Sir Nigel Barnard Hawthorne (5 April 1929 – 26 December 2001) was an English actor. He is most known for his stage acting and his portrayal of Sir Humphrey Appleby, the

permanent secretary A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior civil servant of a department or ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are the non-political civil ...

in the 1980s sitcom '' Yes Minister'' and the Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, ''Yes, Prime Minister''. For this role, he won four

BAFTA TV Awards The BAFTA TV Awards, or British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the BAFTA. They have been awarded annually since 1955. Background The first-ever Awards, given in 1955, consisted of six categories. Until ...

for Best Light Entertainment Performance. He won the

BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Best Actor in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film Award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film. Superlatives Note: ...

and was nominated for the

Academy Award for Best Actor The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The ...

for portraying

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great B ...

in '' The Madness of King George'' (1994). He later won the BAFTA TV Award for

Best Actor Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play. The term most often refers to the ...

, for the 1996 series '' The Fragile Heart''. He was also an

Olivier Award The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply the Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London at an annual ceremony in the capital. The awards were originally known a ...

and

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual c ...

winner for his work in theatre.

Early life

Hawthorne was born in

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

, Warwickshire, England, the second of four children of Agnes Rosemary (née Rice) and Charles Barnard Hawthorne, a physician. When Nigel was three years old, the family moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where his father had bought a practice. Initially they lived in the Gardens and then moved to a newly built house near

Camps Bay Camps Bay (Afrikaans: ''Kampsbaai'') is an affluent suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, and the small bay on the west coast of the Cape Peninsula after which it is named. In summer it attracts many South African and foreign visitors. History Th ...

.Kathleen Riley (2004
''Nigel Hawthorne on Stage''
Univ. of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield; He attended St George's Grammar School,

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, and, although the family was not Catholic, at a now-defunct Christian Brothers College,Biography for Nigel Hawthorne
TCM.com. Retrieved 18 August 2009. where he played on the rugby team.Michael Green (2004) ''Around and About: Memoires of a South African Newspaperman'', David Philip Publishers, Cape Town; He described his time at the latter as not being a particularly happy experience. He enrolled at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

, where he met and sometimes acted in plays with Theo Aronson (later a well-known biographer), but withdrew and returned to the United Kingdom in the 1950s to pursue a career in acting.

Career

Hawthorne made his professional stage debut in 1950, playing Archie Fellows in a

production of '' The Shop at Sly Corner''. Unhappy in South Africa, he decided to move to London, where he performed in various small parts before becoming recognized as a great character actor. Finding success in London, Hawthorne decided to try his luck in New York City and eventually got a part in a 1974 production of ''

As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 h ...

'' on Broadway. Around this time, he was persuaded by

Ian McKellen Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. His career spans seven decades, having performed in genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. Regarded as a British cultural i ...

and

Judi Dench Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Regarded as one of Britain's best actresses, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her ...

to join the

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...

. He also supplemented his income by appearing in television advertisements, including one for

Mackeson Stout Mackeson Stout is a milk stout first brewed in 1907. It contains lactose, a sugar derived from milk. Milk stout Milk stout (also called sweet stout, mellow stout or cream stout) is a stout containing lactose, a sugar derived from milk. Lactose ...

. He returned to the New York stage in 1990 in '' Shadowlands'' and won the 1991

Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play The Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play is an honor presented at the Tony Awards, a ceremony established in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, to actors for quality leading roles in a Broadway p ...

. Although Hawthorne had appeared in small roles in various British television series since the late 1950s, his most famous role was as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary of the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs in the television series '' Yes Minister'' (and Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, ''Yes, Prime Minister''), for which he won four BAFTA awards during the 1980s. He became a household name throughout the United Kingdom, which finally opened the doors to film roles. In 1982, Hawthorne appeared in

Richard Attenborough Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, (; 29 August 192324 August 2014) was an English actor, filmmaker, and entrepreneur. He was the president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Academy of Film and Televisi ...

's ''

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

'', alongside a distinguished international cast including

Martin Sheen Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (born August 3, 1940), known professionally as Martin Sheen, is an American actor. He first became known for his roles in the films ''The Subject Was Roses'' (1968) and ''Badlands'' (1973), and later achieved wid ...

John Mills Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...

Candice Bergen Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress. She won five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for her portrayal of the title character on the CBS sitcom ''Murphy Brown'' (1988–1998, 2018). She is also kno ...

John Gielgud Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Brit ...

Ian Charleson Ian Charleson (11 August 1949 – 6 January 1990) was a Scottish stage and film actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning 1981 film '' Chariots of Fire''. ...

and

Ben Kingsley Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. He has received various accolades throughout his career spanning five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, and tw ...

. That same year, he starred opposite

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the " Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "'' Do ...

in the

cold war The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

thriller ''

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current ...

'', where he played a dissident Russian scientist. Other film roles during this time included '' Demolition Man'', which he detested for being "brainless" and a "cheap picture". However, it led to his most famous role: that of

Alan Bennett Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his distinguished entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two ...

's stage play '' The Madness of George III'' (for which he won a Best Actor Olivier Award) and then the film adaptation entitled '' The Madness of King George'', for which he received an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

nomination for Best Actor and won the BAFTA Film Award for Best Actor. After this success, his friend Ian McKellen asked him to play his doomed brother Clarence in ''

Richard III Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Bat ...

'', and

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Sp ...

asked him to play lame duck president

Martin Van Buren Martin Van Buren ( ; nl, Maarten van Buren; ; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party, he ...

in '' Amistad''. He won a sixth BAFTA for the 1996 TV mini-series ''The Fragile Heart''. He also drew praise for his role of Georgie Pillson in the

London Weekend Television London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 un ...

series "

Mapp and Lucia ''Mapp and Lucia'' is a 1931 comic novel written by E. F. Benson. It is the fourth of six novels in the popular Mapp and Lucia series, about idle women in the 1920s and their struggle for social dominance over their small communities. It bring ...

