Celebrity Biographies
Nigel Davenport
Secondary veteran who has accumulated illustrious titles such as “Chariots of Fire” or “A Man for Eternity” in his filmography, Nigel Davenport had been lavishing himself on stage, film and television for almost half a century. The British actor died on December 25, 2013, at the age of 85, according to British media, without specifying further details. “He will be remembered for his dark, strong roles, and his aggressive heroes,” commented The Daily Telegraph.
Born on May 23, 1928, in Shelford (Cambridgeshire), Arthur Nigel Davenport was the son of a Cambridge University administrator, although he studied at Oxford. He first enrolled in Philosophy, but at the insistence of his professors, he switched to English Philology.
In the 50s, Nigel Davenport began his career on stage, with texts by William Shakespeare and other British authors, while lavishing himself on numerous series. He had been an actor for almost a decade when he made his film debut at the hands of Tony Richardson in Looking Back in Anger , an adaptation of the well-known text by John Osborne , where he made a small appearance as a salesman.
From that moment on, he combined his work on television and on the stage with frequent appearances in films such as Panic Photographer , Wind in the Sails , The Island of Doctor Moreau , Zulu Dawn , No Clues , Greystoke, the Legend of Tarzan, King of the monkeys or the opium war .
He was especially noted as the Duke of Norfolk, the best friend of Thomas More ( Paul Scofield ), in Fred Zinnemann ‘s A Man Forever . He also embroidered another aristocrat, Lord Bothwell, faithful ally and husband of Vanessa Redgrave ‘s character , in Charles Jarrott ‘s Mary Queen of Scots . Another of his most remembered roles was the member of the British Olympic Committee Lord Birkenhead, in Chariots of Fire , where he complained about the lack of principles of the French.
Nigel Davenport even recorded the lines of dialogue for Hal 9,000, the legendary computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey , but the meticulous Stanley Kubrick finally decided to replace him with Canadian Douglas Rain. He also worked in Spain, under the orders of Gonzalo Suárez , in La regenta (1975) , where he played none other than the mediocre seducer Don Álvaro Mesía. He was also the father of José Coronado in the unsuccessful La vuelta de El Coyote , by Mario Camus .
His last job was a brief appearance as an old man in the action comedy The Shanghai Rebels . He then decided to withdraw, because he was no longer able to memorize lines of dialogue. Divorced from Helena Margaret White, whom he had fallen in love with during his university years, with whom he had a son, Nigel Davenport joined actress Maria Aitken ( A Fish Called Wanda ), mother of another offspring, Jack Davenport , also an actor. in titles like the Pirates of the Caribbean saga .