has a passage that presages most of what is given greater detail by the Neo-Confucians:

The development of the ideas of qi and of qi zhi zhi xing (氣質之性) in Neo-Confucianism go beyond the scope of a fundamental account of Chinese ideas about qi, but the fundamentals are contained in the above passage.

Traditional Chinese medicine

Theories of traditional Chinese medicine assert that the body has natural patterns of qi that circulate in channels called meridians in English. Symptoms of various illnesses are often believed to be the product of disrupted, blocked, or unbalanced qi movement (interrupted flow) through the body's meridians, as well as deficiencies or imbalances of qi (homeostatic imbalance) in the various Zang Fu organs. Traditional Chinese medicine often seeks to relieve these imbalances by adjusting the circulation of qi (metabolic energy flow) in the body using a variety of therapeutic techniques. Some of these techniques include herbal medicines, special diets, physical training regimens (qigong, tai chi chuan, and other martial arts training), moxibustion, massage to clear blockages, and acupuncture, which uses small diameter metal needles inserted into the skin and underlying tissues to reroute or balance qi.

It is hypothesized that qi could be transmitted through the fascia independent of any neurological activity.

Scientific investigation

There are many uses of the term qi in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, but it is an imprecise concept of which the best, non-poetic translation is probably "stuff".

There are other uses of the term qì which are slightly more concrete; for instance, following an organ network, it means "function". For example, gān qì (肝氣) or "liver qì" should be interpreted roughly as liver function. Further confounding matters, the Chinese term gān is itself a bundle of functional interactions with other organ networks, rather than referring specifically to the tissues of the liver.

There have been a number of studies of qi, especially in the sense used by traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. These studies have often been problematic, and are hard to compare to each other, as they lack a common nomenclature. Some studies claim to have been able to measure qi, as understood in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, or the effects of manipulating qi, such as through acupuncture. Conversely, other studies have shown that sham acupuncture is almost as effective as real acupuncture, putting the concept of qi moving along specific meridians into question.

It has been hypothesized that the effects of acupuncture can be explained by endorphin-release, by relaxation or by placebo effects. A United States National Institutes of Health consensus statement on acupuncture in 1997 noted that concepts such as qi "are difficult to reconcile with contemporary biomedical information but continue to play an important role in the evaluation of patients and the formulation of treatment in acupuncture."

More recent investigations point to connective tissue mechanotransduction, a domino effect caused by twisting and knotting the fabric of the body. Connections between Qi and electrical conductivity were studied in the United States in the late 19th century, and are currently the subject of active research.

In 2007 the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas published an article covering the concepts by which Qi is believed to work and research into possible benefits for cancer patients. A review of clinical trials investigating the use of internal qigong for pain management found no convincing evidence that it was effective.

Feng shui

The traditional Chinese art of geomancy, the placement and arrangement of space called feng shui, is based on calculating the balance of qi, interactions between the five elements, yin and yang and other factors. The retention or dissipation of qi is believed to affect the health, wealth, energy level, luck and many other aspects of the occupants of the space. Color, shape and the physical location of each item in a space affects the flow of qi by slowing it down, redirecting it or accelerating it, which directly affects the energy level of the occupants. Feng shui is said to be a form of qi divination.

Martial arts

Qi is a didactic concept in many Chinese, Korean and Japanese martial arts. Martial qigong is a feature of both internal and external training systems in China and other East Asian cultures. The most notable of the qi-focused "internal" force (jin) martial arts are Baguazhang, Xing Yi Quan, T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Snake Kung Fu, Dragon Kung Fu, Lion Kung Fu, Aikido, Aikijujutsu, Kyudo, Hapkido, jian and katana swordplay, Lohan Chuan, Shaolin Kung Fu, Liu He Ba Fa, Buddhist Fist, and some forms of Karate and Silat.

Demonstrations of qi or ki power are popular in some martial arts and may include the immovable body, the unraisable body, the unbendable arm and other feats of power. All of these feats can alternatively be explained using biomechanics and physics.

See also

Qigong (qi cultivation)

Tao Yin

Vitalism

Energy (esotericism)

Esoteric healing

Traditional Chinese medicine

*Dantian

*Tui na

Taoism

Falun Gong

Chinese folk religion

Chinese martial arts

*Iron Shirt

*Iron Palm

References

;Notes

;Further reading

External links

Develop Chi Power Free Online Group

Mind Body Spirit Connection Online Community

What Is Chi (Qi)? Article by Ross Lamond, Feng Shui Garden

The Ki/Chi Society

Article by Bing YeYoung "A Philosophical and Cultural Interpretation of Qi"

The Skeptics Dictionary

Feeling A Practical Explanation of The Sensations of Chi

Art of the States: Qi Qi-inspired musical work by composer Chen Yi

AikiPhysics explores Ki development tests in Aikido using Physics

中國古代候氣說的發展

Category:Chinese thought Category:Chinese philosophy Category:Chinese martial arts terms Category:Qigong Category:Vitalism

Name	Stephen Fry
Caption	Fry in Happy Birthday to GNU (2008)
Birth name	Stephen John Fry
Birth date	August 24, 1957
Birth place	Hampstead, London, England
Occupation	Actor, comedian, author, journalist, broadcaster, film director
Years active	1982–present
Partner	Daniel Cohen (1995–2010)Steven Webb (2010-present)
Religion	None (atheist)
Website	http://www.stephenfry.com
Signature	Stephen Fry's signature.jpg
Signature size	100px

Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster.

