Rupert James Hector Everett (born 29 May 1959) is
an English actor and singer. He first came to public attention in
1981, when he was cast in
Julian
Mitchell's play and subsequent film
Another Country as an openly
homosexual student at an English
public school, set in the 1930s. Since
then he has subsequently appeared in many other films including
My Best Friend's
Wedding,
An Ideal
Husband,
The Next Best
Thing and the
Shrek sequels. He currently
lives in London.
Early life
Everett
was born in Norfolk, England
to Sara
(née MacLean, 19 September
1934 - ) and Major Anthony Michael Everett,
who worked in business and served in the British Army. Through his maternal
grandparents, Opre Vyvyan and Vice
Admiral Sir Hector Charles Donald MacLean, he is a descendant
of the baronets Vyvyan of Trelowarren and the German
Freiherren (barons) von Schmiedern, as well as a great-nephew of Donald Duart Maclean, the Soviet
double agent, and a great-grandson of the
Liberal politician Sir Donald Maclean, who
was leader of the parliamentary opposition in the years following
the First World War. He has
an older brother, Simon Anthony Cunningham Everett (b. 1956).
From the
age of seven, Everett was educated at Farleigh School
, Hampshire, and later was
educated by Benedictine monks at
Ampleforth
College
, Yorkshire
, but he left school at 15 and ran away to London to
become an actor. In order to support himself, he worked as a
male prostitute, or '
rent boy', for drugs
and money as he later admitted to
US magazine in 1997.
After being dismissed
from the Central
School of Speech and Drama for insubordination, he travelled to Scotland
and got a
job at the Citizens'
Theatre
in Glasgow
.
Career
1980s
Everett's
break came in 1981 at the Greenwich Theatre
and later West End
production of Another Country, playing a gay
schoolboy opposite Kenneth Branagh,
followed by a film version in 1984 with Colin Firth. Following on with 1985's
Dance With A
Stranger, Everett began to develop a promising film career
until he co-starred with
Bob Dylan in the
huge flop
Hearts of Fire
(1987). Around the same time, Everett recorded and released an
album of pop songs entitled
Generation Of Loneliness.
Despite being managed by the largely successful pop
svengali Simon
Napier-Bell (who also managed
Marc
Bolan, launched and managed
Japan,
and steered
Wham! to international fame), the
public didn't take to his change in direction. The shift was
short-lived, and he would only return to pop indirectly by
providing backing vocals for his friend
Madonna many years later, on her cover
of "
American Pie" and on
the track "
They Can't
Take That Away from Me" on
Robbie
Williams'
Swing When
You're Winning in 2001.
1990s
In 1989,
Everett moved to Paris
, writing a
novel, Hello, Darling, Are You Working? and coming out as
gay, a move which some at the time perceived as
damaging to his career. Returning to the public eye in
The Comfort of
Strangers (1990), several films of variable success
followed. The
Italian comics
character
Dylan Dog, created by
Tiziano Sclavi, is graphically inspired by
him. The English actor, in turn, later appeared in an adaptation of
a novel based on Sclavi's novel,
Dellamorte Dellamore. In 1995 he
released a second novel,
The Hairdressers of St.
Tropez.
His career was revitalised by his award-winning performance in
My Best Friend's
Wedding (1997), playing
Julia
Roberts's gay friend. In 1999, he played
Madonna's gay best friend in
The Next Best Thing (he
also sang backup on her cover of "
American Pie", which is on
the film's soundtrack). He has since appeared in a number of
high-profile film roles, often playing
heterosexual leads.
2000s
In recent years, Everett has decided to write again. He has been a
Vanity Fair
contributing editor and wrote a film screenplay on playwright
Oscar Wilde's final years, for which he
seeks funding. In 2006, he published a
memoir,
Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins.
In it he revealed he had a six-year affair with British
television presenter Paula Yates. "I am mystified by my heterosexual
affairs — but then I am mystified by most of my relationships," he
wrote. Although he is sometimes described as
bisexual as opposed to
homosexual, at a radio show with
Jonathan Ross, he described his heterosexual
affairs as resulting from adventurousness: "I was basically
adventurous, I think I wanted to try everything" and in an
interview on
This
Morning he simply described himself as homosexual, making
a joke of any suggestion he might find a woman attractive.
Since
then, Everett has participated in public activities (leading the
2007 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi
Gras
), played a double role in the film St. Trinian's, and has
appeared on TV several times (as a contestant in the special
Comic Relief Does
The Apprentice, as a presenter at Live Earth and as guest host at Channel 4 show The Friday Night Project among
others), but has made much news for making shocking comments and
remarks at interviews that have caused public outrage.
In May 2007, he delivered one of the eulogies at the funeral of
fashionista
Isabella Blow, his friend
since they were in their teens.
Recent and upcoming projects
Everett presented the Channel 4 documentary on
Romantic poet Lord
Byron's travels, broadcast in July 2009 and has a part in the
upcoming 2009 comedy film
Wild
Target, starring
Bill Nighy. He
recently made his Broadway debut at the Shubert Theatre to good
critical review, performing in a
Noël
Coward play,
Blithe
Spirit, starring alongside
Angela Lansbury,
Christine Ebersole and
Jayne Atkinson, directed by
Michael Blakemore.
He was also expected
to tour several Italian cities, during the 2008-2009 winter season
in another Noël Coward play, Private
Lives (performed in Italian, which he speaks fluently),
playing Elyot to Italian
actress
Asia Argento's Amanda. However,
the production has been postponed until the 2009–2010 season and
the announcement did not clarify if Everett will still be part of
the cast.
Filmography
Cinema
Television (selection)
References
- Rupert Everett ain't got no body -
Telegraph
- Everett needs funds for Wilde movie
- Rupert unleashed and unloved | Telegraph
- "Ross apologises for swearing star." BBC
News.
- Rupert's X-rated TV gaffe
- Rupert Everett talks about fingering|BBC
Breakfast
- Actor Everett shuns 'blobby, whiny' USA -
Herald
- Rupert Everett apologises for calling soldiers
'wimps'
- Everett plays Byron in documentary - Times Series
Newspapers
- Lord Byron by Rupert Everett - Turkish Daily
News.
- Teodorczuk, Tom. "High spirits as Rupert Everett becomes the ghostly
toast of Broadway." Evening Standard. 16 March
2009.
- "Applause for Lansbury in 'Blithe Spirit' on
Broadway." Newyorkology.com. 16 March 2009.
- Annullato lo spettacolo "Vite private" - La
Riccitelli News
- Victorian Passions Season - Channel 4 (UK)
External links
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