Ian Charleson

Ian Charleson

Born: August 11, 1949
Died: January 6, 1990
in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Ian Charleson (11 August 1949 – 6 January 1990) was a Scottish stage and film actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell, in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. He is also well known for his portrayal of Rev. Charlie Andrews in the 1982 Oscar-winning film Gandhi.

Charleson was a noted actor on the British stage as well, with critically acclaimed leads in Guys and Dolls, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Fool for Love, and Hamlet, among many others. Over the course of his life Charleson performed numerous major Shakespearean roles, and the annual Ian Charleson Awards were established in his honour in 1991, to reward the best classical stage performances in Britain by actors aged under 30.

The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography describes Charleson as "a leading player of charm and power" and "one of the finest British actors of his generation." Alan Bates wrote that Charleson was "definitely among the top ten actors of his age group." Ian McKellen said Charleson was "the most unmannered and unactorish of actors: always truthful, always honest."

Charleson was diagnosed with HIV in 1986, and died in 1990 at the age of 40. He requested that it be announced after his death that he had died of AIDS, in order to publicize the condition. This was the first show-business death in the United Kingdom openly attributed to AIDS, and helped to promote awareness of the disease.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Ian Charleson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies for Ian Charleson...

Title: Troubles
Character: Major Brendan Archer
Released: May 1, 1988
Type: TV
In 1919, Major Brendan Archer arrives in Ireland to reunite with his fiancée, Angela Spencer. Unfortunately, the family home, The Majestic Hotel, is a decaying shadow of its former self, as is Angela. Puzzled by the changes, Archer's attentions are soon drawn to her lively friend, Sarah Devlin, a passionate Irish Nationalist. They fall in love, but the Major soon discovers some disturbing aspects about their relationship, which threatens to explode into violence, destruction, and murder.
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Codename: Kyril
Title: Codename: Kyril
Character: Ivan Bucharensky - 'Kyril'
Released: March 29, 1988
Type: Movie
At the height of the cold war, a known Russian spy ("Kyril") is sent to the UK under falsely reported pretenses in order to hopefully indirectly spark an unknown mole in the KGB to reveal himself; the endeavor eventually has repercussions which none of the initial players could have predicted.
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Opera
Title: Opera
Character: Marco
Released: December 19, 1987
Type: Movie
A young opera singer is stalked by a deranged fan bent on killing the people associated with her to claim her for himself.
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Car Trouble
Title: Car Trouble
Character: Gerald
Released: February 28, 1986
Type: Movie
In the throes of a midlife crisis, a man buys a new Jaguar, and it immediately becomes his new love. What he doesn't know is that his wife is as attracted to the Jaguar salesman as he is to the car.
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Title: The Sun Also Rises
Character: Mike Campbell
Released: December 9, 1984
Type: TV
Adaptation of the novel by Ernest Hemingway.
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Title: Oxbridge Blues
Character: Victor Geary
Released: November 14, 1984
Type: TV
An anthology series of seven linked plays about the lives of people connected with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
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Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
Title: Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
Character: Jeffson Brown
Released: March 30, 1984
Type: Movie
A shipping disaster in the 19th Century has stranded a man and woman in the wilds of Africa. The lady is pregnant, and gives birth to a son in their tree house. Soon after, a family of apes stumble across the house and in the ensuing panic, both parents are killed. A female ape takes the tiny boy as a replacement for her own dead infant, and raises him as her son. Twenty years later, Captain Phillippe D'Arnot discovers the man who thinks he is an ape. Evidence in the tree house leads him to believe that he is the direct descendant of the Earl of Greystoke, and thus takes it upon himself to return the man to civilization.
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Title: Master of the Game
Character: Jamie MacGregor
Released: February 19, 1984
Type: TV
Elderly Kate Blackwell looks back at her family's life beginning with her Scottish father Jamie McGregor's journey to South Africa to make his fortune in diamonds. The family history is littered with revenge, lust, betrayal, manipulation, and murder.
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Louisiana
Title: Louisiana
Character: Clarence Dandridge
Released: January 25, 1984
Type: Movie
