To many Jane Austen lovers, Colin Firth is Mr. Darcy. Though he had been acting for years before, Firth became famous "overnight," when he starred in the BBC television mini-series Pride and Prejudice.
Born September 10, 1960, in Grayshott, Hampshire, UK, Firth lived in Nigeria with his parents until he was four years old. He studied drama in London, and made his professional stage debut in 1983 replacing Rupert Everett as Guy Bennett in Another Country. He went on to make the film of that play, this time playing Tommy Judd opposite Everett's Bennett. In 1989, Firth had his first starring film role, in Valmont, and that same year, he received rave reviews for his portrayal of real-life Scottish soldier Robert Lawrence who had been left paralyzed in Tumbledown.
Firth has garnered rave reviews on the stage for his performance in the London premiere of Three Days of Rain (1999) and in a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet (2001).
Firth and his wife, Livia Giuggioli, have two sons. Firth also has a son from a former relationship with actress Meg Tilly.
Best Known As: Mr. Darcy in the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice
Colin Firth made female fans swoon as the darkly dashing Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC TV production of Pride and Prejudice. The film was a huge hit and launched Firth on a prosperous decade of movie roles: as a betrayed husband in The English Patient (1996, with Kristin Scott Thomas); as the villainous Lord Wessex in Shakespeare in Love (1998, with Gwyneth Paltrow); as the lawyerly love interest Mark Darcy opposite Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001, and in the 2004 sequel); as struggling artist Jan Vermeer in Girl With a Pearl Earring (2003, with Scarlett Johansson); as the lovelorn novelist Jamie in Love, Actually (2003, with Hugh Grant and a cast of thousands); and as a father of seven in the puckish Nanny McPhee (2006, with Emma Thompson). Firth often plays glowering, passionate men whose reticence hides an essential goodness, but he has played a smattering of cads in films like Circle of Friends (1995). He also has appeared often on the London stage, training at the London Drama Centre and performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and at the Old Vic.
Firth is 6'1" tall, according to the celebrity site Tiscali... Pride and Prejudice was adapted from the 1813 book by Jane Austen... Firth played William Shakespeare in Blackadder Back & Forth, a short film made for London's Millennium Dome in 1999... His character in Bridget Jones's Diary, Mark Darcy, was named by author Helen Fielding as a nod to Pride and Prejudice... Firth married the former Livia Giuggioli in 1997. They have two sons, Luca (b. 2001) and Mateo (b. 2003). Firth also has a son, Will (b. 1990), by actress Meg Tilly.
Born: Sep 10, 1960 in Grayshott, Hampshire, England
Occupation: Actor
Active: '80s-2000s
Major Genres: Drama, Comedy
Career Highlights: Pride and Prejudice, Another Country, Playmaker
First Major Screen Credit: Another Country (1984)
Biography
As Mr. Darcy in the acclaimed 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Colin Firth induced record increases in estrogen levels on both sides of the Atlantic. Imbuing his role as one of literature's most obstinate lovers with surly, understated charisma, Firth caused many a viewer to wonder where he had been for so long, even though he had in fact been appearing in television and film for years.
The son of two university lecturers, Firth was born in England's Hampshire county on September 10, 1960. Part of his early childhood was spent in Nigeria with missionary grandparents, but he returned for schooling in his native country and eventually enrolled in the Drama Centre in Chalk Farm. While playing Hamlet in a school production during his final term, the actor was discovered, and he went on to make his London stage debut in the West End production of Julian Mitchell's Another Country. Starring opposite Rupert Everett, Firth played Tommy Judd, a character based on spy-scandal figurehead Donald Maclean (Everett played Guy Bennett, based on real-life spy Guy Burgess). He went on to reprise his role for the play's 1984 film version, again playing opposite Everett.
Despite such an auspicious beginning to his career, Firth spent the rest of the decade and half of the next working in relative obscurity; he starred in a number of television productions -- including the highly acclaimed 1993 Hostages -- and worked steadily in film. Some of his more notable work included A Month in the Country, in which he played a World War I veteran opposite Kenneth Branagh and Natasha Richardson, and Valmont, Milos Forman's 1989 adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, in which Firth starred in the title role. The film also provided him with an introduction to co-star Meg Tilly, with whom he had a son.
However, it was not until he again donned breeches and a waistcoat that Firth started to emerge from the shadows of BBC programming. With his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the popular TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Firth was propelled into the media spotlight, touted in a number of articles as the latest in the long line of thinking women's crumpets; he was further rewarded for his work with a BAFTA award. The same year, he appeared as an amorous cad in the similarly popular Circle of Friends and went on the next year to appear as Kristin Scott Thomas' cuckolded husband in The English Patient. Firth garnered praise for his role in the film, which went on to win international acclaim and Academy Awards.
After a turn as a morally ambiguous man who gets involved with both Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer in A Thousand Acres, Firth took a comically sinister turn as Gwyneth Paltrow's intended husband in the 1998 Shakespeare in Love. The following year, he starred in two very different movies: My Life So Far, a tale of family dysfunction in the Scottish Highlands, and Fever Pitch, initially released in the U.K. in 1997, in which Firth played a rabid English football fan forced to choose between his love of the sport and the woman in his life.
