Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, DL (born 17 August 1949), known professionally as Julian Fellowes, is an English actor, novelist, film director and screenwriter, as well as a Conservative peer.

Early life and education[link]

Fellowes was born in Cairo, Egypt, the youngest son of Olwen (née Stuart-Jones) and Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes,^[1] a diplomat and Arabist who campaigned to have Haile Selassie restored to his throne during World War II.^[2]

His childhood home was in Wetherby Place in South Kensington.^[3]

Fellowes was educated at several private schools in Britain: first at Wetherby School (Wetherby Place, South Kensington, London), then at St. Philip's, a Roman Catholic pre-preparatory school, also in Wetherby Place; and finally at the Catholic public school Ampleforth College. He went up to Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, where he was a member of Footlights.^[4] He next studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art (London).

Career[link]

Television[link]

Fellowes moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and played a number of small TV roles for the next two years. He believed his breakthrough had come when he was considered to replace Hervé Villechaize as the butler on the TV series Fantasy Island, but the role was given to a much older British actor.^[5]

After returning to the UK, Fellowes played the part of Kilwillie in the television series Monarch of the Glen. Other notable acting roles included the part of Claud Seabrook in the acclaimed 1996 BBC drama serial Our Friends in the North and the second Duke of Richmond in the BBC drama serial Aristocrats.

In 1991, he played Neville Marsham in For the Greater Good, again for the BBC, directed by Danny Boyle. He has twice notably portrayed George IV as the Prince Regent in the 1982 television version of The Scarlet Pimpernel and the 1996 adaptation of Bernard Cornwell's novel Sharpe's Regiment. He launched a new series on BBC One in 2004, Julian Fellowes Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder, which he wrote and introduced onscreen. He was the presenter of Never Mind The Full Stops, a panel-based gameshow transmitted on BBC Four from 2006 to 2007. He created the hugely successful and critically acclaimed period drama Downton Abbey for ITV1 in 2010.^[6] He has written a new Titanic mini-series showing on ITV1 in March/April 2012.^[7]

Film[link]

As an actor, Fellowes has appeared in several films, including Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, Damage, Place Vendôme, and Tomorrow Never Dies. As a screenwriter, he wrote the script for Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen in 2002. In late 2005, Fellowes made his directorial début with the film Separate Lies, for which he won the award for Best Directorial Début from the National Board of Review.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, Momentum Pictures and Sony Pictures released The Young Victoria, starring Emily Blunt, for which Fellowes wrote the original screenplay. Other screenwriting credits include Vanity Fair, The Tourist and From Time to Time, which he also directed, and which won Best Picture at the Chicago Children's Film Festival, the Youth Jury Award at the Seattle International Film Festival, Best Picture at the Fiuggi Family Festival in Rome and the Young Jury Award at Cinemagic in Belfast.

Novels[link]

His novel Snobs was published in 2004. It focused on the social nuances of the upper class and concerned the marriage of an upper-middle class girl to a peer. Snobs was a Sunday Times Best Seller. In 2009 he published the novel, Past Imperfect, also a Sunday Times Best Seller. It deals with the Débutante Season of 1968, comparing the world then to the world of 2008.^{[citation needed]}

Theatre[link]

As an actor, he appeared in several West End productions, including Samuel Taylor's A Touch of Spring, Alan Ayckbourn's Joking Apart and a revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter. As a writer, Fellowes penned the script to the current West End musical Mary Poppins, produced by Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Disney, which opened on Broadway in December 2006.

Writing credits[link]

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/titanic_coming_to_tv_9dQgZos98Zm2SNSv4Duo4H

Peerage[link]

On 12 January 2011, Fellowes was created a life peer as Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, of West Stafford in the County of Dorset, and was introduced in the House of Lords the following day,^[8] where he sits on the Conservative benches.^[9]

Fellowes's other interests[link]

Fellowes is the Chairman of the RNIB appeal for Talking Books. He is a Vice-President of the Weldmar Hospicecare Trust, Patron of the South West branch of Age UK, Patron of Changing Faces, of Living Paintings, of the Rainbow Trust, and of Breast Cancer Haven, as well as supporting charities concerned with the care of those suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and other causes.

