Robert Stephens
Birthday: Born in 1931-07-14 in Bristol, England, UK
Deathday: 1995-11-12
Sir Robert Stephens (14 July 1931 – 12 November 1995) was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre. He was one of the most respected actors of his generation and was at one time regarded as the natural successor to Laurence Olivier. While very acting on stage his whole life, he also participated in more than 100 theatrical films and TV series episodes. He was married to actress Maggie Smith between 1967 and 1974. They had two children together, who both have become actors: Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin. Following years of ill health, he died on 12 November 1995 at the age of 64 due to complications during surgery, eleven months after having been knighted. Description above partly from the Wikipedia article Robert Stephens, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
TV Credits
Inspector Morse
Character: Sir Wilfred Mulryne
Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis, as well as a large cast of notable actors and actresses....
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Character: Max Carrados
Adaptations of mystery stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's contemporary rivals in the genre....
Fortunes of War
Character: Bill Castlebar
Fortunes of War is a 1987 BBC television adaptation of Olivia Manning's cycle of novels Fortunes of War. It stars Kenneth Branagh as Guy Pringle, lecturer in English Literature in Bucharest during the early part of the Second World War, and Emma Thompson as his wife Harriet. Other cast members included Ronald Pickup, Robert Stephens, Alan Bennett, Philip Madoc and Rupert Graves. The series stays relatively faithful to the original novels, with no notable departures from their plot....
Channing
Character: Paddy Riordan
Professor Joe Howe is a Korean War veteran who is hired to teach English at Channing College. The dean Fred Baker is his mentor as Howe is writing a novel about his experiences. They are frequently involved in the student's lives. Channing, a production of Revue Studios, aired during the same time frame as the first season of NBC's somewhat similar offering, Mr. Novak....
BBC Play of the Month
Character: Mark Antony
Play of the Month is a BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays which were usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983; the producer most associated with the Play of the Month was Cedric Messina. Some of the 121 episodes are missing from the archives, having been junked in the 1960s and 1970...
The Box of Delights
Character: Abner Brown
Patrick Troughton stars in this children's fantasy tale with dark undertones. When a young schoolboy is given a box for safekeeping by a mysterious magician, little does he know the wondrous things he’ll soon discover....
Anyone for Denis?
Character:
Anyone for Denis? is a British video-taped television version of the stage play of the same name broadcast by the ITV network on 28 December 1982. The original play, first performed at the Whitehall Theatre in 1981, was written by satirist John Wells. It is based on Private Eye's 'Dear Bill' letters, purportedly written by Denis Thatcher, the husband of Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister at the time. Set in Chequers, the play parodies the couple's relationship. The title is a punning referen...
The BBC Television Shakespeare
Character:
The BBC Television Shakespeare is a series of British television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, created by Cedric Messina and produced by BBC Television. It was transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to 27 April 1985 and spanned seven series. Development of the series began in 1975 when Messina saw that Glamis Castle would make a perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's play As You Like It. On returning to London, he envisioned an entire series devoted exclusivel...
Dandelion Dead
Character: Henry Vaughan
This is a dramatisation of the true story of Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong, a solicitor and magistrate's clerk who lived in the small Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. In 1921 he was arrested and charged with poisoning his domineering wife, Catherine, and later attempting to poison a business rival, Oswald Martin, by administering arsenic to them. At his trial, Armstrong claimed that he had bought the arsenic simply to kill the dandelions on his lawn. However he was convicted of murder and executed in 1...
QB VII
Character: Robert Highsmith
A physician sues a novelist for publishing statements implicating the doctor in Nazi war crimes....
BBC Play of the Month
Character: Grigory Rasputin
Play of the Month is a BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays which were usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983; the producer most associated with the Play of the Month was Cedric Messina. Some of the 121 episodes are missing from the archives, having been junked in the 1960s and 1970...
The Mysteries
Character: Pontius Pilate / Herod
National Theatre Cottesloe production filmed for Channel 4...