As a solo actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series Kingdom, and is the host of the quiz show QI. He also presented a 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 U.S. states in six episodes. Fry has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones.

Apart from his work in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and two volumes of autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot and . He also appears frequently on BBC Radio 4, starring in the comedy series Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as Just a Minute, and acting as chairman for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, where he was one of a trio of hosts who succeeded the late Humphrey Lyttelton. He is also known to British audiences everywhere as the reader of all seven Harry Potter novels in their audiobook versions.

Early life

Fry was born in Hampstead, London, on 24 August 1957, the son of Marianne Eve Fry (née Newman) and Alan John Fry, who was an English physicist and inventor. His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann, and his mother's aunt and cousins died in Auschwitz. before going on to Stouts Hill Preparatory School at the age of seven, and then to Uppingham School, Rutland, where he joined Fircroft house. He was expelled from Uppingham when he was 15, and subsequently from Paston School.

At 17, after leaving Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend, was arrested in Swindon, and as a result spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison on remand.

Following his release he resumed education at City College Norwich, promising administrators that he would study rigorously to sit the Cambridge entrance exams. He passed well enough to gain a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, Fry joined the Cambridge Footlights, appeared on University Challenge, and gained a degree in English literature. It was at the Footlights that Fry met his future comedy collaborator Hugh Laurie.

Career

Television

, Regent Street, London on 3 February 2009]] Fry's career in television began with the 1982 broadcasting of The Cellar Tapes, the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue which was written by Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. The revue caught the attention of Granada Television, who, keen to replicate the success of the BBC's Not the Nine O'Clock News, hired Fry, Laurie and Thompson to star alongside Ben Elton in There's Nothing to Worry About!. A second series, re-titled Alfresco, was broadcast in 1983 and a third in 1984; it established Fry and Laurie's reputation as a comedy double act. In 1983, the BBC offered them their own show, which became The Crystal Cube, a mixture of science fiction and mockumentary that was axed after the first episode. Undeterred, Fry and Laurie appeared in an episode of The Young Ones in 1984, and Fry in Ben Elton's 1985 series, Happy Families. In 1986 and 1987 Fry and Laurie also performed sketches on the LWT/Channel 4 show Saturday Live.

Forgiving Fry and Laurie for The Crystal Cube, the BBC commissioned a sketch show in 1986 that was to become A Bit of Fry & Laurie. The programme ran for 26 episodes spanning four series between 1986 and 1995, and was very successful. During this time Fry starred in Blackadder II as Lord Melchett, made a guest appearance in as the Duke of Wellington, then returned to a starring role in Blackadder Goes Forth as General Melchett. In 1988, he became a regular contestant on the popular improvisational comedy radio show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. However, when it moved to television, he only appeared three times: twice in the first series and once in the ninth.

Between 1990 and 1993, Fry starred as Jeeves (alongside Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster, 23 hour-long adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse's novels and short stories.

In 1998 BBC Two aired a Malcolm Bradbury adaptation of the Mark Tavener 1989 novel, In the Red with Fry taking the part of the Controller of BBC Radio 2.

In 2000, Fry played the role of Professor Bellgrove in the BBC serial Gormenghast which was an adaptation of the first two novels of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series.

In 2010 he filmed a cameo role in Ros na Rún, an Irish language soap opera broadcast in Ireland, Scotland and the United States. Fry learned Irish for the role. He also came together with Laurie for a retrospective of their partnership titled Fry and Laurie Reunited.

In 2010 Fry took part in a Christmas series of Short Films called 'Little Crackers'. Fry's short is based on a story from his childhood at school.

QI

In 2003, he began hosting the TV panel game QI. In 2006, he won the Rose d'Or award for "Best Game Show Host" for his work on the series.

Other series

A foray into documentary-making has seen Fry fronting the Emmy Award-winning The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive in 2006, and in 2007 a documentary on the subject of HIV and AIDS, HIV and Me. Also in 2006, he appeared in the genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, tracing his family tree to discover his Slovak Jewish ancestry. His six-part travel series Stephen Fry in America began on BBC One on 12 October 2008. A five-part companion series, More Fry in America, has been commissioned for BBC Four; it will feature in-depth essays that Fry could not include in the original programmes because of time constraints.

Fry has also been involved in nature documentaries, having narrated Spectacled Bears: Shadow of the Forest for the BBC Natural World series in 2008. In the television series Last Chance to See, Fry together with zoologist Mark Carwardine sought out endangered species, some of which were featured in Douglas Adams and Carwardine's 1990 book/radio series of the of the same name. The resulting programmes were broadcast in 2009.

From 2007 to 2009, Fry appeared in and was executive producer for the legal drama Kingdom, which ran for three series on ITV1. He has also taken up a recurring guest role as psychiatrist Dr. Gordon Wyatt in the popular American drama Bones.

On 7 May 2008, Fry gave a speech as part of a series of BBC lectures on the future of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, which he later recorded for a podcast.

Fry also narrates the English language version of the Spanish children's animated series Pocoyo.

