Sir Anthony Hopkins a Legendary Biography

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Sir Anthony Hopkins A Legendary Biography

By: Swetha Vishwanath Date: December 15, 2003 Submitted to: Mr. Craven Course: ENG 2D1

1 Most of us have this clichéd idea about what the media world consists of and how its workers go

about doing their job. We have had legendry movies being created which have awed us and we have also had

some of them which have disappointed us with the world of reels. However, those which have inspired us

and touched our hearts have given us a deep respect for those who brought these movies into being. Of

course, instantly the directors, producers, scriptwriters and all those other professional behind the scenes who

have only just created the idea of a movie, come to mind, but without the real elements - the performers -

who make the movie really flourish into reality, those rolls of light-sensitive plastic are meaningless. One

such actor which has brought to us many memorable moments of bliss to make-believe world is Sir Philip

Anthony Hopkins. He is an actor who reached great heights of fame and honour in diverse ways for his

contributions to the film industry by being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, winning

the phenomenal Oscar Award and also by achieving an honourary Doctor of Letters degree from the

University of Wales; this however, wasn’t all of what has made him such an accomplished actor.

Born on New Year’s Eve of 1937 in Port Talbot, West Glamorgan, Wales, UK, Philip Anthony

(Tony) Hopkins was the only child of Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker and Muriel Anne. Tony’s line of ancestors was for the most part, bakers and confectioners. He never really had theatrical blood in him and was probably the first one in the family to begin a trend of using the media to build a career upon. The talent for performing the arts was seen at a very young age in Tony as he was able to master and excel in the many various symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart at the age of twelve. In contradiction and as a surprising fact,

Tony was constantly academically challenged from a very young age, displaying a character of anti-socialism and a loss of interest in school activities. "I was lousy in school," he says. "Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn't have any brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor." He was never an average kid as most of the others were at his age, and he grew up having no strong concept of what he wanted to make of his life.

One day, at the age of 17, Tony got his first real taste of performance on stage at the local community drama club. Alongside that, the encounter he had with his idol, Richard Burton, influenced Tony to finally make a bold decision in his life. He wanted to become an actor. At the age of 18, Tony attended the Cardiff

College of Music and Drama and was accepted in. In 1956, he became eligible to join the National Service, but was granted deferment as he was still attending college. Finally, at the age of twenty, he could put off

2 National Service any longer and he joined the Royal Artillery as 23448720 Gunner Hopkins and served as a clerk for almost two years. In 1961, after Tony had finished serving his mandatory period for the army, he was invited to audition for a little theatre called the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), got accepted in and also earned scholarship that year. It was from there that Tony graduated as a silver medalist in 1963.

Once he graduated from RADA, he joined the famous Phoenix Theatre Company in Leicester and began working on numerous stage works. His first real stage-break came when he auditioned for a position in the National Theatre for the famous role of Laurence Oliver and gained the position of the character’s understudy. He was later addressed to a lead role for the play ‘Dance of Death’.

After numerous stage plays and breakthrough performances, Tony finally got into the film industry.

His first ever made movie was in 1966 titled the ‘White Bus’ but in 1968, his real breakthrough performance came in ‘The Lion in Winter’ alongside legend, Katherine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole. It was also this year that Tony married for the first time to actress Patronella Baker, who bore his first and only child, Abigail. The

1970s for Tony was a decade of numerous films, television productions and a dozen stage plays. However, his personal life took a turn for the worst and his marriage ended in 1972. However, the year after he married

Jennifer Lynton, a relationship which wasn’t much better than the last one either. In 1975 he finally admitted to his alcoholism which started during his first marriage and decided to give it up when “he had woken up in a

Phoenix hotel room and couldn’t recall how he had had got there.” His wife, Jennifer Lynton helped him get over this abuse but this, unfortunately, was also what ended their marriage emotionally.

Moving on without a real social life, Tony won his first award, an Emmy, in 1976 for his portrayal as

Bruno Hauptmann in ‘The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case’. In the following years to come, he won a Golden

Globe in 1978 for his performance in ‘Magic’. His second Emmy was won in 1981 for his performance as

Adolph Hitler in ‘The Bunker’. Continuing to work in several other films, he finally received the really great honour from Queen Elizabeth II with the ‘Commander of the Order of the British Empire’ for his contributions to Britain’s theatre and film industry. He gained the title, ‘Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins’ from hereafter. However, his officially knighting took place in 1993.

Stunning success came like a bolt of lightening after his first significant act of honourary appreciation. After he was awarded such a great mark of distinction, in 1988, he also received an honorary

Doctor of Letters degree from the University of Wales. For someone who had only achieved one O-level

3 during his formal education years, this award seemed to be a particular singularly-achieved credit, especially since he had received it from his home country. Continuing to work in various films and hence, establishing himself as a highly respected actor, stardom, prevailing too much for him, made him return back to England in

1990. Unfortunately, his stay there was cut short since he received one of the most diabolic roles that could ever exist in Hollywood’s history of characters.

