[This is the eleventh in an occasional series describing
British artistes who found fame on stage or in the movies]
I confess to having negative feelings towards roistering Welshmen:
this prejudice emanates from the evening in the 1960s I was randomly
head-butted by a Welsh rugby fan outside a convivial pub in Edinburgh’s Rose
Street and I reeled about stunned and bloodied. I guess Wales had lost the game
that afternoon at Murrayfield but that hardly excuses mindless violence and I have
since not much admired the fan’s compatriots, especially if like Richard Burton
they boozed away and squandered their talents or like Stanley Baker, their fame
rested on how many bars they have trashed or bottles broken. The Welsh women
were not much better either- noisy singer Dorothy Squires caused chaos and
havoc all around her – although talented Catherine Zeta-Jones has smouldering
good looks, helping her to manage her tempestuous marriage and volatile
emotional health. I am certainly prepared to make an exception to my anti-boyo
stance in the case of consummate actor Anthony Hopkins.
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| A young Anthony Hopkins |
Anthony Hopkins
(1937- ) has no doubt many of the notorious Welsh characteristics bubbling
inside, but he controls them very effectively. The son of a baker in Margam,
Port Talbot, Hopkins was a slow schoolboy until taken in hand by his parents
and sent to a more stretching institution. He blossomed in music and drama at
the Royal Welsh College in Cardiff graduating in 1957 and after National
Service he attended RADA. A few years in rep until he was spotted by no less
than Lawrence Olivier and invited to join the National Theatre in 1965. When
Olivier fell ill, Hopkins, as his understudy, won laurels for his playing of
Edgar in Strindberg’s The Dance of Death provoking
green-eyed Olivier to write that Hopkins “walked away with the part like a cat
with a mouse between his teeth”
Hopkins great break was playing the supporting role of gay
Prince Richard (later Richard Coeur de Lion) in the 1968 hit film The Lion in Winter with Peter O’Toole as
Henry II and Katherine Hepburn as his Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. This gave him
a taste for film and TV acting for which he is now globally famous. In the
1970s he shone as Pierre in BBC’s War and
Peace and as Lloyd George in Young
Winston as well as taking leading roles at the National Theatre. Yet
perhaps his most important moment was on 29 December 1975 when, he claims, he
woke up in an Arizona hotel room, not knowing how he got there and immediately
signed up with Alcoholics Anonymous. He has described himself as “a recovering
alcoholic” ever since. Stability returned to his hitherto rather manic life.
Hopkins’ acting range has been astonishing - he has played
Hitler, Quasimodo, Picasso and Richard Nixon in his time. Some of his best
performances have been in almost art-house roles like Frederick Treves in The Elephant Man (1980) opposite John
Hurt’s depiction of Joseph Merrick. He corresponded platonically with Anne
Bancroft in 1987’s 84 Charing Cross Road and
has an unrequited love affair with Emma Thompson as the repressed butler
Stevens in The Remains of the Day
(1993). He rocketed to the notice of the mass US audience with his alarming
depiction of deranged psychiatrist Dr Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) jeering at Jodie Foster and had a
huge hit with the 1998 swashbuckler The
Mask of Zorro alongside Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Later
triumphs have been his portrayal of New Zealand motor cycle ace Burt Munro in The World’s fastest Indian (2005) and as
Odin in superhero saga Thor (2010)
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| Hopkins scares as Lecter |
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| Hopkins as hero Zorro Senior |
Hopkins has a prodigious memory but works with feverish
intensity to master his script. He much impressed Steven Spielberg by
memorising a long courtroom speech playing John Quincy Adams in Amstad (1997) – Spielberg could not
bring himself to call Hopkins “Tony” but addressed him throughout as “Sir
Anthony” – Hopkins was knighted in 1993.
Hopkins has lived in Los Angeles since 2007 and is a
naturalised US citizen though retaining his British citizenship too. He is
notably philanthropic, generously supporting drama schools, projects for
prisoners and The National Trust appeal to preserve Snowdonia. He is a devotee
of Greenpeace and supports dozens of good causes.
Music has always loomed large in his life since his Cardiff
College days and he is an accomplished pianist. He is also a composer and his
charming “And the Waltz goes on”
featured high in a recent album by Strauss specialist André Rieu. All in all,
his is a many-sided talent.
I do not suppose he is a saint and his current wife, exotic
Colombian Stella Arroyave, is his third. He does not enjoy the company of “posh
actors” and he has been rude about some co-stars, describing Shirley MacLaine
as “the most obnoxious actress I have ever worked with”. He is by no means a
green room luvvie. Instead he is what we Scots call “a man of parts,” a civilising
influence and an undoubted credit to Wales.
SMD
15.08.14
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2014
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