Minder
Character: Percy
This comedy drama series featured Terry McCann, a former boxer with a conviction for G.B.H., and Arthur Daley, a second-hand car dealer with an eye for a nice little earner. Alongside his many business ventures, Arthur would regularly hire Terry out as a minder or bodyguard, later replaced by nephew, Ray Daley....
Holocaust
Character: Uncle Kurt Dorf
Berlin, Germany, 1935. The day Karl Weiss, a Jewish painter, and Inga Helms, a Christian woman, marry, is the one in which both of them and the entire Weiss family are caught up in the maelstrom of the Nazi regime, the storms of World War II and the horrors of the criminal Final Solution, the Holocaust, the Shoah; while Erik Dorf, an ambitious lawyer, undertakes his fall into hell at the hands of the sinister Reinhard Heydrich....
Tony Awards
Character: Self - Presenter
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances, and an award is given for regional theatre....
Lady Killers
Character: Sir Edward Marshall Hall, K.C.
Compelling crime anthology looks at some of Britain's most notorious murder trials, in which both male and female defendants stood accused of the murder of women. Introduced by Robert Morley, seven hour-long dramas reconstruct sensational trials which shocked Britain, offering in-depth analyses of individuals' motives and methods....
99-1
Character: Oakwood
...
Movie Credits
Anyone for Denis
Character: Schubert
Anyone for Denis? is a British video-taped television version of the stage play of the same name broadcast by the ITV network on 28 December 1982. The original play, first performed at the Whitehall Theatre in 1981, was written by satirist John Wells....
The Search for Alexander the Great
Character: Darius of Persia
Friends, contemporaries and even enemies of Alexander the Great gather in a tent to tell his tale through their eyes....
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Character: Teddy Lloyd
A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12-year-old charges with her over-romanticized worldview....
Travels with My Aunt
Character: Ercole Visconti
At his mother's funeral, stuffy bank clerk Henry Pulling meets his Aunt Augusta, an elderly eccentric with more-than-shady dealings who pulls him along on a whirlwind adventure as she attempts to rescue an old lover....
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Character: Sherlock Holmes
Holmes and Dr. Watson take on the case of a beautiful woman whose husband has vanished. The investigation proves strange indeed, involving six missing midgets, villainous monks, a Scottish castle, the Loch Ness monster, and covert naval experiments....
Romeo and Juliet
Character: the Prince
Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love against the wishes of their feuding families. Driven by their passion, the young lovers defy their destiny and elope, only to suffer the ultimate tragedy....
A Taste of Honey
Character: Peter Smith
While out to avoid spending time with her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, sixteen-year-old Jo has a brief affair that leaves her pregnant and abandoned. When her mother remarries, Jo's only support becomes her friend Geoffrey, a homosexual....
Searching for Bobby Fischer
Character: Poe's Teacher
A seven-year-old chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer....
Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment
Character: Charles Napier
Morgan, an aggressive and self-admitted dreamer, a fantasist who uses his flights of fancy as refuge from external reality, where his unconventional behavior lands him in a divorce from his wife, Leonie, trouble with the police and, ultimately, incarceration in a lunatic asylum....
Chaplin
Character: Ted the Drunk
An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI....
The Asphyx
Character: Sir Hugo Cunningham
Hugo is a brilliant turn-of-the-century scientist, loved and respected by his family and friends, admired by his colleagues. But he is a man quickly becoming obsessed with a curious and frightening question... what is the mysterious apparition found in the photographs of his dying subjects?...
Ada in the Jungle
Character: Lord Gordon
A dying man Lord Gordon asks his niece Ada to find his son in Africa whom he left many years ago....
At Night All Cats Are Crazy
Character: Charles Watson
Playwright Charles Watson entertains his niece Lily by telling her about the adventures of Philibert.Both these people have something to do with Philibert....
The Duellists
Character: Brigadier-General Treillard
In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe....
