Julian Glover

Julian Glover CBE
Julian Glover in 2014.
Born	Julian Wyatt Glover (1935-03-27) 27 March 1935 Hampstead, London, England, United Kingdom
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1959–present
Spouse(s)	Eileen Atkins (m. 1957; div. 1966) Isla Blair (m. 1968)
Children	Jamie Glover

Julian Wyatt Glover CBE (born 27 March 1935) is a Laurence Olivier Award-winning English classical actor, with many stage, television and film roles since commencing his career in the 1950s.

Glover has performed many times for the Royal Shakespeare Company. His film roles have included General Maximilian Veers in The Empire Strikes Back, Aristotle Kristatos in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Brian Harcourt-Smith in The Fourth Protocol. He also voiced the giant spider Aragog in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Glover has also appeared frequently on television, especially in Britain, including guest appearances in cult series such as The Avengers, The Saint, Doctor Who, Blake's 7 and Remington Steele. From 2011 to 2016, he played the recurring supporting role of Grand Maester Pycelle in HBO's Game of Thrones, and in January 2013, appeared as General Beauvilliers in the BBC drama Spies of Warsaw.

Personal life

Glover was born in Hampstead, London, the son of Honor Ellen Morgan, (née Wyatt), a BBC journalist and Claude Gordon Glover, a BBC radio producer.^[1][2] His younger half-brother is the musician Robert Wyatt. Glover has been twice married to actresses: Eileen Atkins and Isla Blair, with whom he has a son, actor Jamie Glover.^[3]

Career

Glover attended Bristol Grammar School, where he was in the same class as actor Timothy West and the actor who played Darth Vader, David Prowse. He also attended Alleyn's School in Dulwich, London and then trained at the National Youth Theatre, performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the early 1950s, he appeared in several shows at Unity Theatre, London before becoming a regular in 1960s and 1970s British television series such as The Avengers, The Saint, Strange Report, Doctor Who and Blake's 7.

In 1967, Glover featured as Professor Quatermass' nemesis Colonel Breen in the Hammer Films production of Quatermass and the Pit, an adaptation of Nigel Kneale's 1958–59 BBC TV original.^[4] He has also appeared twice in Doctor Who: as Richard the Lionheart in the 1965 serial The Crusade;^[5] and, in 1979, as the villain Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, in one of the original run's most popular serials,^[6] City of Death. Glover later recorded DVD commentaries for The Crusade episode "The Wheel of Fortune" (Lost in Time set) and for City of Death.

In the 1980s, Glover made some of his most notable appearances: the Imperial general Maximilian Veers in The Empire Strikes Back (1980),^[7] the ruthless Greek villain Aristotle Kristatos in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only (1981) and the deceptive American Nazi Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).^[8]

On television, he played the leading role of Sir Martin Lacey in the BBC English Civil War drama series By the Sword Divided,^[9] and played the guest role of surgeon Arnold Richardson in a 1989 episode of the BBC medical drama Casualty (he made a second guest appearance as a different character in 2011, and also appeared as a different character again in the sister series Holby City in 2014). He has also played a leading role in the British film Brash Young Turks.^[10]

In the 2002 film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Glover voiced the giant spider Aragog.^[11]

Glover has been associated with the epic poem Beowulf since the 1980s and has delivered staged interpretations in various forms, often taking the role of an Anglo-Saxon gleeman or traveller poet, delivering an abridged version of the tale while stood around a mead hall hearth and rendering selected passages in the poem's original Old English. This adaptation has been shown in documentaries on both the English language and Anglo-Saxon England and was also used for historian Michael Wood's documentary on the poem broadcast during the BBC Poetry Season in 2009.

In 2009, Glover played the role of Mr. Brownlow in the West End revival of the musical Oliver! at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.^[12] In the short film Battle for Britain (2010), Glover played a 101-year-old Polish veteran Royal Air Force pilot.^[13]

Glover portrayed the character of Grand Maester Pycelle in the HBO series Game of Thrones between 2011 and 2016 appearing in a total of 31 episodes across the first six seasons of the show.^[14][15]

In 2013, Glover played the role of General Beauvilliers in the BBC Four drama series The Spies of Warsaw.^[16] In May 2014, he played the character Joe Goodridge in two episodes of the BBC TV medical drama series Holby City ("My Name is Joe" and "No Apologies"). In the same year, he portrayed an old man in horror thriller Backtrack.^[17]

Glover is an Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Awards

In 1993, Glover was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1992 production of Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2.^[18] Theatre critic Michael Billington called his portrayal of the king in that production "superb".^[19]

Honours

Glover was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to drama.^[20]

Filmography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Julian Glover.

• Julian Glover on IMDb
• Julian Glover at the TCM Movie Database
• Julian Glover at AllMovie