Education
Born in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, Blakely attended Sedbergh School in Yorkshire.
Born in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, Blakely attended Sedbergh School in Yorkshire.
At 18 he started work in his family"s sports goods shop, before going on to work as a timber-loader on the railways. In 1957, after a spell of amateur dramatics with the Bangor Operatic Society, he turned professional with the Group Theatre, Belfast. In 1957, at the age of 27, Blakely made his stage debut as Dick McCardle in Master of the House.
He also appeared in several Ulster Group Theatre productions, including Gerard McLarnon"s Bonefire (1958) and Patricia O"Connor"s A Sparrow Falls (1959).
From 1957 to 1959 he was at the Royal Court Theatre, appearing in Cock-A-Doodle Dandy, Serjeant Musgrave"s Dance and, to critical approval, The Naming of Murderers Rock. In 1961, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon and from 1963 to 1968 was with the National Theatre at the Old Victoria
In 1969, Blakely"s controversial role as Jesus Christ in Dennis Potter"s Son of Manitoba gained him wide recognition. From that time onwards, he was a regular on British television, and in the same year played the leading role in a British Broadcasting Corporation adaptation of Trollope"s The Way We Live Now.
Among the many stage plays in which he appeared were The Recruiting Officer, Saint Joan, Royal Hunt of the Sun, Filumena, Volpone and Oedipus.
He returned to the Royal Shakespeare in 1972 in Harold Pinter"s Old Times and was subsequently in many West End plays. Film roles included Maurice Braithwaite in, Vahlin in The Long Ships, Doctor Watson to Robert Stephens"s Holmes in, and Joseph Stalin in Jack Gold"s Red Monarch (1983). In the 1975 British film, lieutenant Shouldn"t Happen to a Vet, derived from the James Herriot books, Blakely played the eccentric Siegfried Farnon.
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A noted Shakespearean actor, Blakely appeared on television as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra (1981), directed by Jonathan Miller as part of the British Broadcasting Corporation Television Shakespeare series. And as Kent in the 1983 Granada Television version of King Lear which starred Laurence Olivier.
Other television appearances included, Red Monarch (1983), The Beiderbecke Affair (1985), Operation Julie (1985) and Paradise Postponed (1986).