Nigel Hawthorne Sir Nigel Hawthorne, CBE (5 April 1929 - 26 December 2001) was a renowned English actor. He was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, although he grew up in South Africa, where he was educated by the Christian Brothers. He returned to the United Kingdom in the 1950s to attend university.
In a long and varied career, which began with an advert for Mackeson stout and a bit part in Dad's Army, his most famous roles were as Sir Humphrey Appleby in the TV series, Yes, Minister (and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister), and as King George III in Alan Bennett's stage play The Madness of George III (Olivier Award) and its film adaptation, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
He was appointed a CBE in 1987, and was knighted in 1999.
An intensely private individual, he was deeply saddened when he was involuntarily "outed" as a homosexual in the run-up to the Oscars.
He had several surgeries for pancreatic cancer, although his immediate cause of death was from a heart attack, aged 72.
He wrote a candid autobiography, Straight Face, which was published posthumously.
Richard III (1995)
