Award-winning actor and theatre director, born in London as Arthur John Gielgud. In 1953 had the misfortune of being in a tearoom bust - he was arrested for "importuning" another man. He paid a fine equivalent to twenty dollars, and returned to his role in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. He got the Oscar for playing the caustic butler, Hobson in Arthur. Since 1974 he lived with his lover Martin Hensler.

Theatre: The Cherry Orchard The Ages of Man The Best of Friends TV: Brideshead Revisited Merlin Books: An Actor and His Time (autobiography)

Films: Who's the Man (1924) Secret Agent (1936) The Prime Minister (1941) Julius Ceasar (1953) Becket The shoes of the Fisherman (1968) Sebastian (1968) The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) Assignment to Kill (1968) Murder on the Orient Express (1974) Providence (1977) Elephant Man (1980), Chariots of Fire (1981) Arthur (1981) Gandhi (1982) The Shooting Party (1984) Prospero's Books (1991) First Knight (1995) Shine (1996) Haunted (1996) Elizabeth (1998)