Virginia Tregan returns to her home in the U.S. Deep South from a sojourn in Paris only to discover that her family plantation and its holdings have been lost. She determines to recoup her family's fortune.
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Title: Reilly: Ace of Spies
Character: Lockhart
Released: September 5, 1983
Type: TV
Reilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries dramatizing the life of Sidney Reilly, a Russian Jew who became one of the greatest spies ever to work for the British. Among his exploits, in the early 20th century, were the infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917 and a near-overthrow of the Bolsheviks in 1918. His reputation with women was as legendary as his genius for espionage.
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Ascendancy
Title: Ascendancy
Character: Lt. Ryder
Released: January 1, 1983
Type: Movie
Ascendancy is a 1983 British film. It tells the story of a woman who is a member of the British landowning 'Ascendancy' in Ireland during World War I. Gradually, she learns about the Irish independence movement, and becomes involved with it.
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Gandhi
Title: Gandhi
Character: Reverend Charlie Andrews
Released: December 1, 1982
Type: Movie
In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.
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Something's Got to Give
Title: Something's Got to Give
Character: Ian Arthur
Released: June 19, 1982
Type: Movie
Arthur is a confirmed bachelor. But when he meets Ann Mitchell his fixed attitudes are severely challenged.
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Title: Wogan
Character: Self
Released: May 4, 1982
Type: TV
Wogan is a British television chat show
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Chariots of Fire
Title: Chariots of Fire
Character: Eric Liddell
Released: May 15, 1981
Type: Movie
In the class-obsessed and religiously divided UK of the early 1920s, two determined young runners train for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell, a devout Christian born to Scottish missionaries in China, sees running as part of his worship of God's glory and refuses to train or compete on the Sabbath. Harold Abrahams overcomes anti-Semitism and class bias, but neglects his beloved sweetheart in his single-minded quest.
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Antony & Cleopatra
Title: Antony & Cleopatra
Character: Octavius Caesar
Released: May 8, 1981
Type: Movie
Octavius Caesar (later renamed Augustus Caesar, son of the murdered Julius Caesar), Marc Antony, and Lepidus form the triumvirate, the three rulers of the Roman Empire. Antony, though married to Fulvia, spends his time in Egypt, living a life of decadence and conducting an affair with Queen Cleopatra. In Antony's absence, Caesar and Lepidus worry about Pompey's increasing strength.
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The Search for Alexander the Great
Title: The Search for Alexander the Great
Character: Hephaistion
Released: May 6, 1981
Type: Movie
Friends, contemporaries and even enemies of Alexander the Great gather in a tent to tell his tale through their eyes.
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All's Well That Ends Well
Title: All's Well That Ends Well
Character: Bertram
Released: January 4, 1981
Type: Movie
Helena loves Bertram, but he's of noble birth, while she's just a doctor's daughter. But Bertram is at the court of the King of France, who is ill, and Helena has a remedy that might cure him and win her the right to marry Bertram. But does Bertram want to marry her?
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Title: Lady Killers
Character: Neville Heath
Released: July 20, 1980
Type: TV
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.
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Hamlet
Title: Hamlet
Character: Fortinbras
Released: May 25, 1980
Type: Movie
Hamlet comes home from university to find his uncle married to his mother, and his father's ghost haunting the battlements and scaring the watch. Then his father's ghost directs him to seek revenge.
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Title: BBC Television Shakespeare
Released: December 3, 1978
Type: TV
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 exclusively to the dramatic works of Shakespeare. After encountering numerous problems trying to produce the series, Messina eventually pitched the idea to the BBC’s departmental heads and the series was greenlighted. The series as a whole received generally negative reviews from critics.
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Jubilee
Title: Jubilee
Character: Angel
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 Paradise Run
Title: The Paradise Run
Character: Henry
Released: April 5, 1976
Type: Movie
Johnny has joined the army because he likes canoeing, but ends up in a war-torn city and is compromised into helping the enemy. However, desertion will not be a solution, and he finds himself more distressed than ever.
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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Title: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Released: December 24, 1972
Type: Movie
Television version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.