Brian Blessed

The son of a South Yorkshire coal miner, Brian Blessed was born in 1936 in Mexborough and grew up in the mining village of Goldthorpe. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School before beginning a distinguished and varied career, which has encompassed all media. Brian is now one of this country’s best known and most highly respected actors.

Countless television roles include; ‘Augustus Caesar’ in I CLAUDIUS for which he received the New York Critics Award; ‘PC Fancy Smith’ in Z CARS; ‘Porthos’ in THE THREE MUSKETEERS; ‘Pepone’ in THE LITTLE WORLD OF DON CAMILLO; ‘Spiro’ in MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS; the title role in THE JOY OF BACH, ‘Richard IV’ in BLACK ADDER; and the larger than life ‘Squire Western’ in the BBC’s classic drama series TOM JONES.

On Film, Brian played ‘Talthybius’ in TROJAN WOMEN in which he was thrilled to co-star with Katherine Hepburn, Irene Papas and Vanessa Redgrave. He played ‘Vultan’ in the ever popular FLASH GORDON; ‘Pedro’ in MAN OF LA MANCHA; ‘Long John Silver’ in RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND; ‘General Zukov’ in WAR AND REMEMBRANCE and ‘Lord Locksley’ in ROBIN HOOD PRINCE OF THIEVES with Kevin Costner. In Kenneth Branagh’s HENRY V he played ‘Exeter’, in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING he played ‘Antonio’ and in hamlet he played ‘Hamlet’s Father and the Ghost’.

Brian has a thriving career as a best-selling author. He has written five books; THE TURQUOISE MOUNTAIN, THE DYNAMITE KID, NOTHING’S IMPOSSIBLE, BLESSED EVEREST, an inspiring abbreviated history of Everest, which includes many magnificent photographs and QUEST to the lost world. Brian loves writing and would write a great deal more if he could find the time!

Since the late sixties Brian has had a great love of mountaineering and a great desire to stand on ‘the top of the world’. He has been on three expeditions to Mount Everest. The first to make the film GALAHAD OF EVEREST, a tribute to George Leigh Mallory. In 1993 he returned to Everest, this time to climb the Southern side where he reached a height of 28,000 feet – the highest a man of his age has achieved without oxygen. He returned to the Northern side in 1996 when the climb was filmed by a Channel 4 Television team as part of the ENCOUNTERS series. Brian has also completed a trek to the North Pole, an expedition to The Lost World in Venezuela, and most recently a climb to the summit of Mount Ararat in Turkey at 17,000 feet.