Ralph Richardson Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He worked in films throughout most of his career, and played more than sixty cinema roles. From an artistic but not theatrical background, Richardson had no thought of a stage career until a production of Hamlet in Brighton inspired him to become an actor. He learned his craft in the 1920s with a touring company and later the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. In 1931 he joined the Old Vic, playing mostly Shakespearean roles. He led the company the following season, succeeding Gielgud, who had taught him much about stage technique. After he left the company, a series of leading roles took him to stardom in the West End and on Broadway.In the 1940s, together with Olivier and John Burrell, Richardson was the co-director of the Old Vic company. There his most celebrated roles included Peer Gynt and Falstaff. He and Olivier led the company to Europe and Broadway in 1945 and 1946, before their success provoked resentment among the governing board of the Old Vic, leading to their dismissal from the company in 1947. In the 1950s, in the West End and occasionally on tour, Richardson played in modern and classic works including The Heiress, Home at Seven and Three Sisters. He continued on stage and in films until shortly before his sudden death, at the age of eighty. He was celebrated in later years for his work with Peter Hall's National Theatre and his frequent stage partnership with Gielgud. He was not known for his portrayal of the great tragic roles in the classics, preferring character parts in old and new plays.Richardson's film career began as an extra in 1931. He was soon cast in leading roles in British and American films including Things to Come in the 1930s, The Fallen Idol and The Heiress in the 1940s, and Long Day's Journey into Night and Doctor Zhivago in the 1960s. He received nominations and awards in the UK, Europe and the US for his stage and screen work from 1948 until his death, and beyond, with a posthumous Academy Award nomination for his final film, Greystoke.Throughout his career, and increasingly in later years, Richardson was known for his eccentric behaviour on and off stage. He was often seen as detached from conventional ways of looking at the world, and his acting was regularly described as poetic or magical.
Tivoli Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, UK
Height
6' (1.83 m)
Profession
Actor, Director, Producer
Spouse
Meriel Smiley Forbes
Parents
Lil Scrappy, Erica Dixon
Star Sign
Sagittarius
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Trademark
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Rich baritone voice
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Often played proud patriarchs and authority figures
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Quote
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Did you ever have a vision of the place we came from before we were born? I did, when I was about three years old. I used to dream about it. I even drew pictures of it. It looked rather like Mexico.
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Acting is the ability to dream on cue.
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You've got to perform in a role hundreds of times. In keeping it fresh one can become a large, madly humming, demented refrigerator.
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I have put on so many make-ups that sometimes I have feared that when I go to wipe it off there will be nobody left underneath.
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Film is a wonderful medium and I love it, but I find that I cannot increase my talent by working in pictures, any more than a painter can do so by increasing the size of his brush.
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Actors never retire; they just get offered fewer parts.
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The art of acting lies in keeping people from coughing.
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My idea of a director is a chap who puts me in the middle of a stage and shines a bright light on me.
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I've never been one of those stage chaps who scoff at films. I think they're a marvellous medium, and are to the stage what engravings are to paintings.
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I don't like my face at all. It's always been a great drawback to me.
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Acting on the screen is like acting under a microscope. The slightest movement becomes a gesture and therefore the discipline has to be very severe.
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Fact
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Served in the Fleet Air Arm during the war and was given special leave to appear in a documentary film 'The Soldier's Food'.
Once, whilst visiting the home of Laurence Olivier and his then wife Vivien Leigh, he was invited to inspect certain paintings which were kept in the attic. Somehow, he contrived to fall over; the floor of the attic gave way under his weight and he fell through it, landing on a bed (which then collapsed) in a room below. He was unhurt, but shaken; he was then scolded at some length by Vivien Leigh, whom he had already annoyed earlier in the day. He later said, "There was a rational basis to Vivien's fury, which we must salute. If you prod a tigress twice in her lair, you must not expect her to purr.".
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He was created a Knight Bachelor in the 1947 King's New Year Honours List for his services to the stage.
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Famously eccentric, he once stopped in a middle of a stage performance, and addressed the audience enquiring "Is there a doctor in the house?" When a doctor made himself known, Richardson calmly enquired "Isn't this a terrible play, doctor?".
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Was originally considered for one of the leading roles of Lady L (1965).
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Was part of a trio of great English stage actors, the other two being Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud. They appeared in several scenes together in the epic miniseries Wagner (1981), which was released shortly after Richardson's death.
Was offered the part of Lord Bartelsham (played by Richard Vernon) in Ripping Yarns: Roger of the Raj, but could not agree to terms and conditions.
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Was nominated three times for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic): in 1957, for "The Waltz of the Toreadors"; in 1971, for "Home"; and in 1977, for "No Man's Land" -- but never won.
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Played two roles originally played by Basil Rathbone. He played Karenin in Anna Karenina (1948) (Rathbone was Karenin in the 1935 Anna Karenina (1935) film version). Richardson also played Dr. Sloper in The Heiress (1949) after Rathbone had played Sloper in the Broadway stage version.
He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Special Award in 1982 (1981 season) for his lifetime achievement in the theatre.
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Once found by police walking very slowly along the gutter of an Oxford street, he explained he was taking his pet mouse for a stroll.
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The son of a Quaker father and a Roman Catholic mother, Ralph Richardson lived with his mother after she deserted the family home in Gloucestershire, and was raised Catholic by her.
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Interred at Highgate Cemetery (East), Highgate, London, England, UK.
$3 Million
