Sir Anthony Hopkins - Biography

Anthony Hopkins as "Richard Nixon"
in NIXON
(Buena Vista)

Sir Anthony Hopkins who portrays "Richard M. Nixon" in NIXON received an Academy Award as Best Actor for his performance in The Silence of The Lambs (1991) and was nominated for his performance in 1993 for The Remains of the Day for which he was named Best Actor by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He also starred in Richard Attenborough's film Shadowlands which won numerous critics' awards in the U.S. and Britain.

Born in Port Talbot, Wales on December 31, 1937, Hopkins is the only child of Muriel and Richard Hopkins who was a baker. Educated at Cowbridge Grammar School, he was 17 when he wandered into a YMCA amateur theatrical production and knew immediately that he was in the right place.

In 1961, Hopkins was accepted into London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on scholarship. He graduated a Silver Medalist in 1963 and promptly joined the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester. In 1965, Hopkins auditioned for Sir Laurence Olivier, then director of the National Theatre at the Old Vic. Two years later, he was Olivier's understudy in Strindberg's Dance of Death.

Hopkins has starred in numerous films including The Lion in Winter, for which he received a British Academy Award nomination, Howard's End, Dracula, Legends of the Fall and The Road to Wellville. With the release of his film, August, in 1995, Hopkins makes his directorial debut and stars in an adaptation of the play by Anton Chekhov.

Hopkins has been married to the former Jennifer Lynton since 1973. His daughter, Abigail, was born in 1968 during a brief first marriage. On December 31, 1992, his knighthood was announced by Buckinham Palace.


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