Film

Having made his film debut in the 1985 film The Good Father, Fry had a brief appearance in A Fish Called Wanda (in which he is knocked out by Kevin Kline, who is posing as an airport security man) and then appeared in the lead role for Kenneth Branagh's Peter's Friends in 1992. In the 1994 romantic comedy film I.Q., he played the role of James Moreland. Portraying Oscar Wilde (a man of whom he had been a fan since the age of 13) in the 1997 film Wilde, he fulfilled to critical acclaim a role that he has said he was "born to play". In 2001, he played the detective in Robert Altman's period costume drama, Gosford Park. In the same year he also appeared in the Dutch film The Discovery of Heaven, directed by Jeroen Krabbé and based on the novel by Harry Mulisch.

In 2003, Fry made his directorial debut with Bright Young Things, adapted by himself from Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. In 2001, he began hosting the BAFTA Film Awards, a role from which he stepped down in 2006. Later that same year, he wrote the English libretto and dialogue for Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of The Magic Flute.

Fry continues to make regular film appearances, notably in treatments of literary cult classics. He served as narrator in the 2005 film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and in 2005 he appeared in both A Cock and Bull Story, based on Tristram Shandy, and as a non-conforming TV Presenter who challenges the fascist state in V for Vendetta. In 2006, he played the role of gadget-master Smithers in Stormbreaker, and in 2007 he appeared as himself hosting a quiz in St Trinian's. In 2007, Fry wrote a script for a remake of The Dam Busters for director Peter Jackson.

(2008)"]] In 2008, he participated in a film celebrating the 25th anniversary of GNU, Happy Birthday to GNU. Fry was offered a role in Valkyrie but was unable to participate. Fry starred in the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland, as the voice of The Cheshire Cat, alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. He will play Mycroft Holmes in the sequel to Sherlock Holmes directed by Guy Ritchie.

Radio

Fry came to the attention of radio listeners with the 1986 creation of his supposed alter-ego, Donald Trefusis, whose "wireless essays" were broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 programme Loose Ends. In the 1980s he starred as David Lander in four series of the BBC Radio 4 show Delve Special, written by Tony Sarchet, which became a six part Channel 4 series This is David Lander in 1988. In 1988, Fry wrote and presented a six-part comedy series entitled Saturday Night Fry; frequent radio appearances have ensued (notably on panel games Just a Minute and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue). In 2000, he began starring as Charles Prentiss in the Radio 4 comedy Absolute Power, reprising the role for three further series on radio and two on television. In 2002, Fry voiced Winnie-the-Pooh and was one of the narrators in Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, both written by A.A Milne. He presented a weekly, 20 x 120-minute series, "The Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music", a 'witty guide' to the genre over the past 1,000 years, on Classic FM.

In 2007, he hosted Current Puns, an exploration of wordplay, and Radio 4: This Is Your Life, to celebrate the radio station's 40th anniversary. He also interviewed Tony Blair as part of a series of podcasts released by 10 Downing Street.

In February 2008, Fry began presenting podcasts entitled Stephen Fry's Podgrams, in which he recounts his life and recent experiences.

In August 2008 he hosted Fry's English Delight, a three-part series on BBC Radio 4 about metaphor, quotation and cliché. Fry returned with a second series a year later.

In the summer 2009 series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Fry was one of a trio of hosts replacing Humphrey Lyttelton (the others being Jack Dee and Rob Brydon).

He also lends his voice to the introduction and stings for Phill Jupitus' fortnightly podcast, The Perfect Ten.

Theatre

Fry wrote a play entitled Latin! (or Tobacco and Boys) for the 1980 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the "Fringe First" prize. It had a revival in 2009 at London's Cock Tavern Theatre, directed by Adam Spreadbury-Maher. The Cellar Tapes, the Footlights Revue of 1981, won the Perrier Comedy Award. In 1984, Fry adapted the hugely successful 1930s musical, Me and My Girl, for the West End, where it ran for eight years. He was also cast in a lead role in Simon Gray's 1995 play, Cell Mates, which he left three days into the West End run, pleading stage fright. He later recalled the incident as a hypomanic episode in his documentary on bipolar disorder. In 2007, Fry wrote a Christmas pantomime, Cinderella, which ran at London's Old Vic Theatre. Fry is a long-time fan of the 1960s anarchic British musical comedy group, the Bonzo Dog Band and, particularly, of its eccentric front man, the late Vivian Stanshall. Fry helped to fund an ill-fated 1988 London re-staging of the Stanshall's acclaimed Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera, written by Vivian and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall for the Bristol-based Old Profanity Showboat. Fry performed several of Stanshall's numbers as part of the Bonzo's 26 January 2006 reunion concert at the London Astoria. He also appears as a shiny New Millennium Bonzo on their post-reunion album, Pour l'Amour des Chiens, including his reciting of a recipe for "Salmon Proust", playing a butler in "Hawkeye the Gnu", and voicing ads for the fictitious "Fiasco" stores.

Following three one-man shows in Australia, Fry announced a "sort of stand-up" performance at The Royal Albert Hall in London for September 2010. Depending on its reception, Fry may tour nationally.

Audio books

Stephen Fry has been the reader for the British versions of all of J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter series of audio books. He discussed this project in an interview with J.K. Rowling in 2005. Fry has also been the reader for Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy film tie-in edition. He has also made recordings of his own books, such as The Stars' Tennis Balls; and works by Roald Dahl, Michael Bond, A. A. Milne, and Anthony Buckeridge.

