Ian Holm

Ian Holm Cuthbert was born on 12 September 1931 in Goodmayes, Essex, to Scottish parents, James Harvey Cuthbert and his wife Jean Wilson (née Holm).[1] His father was a psychiatrist who worked as the superintendent of the West Ham Corporation Mental Hospital and was one of the pioneers of electric shock therapy; his mother was a nurse.[2][3][4][5] He had an older brother, who died when Ian was 12 years old.[6] Holm was educated at the independent Chigwell School in Essex.[6][7] His parents retired to Mortehoe in Devon and then to Worthing, where he joined an amateur dramatic society.[8]

A chance encounter with Henry Baynton, a well-known provincial Shakespearean actor, helped Holm train for admission to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he secured a place from 1950.[9][7] His studies there were interrupted a year later when he was called up for National Service in the British Army,[9] during which he was posted to Klagenfurt, Austria, and attained the rank of Lance Corporal. They were then interrupted a second time when he volunteered to go on an acting tour of the United States in 1952.[8] Holm graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1953.[7] He made his stage debut in 1954, at Stratford-upon-Avon, playing a spear-carrier in a staging of Othello.[10] Two years later, he made his London stage debut in Love Affair.[10]

Holm was an established star of the Royal Shakespeare Company before making an effect on television and film. In 1965, he played Richard III in the BBC serialisation of The Wars of The Roses, based on the RSC production of the plays. In 1969, he appeared in Moonlight on the Highway.[11] He appeared in minor roles in films such as Oh! What a Lovely War (1969),[12] Nicholas and Alexandra (1971),[13] Mary, Queen of Scots (1972)[14] and Young Winston (1972).[15]

In 1967, Holm won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play as Lenny in The Homecoming by Harold Pinter. In 1977, Holm appeared in the television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth as the Sadducee Zerah, and a villainous Moroccan in March or Die. The following year he played J. M. Barrie in the award-winning BBC mini-series The Lost Boys,[16] In 1981, he played Frodo Baggins in the BBC radio adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.[17]

Holm's first film role to have a major effect was that of Ash, the "calm, technocratic" science officer in Ridley Scott's science-fiction film Alien (1979).[18] His portrayal of Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981) earned him a special award at the Cannes Film Festival, a BAFTA award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[18][19][20] In the 1980s, he had memorable roles in Time Bandits (1981), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985). He played Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, in Dreamchild (1985).[21][22]

In 1989, Holm was nominated for a BAFTA award for the television series Game, Set and Match. Based on the novels by Len Deighton, this tells the story of an intelligence officer (Holm) who discovers that his own wife is an enemy spy. He continued to perform Shakespeare, and appeared with Kenneth Branagh in Henry V (1989) and as Polonius to Mel Gibson's Hamlet (1990). Holm was reunited with Kenneth Branagh in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), playing the father of Branagh's Victor Frankenstein.[23]

Holm raised his profile in 1997 with two prominent roles, as the stressed but gentle priest Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element and lawyer Mitchell Stephens in The Sweet Hereafter. In 2001 he starred in From Hell as the physician Sir William Withey Gull. The same year, he appeared as Bilbo Baggins in the blockbuster film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, having previously played Bilbo's nephew Frodo Baggins in the 1981 BBC Radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. He returned for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), for which he shared a SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. He later reprised his role as the elderly Bilbo Baggins in the movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.[9] Martin Freeman portrayed the young Bilbo Baggins in those films.[24]

Holm was nominated for an Emmy Award twice, for a PBS broadcast of a National Theatre production of King Lear, in 1999; and for a supporting role in the HBO film The Last of the Blonde Bombshells opposite Judi Dench, in 2001.[25]

Holm appeared in two David Cronenberg films: Naked Lunch (1991) and eXistenZ (1999).[18] He was Harold Pinter's favourite actor, the playwright once stating: "He puts on my shoe, and it fits!"[26] Holm played Lenny in both the London and New York City premieres of Pinter's The Homecoming.[20]

Holm played Napoleon Bonaparte three times: in the television mini-series Napoleon and Love (1974), Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits (1981), and The Emperor's New Clothes.[16]

Holm was married four times:[27] to Lynn Mary Shaw in 1955 (divorced 1965); to Sophie Baker in 1982 (divorced 1986); to actress Penelope Wilton, in Wiltshire,[28] in 1991 (divorced 2002); and to the artist Sophie de Stempel in 2003. He had two daughters from his first marriage, a son from his second marriage, and a son and daughter from his 15-year relationship with the photographer Bee Gilbert.[29]

Holm and Wilton appeared together in the BBC miniseries The Borrowers (1993). His last wife, Sophie de Stempel, is a protégée and was a life model of Lucian Freud,[30] as well as an artist in her own right. He was treated for prostate cancer in 2001[27] and was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.[31][32][33]

Holm died in hospital in London on 19 June 2020 at the age of 88.[34]

Nominations and awards for films and TV roles are listed in filmography.

Honours

• 1989: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1989 Birthday Honours.[55]
• 1998: Knight Bachelor in the 1998 Birthday Honours for services to drama.[56]

Awards

• Holm, Ian; Jacobi, Steven (2004). Acting my Life. London: Bantam Press. ISBN 978-0-593-05214-3.

• Ian Holm at the Internet Broadway Database
• Ian Holm on IMDb
• Ian Holm at the BFI's Screenonline
• Ian Holm at the TCM Movie Database
• Obituary: Ian Holm by BBC News. Published 19 June 2020.
• Sir Ian Holm obituary by The Guardian. Authors - Michael Billington and Ryan Gilbey. Published 19 June 2020.