SIR Michael Hordern, one of Britain's leading actors, has died at the
age of 83.
He died ''peacefully'' yesterday afternoon at The Churchill Hospital,
Oxford after long illness. A hospital spokeswoman said the actor had
been receiving dialysis treatment.
His roles ranged from playing King Lear to providing the voice for
Paddington Bear.
He was born on October 3, 1911, to a family whose traditions were
partly naval but mostly clerical.
He began a career as a schoolteacher but this lasted only two terms
until an attack of polio.
He then became a commercial traveller for the Educational Supply
Association for five years, during which time he took up amateur
dramatics.
Eventually, acting was taking up so much of his time that he decided
to become an actor, undaunted by his lack of formal training.
Sir Michael was advised to do some repertory work which led to two
45-week seasons with the Little Theatre, Bristol, and a meeting with
actress Eve Mortimer, whom he married in 1943.
With the outbreak of war he volunteered for the Navy and reached the
rank of Lieutenant Commander.
It was a performance as Chekov's Ivanov in the Arts Theatre, London,
that brought him his first critical acclaim.
The stage took up the largest portion of his time and he played some
of the wordiest parts in the language, from Shakespeare's Prospero and
Lear -- in which he played the lead three times -- to distracted George
in Tom Stoppard's Jumpers.
In all he appeared in more than 80 theatre productions and more than
60 film roles.
In 1972 he was awarded the CBE and he was knighted in 1983.
He made several memorable television appearances and his voice became
familiar to viewers through the many commercial voice-overs he did.
He also narrated the children's story Paddington Bear and made
recordings as Badger in Wind in the Willows.
Fishing was a passion for him. He had many fishing rods and hundreds
of flies which he made himself.
Such was his skill that a leading anglers' catalogue lists a Michael
Horden Nymph, which he regarded as a great accolade.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article