Fellowes is on the Appeal Council for the National Memorial Arboretum and he is also the Patron of Moviola, an initiative to facilitate rural cinema screenings in the West Country.^[10]

Family[link]

On 28 April 1990, Fellowes married Emma Joy Kitchener, LVO (born 1963; a Lady-in-Waiting to HRH The Princess Michael of Kent),^[11] the great-grandniece of Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener. Fellowes has publicly expressed his dissatisfaction that the proposals to change the rules of royal succession were not extended to peerages, which would have allowed his wife to succeed as 4th Countess Kitchener;^[12] instead, the title became extinct on her uncle's death due to the lack of male heirs. On 9 May 2012 the Queen issued a warrant allowing Lady Fellowes to enjoy the same rank and title of the daughter of an Earl, as if her late father had survived his brother and therefore succeeded to the title.^[13]

They have one son, The Hon. Peregrine Charles Morant Kitchener-Fellowes (born 1991). The family resides in Dorset ^[14] and on 15 October 1998 they changed their surname from Fellowes to Kitchener-Fellowes.^[15][16]

Fellowes was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant (DL) of Dorset in 2009.^[17] He is also Lord of the Manor of Tattershall in Lincolnshire.^[18]

Styles and titles[link]

• Mr Julian Fellowes (1949–1998)
• Mr Julian Kitchener-Fellowes (1998–2009)
• Mr Julian Kitchener-Fellowes, DL (2009–2011)
• The Rt Hon. The Lord Fellowes of West Stafford, DL (2011–present)

See also[link]

• List of accolades received by Gosford Park
• List of accolades received by The Young Victoria

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lord Fellowes of West Stafford, www.parliament.uk
• Julian Fellowes at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview with Bella Stander, Bookreporter.com
• Author Interview Podcast with Paula Shackleton, BookBuffet.com
• The Case of Charles Bravo

Dame Maggie Smith DBE
Smith filming in Kensington Gardens, 7 March 2007
Born	Margaret Natalie Smith (1934-12-28) 28 December 1934 (age 77) Ilford, London, England, UK
Other names	Dame Maggie Smith
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1952–present
Spouse	Robert Stephens (1967–74, divorced) Beverley Cross (1975–98, his death)
Children	Chris Larkin, Toby Stephens

Dame Margaret Natalie "Maggie" Smith, DBE (born 28 December 1934) is an English film, stage and television actress. She has had an extensive career both on screen and in live theatre, and is known as one of Britain's pre-eminent actors. She made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 60 years. She has won numerous awards for acting, both for the stage and for film, including seven BAFTA Awards (five competitive awards and two special awards including the Bafta Fellowship in 1996), two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, two Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, two SAG Awards and a Tony Award. Dame Maggie is the only actor ever to win this collective of awards and is one of the most successful and acclaimed actors of the film era.

Her critically acclaimed films include Othello (1965), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), Travels with My Aunt (1972), California Suite (1978), Clash of the Titans (1981), A Room with a View (1985) and Gosford Park (2001). She has also appeared in a number of widely-popular films, including Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992) and as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series. She currently stars in the critically acclaimed drama Downton Abbey as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, for which she has won an Emmy.

Early life[link]

Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, London. She is the daughter of Margaret Smith (née Hutton), a Glasgow-born secretary, and Nathaniel Smith, a Newcastle upon Tyne-born public health pathologist who worked at Oxford University.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} She has older twin brothers, Alistair and Ian, who went to architecture school.^[6] Smith studied at Oxford High School.

Career[link]

Smith began her career at the Oxford Playhouse with Frank Shelley and made her first film in 1956. She became a fixture at the Royal National Theatre in the 1960s, most notably for playing Desdemona in Othello opposite Laurence Olivier and winning her first Oscar nomination for her performance in the 1965 film version.

She appeared with Ronnie Barker at the Oxford Playhouse in the play The Housemaster and various others. Barker did not think much of her, saying "she only had two styles-either grand and rather camp, or sharp cockney".^[7]

In 1969, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as an unorthodox Scottish schoolteacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a role originally created on stage by Vanessa Redgrave in 1966 in London. (Zoe Caldwell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play when she created the role in New York.) Smith was also awarded the 1978 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the brittle actress Diana Barry in California Suite, acting opposite Michael Caine. Afterwards, on hearing that Michael Palin was about to embark on a film (The Missionary) with Smith, Caine is supposed to have humorously telephoned Palin, warning him that she would steal the film. She also starred with Palin in the black comedy A Private Function in 1984.

