Kenneth Branagh: Biography

Kenneth Charles Branagh (born December 10, 1960) is a versatile Emmy Award-winning British actor and film director.

 

****

 

Biography

Branagh was born in Belfast but at the age of nine relocated with his family to Reading in England. He received a honorary doctorate in Literature from Queen's University, Belfast in 1990.

 

Branagh has worked on both stage and screen. He received initial acclaim in the UK for his stage performances, including the title role in Hamlet. He is probably best known for his popular film adaptations of the works of William Shakespeare, beginning with Henry V in 1989 and including versions of Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Love's Labour's Lost (2000) and Hamlet (1996). He has also starred in a number of other successful films unrelated to Shakespeare.

 

Branagh has been nominated for four Academy Awards, including two for directing and acting in Henry V and another for the screenplay of Hamlet. He has also won an Emmy Award for his performance in the 2001 TV film Conspiracy.

 

He starred several times with his then wife, Emma Thompson; they were married in 1989, and divorced in 1995. For several years he was in a well-publicised relationship with Helena Bonham Carter, with whom he also starred several times. He married again in 2003, to film art director Lindsay Brunnock.

 

In 1994 Branagh declined to become a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

 

Filmography

 

Selected Filmography (actor)

Warm Springs (2005) as Franklin D. Roosevelt

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) as Professor Gilderoy Lockhart

Shackleton (TV) (2002) as Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton

How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog (2002)

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) as A. O. Neville

Conspiracy (TV) (2001)

Love's Labour's Lost (2000)

The Road to El Dorado (2000) (voice)

Wild Wild West (1999) as Dr. Arliss Loveless

Celebrity (1998)

The Theory of Flight (1998)

Hamlet (1996) as Hamlet

Othello (1995) as Iago

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) as Dr. Victor Frankenstein

Much Ado About Nothing (1993) as Benedick

Swing Kids (1993) as Herr Knopp, Gestapo (uncredited)

Peter's Friends (1992)

Dead Again (1991) as Mike Church, P.I.

Henry V (1989) as Henry V

A Month in the Country (1988) as James Moon

Fortunes of War (TV) (1987)

 

Selected Filmography (director)

The Magic Flute (2006)

As You Like It (2006)

Love's Labour's Lost (2000)

Hamlet (1996)

A Midwinter's Tale (1996)

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

Peter's Friends (1992)

Dead Again (1991)

Henry V (1989)

 

Narrator

Walking with Dinosaurs (UK version) (TV series) (1999)

The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs (UK version) (TV series) (1999)

The Ballad of Big Al (UK version) (TV special) (2001)

Walking with Beasts (UK version) (TV series) (2001)

The Science of Walking with Beasts (Australia) (Two-part TV special) (2001)

CNN Cold War series

 

****

 

The above biography has been copied in part or in whole from an article on Wikipedia.org "The Free Encyclopedia."  It has been modified under the NGU Free Document License Section 5 in the following manner: (1) All links within the article have been removed, including text links such as "[#]"; (2) The "[Edit]" text and link have been removed [if you would like to update the article, you may do so from the original page]; (3) the table of Contents links and text have been removed; and (4) all of the sections of the original article have not been copied. All of the above text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Document License.

URL of Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Branagh

Date Article Copied: January 17, 2006

We will try to replace this article with an original biography in the near future, but we hope this will be of help to our visitors in the mean time.

See something wrong?, Click Here to tell us about it