Simon Callow Biography

Fast Facts

• Was honored as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1999 for his services to acting
• Appeared as God in a stage production of the Monty Python musical "Spamalot" in London's West End
• Won the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography for "My Life In Pieces" in 2012
• Studied at the London Oratory School and Queen's University Belfast before going on to train in acting at the Drama Centre London
• Got his first job in the box office of the National Theatre after sending a fan letter to Sir Laurence Olivier, who was then the artistic director
• Quote: "I was a terrific show-off as a child, demanding attention to a pathological degree․ I didn't come from a family that idolized me, so I had to work quite hard at it․"
• Quote: "People say, 'I was very intimidated when I met you,' and I can't believe it․ I seem immensely confident and amazingly assured, but the truth is that I am just as messed up and confused as everyone else․"
• Quote: "(On deciding to come out in his 1984 book "Being an Actor"): "I very strongly believed, I always have done, that the only thing that can really hold gay people back is living in fear․""
• Best known as a writer and actor who has famously portrayed William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens
• Has played Charles Dickens several times, including in his one-man show "The Mystery of Charles Dickens․"
• Has written biographies of Charles Laughton, Oscar Wilde, and Orson Welles