Antony Sher

Anthony Sher born 14 June 1949

Sir Antony Sher is a British actor, novelist and painter.

Sher has a South African background, being born into a Lithuanian-Jewish family in Cape Town, but he has worked mainly in the United Kingdom and is now a British citizen.

In 1968, after completing his compulsory military service, he left for London to audition at the Central School of Speech and Drama, but was unsuccessful. Instead, he studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art from 1969 to 1971. After training, and some early performances with the theatre group Gay Sweatshop, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982.

His big breakthrough came in 1985, when he played the title role in Shakespeare's Richard III. This won him the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award. Since then he has played the lead in many big productions, including Tamburlaine, Cyrano de Bergerac, Stanley, and Macbeth.

Despite his success, a shy and insecure Sher turned to cocaine as an antidote and by 1996 spent three weeks in rehabilitation.

In 1997, his portrayal of Disraeli in the film Mrs Brown was well received, and he won his second Laurence Olivier Award for his role as Stanley Spencer.

In television, he starred in the miniseries The History Man (1981) and The Jury (2002).

In 2005 he and his partner, the director Greg Doran, became one of the first gay couples to form a civil partnership in Britain.

On 30th January 2007, he was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Warwick.

Antony Sher's books include the memoirs Woza Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus in South Africa, with Gregory Doran (1997), Year of the King (1985), Beside Myself (2002), Characters (1990), and Primo Time (2005); the novels, Cheap Lives (1995), The Indoor Boy (1996), Middlepost (1989), and The Feast (1999); and the play ID (2003).