Jack Birkett

Jack Birkett

Born: June 11, 1934
Died: May 10, 2010
in Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Jack Birkett was born on June 11, 1934 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. He was an actor, mime artist, dancer and singer, a contemporary of Lindsey Kemp and a key member of his troupe. Often billed as Orlando, or The Incredible Orlando, Birkett was born to a Romani family and worked as an arrist's model for David Hockney before finding work as a stage hand at Leeds' Grand Theatre in 1950. He began to lose his sight in 1966, he then gradually became completely blind and was so for more than the last three decades his life. A regular cohort of the arthouse filmmaker Derek Jarman, Birkett appeared in Jubilee, The Tempest, Caravaggio and The Garden for the director. He retired from performing in the 1990s, living with his partner the Spanish artist and writer Nyako Nakar in Barcelona and London. He died on May 10, 2010 in London, aged 75.

Movies for Jack Birkett...

Moon Child
Title: Moon Child
Character: Invalid
Released: April 2, 1992
Type: Movie
Adopted by a treacherous semi-scientific cult where extraordinary mental powers are common, extraordinary 12-year-old David begins an archetypal journey across two continents to find his destiny as Child of the Moon.
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The Garden
Title: The Garden
Character: Pontius (Orlando)
Released: September 6, 1990
Type: Movie
A nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous.
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El vent de l'illa
Title: El vent de l'illa
Character: Gobernador
Released: March 4, 1988
Type: Movie
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Caravaggio
Title: Caravaggio
Character: The Pope
Released: August 29, 1986
Type: Movie
A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.
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The Bride
Title: The Bride
Character: Blind Man
Released: August 16, 1985
Type: Movie
Doctor Frankenstein creates a mate for his monster, a woman called Eva, who promptly rejects the male creature. In turn, the doctor becomes obsessed with Eva, and tries to make her a perfect victorian woman.
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Troilus & Cressida
Title: Troilus & Cressida
Character: Thersites
Released: November 7, 1981
Type: Movie
The bitter Trojan War drags on - the Greeks blame Achilles' apathy for low morale, while Troy's hero Hector challenges one of the enemy to a personal duel. And after her father exchanges Cressida for a Trojan prisoner, the war becomes personal for her distraught lover Troilus.
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Title: Rising Stars
Character: Self
Released: October 14, 1979
Type: TV
Music variety show from the United Kingdom.
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The Tempest
Title: The Tempest
Character: Caliban, a savage and deformed slave
Released: September 13, 1979
Type: Movie
Prospero, a potent magician, lives on a desolate isle with his virginal daughter, Miranda. He's in exile, banished from his duchy by his usurping brother and the King of Naples. Providence brings these enemies near; aided by his vassal the spirit Ariel, Prospero conjures a tempest to wreck the Italian ship. The king's son, thinking all others lost, becomes Prospero's prisoner, falling in love with Miranda and she with him. Prospero's brother and the king wander the island, as do a drunken cook and sailor, who conspire with Caliban, Prospero's beastly slave, to murder Prospero. Prospero wants reason to triumph, Ariel wants his freedom, Miranda a husband; the sailors want to dance.
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Jubilee
Title: Jubilee
Character: Borgia Ginz (as Orlando)
Released: February 1, 1978
Type: Movie
Queen Elizabeth I visits late 1970s England to find a depressing landscape where life has changed since her time.
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The Looking Glass Murders
Title: The Looking Glass Murders
Character: Harlequin
Released: July 8, 1970
Type: Movie
Made for Scottish TV and airing in 1970, "The Looking Glass Murders" is a filmed version of the mime improv play "Pierrot in Turquoise", which Lindsay Kemp and David Bowie first staged in 1967. Pierrot is a freaky mime who ventures into a mirror where he falls in love and rolls around with the equally grotesque Columbine. But when Columbine spurs him for Harlequin, Pierrot's jealousy takes over and drives him to murder. Cloud, perched on a ladder, watches over the proceedings and narrates in song.
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Good Bye G.O.D.
Title: Good Bye G.O.D.
Character: G.O.D.
Released: December 31, 1969
Type: Movie
"Good-bye G.O.D." was a play written specially for Jack Birkett, 'The INCREDIBLE ORLANDO', to be performed with its author, composer Carlos Miranda. Conceived as a future-fantasy Music Hall operetta, "Good-bye G.O.D." tells the story of General Orson Davis, (known as G.O.D.), one of the heads of the Confederated Armies of the Northern Hemisphere, who have concocted a mass destruction of the world. Sheltered in a bunker in the North Pole, he and his henchmen have saved a chosen team of scientists impelled to work on the vessel that will enable them to eventually evacuate the planet. But he has a secret passion which he will indulge once he encounters Adam, one of his scientists.