Smith appeared in Sister Act in 1992 and had a major role in the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini, where she appeared as the formidable Lady Hester. Indeed, many of her more mature roles have centred on what Smith refers to as her "gallery of grotesques", playing waspish, sarcastic or plain rude characters. Recent examples of this would include the judgmental sister in Ladies in Lavender and the cantankerous snob Constance, Countess of Trentham, in Gosford Park, for which she received another Oscar nomination.

Other notable roles include the querulous Charlotte Bartlett in the Merchant-Ivory production of A Room with a View, a vivid supporting turn as the aged Duchess of York in Ian McKellen's film of Richard III, and a little known but powerful performance as Lila Fisher in the 1973 film Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing with Timothy Bottoms. Due to the international success of the Harry Potter movies, she is now widely known for playing the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall, opposite Daniel Radcliffe, with whom she had previously worked in the 1999 BBC television adaptation of David Copperfield, playing Betsey Trotwood. She also plays an older Wendy in the Peter Pan movie Hook, and Mrs. Medlock in The Secret Garden. In 2010, she appeared as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the first and second series of the British period drama Downton Abbey.

She appeared in numerous productions at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, to acclaim from 1976 through to 1980. These roles included Queen Elizabeth in Richard III, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Virginia Woolf in Virginia, and countless lead roles with long-time Stratford icon Brian Bedford including the Noël Coward comedy Private Lives.

On stage, her many roles have included the title character in the stage production of Alan Bennett's The Lady in the Van and starring as Amanda in a revival of Private Lives. She won a Tony Award in 1990 for Best Actress in a Play for Peter Shaffer's Lettice and Lovage, in which she starred as an eccentric tour guide in an English stately home. In 2007, she appeared in Edward Albee's The Lady from Dubuque at Theatre Royal Haymarket.

She appeared in a 1954 BBC television programme, Oxford Accents, produced by the late Ned Sherrin.^[8] She was one of the performers, playing several roles, in New Faces of 1956 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre from 14 June to 22 December 1956.^[9][10] She was "in Orange" in the musical comedy Share My Lettuce, based on the book by Bamber Gascoigne, that opened at the Lyric Hammersmith on 21 August 1957. With Anthony Bowles as musical director, it transferred to the Comedy Theatre on 25 September 1957 and to the Garrick Theatre on 27 January 1958. Smith's musical numbers in this performance included: Love's Cocktail (solo), On Train He'll Come (solo), Party Games (solo), Bubble Man (with Kenneth Williams) and Menu (with Kenneth Williams).^[11] Eight photos from this performance as well as an article on Smith appeared in the November 1957 issue of Theatre World magazine.^[12] One of Smith's earliest acting citations was as nominee for Most Promising Newcomer to Film of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Nowhere To Go in 1958.^[13] In Hollywood, Smith was a nominee for the Golden Globe Awards New Star of the Year (Actress) in 1964 for her performance in The V.I.P.s. In 2012, she earned another Golden Globe Awards nomination (her ninth) for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for series 1 of Downton Abbey.^[14] Smith won her second Emmy Award for this role.^[15]

In 2012, Maggie played Muriel in the British comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. She is also starring as Jean Horton in Quartet, based on Ronald Harwood's play, directed by Dustin Hoffman.

Smith was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1970 New Year Honours^[16] and was raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in the 1990 New Year Honours.^[17]

In 1986, she was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Bath.^[18] She also received honorary degrees from the University of St Andrews in 1971 and the University of Cambridge in 1995.^[19]

Personal life[link]

Smith has been married twice. She married actor Robert Stephens on 29 June 1967 at Greenwich Register Office. The couple had two sons: actors Chris Larkin (born in 1967) and Toby Stephens (born in 1969),^[4] and divorced on 6 May 1974.^[4] Smith is a grandmother via both her sons.^[20][21]

She married playwright Beverley Cross on 23 August 1975 at the Guildford Register Office; he died on 20 March 1998.

