Michael Hordern

A distinguished, long-faced character player, often of rumpled establishment figures, Sir Michael Hordern, in the English tradition, worked with equal ease both on stage and before the cameras. He played King Lear (onstage and on TV), Prospero in "The Tempest" (for both mediums) and Macbeth (he was Banquo on film and TV), and he created the central role of the flustered philosopher in the original London production of Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers" (1972). However, he became a star for his supporting turns, portraying an assortment of parsons and vicars, headmasters and barristers in a career that spanned practically 100 films and almost as many TV appearances. Knighted in 1983, he delighted audiences that same year in "The Rivals" at the National Theatre, eating his eggs while silently and passionately lusting after his son's fiancee.