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Brian Blessed (pronounced //, or in the tradition of English poetry, blessèd, born October 9, 1937) is an English actor, who came to fame as PC 'Fancy' Smith in the BBC TV police drama series Z Cars. He is a charismatic man with a booming voice and robust build who often plays powerful men in Shakespearian and medieval dramas. The son of a miner, he was born in the ex-mining town of Mexborough and grew up in the nearby town of Goldthorpe South Yorkshire.

He has been criticised for what his critics see as his use of shouting as an all-purpose characterization technique and was described by one magazine as "the loudest man alive", but this assessment disregards his greater skills, which have earned him a reputation as a great British actor and cult figure, especially to the b3ta messageboard community. Offstage he is said to be quite shy, but also a dazzling and energetic raconteur. He currently provides the vocal links on the Sony Award-winning Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio.

Blessed is also an adventurer. On three occasions, he has tried to climb Mount Everest (though he never reached the summit), and climbed higher than any other man of his age (56 years at the time; his height record was broken by Yuichiro Miura, aged 70, in 2003) during one attempt in 1993. He was on the mountain on May 10, 1996, when 12 climbers were killed in a sudden late-afternoon blizzard, though Blessed was safe at his base camp that day. He has successfully climbed Aconcagua in Argentina as well as Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

Blessed currently lives in Surrey. He is married to the actress Hildegarde Neil and has a daughter, Rosalind Blessed, who is also an actress.

Blessed is generally regarded as a hero of Shakespeare, as well as an immensely entertaining and often satirised comic figure, mainly because of his instantly recognisable voice. His role in Blackadder was something of a comic version of his characteristic Shakespearian roles.

In 2002, under the direction of Royal Shakespeare Company director, Adrian Noble, Blessed orignated the role of Baron Bombhurst for the stage musical version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for which he received tremendous acclaim.

Blessed is also known for his footballing (soccer) knowledge and appeared as a pundit on the British satellite station UK Gold during the 2006 World Cup.

Selected roles

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1937 births | Avengers actors | Blackadder actors | English actors | English film actors | English television actors | British film actors | British stage actors | British television actors | Doctor Who actors | English mountain climbers | Kingdom Hearts voice actors | Living people | MacGyver actors | Star Wars actors | Blake's 7 actors | Royal Shakespeare Company members | Space 1999 actors | Doncastrians

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Brian Blessed".

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