Born December 31, 1937 in Margam, near Port Talbot, Wales, he is the only child of Muriel and Richard Hopkins. His father was a baker. He was educated at Cowbridge Grammar School. At 17 he wandered into a WMCA amateur theatrical production and knew immediately that he was in the right place. With newfound enthusiasm, combined with proficiency at the piano, he won a scholarship to the Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff where he studied for two years (1955-57).
He entered the British Army in 1958 for mandatory military training, spending most of the two-year tour of duty clerking in the Royal Artillery unit at Bulford.
In 1960 he joined the Manchester Library Theater as an assistant stage manager, then went to the Nottingham Repertory Company where he was advised to seek further training as an actor. Hopkins auditioned for Londons Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1961 and was accepted on a scholarship. He graduated a Silver Medalist in 1963 and promptly joined the Phoenix Theater in Leicester. His next move was to the Liverpool Playhouse and Hornchurch Repertory Company.
In 1965 he was invited to audition for Sir Laurence Olivier, then director of the National Theater at the Old Vic. Two years later, Hopkins was Oliviers understudy in Strindbergs Dance of Death. Hopkins made his film debut in 1967, playing Richard the Lionhearted in The Lion in Winter, starring Peter OToole and Katherine Hepburn. He received a British Academy Award nomination and the film received an Academy Award as Best Picture.
American television viewers discovered Hopkins in the 1973 production on ABC of Leon Uris QBVII, the first mini-series, in which he played the knighted Polish-born British physician Adam Kelno who is ultimately destroyed by his wartime past. The following year he starred on Broadway in the National Theatre production of Equus, and later mounted another production of the play in Los Angeles where he lived for nearly ten years, working extensively in American films and television.
After starring as Captain Bligh in The Bounty (1984), he returned to England and the National Theatre in David Hares Pravda, for which he received the British Theatre Associations Best Actor Award and The Observer Award for Outstanding Achievement at the 1985 Laurence Olivier Awards. During this time at the National he starred in Anthony and Cleopatra and King Lear.
Anthony Hopkins received an Academy Award as Best Actor for his performance in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and was subsequently nominated in the same category for his performances in The Remains of the Day (1993) and Nixon (1995). He was also given the Best Actor award by the British Academy of Film & Television Arts for The Remains of the Day. In 1993 he starred in Richard Attenboroughs Shadowlands with Debra Winger, winning numerous critics awards in the U.S. and Britain. In 1998 he was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Amistad.
Anthony Hopkins was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queens Honours List, June 1987. He received a knighthood in 1993.
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- 31st December 1937 - Birth