Jacobi, Sir Derek
Jacobi, Sir Derek (b. 1936),English actor. After playing Hamlet as a schoolboy with the National Youth Theatre, he went up to Cambridge where his many roles included Prince Hal and Edward II. His student performance in Marlowe's tragedy, repeated out of doors at Stratford-upon-Avon, led to his engagement at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. As a founder member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre 1963–71, he played Laertes, Cassio, Touchstone, and the King in Love's Labour's Lost. From 1971 he played with the Prospect Company in London and on tour; his roles included Hamlet. In 1982 he was Benedick and Prospero at the Royal Shakespeare Company to which he returned in 1993 as Macbeth. He appears in Kenneth Branagh's films of Henry V (Chorus) and Hamlet (Claudius). Though sometimes regarded as a golden-voiced Shakespearian, he has given subtle performances on television and in films.
Michael Jamieson
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