In 2007, the Sunday Telegraph's Mandrake diary disclosed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was subsequently reported to have made a full recovery.^[22]

Filmography[link]

Television and cinema[link]

Theatre roles[link]

• Twelfth Night, Oxford Playhouse, 1952
• He Who Gets Slapped, Clarendon Press Institute, 1952
• Cinderella, Oxford Playhouse, 1952
• Rookery Nook, Oxford Playhouse, 1953
• The Housemaster, Oxford Playhouse, 1953
• Cakes and Ale (revue), Edinburgh Festival, 1953
• The Love of Four Colonels, Oxford Playhouse, 1953
• The Ortolan, Maxton Hall, 1954
• Don’t Listen Ladies, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• The Government Inspector, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• The Letter, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• A Man About The House, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• On the Mile (revue), Edinburgh Festival, 1954
• Oxford Accents, New Watergate Theatre, London, 1954
• Theatre 1900, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• Listen to the Wind, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• The Magistrate, Oxford Playhouse, 1955
• The School For Scandal, Oxford Playhouse, 1955
• New Faces (revue), Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, 1956
• Share My Lettuce (revue), Lyric Hammersmith and Comedy Theatre, 1957
• The Stepmother, St. Martin's Theatre, 1958
• The Double Dealer, Old Vic, 1959
• As You Like It, Old Vic, 1959
• Richard II, Old Vic, 1959
• The Merry Wives of Windsor, Old Vic, 1959
• What Every Woman Knows, Old Vic, 1960
• Rhinoceros, Strand Theatre, 1960
• Strip the Willow, UK Tour, 1960
• The Rehearsal, Bristol Old Vic and Globe Theatre, 1961
• The Private Ear and The Public Eye, Globe Theatre, 1962
• Mary, Mary, Queen's Theatre, 1963
• The Recruiting Officer, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1963
• Othello, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1964
• The Master Builder, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1964
• Hay Fever, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1964
• Much Ado About Nothing, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1965
• Trelawney of the Wells, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1965
• Miss Julie, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1966
• Black Comedy, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1966
• A Bond Honoured, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1966
• The Country Wife, Chichester Festival Theatre, 1969
• The Beaux Stratagem, National Theatre/Old Vic and Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1970
• Hedda Gabler, National Theatre/Cambridge Theatre, 1970
• Design For Living, Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1971
• Private Lives, Queen's Theatre, 1972
• Peter Pan, London Coliseum, 1973
• Snap, Vaudeville Theatre, 1974
• Private Lives, US tour and 46th Street Theatre, New York, 1975 [Tony nomination]
• The Way of the World, Stratford, Canada, 1976
• Antony and Cleopatra, Stratford, Canada, 1976
• Three Sisters, Stratford, Canada, 1976
• The Guardsman, Stratford, Canada and Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1976
• A Midsummer Night's Dream, Stratford, Canada amd Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1977
• Richard III, Stratford, Canada, 1977
• As You Like It, Stratford, Canada, 1977
• Hay Fever, Stratford, Canada, 1977
• Macbeth, Stratford, Canada, 1978
• Private Lives, Stratford, Canada, 1978
• Night and Day, Phoenix Theatre, Washington D.C. and ANTA Playhouse, New York, 1979 [Tony nomination]
• Much Ado About Nothing, Stratford, Canada, 1980
• The Seagull, Stratford, Canada, 1980
• Virginia, Stratford, Canada, 1980 and Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1981
• The Way of the World, Chichester Festival Theatre and Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1984
• The Interpreters, Queen's Theatre, 1985
• The Infernal Machine, Lyric Hammersmith, 1986
• Coming Into Land, National Theatre/Lyttelton, 1987
• Lettice and Lovage, Globe Theatre, 1987
• Lettice and Lovage, Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, 1990 [Tony win]
• The Importance of Being Earnest, Aldwych Theatre, 1993
• Three Tall Women, Wyndham's Theatre, 1994 and 1995
• Talking Heads, Chichester Festival Theatre and Comedy Theatre, 1996
• A Delicate Balance, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1997
• The Lady in the Van, Queen's Theatre, 1999
• The Breath of Life, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2002
• Talking Heads, Australian tour, 2004
• The Lady From Dubuque, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2007

Awards and nominations[link]

See also[link]

• Tale Spinners For Children
• University College Players

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Maggie Smith

• Maggie Smith at the Internet Movie Database
• Maggie Smith at the Internet Broadway Database
• You have to laugh – The Guardian, 20 November 2004, in-depth interview and profile.
• Maggie Smith at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Maggie Smith at Emmys.com