Headlining the low-key comedy My Life So Far the following year, Firth's performance as the father of a family living in a post World War I British estate was only one of five roles that the busy actor would essay that particular year (including that of William Shakespeare in Blackadder Back and Forth). His finale of the year -- Donovan Quick -- offered a memorable updating of the legend of Don Quixote with Firth himself in the titular role. Firth's supporting role in the 2001 comedy Bridget Jones's Diary preceded a more weighty performance in the chilling drama Conspiracy, with the former earning him a BAFTA nomination and the latter an Emmy nod. Comic performances in Londinium (2001) and The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) found Firth continuing to maintain his reputation as one of England's most talented comic exports, and if his lead in 2003's Hope Springs failed to capitalize on his recent string of success, his role as teen starlet Amanda Bynes' celluloid father in What a Girl Wants (2003) at least endeared him to a new generation of moviegoers before the adult-oriented drama Girl With a Pearl Earring hit theaters later that same year. After rounding out the busy year with a return to romantic comedy in Love Actually, Firth kicked off 2004 with a turn as a haunted widower in Trauma while preparing to return to familiar territory in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
Colin Andrew Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English film, television and stage actor. Firth first gained wide public attention, especially in England, for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the highly acclaimed 1995 television adaption of Pride and Prejudice. He subsequently achieved film stardom with the international box-office success of Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), where he co-starred with Hugh Grant and Renée Zellweger.
Following these earlier roles, it was in the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice that Firth gained wider renown. The serial was a major international success, and Firth became known as a heartthrob because of his role as Fitzwilliam Darcy. This performance also made him the object of affection for fictional journalist Bridget Jones (created by Helen Fielding), an interest which carried on into the two novels featuring the Jones character. In the second novel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the character even meets Firth in Rome. As something of an in-joke, when the novels were adapted for the cinema, Firth was cast as Jones's love interest, Mark Darcy. Continuing this in-joke there was a dog called Mr Darcy in the film St. Trinian's which Firth's character accidentally kills.
He has also appeared in several television productions, including Donovan Quick (an updated version of Don Quixote) (1999) and Conspiracy (2001), for which he received an Emmy nomination. Colin Firth's most recent role is in the Toronto International Film Festival debuted film, Genova.[10]
Firth is also a Jury Member for the ongoing Filmaka amateur short film contest.
He served as executive producer for the 2007 documentary produced by his wife, Livia Giuggioli, In Prison My Whole Life. The film questions the trial proceedings and evidence used against political activist and former Black Panther member, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on death row for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner.
Writer
Firth's first published work, "The Department of Nothing", appeared in Speaking with the Angel (2000).[11] This collection of short stories was edited by Nick Hornby[12] and was published to benefit the TreeHouse Trust,[13] in aid of autistic children. Firth had previously met Hornby during the filming of the original Fever Pitch.[14][15]
Personal life
Firth at the Nanny McPhee London premiere in October 2005
In 1989, Firth entered into a romantic relationship with actress Meg Tilly his co-star in Valmont. In 1990, she gave birth to a son, Will Firth, and they made their home in British Columbia. He still stays in contact with Will and with Tilly's other children for whom he was a surrogate father. In 1994, after he and Tilly had separated, Firth became involved with actress Jennifer Ehle, his co-star in Pride and Prejudice. Firth lives in both London and Italy and is married to Italian film producer/director Livia Giuggioli.[16] They have two sons, Luca (born March 2001) and Matteo (born August 2003).
Firth has been involved in a campaign to stop the deportation of a group of asylum seekers, because he believed that they might be murdered on their return to the Democratic Republic of Congo.[17] Firth argued that "To me it's just basic civilisation to help people. I find this incredibly painful to see how we dismiss the most desperate people in our society. It's easily done. It plays to the tabloids, to the Middle-Englandxenophobes. It just makes me furious. And all from a government we once had such high hopes for".[18] As a result of the campaign, a Congolese nurse was given a last-minute reprieve from deportation.[19]
Firth has been a long-standing supporter of Survival International, a charity which defends the rights of tribal peoples.[20] Speaking in 2001, he said, "My interest in tribal peoples goes back many years... and I have supported [Survival] ever since."[21]
Firth has also been involved in the Oxfam global campaign Make Trade Fair,[22] in which several other celebrities participated as well in order to bring more attention to the issues involved.[23] The campaign has focused on several trade practices seen as unfair to third world producers especially, including dumping, high import tariffs, and labour rights such as fair wages. Firth remains deeply committed to this cause, making efforts such as supporting fair trade coffee in his daily life, as he believes "[i]f you're going to sustain commitment to any of this, ... [y]ou've got to get involved on an ordinary every day basis."[24] He has further contributed to this cause by opening (with a few collaborators) an eco-friendly shop in West London, Eco.[25] The shop offers fair trade and eco-friendly goods, as well as expert advice on making spaces more energy efficient.
In a 2006 interview with French magazine Madame Figaro,[26] Firth was asked "Quelles sont les femmes de votre vie?" (Who are the women in your life?). Firth replied: "Ma mère, ma femme et Jane Austen" (My mother, my wife and Jane Austen). He was awarded an honorary degree on 19 October 2007 from the University of Winchester.
Singing career
Firth has performed songs in many of his films, the most recent being Mamma Mia!. He performs the song "Lady Come Down" alongside Rupert Everett in The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as one song in St. Trinian's with Everett which appeared in the credits, an adaptation of "Love Is in the Air".
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