In 1991, Sir Anthony Hopkins was asked to play the role of Hannibal Lecter in the Oscar-winning

‘Silence of the Lambs’. Director, Jonathan Demme, decided to grasp an actor with the combination of

“intense humanity and intense intelligence” ¹ for this role and decided to cast Tony since he always seemed to display those very qualities. Once Tony received the script, he was said to have poured his heart and soul into it. The character of Lecter seemed to communicate to him in no other way any other role had. It was almost as if he “could sense Lecter.” “I just knew how to do it. I somehow knew everything about this man.” Steven

Spielberg claims that “That eye contact with the audience is probably the scariest thing any of us has ever witnessed from a character without prosthetic makeup, scary pointed teeth and contact lenses.”² (People

Magazine/02.12.2001) In 1992, a year after ‘Silence of the Lambs’ was released, Tony was nominated for an

Oscar Award for Best Actor and to his immense astonishment, he also won it. It was the first Oscar to be awarded to anyone for such a short period of performance. Tony was onscreen for only a total of 27 minutes during the movie. After claiming the fame that Tony always dreamed of achieving, he chose to follow Lecter’s character, putting a little bit of him in the different roles that he got hereafter.

After his period of great fame and success, Tony went on to make many more movies, among them, a vampire-hunter in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ made in 1992, and a Golden Globe and

Academy Award nomination for his role as a notorious U.S president, Richard M. Nixon in 1996’s Oliver

Stone’s ‘Nixon’. Francis Ford Coppola claims Anthony as “On the energy Anthony Hopkins exudes: "It's a form of madness, I'm sure ... It's very, very arresting." (Lear's/12.1993) That same year, he also went on to direct and wrote a musical score for his own movie named ‘August’, which was a Welsh adaptation of Anton

Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanyan’. Unfortunately, this film didn’t go on to gain any far-wide fame. In 1997, Tony turned 60 years old and starred in the epic adventure film, ‘The Edge’ alongside co-star, Alec Baldwin. It was during the making of this movie that Tony bumped into a little experience with death. While he was shooting,

Tony accidentally slipped and fell in a river and had to be rushed to the hospital in case of him contracting

4 pneumonia. He was also required to battle with a Kodiak bear and also climb mountains for this movie. He then starred in ‘The Mask of Zorro’ and somewhere in-between the two films made that year, he managed to cram in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Amistad’ as President John Quincy Adams. He was also nominated for a Golden

Globe award as well as an Academy Award for this film. He then decided to take a break from his intense work since 1991 and cut short by his narration in Dr. Seuss’ ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ and his short cameo in Mission Impossible 2, two of three films released in 2000 which earned over 200 million dollars.

On April 13 th, 2000, Tony became an American citizen, although he still retained his knighthood and his British citizenship (however, the title ‘Sir’ can only be used in the U.K now). In 2001, he was revisited by the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and a crowd of hungry, impatiently waiting Lecter fans were tremendously satisfied with ‘Hannibal’, a sequel to ‘Silence of the Lambs’ by engaging the gross box office with 58 million dollars in its opening weekend and surpassing the 100 million dollars mark in just nine days. In 2002, Tony filmed ‘Red Dragon’, the second film adaptation of Thomas Harris’ book of the same name and the first in the

Lecter trilogy. This was also the year that he had his divorce with his second wife, Jennifer Lynton. In 2003, a new film named ‘The Human Stain’ released, starring Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman. Other future works of his include two more known movies in the making titled ‘Proof’, alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and

‘Alexander’ with Colin Farrell, Jared Leto, Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer.

Such great height of fame achieved by someone who was most probably suspected to turn out a failure is success in itself. Sir Anthony Hopkins set a goal for himself and with perseverance and determination, achieved it. Gaining merits that most actors have never even come close to, we are all proved of the greatness of this legendry performer. “It has always been my philosophy to ask for nothing, expect nothing, but take everything. I'm actually just grateful that I reached this age, let alone to have arrived with so many incredible honors in tow.” - Sir Anthony Hopkins . Tony is a person who still tries to live a life most

‘normally’ but also knows that his work is his way of life. He is a sort of man who believes strictly in either

“black or white, up or down, all or nothing.”³ Starring in over ninety movies and still continuing, even till now, to star in many more new ones, we can only wait for the new creations to arrive at the theatres for us to, once again, enjoy the delightful splendor that such a great performer creates. The world of make-believe would never be what it is today without actors such as Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins who have made such an intense impact upon the film industry.

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¹, ² Falk, Quentin, Anthony Hopkins –The Authorized Biography (Fully Updated) (Great Britain: W.H. Allen & Co Plc, 1989), pp. 225

³ Falk, Quentin, Too Good to waste: a biography of Anthony Hopkins (Oxford: W.H. Allen & Co Plc, 1990), pp. 307