Luther
Character: Johann von Eck
One sixteenth-century clergyman's view breaks the Catholic Church apart....
Henry V
Character: Auncient Pistol
Gritty adaption of William Shakespeare's play about the English King's bloody conquest of France....
The Small World of Sammy Lee
Character: Gerry Sullivan
The compère of a seedy strip club struggles to keep one step ahead of the bookies to whom he owes money....
Lunch Hour
Character: Man
A young female designer is on the brink of an affair with a married male executive at the company where she works. The film tells the story of their illicit lunch hour rendezvous....
Pirates of Tortuga
Character: Henri Morgan
After a lengthy voyage, Capt. Bart docks his ship in a London harbor and is given a new mission by British Admiralty: capture the notorious Henry Morgan, a pirate who has been wreaking havoc throughout the Caribbean. After recruiting some former shipmates for his crew, Capt. Bart sets sail in search of the infamous buccaneer, and is joined by a beautiful female stowaway in the process....
30 Door Key
Character: Prof. Pimco
A young writer in 1939 Warsaw faces the conflict of acting his age or relapsing into childhood during the brink of World War II. Based on the famous novel Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz....
High Season
Character: Konstantinis
On the isle of Rhodes, Katherine, an expatriate English photographer, lives with her daughter. A young local wants to encourage tourism, so he commissions a sculpture of the Unknown Tourist for the town square; the sculptor he brings to Rhodes is Kate's ex-husband. Also there to see Kate is Sharp, an aging antiquarian and her dear friend. He has something important to tell her. As Kate, her ex, and Sharp sort out things that go back years, two English tourists bumble about, one thinking he's fal...
Lorna Doone
Character: Sir Ensor Doone
A feisty 17th-century Scotswoman falls in love with a despised landowner, to the dismay of her father....
The Inspector
Character: Dickens
At the end of WW2, a compassionate Dutch policeman helps smuggle a Jewish woman into British Palestine....
The Games of Countess Dolingen
Character: Le professeur
This complex and puzzling French drama walks the fine wavering line between the fictional and the very real as it tells the tale of a strangely erotic event in the life of a little girl and the musings of a schizophrenic woman. Also involved is an enigmatic spouse who prepares a surprise for a burglar....
The Queen's Guards
Character:
Captains John Fellows and Henry Wynne-Walton finish their Army training at Sandhurst Military Academy and are sent to the Middle-East. John is to lead a parachute battalion while Henry is put in charge of a platoon of armoured cars of the Household Cavalry. John is constantly being told by his father, an ex-Guards officer that he is not as good as his brother who was killed during the war....
American Roulette
Character:
Carlos Quintas, the democratically-elected president of an unnamed South American country, has been deposed by a military coup. He is in London, the head of a government in exile, rallying international support. He is also a poet of talent and reputation, in love with Kate, his assistant, who has a secret of her own and keeps Carlos at a distance. The generals have a team of professionals in London bent on kidnap and assassination. Hovering around Carlos are two Russians, who may be KGB, an Amer...
One Fine Day
Character: Welby
Alan Bennett's play about the mid-life crisis of an estate agent....
Circle of Deception
Character: Capt. Stein
Unbeknownst to him, a soldier is sent on a doomed mission because of the high likelihood of him divulging secrets if captured and tortured....
Empire of the Sun
Character: Mr. Lockwood
Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him....
Birth of a Nation
Character: Vic Griffiths
A new teacher at a highly problematic comprehensive school feels that corporal punishment may just be inflaming the problems, and so begins to campaign against it....
Wings of Fame
Character: Merrick
A famous movie actor claims that he has written a book. As result, a real author, not a very well known writer, vengefully kills him but then dies as a result of an accident. Next, they both find themselves in after-life, where souls of all famous people are gathered....
Century
Character: Mr. Reisner
Turn-of-the-century love story centered around a young doctor and the emergence of modern science....
