 EDWARD
Petherbridge was born in Bradford in 1936 and trained at
Esme Church's Northern Theatre School.
He made his professional stage debut at the Ludlow
Festival in 1956, playing Gaveston in Marlowe's Edward
II. His first London appearance was at the Open Air
Theatre, Regent's Park in 1962, playing Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
He began his tenure as part of Laurence Olivier's
National Theatre Company in the 1960s, walking on in
Olivier's Othello and later creating the role of
Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead.
 Edward
has been a leading actor in the
Royal Shakespeare Company and
Royal National Theatre; was a founding member of the
Actors' Company in 1972; and with Ian McKellen
established the McKellen-Petherbridge Group at the RNT
in 1985. He is a winner of the Olivier and London
Theatre Critics' Awards, and has twice been nominated
for a Tony Award. He has also been a recipient of the
Sony Award for Best Actor in a Radio Drama.
He has been praised for both tragic and comic parts,
interpreting a wide range of roles from Feydeau to
Euripides. His major roles on stage include Newman Noggs
in Nicholas Nickleby; Charlie Marsden in Strange Interlude; Gaev in The Cherry Orchard;
the Cardinal in The Duchess of Malfi; Alceste in
The Misanthrope; Frank Ford in The Merry Wives
of Windsor; Malvolio in Twelfth Night, King
Cymbeline in Cymbeline; Dr Dorn in The Seagull;
Sir Anthony Blunt in Single Spies; and Krapp in
Krapp's Last Tape.
  Edward
has performed in stage musicals, including Andrew Lloyd
Webber's The Woman in White and, most recently,
Kurt Weill's Lost in the Stars. He has devised a
number of innovative one-man shows on a variety of
subjects. In addition to acting, he has presented mime
workshops and directed, particularly for the Actors' Company.
On television he was a definitive Lord Peter Wimsey in
the Dorothy L. Sayers Mysteries. Other television
appearances include Journey's End, Maigret, A
Christmas Carol, The Brief and Midsomer Murders. His
film roles include Richard St Ives in Mike Newell's An Awfully Big Adventure. His latest film appearance
was in Pope Joan, directed by Sonke Wortmann and
released in October 2009.
In 1989 he was awarded an Honorary D.Litt. by the
University of Bradford.
Edward lives in London and is married to fellow actor
Emily Richard, with whom he has appeared several times
on stage. He has three children.
Related Links:
IMDB Filmography
Stage Chronology
|
