Tom Conti
Tommaso Antonio Conti is a Scottish stage, film and television actor. Conti has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, a Laurence Olivier Award and a National Board of Review Award, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a David di Donatello Award and two Golden Globe Awards.
He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the Laurence Olivier Award for Actor of the Year in a New Play in role in Whose Life Is It Anyway? which he performed on Broadway and the West End in 1978 and 1979. He also directed the Frank D. Gilroy play Last Licks on Broadway. Conti returned to the West End portraying Jeffrey Bernard in the Keith Waterhouse play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell.
Conti received, among other notices and plaudits, nominations for both an Academy Award for Best Actor and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama for Reuben, Reuben. He also acted in such films as The Duellists, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, American Dreamer, Saving Grace, The Quick and the Dead, Shirley Valentine, The Tempest, The Dark Knight Rises, and Paddington 2. Conti portrayed Albert Einstein in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.
Early life
Conti was born on 22 November 1941 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, the son of hairdressers Mary McGoldrick and Alfonso Conti. After being raised Roman Catholic, he described himself as antireligious in 2011. His father was Italian, while his mother was born and raised in Scotland to Irish parents. Conti was educated at independent Catholic boys' school Hamilton Park St Aloysius' College, Glasgow; and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.Career
Conti is a theatre, film, and television actor. He began working with the Dundee Repertory in 1959. He appeared on Broadway in Whose Life Is It Anyway? in 1979, and in London, he played the lead in Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell at the Garrick Theatre. Besides taking the leading role in the TV versions of Frederic Raphael's The Glittering Prizes and Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests, Conti appeared in the "Princess and the Pea" episode of the family television series Faerie Tale Theatre, guest-starred on Friends and Cosby, and played opposite Nigel Hawthorne in a long-running series of Vauxhall Astra car advertisements in the United Kingdom from the early to the mid-1990s.Conti has appeared in such films as Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Reuben, Reuben, American Dreamer, Shirley Valentine, Miracles, Saving Grace, Dangerous Parking, and Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase. Conti's novel The Doctor, about a former secret operations pilot for intelligence services, was published in 2004. According to the foreword, his friend Lynsey De Paul recommended the manuscript to publisher Jeremy Robson.
He appeared in the BBC sitcom Miranda alongside Miranda Hart and Patricia Hodge, as Miranda's father, in the 2010 seasonal episode "The Perfect Christmas". Most recently he portrayed Albert Einstein in Christopher Nolan's 2023 thriller-drama Oppenheimer. The film had one of the most successful opening weekends of 2023, and received wide critical acclaim.
Personal life
Conti has been married to Scottish actress Kara Wilson since 1967. Their daughter Nina is an actress who performs as a ventriloquist. According to Nina, her parents have an open marriage.Conti is a resident of Hampstead in northwest London, having lived in the area for several decades. Conti was part of a campaign against the opening of a Tesco supermarket in nearby Belsize Park. Conti put his Hampstead house up for sale in 2015 for £17.5 million after his long-running opposition to the building plans of his neighbour, the footballer Thierry Henry. Conti had also opposed development plans for Hampstead's Grove Lodge, the 18th-century Grade II listed former home of novelist John Galsworthy.
Conti participated in a genetic-mapping project conducted by the company ScotlandsDNA. In 2012, Conti and the company announced that Conti shares a genetic marker with Napoléon Bonaparte. Conti said that he "burst out laughing" when told he was related to Napoléon on his father's side.
Political views
Conti considered running as the Conservative candidate in the 2008 London mayoral election, but ultimately did not, and in the following election, in 2012, he supported the unsuccessful independent candidate Siobhan Benita. In the run up to the 2015 general election, Conti said in an interview published in several newspapers that he was once a Labour supporter but had come to view socialism as a "religion" with a "vicious, hostile spirit".Work
Film
Galileo as Andrea Sarti Slade in Flame as Robert SeymourThe Duellists as Dr. JacquinFull Circle as Mark BerkeleyEclipse as Tom / GeoffreyMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence as Col. John LawrenceReuben, Reuben as Gowan McGlandAmerican Dreamer as Alan McMannMiracles as RogerSaving Grace as Pope Leo XIVHeavenly Pursuits as Vic MathewsThe Quick and The Dead as Duncan McKaskelBeyond Therapy as StuartTwo Brothers Running as Moses BornsteinThat Summer of White Roses as Andrija GavrilovicShirley Valentine as CostasCaccia Alla Vedova as Conte Angelo di BosconeroSomeone Else's America as AlonsoSub Down as Harry RheinhartdtSomething to Believe In as Monsignor CalogeroOut of Control as EddieDon't Go Breaking My Heart as Dr. FiedlerThe Enemy as Insp. John CregarDerailed as Eliot FirthRabbit Fever as Prof RosenbergPaid as RudiAlmost Heaven as Bert GordonO Jerusalem as Sir CunninghamDangerous Parking as Doc BakerDeeply Irresponsible as NateA Closed Book as Sir PaulThe Tempest as GonzaloRekindle as Dr. Monty AdamsStreetdance 2 as ManuRun for Your Wife The Dark Knight Rises as PrisonerCity Slacker as RayPaddington 2 as Judge Gerald BiggleswadeOppenheimer as Albert EinsteinTelevision
Boy Meets Girl as FrankThirty-Minute Theatre - Revolutions: Fidel Castro as Che GuevaraAdam Smith as Dr. CalviZ Cars as Gordon MorleyBarlow at Large as MyersSam as David EllisFall of Eagles as GlazkovThriller as Bruno VarellaMadame Bovary as Charles BovaryThe Glittering Prizes as Adam MorrisThe Norman Conquests as NormanBlade on the Feather as Daniel YoungThe Wall as Dolek BersonFaerie Tale Theatre as Prince RichardNazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story as Serge KlarsfeldThe Dumb Waiter The Quick and the Dead as Duncan McKaskelRoman Holiday as Joe BradleyFatal Judgement as Pat PiscitelliVoices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase as Doctor 'Stanley' PhillipsThe Old Boy Network as Lucas FryeThe Wright Verdicts as Charles WrightThe Inheritance as Henry HamiltonFriends as Stephen WalthamCosby as William ShakespeareDeadline as Si BeekmanI Was a Rat as Bob JonesAndy Pandy as Narrator DNA as Joe DonovanFour Seasons as Charles CombeLark Rise to Candleford as William Bourne / Mr. ReppingtonMiranda as CharlesParents as Len MillerRosemary's Baby Doc Martin as Dr Bernard NewtonStage
Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell Whose Life is it Anyway?SavagesThe Devil's DiscipleThey're Playing Our SongThe Real ThingAn Italian Straw Hat The Ride Down Mt. MorganChapter TwoJesus, My Boy Present LaughterRomantic ComedyRough Justice- ''Twelve Angry Men''