Ben Kingsley

Birthday: 31 December 1943, Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, UK

Height: 5' 8" (1.73 m)

Biography

Ben Kingsley was born in England. His father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, was of Gujrati descent. Ben began to act in stage plays during the 1960s. He soon became a successful stage actor, and also began to have roles in films and TV. His birth name was Krishna Bhanji - but he changed his name to "Ben Kingsley" soon after gaining fame as a stage actor, fearing that a foreign name could hamper his acting career.

Ben Kingsley first earned international fame for his performance in the 1982 movie, Gandhi (1982). His performance as "Mohandas Gandhi" earned him international fame. He won many awards - including an Oscar for Best Actor. He also won Golden Globe, BAFTA and London Film Critics' Circle Awards. After acting in Gandhi (1982), Ben was recognized as one of the finest British actors.

After his international fame for appearing in Gandhi (1982), Kingsley appeared in many other famous movies. His success as an actor continued. In 1993, his performance as "Itzhak Stern" in the movie, Schindler's List (1993) earned him a BAFTA nomination. Schindler's List (1993) won seven Oscars, including Best Picture. During the late 1990s, Kingsley acted in many successful movies. He played "Sweeney Todd" in the 1998 TV movie, The Tale of Sweeney Todd (1997) (TV). For his performance in this movie, he was nominated for the Screen Actors' Guild Award. His other notable role was as "Otto Frank" in the TV movie "Anne Frank: The Whole Story" (2001), for which he won a Screen Actors' Guild Award.

Ben Kingsley lives in Spelsbury, Oxfordshire, in England 

Kingsley studied at the University of Salford and at Pendleton College, which later became home to the Ben Kingsley Theatre.
Whilst at college he became involved in amateur dramatics in Manchester, making his professional stage debut on graduation, aged 23. In 1967 he made his London West End theatre debut at the Aldwych Theatre. Later spotted by music producer and manager Dick James, he offered to mould Kingsley into a pop star, but Kinglsey chose to join the Royal Shakespeare Company after an audition in front of Trevor Nunn.
Devoting himself almost exclusively to stage work for the next 15 years, he made his Broadway debut in 1971 with the RSC. Kingsley played Mosca in Peter Hall's 1977 production of Ben Jonson's Volpone for the Royal National Theatre, and in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. At about this time, he changed his name from Krishna Pandit Bhanji to Ben Kingsley, fearing that a foreign name would hamper his career;^[13][14] he took his stage surname from his paternal grandfather's nickname, "King Clove".^[11] He also starred in the role of Willy Loman in a 1982 production of Death of a Salesman in Sydney, Australia opposite Mel Gibson.

Film and television career

Kingsley(left) with Ben Cross (centre) and Chandran Rutnam (right) at Fort Railway Station in Sri Lanka, during shooting of the Rutnam-directed film A Common Man.

Kingsley made the transition to film roles early on, with his first role coming in Fear Is the Key, released in 1972. Kingsley continued starring in bit roles in both film and television, including a role as Ron Jenkins on the soap opera Coronation Street from 1966 to 1967 and regular appearances as a defence counsel in the long-running British legal programme Crown Court. In 1975, he starred as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the BBCs historical drama The Love School. He found fame only years later, starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the Academy Award-winning film Gandhi in 1982, his best-known role to date.^[13] The audience agreed with the critics, and Gandhi was a box-office success. Kingsley won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal.^[13]

Kingsley at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2012

Kingsley has since appeared in a variety of roles. His credits included the films Turtle Diary, Maurice, Pascali's Island, Without a Clue (as Dr. Watson alongside Michael Caine's Sherlock Holmes), Suspect Zero, Bugsy (nominated for Best Supporting Actor), Sneakers, Dave, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Schindler's List, Silas Marner, Death and the Maiden, Sexy Beast, for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and House of Sand and Fog, which led to an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He won a Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2001.
In 1997, he provided voice talent for the video game Ceremony of Innocence. In 1998, he was the head of the jury at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival.^[15]
In July 2006, he received an Emmy nomination for his performance in the made-for-TV film Mrs. Harris, in which he played famed cardiologist Herman Tarnower, who was murdered by his jilted lover, Jean Harris. Later that year, Kingsley appeared in an episode of The Sopranos entitled "Luxury Lounge", playing himself. In the show, Christopher Moltisanti and Carmine Lupertazzi offer him a role in the fictional slasher film Cleaver, which he turns down. Lupertazzi offers him the role on the basis of Kingsley's real-life performance in Sexy Beast.
In 2007, Kingsley appeared as a Polish American mobster in the Mafia comedy You Kill Me, and a hitman in War, Inc. In 2010, Kingsley has worked voicing a character named Sabine in Lionhead Studios game Fable III, and starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island, directed by Martin Scorsese. He appeared in Scorsese's next film, Hugo, and has signed up to appear in the new feature by Neil Jordan and John Boorman entitled Broken Dream.^[