Timothy Dalton
Actor of stage & screen, best known for playing James Bond.
- Born:
-
21
MAR
1946
- Place of Birth:
- Colwyn Bay
- School:
- Belper, Derbys
I think anybody would have been off their head to have taken over from Connery'
Timothy Dalton
- Biography:
-
Respected as a serious Shakespearian actor on the stage, Dalton had done much less TV and movie work. But Albert R. (Cubby) Broccoli and wife Dana knew he was their man.
They had been looking for an actor to take over from Roger Moore when contractual problems blocked Pierce Brosnan from taking on the secret agent's role in The Living Daylights in 1987. But this wasn't the first time Dalton had been approached to play Bond. In 1968 he was offered the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but refused believing his career doomed if he followed in Sean Connery's footsteps. Dalton was right. Australian actor George Lazenby took on the job but never starred as 007 again. Dalton returned as Bond in Licence to Kill before Brosnan assumed the lead role. LEFT: Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Dalton in Anthony & Cleopatra, at Mold's Theatr Clwyd in 1986.
Dalton's stage work began in 1964 with numerous plays from Richard III to As You Like It and Romeo & Juliet to A Game Called Arthur in which he took the title role playing a 24-year-old man looking for the ideal woman.Trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company, his early small screen work came in 1967 in the series Sat'day While Sunday. In brief he played rich kid, Peter, in a relationship involving a rich girl and a poor boy. The plot, set against a weekly adventure, involved the girl's curiousity with the less fortunate boy, Frankie. Sarah-Jane Gwillim also starred. Little is known about the series despite exhaustive attempts by Debra Best, co-ordinator of the Timothy Dalton Chat Group, to glean more details from TV production companies.Dalton went on to star in more TV films, including playing Heathcliff in Robert Fuest's 1971 version of Wuthering Heights. One reviewer said Anna Calder-Marshall, who played Cathy, and Dalton were unforgettable in their portrayal of the ill-fated lovers. Dalton also had a small part in the movie cult classic Flash Gordon in 1980 and three years later he starred in a BBC mini series of Jane Eyre in which he played her employer, Mr Rochester.Dalton was born in Colwyn Bay on March 21 1946 where his father was stationed during the Second World War.One of five children, Dalton was four when his parents moved to rural Belper, Derbyshire. In 1966 he appeared at the Royal Court Theatre to play his first lead in the National Youth Theatre's production of Little Malcolm and his struggle against the Eunuchs. He returned to star as Arthur in A Game Called Arthur before becoming a professional actor.It may have been predicted that Dalton the schoolboy would take to the stage as his grandparents had been involved with the stage. With thanks to Debra Best, co-ordinator Timothy Dalton Chat Group
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