Robert Stephens
Birthday: 1931-07-14 Place of Birth: Bristol, England, UK
Synopsis
Sir Robert Stephens (14 July 1931 – 12 November 1995) was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre. He was one of the most respected actors of his generation and was at one time regarded as the natural successor to Laurence Olivier. While very acting on stage his whole life, he also participated in more than 100 theatrical films and TV series episodes. He was married to actress Maggie Smith between 1967 and 1974. They had two children together, who both have become actors: Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin. Following years of ill health, he died on 12 November 1995 at the age of 64 due to complications during surgery, eleven months after having been knighted. Description above partly from the Wikipedia article Robert Stephens, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Acting
Dandelion Dead
This is a dramatisation of the true story of Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong, a solicitor and magistrate's clerk who lived in the small Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. In 1921 he was arrested and charged with poisoning his domineering wife, Catherine, and later attempting to poison a business rival, Oswald Martin, by administering arsenic to them. At his trial, Armstrong claimed that he had bought the arsenic simply to kill the dandelions on his lawn. However he was convicted of murder and executed in 1922.
Dandelion Dead
This is a dramatisation of the true story of Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong, a solicitor and magistrate's clerk who lived in the small Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. In 1921 he was arrested and charged with poisoning his domineering wife, Catherine, and later attempting to poison a business rival, Oswald Martin, by administering arsenic to them. At his trial, Armstrong claimed that he had bought the arsenic simply to kill the dandelions on his lawn. However he was convicted of murder and executed in 1922.
Century
Turn-of-the-century love story centered around a young doctor and the emergence of modern science.
Afraid of the Dark
A little boy, obsessed with blindness and violence, slowly gets trapped in his own delusions.
Adam Bede
Rich and languorous, this adaptation of George Eliot's classic tale perfectly evokes rural England in the 18th Century. But beneath the tranquil surface of this pastoral idyll run deep passions and the bitter gall of betrayal.
Wings of Fame
A famous movie actor claims that he has written a book. As result, a real author, not a very well known writer, vengefully kills him but then dies as a result of an accident. Next, they both find themselves in after-life, where souls of all famous people are gathered.
Fortunes of War
Fortunes of War is a 1987 BBC television adaptation of Olivia Manning's cycle of novels Fortunes of War. It stars Kenneth Branagh as Guy Pringle, lecturer in English Literature in Bucharest during the early part of the Second World War, and Emma Thompson as his wife Harriet. Other cast members included Ronald Pickup, Robert Stephens, Alan Bennett, Philip Madoc and Rupert Graves. The series stays relatively faithful to the original novels, with no notable departures from their plot.
High Season
On the isle of Rhodes, Katherine, an expatriate English photographer, lives with her daughter. A young local wants to encourage tourism, so he commissions a sculpture of the Unknown Tourist for the town square; the sculptor he brings to Rhodes is Kate's ex-husband. Also there to see Kate is Sharp, an aging antiquarian and her dear friend. He has something important to tell her. As Kate, her ex, and Sharp sort out things that go back years, two English tourists bumble about, one thinking he's fallen in love with Kate, his wife thinking she's found her own lover. A rare vase, a spy, old friendships, the statue's unveiling, and off-hand English sorting-out play into the resolution.
Puccini
In Torre del Lago, by Lake Massaciuccoli, Puccini is writing "The Girl of the Golden West" when his wife Elvira accuses him of a dalliance with their maid, Doria Manfredi, a young women from town. Although the maestro is frequently unfaithful, he denies the affair; Elvira insists she's right and publicly hounds Doria. Between scenes in this domestic drama that turns tragic, we watch a Scottish company rehearse and stage "Turandot," Puccini's last opera. The film finds parallels between the two stories and suggests that in the opera, Puccini expresses love for his wife and guilt in Doria's fate. Three local gentlemen provide a spoken chorus as Puccini's score plays throughout.
The Winter's Tale
The jealous King Leontes falsely accuse his wife Hermione of infidelity with his best friend, and she dies. Leontes exiles his newborn daughter Perdita, who is raised by shepherds for sixteen years and falls in love with the son of Leontes' friend. When Perdita returns home, a statue of Hermione "comes to life", and everyone is reconciled.
The Shout
A traveller by the name of Crossley forces himself upon a musician and his wife in a lonely part of Devon, and uses the aboriginal magic he has learned to displace his host.
Holocaust
Berlin, Germany, 1935. The day Karl Weiss, a Jewish painter, and Inga Helms, a Christian woman, marry, is the one in which both of them and the entire Weiss family are caught up in the maelstrom of the Nazi regime, the storms of World War II and the horrors of the criminal Final Solution, the Holocaust, the Shoah; while Erik Dorf, an ambitious lawyer, undertakes his fall into hell at the hands of the sinister Reinhard Heydrich.
The Duellists
In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.
QB VII
A physician sues a novelist for publishing statements implicating the doctor in Nazi war crimes.
Travels with My Aunt
At his mother's funeral, stuffy bank clerk Henry Pulling meets his Aunt Augusta, an elderly eccentric with more-than-shady dealings who pulls him along on a whirlwind adventure as she attempts to rescue an old lover.
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Holmes and Dr. Watson take on the case of a beautiful woman whose husband has vanished. The investigation proves strange indeed, involving six missing midgets, villainous monks, a Scottish castle, the Loch Ness monster, and covert naval experiments.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12-year-old charges with her over-romanticized worldview.
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love against the wishes of their feuding families. Driven by their passion, the young lovers defy their destiny and elope, only to suffer the ultimate tragedy.
Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment
Morgan, an aggressive and self-admitted dreamer, a fantasist who uses his flights of fancy as refuge from external reality, where his unconventional behavior lands him in a divorce from his wife, Leonie, trouble with the police and, ultimately, incarceration in a lunatic asylum.
Pirates of Tortuga
After a lengthy voyage, Capt. Bart docks his ship in a London harbor and is given a new mission by British Admiralty: capture the notorious Henry Morgan, a pirate who has been wreaking havoc throughout the Caribbean. After recruiting some former shipmates for his crew, Capt. Bart sets sail in search of the infamous buccaneer, and is joined by a beautiful female stowaway in the process.
Circle of Deception
Unbeknownst to him, a soldier is sent on a doomed mission because of the high likelihood of him divulging secrets if captured and tortured.