Video games

Fry's distinctive voice has been featured in a number of video games, including an appearance as Reaver, a main character in Lionhead Studios games Fable II and Fable III, and as the narrator in LittleBigPlanet on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. He also served as narrator on the first four Harry Potter games (Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire). He will return to voice his role as the narrator in LittleBigPlanet 2 in 2011.

Advertisements

Fry has lent himself and his voice to many advertisements, for companies and products such as Marks and Spencer, Twinings, Kenco, Vauxhall, Direct Line, Calpol, Heineken, Alliance & Leicester, After Eights and Orange Mobile.

Literature

Since the publication of his first novel, The Liar (1991), Fry has written three additional novels, several non-fiction works and two volumes of autobiography. Making History (1997) is partly set in an alternative universe where Adolf Hitler's father is made infertile and his replacement proves a rather more effective Führer. The book won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. The Hippopotamus (1994) centres around Edward (Ted/Tedward) Wallace and his stay at his old friend Lord Logan's country manor in Norfolk. The Stars' Tennis Balls (2000) is a modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. Fry's book, , is a guide to writing poetry.

When writing a book review for Tatler, Fry wrote under an alias, Williver Hendry, editor of A Most Peculiar Friendship: The Correspondence of Lord Alfred Douglas and Jack Dempsey, a field close to Fry's heart as an Oscar Wilde enthusiast. Once a columnist in The Listener and The Daily Telegraph, he now writes a weekly technology column in the Saturday edition of The Guardian. His blog attracted more than 300,000 visitors in its first two weeks of existence. After its release, it reached No. 1 on the UK Album Chart list.

On 2 January 2010 it was announced that Fry was "switching off his connections with the outside world" in order to complete a second volume of his autobiography.

Fry's use of the word "luvvie" in The Guardian on 2 April 1988 is given by the Oxford English Dictionary as the earliest recorded use of the word.

Football

On 13 August 2010, Fry joined the Board of Directors at Norwich City Football Club. He is frequently asked to promote various charities and causes, often inadvertently causing his website to crash because of the sheer volume of traffic generated by his large number of followers, as Fry notes on his website: "Four thousand hits a second all diving down the pipeline at the same time for minutes on end." Fry uses his influence to recommend underexposed musicians and authors (which often see large increases in web hits and sales) and to spread contemporary issues in the world of media and politics, notably the dropping of an injunction against The Guardian and the lambasting of Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir over her article on deceased Boyzone member Stephen Gately.

In October 2009 Fry sparked debate amongst users again when he announced an intention to leave the social networking site after criticism from another user on Twitter. He retracted the intention the next day. In October 2010, Fry left Twitter for a few days following press criticism of a quote taken from an interview he had given, with a farewell message of "Bye bye". After returning, Fry explained that he had left Twitter to "avoid being sympathised with or told about an article I would otherwise never have got wind of".

In November 2009 Fry's Twitter account reached 1,000,000 followers. He commemorated the million followers milestone with a humorous video blog in which a 'Step Hen Fry' clone speaks from the year 2034 where MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have combined to form 'Twit on MyFace'.

In November 2010 Fry achieved 2,000,000 followers on Twitter. He welcomed his 2 millionth follower, mobijack, with a blog entry describing Fry's view of the pros and cons of this form of communication.

Acclaim

In 1995, Fry was presented with an honorary doctorate from the University of Dundee, which named their main Students' Association bar after his novel The Liar. Fry is a patron of its Lip Theatre Company. He also served two consecutive terms—1992 to 1995 and 1995 to 1998—as the student-elected Rector of the University of Dundee. He was awarded the AoC Gold Award in 2004, and was entered into their hall of fame. Fry was also awarded an honorary degree from Anglia Ruskin University of Cambridge, England in 2005. and was also made honorary president of the Cambridge University Quiz Society and honorary fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge. He is a Patron of the Norwich Playhouse theatre and a Vice President of The Noël Coward Society. Fry was the last person to be named Pipe Smoker of the Year before the award was discontinued. On 13 July 2010, he was made an honorary fellow of Cardiff University.

In December 2006 he was ranked sixth for the BBC's Top Living Icon Award, was featured on The Culture Show, and was voted most intelligent man on television by readers of Radio Times. The Independent on Sunday Pink List named Fry the second most influential gay person in Britain in May 2007. He had taken the twenty-third position on the list the previous year. Later the same month he was announced as the 2007 BT Mind Champion of the Year in recognition of the awareness raised about bipolar disorder by his documentary The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive. Fry was also nominated in "Best Entertainment Performance" for QI and "Best Factual Series" for Secret Life of the Manic Depressive at the 2007 British Academy Television Awards. That same year, Broadcast magazine listed Fry at number four in its "Hot 100" list of influential on-screen performers, describing him as a polymath and a "national treasure". He was also granted a lifetime achievement award at the British Comedy Awards on 5 December 2007 and the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards on 20 January 2010.

BBC Four dedicated two nights of programming to Fry on 17 and 18 August 2007, in celebration of his 50th birthday. The first night, comprising programs featuring Fry, began with a sixty-minute documentary entitled . The second night was composed of programs selected by Fry, as well as a 60-minute interview with Mark Lawson and a half-hour special, Stephen Fry: Guilty Pleasures. Stephen Fry Weekend proved such a ratings hit for BBC Four that it was repeated on BBC Two on 16 and 17 of that September.