Adam Bede
Character: Reverend Irwine
Rich and languorous, this adaptation of George Eliot's classic tale perfectly evokes rural England in the 18th Century. But beneath the tranquil surface of this pastoral idyll run deep passions and the bitter gall of betrayal....
Much Ado About Nothing
Character: Benedick
A film of the National Theatre's presentation of the Shakespeare play....
The Fruit Machine
Character: Vincent
Eddie and Michael are two 16-year-old gay friends from Liverpool. Berated by his father for his camp behavior, Eddie runs away from his Liverpool home and joins Michael, a streetwise hustler, who is also on the run....
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Character: Oberon
Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night....
Ten Days That Shook the World
Character: Lenin
An epic presentation of the turbulent days leading to the Russian Revolution. Based on the classic work by John Reed, this important documentary makes use of rare footage and little-known information, stirringly narrated by Orson Welles....
Puccini
Character: Giacomo Puccini
In Torre del Lago, by Lake Massaciuccoli, Puccini is writing "The Girl of the Golden West" when his wife Elvira accuses him of a dalliance with their maid, Doria Manfredi, a young women from town. Although the maestro is frequently unfaithful, he denies the affair; Elvira insists she's right and publicly hounds Doria. Between scenes in this domestic drama that turns tragic, we watch a Scottish company rehearse and stage "Turandot," Puccini's last opera. The film finds parallels between the two s...
Julius Caesar
Character: Mark Antony
The play by William Shakespeare....
The Children
Character: Azariah Dobree
Rose Sellars is a middle-aged woman who falls in love with a widower. However, his children believe that their father is too old to start a new relationship....
Afraid of the Dark
Character: Dan Burns
A little boy, obsessed with blindness and violence, slowly gets trapped in his own delusions....
England, My England
Character: John Dryden
The story of Henry Purcell....
The Winter's Tale
Character: Polixenes
The jealous King Leontes falsely accuse his wife Hermione of infidelity with his best friend, and she dies. Leontes exiles his newborn daughter Perdita, who is raised by shepherds for sixteen years and falls in love with the son of Leontes' friend. When Perdita returns home, a statue of Hermione "comes to life", and everyone is reconciled....
Cleopatra
Character: Germanicus
Determined to hold on to the throne, Cleopatra seduces the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. When Caesar is murdered, she redirects her attentions to his general, Marc Antony, who vows to take power—but Caesar’s successor has other plans....
Ill Fares the Land
Character:
The story of the last two years the inhabitants of the islands of St Kilda (far off the west coast of Scotland) spent there, before being evacuated at their own request. This film, originally shown at the London Film Festival, marked the screen debut of writer and director Bill Bryden, who made his theatre reputation directing at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre and the National Theatre. In persuasive style....
The Pope Must Diet
Character: The Camarlengo
A less-than-qualified and far-from-perfect priest is mistakenly named the new pope. As the pontiff, he must deal with Vatican corruption, the Mob and the reappearance of his old lover....
Comrades
Character: James Frampton
The story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of 19th century English farm labourers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages....
The Shout
Character: Chief Medical Officer
A traveller by the name of Crossley forces himself upon a musician and his wife in a lonely part of Devon, and uses the aboriginal magic he has learned to displace his host....
The Executioner
Character: Beust
Jan and Meg Citron are on holiday in Germany. Their car is stopped by the police. A simple traffic offence? But their seemingly innocent past is ripped open and life will never be the same again....
Nothing Like a Dame
Character: Self (archive footage)
BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Elieen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier....
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Character: Sir Gerald Moore
After his mistress runs over a black teen, a Wall Street hotshot sees his life unravel in the spotlight; A down-and-out reporter breaks the story and opportunists clamber to use it to their advantage....
Hesther for Example
Character: Warburton
Cousin, W. Clifford Mill, ran a dirty postcard business; which brings Paul to the country in search of a profitable afternoon. Hesther knows the value of most things and, when evening falls, she turns his visit to her own advantage....