JOSS ACKLAND:
Actor
Biography
 Joss Ackland, has appeared in over one hundred movies, scores of plays, and a plethora of television programs in his six-decade career. After attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama, the 17-year-old Ackland made his professional stage debut in "The Hasty Heart" in 1945.
From 1962 through 1964, he served as associate director of the Mermaid Theatre. Subsequently, his stage acting career primarily was in London's commercial West End theater, where he made a name for himself in musicals. He was distinguished as Captain Hook in the musical version of "Peter Pan" and as Juan Peron in "Evita". In the straight theater, he was a memorable Falstaff in Shakespeare's "Henry IV Parts 1 & 2" and as Captain Shotover in Bernard Shaw's "Heartbreak House".
In the 1960s, Ackland began appearing more regularly in films, and his career as a movie character actor picked up rapidly in the '70s and began to flourish in the 1980s. It has shown little sign of abating in the 21st century, even though he's well into his seventies.
In addition to his performance in "White Mischief" among his more notable turns as an actor before the camera came in the BBC-TV production of Shadowlands (1985) (TV), in which he played C.S. Lewis, and in Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), as the South African heavy.
He is the father of seven children, whom he listed as his "hobby" in a 1981 interview. On December 31, 2000, Joss Ackland was named a Commander of the British Empire on the New Year's Honours List for his 50 years of service to the English stage, cinema and television.
More recent movies include Miracle on 34th Street, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and K19: The widowmaker, The Hunt For Red October, White Mischief and The Sicilian.
After reading the poem of "The Christmas Eve Snowfall" in July 2004 he called only a week later to say he would like to help out with the movie. Two weeks later the narration was recorded.
IMDb mini-biography by
Jon C. Hopwood
|