Views on religion

Fry has repeatedly expressed opposition to organised religion and has identified himself as an atheist, while declaring some sympathy for ancient Greek belief in capricious gods. In his first autobiography he wrote, "I knew I couldn't believe in God, because I was fundamentally Hellenic in my outlook." He has accepted that religion can have positive effects, "Sometimes belief means credulity, sometimes an expression of faith and hope which even the most sceptical atheist such as myself cannot but find inspiring." In 2009 he and Christopher Hitchens participated in an 'Intelligence Squared' debate in which they argued against Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Onaiyekan, who supported the view that the Catholic Church was a force for good. Fry and Hitchens argued that the church did more harm than good. Fry attacked the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality and denounced its wealth.

On 15 September 2010, Fry, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom being a state visit.

Personal life

Fry struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and has claimed not to have engaged in sexual activity for 16 years from 1979 until 1995. When asked when he first acknowledged his sexuality, Fry quipped: "I suppose it all began when I came out of the womb. I looked back up at my mother and thought to myself, 'That's the last time I'm going up one of those.'" Fry was in a 14-year relationship with his former partner, Daniel Cohen, which ended in 2010. Fry has a home in London and in Hollywood. He also has a home near King's Lynn, Norfolk. When in London, Fry drives a black TX4 London cab.

Fry was an active supporter of the Labour Party for many years, and appeared in a party political broadcast on its behalf with Hugh Laurie and Michelle Collins in November 1993. Despite this, he did not vote in the 2005 General Election because of the stance of both the Labour and Conservative parties with regard to the Iraq War. Despite his praising of the Blair/Brown government for social reform, Fry has been critical of the Labour Party's "Third Way" concept. He is on cordial terms with Prince Charles (despite a mild parody Fry performed in his role of King Charles I in the comedy programme ), through his work with the Prince's Trust. He attended the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker-Bowles in 2005.

Fry is a friend of British comedian and actor (and Blackadder co-star) Rowan Atkinson and was best man at Atkinson's wedding to Sunetra Sastry at the Russian Tea Room in New York City. He was also a friend of British actor John Mills.

His best friend is Hugh Laurie, whom he met while both were at Cambridge and with whom he has collaborated many times over the years. He was best man at Laurie's wedding and is godfather to all three of his children.

A fan of cricket, Fry has claimed to be related to former England cricketer C.B. Fry, and was recently interviewed for the Ashes Fever DVD, reporting on England's victory over Australia in the 2005 Ashes series. Regarding football, he is a supporter of Norwich City (as mentioned in Ashes Fever), and is a regular visitor to Carrow Road. Fry has a sister named Jo Crocker who was assistant director on Bright Young Things.

Fry has talked on occasion about his passion for whisky. He visited the Woodford Reserve whiskey distillery in Kentucky, US in his BBC series Stephen Fry in America. Stephen cites his favourite whisky as the Master of Malt 19 year old Tomatin.

He has been described as "deeply dippy for all things digital", claims to have bought the third Macintosh computer sold in the UK (his friend Douglas Adams bought the first two) and jokes that he has never encountered a smartphone that he has not bought. He counts Wikipedia among his favourite websites "because I like to find out that I died, and that I'm currently in a ballet in China, and all the other very accurate and important things that Wikipedia brings us all."

Fry has a long interest in Internet production, including his own website since 1997. His current site, The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry, has existed since 2002 and has attracted many visitors following his first blog in September 2007, which comprised a 6,500 word "blessay" on smartphones. In February 2008, Fry launched his private podcast series, Stephen Fry's Podgrams, and a forum, including discussions on depression and activities in which Fry is involved. The website content is created by Stephen Fry and produced by Andrew Sampson. Fry is also a supporter of GNU and the Free Software Foundation. For the 25th anniversary of the GNU operating system, Fry appeared in a video explaining some of the philosophy behind GNU by likening it to the sharing found in science. In October 2008, he began posting to his Twitter stream, which he regularly updates. On 16 May 2009, he celebrated the 500,000-follower mark: "Bless my soul 500k followers. And I love you all. Well, all except that silly one. And that's not you."

On 30 April 2008, Fry signed an open letter, published in The Guardian newspaper by some well known Jewish personalities, stating their opposition to celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. Furthermore, he is a signatory member of the British Jews for Justice for Palestinians organisation, which campaigns for Palestinian rights.

A year later, The Guardian published a letter from Fry addressing his younger self, explaining how his future is soon to unfold, reflecting on the positive progression towards gay acceptance and openness around him, and yet not everywhere, while warning on how "the cruel, hypocritical and loveless hand of religion and absolutism has fallen on the world once more".

Fry was among over one hundred signatories to a statement published by Sense About Science on 4 June 2009, condemning British libel laws and their use to "severely curtail the right to free speech on a matter of public interest."

He was recently made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, stating: "it is essential to nail one’s colours to the mast as a humanist.".

Poland controversy

On 6 October 2009, Fry was interviewed by Jon Snow on Channel 4 News as a signatory of a letter to British Conservative Party leader David Cameron expressing concern about the party's relationship with Poland's opposition national conservative Law and Justice party in the European Parliament. During the interview, he stated:

There has been a history, let's face it, in Poland of a right-wing catholicism which has been deeply disturbing for those of us who know a little history, and remember which side of the border Auschwitz was on and know the stories, and know much of the anti-semitic, and homophobic and nationalistic elements in countries like Poland.