." Hawthorne was also a voice actor, and lent his voice to two

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

films:

Fflewddur Fflam ''The Chronicles of Prydain'' is a pentalogy of children's high fantasy Bildungsroman novels written by American author Lloyd Alexander and published by Henry Holt and Company. The series includes: ''The Book of Three'' (1964), ''The Black Cauld ...

in '' The Black Cauldron'' (1985) and Professor Porter in ''

Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...

'' (1999). He also voiced Captain Campion in the animated film adaptation of ''

Watership Down ''Watership Down'' is an adventure novel by English author Richard Adams, published by Rex Collings Ltd of London in 1972. Set in Berkshire in southern England, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although they live in their natural ...

'' (1978).

Personal life

An intensely private person, he was upset at having been

outed Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBT person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. It is often done for political reasons, either to instrumentalize homophobia in order to discredit political opponents or to com ...

as gay in 1995 in the publicity surrounding the

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

, but he did attend the ceremony with his long-time partner

Trevor Bentham Trevor Bentham (born 11 October 1943) is a British former stage manager and screenwriter ('' A Month by the Lake'' and ''The Clandestine Marriage''). For 22 years, he was the partner of British actor Sir Nigel Hawthorne. They met in 1968 when B ...

, and afterward, he spoke openly about being gay in interviews and in his autobiography, ''Straight Face'', which was published posthumously. They met in 1968 when Bentham was stage-managing the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...

. From 1979 until Hawthorne's death in 2001, they lived together in Radwell and then at

Thundridge Thundridge is a village and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is about two miles away from the town of Ware and about seven miles away from the large town of Hertford, the county town o ...

, both in

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For gov ...

. The two of them became fund raisers for the North Hertfordshire

hospice Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life b ...

and other local charities.

Death

Hawthorne died from a heart attack at his home on 26 December 2001, aged 72. He had recently undergone several operations for

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a mass. These cancerous cells have the ability to invade other parts of the body. A number of types of pancr ...

, which he was diagnosed with in mid-2000, but had been discharged from hospital for the Christmas holidays. He was survived by Bentham, and his funeral service was held at St Mary's, the Parish Church of Thundridge near

Ware, Hertfordshire Ware is a town in Hertfordshire, England close to the county town of Hertford. It is also a civil parishes in England, civil parish in East Hertfordshire district. Location The town lies on the north–south A10 road (Great Britain), A10 road ...

, following which he was cremated at Stevenage Crematorium. His funeral was attended by

Derek Fowlds Derek James Fowlds (2 September 1937 – 17 January 2020) was an English actor. He was best known for his appearances as "Mr Derek" in ''The Basil Brush Show'' (1969–1973), Bernard Woolley in the sitcom ''Yes Minister'' (1980–1984) and its s ...

, Maureen Lipman,

Charles Dance Walter Charles Dance (born 10 October 1946) is an English actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters and villains. His most notable film roles include Sardo Numspa in '' The Golden Child'' (1986), Dr. Jonathan Clemens in '' ...

Loretta Swit Loretta Jane Swit (born Loretta Szwed; November 4, 1937) is an American stage and television actress known for her character roles. Swit is best known for her portrayal of Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on ''M*A*S*H'', for which she won two E ...

and Frederick Forsyth along with friends and local people. The service was led by the Right Reverend

Christopher Herbert Christopher William Herbert (born 7 January 1944) is a British Anglican bishop. From 1996 to 2009, he was the Bishop of St Albans. Early life Herbert was born on 7 January 1944, in Lydney in the Forest of Dean. His father helped run the family ...

, the

Bishop of St Albans The Bishop of St Albans is the Ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of St Albans in the Province of Canterbury. The bishop is supported in his work by two suffragan bishops, the Bishop of Hertford and the Bishop of Bedford, and three ar ...

. The coffin had a wreath of white lilies and orchids and Bentham was one of the

pallbearer A pallbearer is one of several participants who help carry the casket at a funeral. They may wear white gloves in order to prevent damaging the casket and to show respect to the deceased person. Some traditions distinguish between the roles o ...

s. On hearing of Hawthorne's death,

described him in his diary: "Courteous, grand, a man of the world and superb at what he did, with his technique never so obvious as to become familiar as, say, Olivier's did or

Alec Guinness Sir Alec Guinness (born Alec Guinness de Cuffe; 2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, Guinness was featured in several of the Ealing comedies, including '' Kind Hearts and Coronets'' (1 ...

's."

Honours

He was appointed a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(CBE) in the 1987 New Years Honours List, and was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the G ...

in the 1999 New Years Honours List.Barker, Dennis
"Sir Nigel Hawthorne"
''

Guardian.co.uk TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and ''Guardian Unlimited'', is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', ...

'', 27 December 2001 (Retrieved: 18 August 2009)

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Stage

Theatre

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hawthorne, Nigel 1929 births 2001 deaths 20th-century English male actors Actors awarded knighthoods Actors from Coventry Audiobook narrators Best Actor BAFTA Award winners Best Actor BAFTA Award (television) winners Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners Burials in Hertfordshire Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Critics' Circle Theatre Award winners English autobiographers English expatriates in South Africa English male film actors English male Shakespearean actors English male stage actors English male television actors English male voice actors English gay actors Knights Bachelor Laurence Olivier Award winners Male actors from Cape Town Male actors from Warwickshire People from East Hertfordshire District People from North Hertfordshire District University of Cape Town alumni Royal Shakespeare Company members Tony Award winners