People from Mexborough - Mike Hawthorn, Dennis Priestley, Brian Blessed, Lee Mills, Luke Foster, Donald Watson, Dan Clarke, Kevin McHale (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Mike Hawthorn, Dennis Priestley, Brian Blessed, Lee Mills, Luke Foster, Donald Watson, Dan Clarke, Kevin Mchale, Graham Oliver, Lionel Smith, Keith Barron, Peter Hart, Sarban, Tony Capstick, Ian Banks, Harold Massingham, Kenneth Haigh, Roy Massey, William Hague. Excerpt: Brian Blessed Brian Blessed (pronounced / bl s d/; born 9 October 1936, Mexborough, Yorkshire, England ) is an English actor, author and adventurer . He is known for his loud, booming voice and "hearty, king-sized portrayals." Early life The son of William Blessed, a socialist miner, and Hilda Wall, Blessed was born in the village of Mexborough in Yorkshire, England . He attended Bolton on Dearne Secondary Modern School, but was forced to leave school early and spent several years working at a variety of jobs, ranging from undertaker to plasterer's assistant to time in the RAF . He began his training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School . He has written about his early life in his autobiography, Dynamite Kid (1992). Career His first well-known role was that of PC 'Fancy' Smith in the BBC police drama Z Cars from 1962 to 1965. In 1966 Mr Blessed appeared in "Incident at Vichy" at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Blessed had small roles in such cult shows as The Avengers (1967, 1969) and the original Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969). He portrayed Caesar Augustus in the BBC series I, Claudius, for which performance he won the New York Critics Award. He portrayed the father of Robin Hood, Lord Locksley, in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves . He has appeared in a number of Shakespearean roles on both stage and screen, including four of the five Shakespeare films directed by Kenneth Branagh: as The Duke of Exeter in Henry V (1989), Antonio in Much Ado About Nothing (1993), The Ghost of Hamlet'...