The remark prompted a complaint from the Polish Embassy in London, an editorial in The Economist and criticism from British Jewish historian David Cesarani. Fry has since posted an apology in a six-page post on his personal weblog, in which he stated:

I offer no excuse. I seemed to imply that the Polish people had been responsible for the most infamous of all the death factories of the Third Reich. I didn't even really at the time notice the import of what I had said, so gave myself no opportunity instantly to retract the statement. It was a rubbishy, cheap and offensive remark that I have been regretting ever since.

I take this opportunity to apologise now. I said a stupid, thoughtless and fatuous thing. It detracted from and devalued my argument, such as it was, and it outraged and offended a large group of people for no very good reason. I am sorry in all directions, and all the more sorry because it is no one's fault but my own, which always makes it so much worse. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1995 while appearing in a West End play called Cell Mates and subsequently walked out of the production, prompting its early closure and incurring the displeasure of co-star Rik Mayall and playwright Simon Gray. Mayall's comedy partner, Adrian Edmondson, made light of the subject in his and Mayall's second Bottom live show. After walking out of the production, Fry went missing for several days while contemplating suicide. He abandoned the idea and left the United Kingdom by ferry, eventually resurfacing in Belgium. Fry has spoken publicly about his experience with bipolar disorder, which was also depicted in the documentary Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic-Depressive. In the programme, he interviewed other sufferers of the illness including celebrities Carrie Fisher, Richard Dreyfuss and Tony Slattery. Also featured were chef Rick Stein, whose father committed suicide, Robbie Williams, who talks of his experience with major depression, and comedienne/former mental health nurse Jo Brand.

In 2009, Fry lent his support to a campaign led by the human rights organisation Reprieve to prevent the execution of Akmal Shaikh, a British national who suffered from bipolar disorder, yet, despite calls for clemency, was executed in the People's Republic of China for drug trafficking.

Fry is six feet five inches (196 cm) tall.

In January 2008, he broke his arm while filming Last Chance to See in Brazil. He later explained in a podcast how the accident happened: while climbing aboard a boat, he slipped between it and the dock, and, while stopping himself from falling into the water, his body weight caused his right humerus to snap. The damage was more severe than first thought: the resulting vulnerability to his radial nerve—he was at risk of losing the use of his arm—was not diagnosed until he saw a consultant in the UK.

As the host of QI, Fry has revealed that he is allergic to both champagne and bumble bee stings.

Appearing on Top Gear in 2009, Fry had lost a significant amount of weight, prompting host Jeremy Clarkson to ask jokingly, "Where's the rest of you?" Fry explained that he had shed a total of , attributing the weight loss to doing a lot of walking while listening to downloaded Audiobooks.

Business

In 2008, Fry formed SamFry Ltd, with long-term collaborator Andrew Sampson, to produce and fund new content, as well as manage his official website.

Bibliography

References

External links

Five Minutes With: Stephen Fry, interview with Matthew Stadlen for the BBC

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Name	John Sessions
Birth name	John Gibb Marshall
Birth date	January 11, 1953
Birth place	Largs, Ayrshire, Scotland, UK
Occupation	Actor/Comedian
Years active	1982–present

John Gibb Marshall (born 11 January 1953), better known by the stage name John Sessions, is a Scottish actor and comedian. He is known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway?; as a panellist on QI; and as a character actor in numerous films, both in the UK and in Hollywood.

Early life

Sessions was born in Largs, Cunninghame and spent some of his earliest years in Kempston, Bedfordshire and St Albans, Hertfordshire. He has an elder brother and a twin sister. Sessions is openly gay. His name change occurred when he became a performer, owing to the presence of a John Marshall on the Equity register already. He graduated with an M.A. in English literature from the University of Wales, where he had begun to appear to audiences with his comedy in shows such as "Look back in Bangor" and "Marshall Arts". He later studied for a PhD from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, although he did not complete the doctorate.

This period in his life was unhappy for Sessions. In a 'Worst of Times' column for The Independent from around 1990, he talked of how the freezing Canadian weather had depressed him, he was smoking 'far too many cigarettes', 'had a couple of disastrous flings' and described his PhD dissertation as '200 pages of rubbish'.

Career

He attended RADA in the late 1970s, studying alongside Kenneth Branagh; the two would work together on many occasions later in their careers. In the early 1980s he worked on the small venue comedy circuit with largely improvised freewheeling fantasy monologues. He topped a double bill with French and Saunders during this period. He had a number of small parts in films including The Sender in 1982, The Bounty in 1984 and Castaway in 1986.

He played to his strengths in improvisation and comedy with his one-man stage show Napoleon, which ran in London's West End for some time in the mid-1980s. Sessions and Stephen Fry were the only two regular panellists on the original radio broadcast of Whose Line Is It Anyway? in the late 1980s. When the show, still hosted by Clive Anderson, made the transition to television, Fry departed from regular appearances, but Sessions remained the featured panellist for the first season, a frequent player in the second, but he did not appear again after his two appearances in the third series. A gifted impressionist (he also voiced characters for Spitting Image), he drew heavily on his extensive literary education and developed a reputation for being "a bit of a swot", being able to quote extensive passages of text and make endless cultural and historical references. His ready ability to switch between accents and personae meanwhile allowed his career in improvisation to flourish. In 1987 he played Lionel Zipser in Channel 4's mini-series Porterhouse Blue.

In 1989, he starred in his own one-man TV show, John Sessions. Filmed at the Donmar Warehouse in London, the show involved Sessions performing before a live audience who were invited to nominate a person, a location and two objects from a selection, around which Sessions would improvise a surreal performance for the next half hour. This series prompted two further one-man TV shows: John Sessions' Tall Tales (1991) and John Sessions' Likely Stories (1994) Although billed as 'improvisation, these were increasingly pre-planned. In an interview headlined 'Who The Hell Does John Sessions Think He Is?' in Q magazine in the early 1990s, he admitted that some of his improv wasn't entirely spontaneous, but that if it were advertised as scripted 'it had to be funnier'. 1991 also saw Sessions in the BBC drama "Jute City", a 3-part thriller based around a sinister Masonic bunch of villains, co starring with vocalist Fish (Derek W. Dick) from the 1980s rock band Marillion.

Sessions also starred in Stella Street, a surreal "soap opera" comedy about a fantasy suburban British street inhabited by celebrities like Michael Caine and Al Pacino, which he conceived with fellow impressionist Phil Cornwell, the two of them playing several parts in each episode.

Sessions has recently returned to formal acting, with parts ranging from James Boswell (to Robbie Coltrane's Samuel Johnson) in the UK TV series Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Isles (1993) to Doctor Prunesquallor in the BBC adaptation of Gormenghast (2000). He has also appeared in some Shakespeare films, playing Macmorris in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (1989), Philostrate in the 1999 film of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Salerio in 2004's The Merchant of Venice, with Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons and The Adventures of Pinocchio in 1996. He also contributed "Sonnet 62" to the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks (EMI Classics), which consists of famous actors and musicians interpreting Shakespearean sonnets and play excerpts.

In between appearing in regular film and TV roles, Sessions has made appearances on Have I Got News for You and, more recently, as a semi-regular panellist on QI. Sessions was one of four panellists, including the permanent Alan Davies, on the inaugural episode of QI, in which he demonstrated his effortless memory of the birth and death dates of various historical figures (while simultaneously and apologetically deeming the knowledge of such facts "a sickness").

On radio, Sessions guested in December 1997 on the regular BBC Radio 3 show Private Passions, presented by Michael Berkeley, not as himself but as a 112-year-old Viennese percussionist called Manfred Sturmer, who told anecdotes (about Brahms, Clara Schumann, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and others) so realistically that some listeners did not realise that the whole thing was a hoax. Other Sessions creations appeared on Berkeley's show in subsequent years. Sessions has taken the role of narrating the popular Asterix stories for audio book, since the death of Willie Rushton.

Sessions made a guest appearance in a special webcast version of Doctor Who, in a story called Death Comes to Time, in which he played General Tannis. He also occasionally appears in the BBC series Judge John Deed as barrister Brian Cantwell. In 2007, he guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio adventure 100.

In 2006, he presented some of the BBC's coverage of The Proms and featured in one of the two Jackanory specials, voicing the characters and playing the storyteller in the audiobook version of Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's children's book Muddle Earth. In 2007 he appeared in the final episode of the second series of Hotel Babylon, playing hotel owner Donovan Credo, and as Geoffrey Howe in 2009's Margaret. In 2010 he played Kenny Prince in Sherlock.

References

External links

Category:1953 births Category:Alumni of the University of Wales Category:Living people Category:Old Bedford Modernians Category:McMaster University alumni Category:Scottish comedians Category:Scottish film actors Category:Scottish stage actors Category:Scottish television actors Category:Scottish voice actors Category:Gay actors Category:LGBT comedians Category:People from Largs

Caption	Rickman at the Tribeca Film Festival, April 28, 2007
Birth date	February 21, 1946
Birth place	Hammersmith, London, England, UK
Birth name	Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1978 – present
Partner	Rima Horton (1965 – present)

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (born 21 February 1946) is an English actor and theatre director. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Rickman is known for his film performances as Hans Gruber in Die Hard, Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series, Eamon de Valera in Michael Collins, and Metatron in Dogma.

He is also known for his prominent roles as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1991 film, , and as Colonel Brandon in Ang Lee's 1995 film Sense and Sensibility. More recently he played Judge Turpin in Tim Burton's and voiced the Caterpillar in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. The Guardian named Rickman as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

Early life

Rickman was born in Hammersmith, London, to a working class family, the son of Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett), a housewife, and Bernard Rickman, a factory worker. Rickman's mother was from Wales and a Methodist, and his father was of Irish Catholic background. He has one elder brother, David (b. 1944), a graphic designer, a younger brother, Michael (b. 1947), a tennis coach, and a younger sister, Sheila (b. 1949). Rickman attended Derwentwater Primary School, in Acton, a school that followed the Montessori method of education.

When he was eight, his father died, leaving his mother to bring up four children mostly alone. She married again, but divorced his stepfather after three years. "There was one love in her life," Rickman later said. which he considered a more stable occupation than acting. "Drama school wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18," he said.

After graduation, Rickman and several friends opened a graphic design studio called Graphiti, but after three years of successful business Rickman decided that if he were to ever explore acting professionally it was now or never. This led him to write a letter to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) requesting an audition and was awarded a place in RADA which he attended from 1972–74. While there, he studied Shakespeare's works and supported himself by working as a dresser for Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson, and left after winning several prizes such as the Emile Littler Prize, the Forbes Robertson Prize, and the Bancroft Gold Medal.

Career

After graduating from the RADA, Rickman worked extensively with various British repertory and experimental theatre groups on productions including The Seagull and Snoo Wilson's The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and has appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1978, he played with the Court Drama Group, performing in several plays, most notably Romeo And Juliet and A View from the Bridge. While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) he starred in, among other things, As You Like It.

In 1982, British television audiences came to know Alan Rickman as the Reverend Obadiah Slope in the BBC's adaptation of Barchester Towers known as The Barchester Chronicles. In 1985, Rickman was given the male lead, Le Vicomte de Valmont, in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Christopher Hampton, which was a sellout. When the show went to Broadway in 1987, Rickman earned both a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance.

While Rickman's career has been filled with a wide variety of roles, for example, Éamon de Valera, (future Irish Taoiseach and president, in the film Michael Collins), he has also played romantic leads, for example Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility, and Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply. Yet, he has not been able to escape the over-the-top villains he has played in the Hollywood big budget films - German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988), the Sheriff of Nottingham in (1991) and most recently Severus Snape, the seemingly sinister potions master in the Harry Potter saga (2001–2011). In 1995, Rickman had turned down the role of Alec Trevelyan in the James Bond film GoldenEye. He has taken issue with being labelled as a "villain actor", citing the fact that he has not portrayed a stock villain character since the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991. He has further said that he has continued to portray characters of complex and varying emotions, and does not think it is fair to assign characters a label of good or evil, hero or villain.

Nevertheless, his role in Die Hard earned him a spot on the AFI's 100 years...100 Heroes & Villains as the 46th best villain in film history. His performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in also made him known as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named him one of their favourite people in pop culture, saying that in the Harry Potter films, "he may not be on screen long - but he owns every minute," and that he is capable of "turning a simple retort into a mini-symphony of contempt.".

During his long career Rickman has also played a number of comedic roles. Sending up classically trained British actors who take on "lesser roles" as the character Sir Alexander Dane / Dr. Lazarus in the Science Fiction spoof Galaxy Quest, portraying the angel Metatron, the voice of God in Dogma, appearing as Emma Thompson's foolish husband Harry in Love Actually, providing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film, and the egotistical, narcissistic, Nobel prize winning father in Nobel Son. Perhaps one of his best comedic roles is as the title role in the independent film The Search for John Gissing.

Rickman has also received acclaim for two biographical pieces he did for HBO, he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his performance as in 1996, and was also nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred Blalock in 2004's Something the Lord Made. He also starred in the independent film Snow Cake (with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss) which had its debut at the Berlinale, and also (with Dustin Hoffman), directed by Tom Tykwer.

In 2007, Rickman appeared in the critically-acclaimed directed by Tim Burton, alongside Harry Potter co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall; he played antagonist Judge Turpin. According to Miami Herald, Rickman's performance "makes the judge's villainy something to simultaneously savor and despise", with his "oozing moral rot and arrogance". Rickman also appeared as Absolem the Caterpillar in the 2010 Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland. Rickman has performed on stage in Noël Coward's romantic comedy Private Lives, which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002. Rickman had reunited with his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star Lindsay Duncan, and director Howard Davies for this Tony Award-winning production.

His previous stage performance was as Mark Antony, opposite Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in the Royal National Theatre's production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Olivier Theatre in London, which ran from 20 October to 3 December 1998. Before that, he performed in Yukio Ninagawa's Tango at the End of Winter in London's West End and the Riverside Studio production of Hamlet in 1991, directed by Robert Sturua.

Rickman had also directed The Winter Guest at London's Almeida Theatre in 1995 and the film version of the same play in 1996 starring Emma Thompson and her real life mother Phyllida Law. He also directed the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and won the Theatre Goers' Choice Awards for best director. In May 2010, he finished directing Strindberg's play Creditors at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Harvey Theatre after its previous run at London's Donmar Warehouse in 2008.

In October and November 2010, Rickman starred in the eponymous role in Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin alongside Lindsay Duncan and Fiona Shaw. The Irish Independent called Rickman's performance breathtaking.

In 2009 Rickman was given the James Joyce Award by University College Dublin’s Literary and Historical Society.

In the media

Rickman was chosen by Empire as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (No 34) in 1995 and ranked No 59 in Empire's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in October 1997. In 2009 and 2010 Rickman ranked once again as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars by Empire, both times Rickman was placed 8th out of the 50 actors chosen. Rickman became Vice-Chairman of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 2003. He was voted No 19 in Empire magazine's Greatest Living Movie Stars over the age of 50 and was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actor (Play): in 1987 for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and in 2002 for a revival of Noel Coward's Private Lives.

Two researchers, a linguist and a sound engineer, found "the perfect [male] voice" to be a combination of Rickman's and Jeremy Irons's voices based on a sample of 50 voices. Coincidentally, the two actors played brothers in the Die Hard series of films.

Personal life

In 1965, Rickman met Rima Horton, an economics professor and London Labour party politician. Rickman is also a supporter of Labour party and has made many appearances for charity.

Filmography and awards

References

External links

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