Background
Everett, Rupert was born on 29 May 1960 in Norfolk.
Everett, Rupert was born on 29 May 1960 in Norfolk.
He dropped out of school (Ampleforth) to go to the Central School of Speech and Drama.
He made a splashy debut in the London stage production oi Another Country. In turn, that led to his start in movies: on TV in Princess Daisy (83, Waris Hussein); Another Country (84, Marek Kanievska); as Lancelot in Arthur the King (85, Clive Donner); excellent as the sports-car cad in Dance with a Stranger (85, Mike Newell); Duet for One (86, Andrei Konchalovsky); to Australia for The Bight Hand Man (87, Di Drew); Chronicle of a Death Foretold (87, Francesco Rosi); Gli Occhiali d’Oro (87, Giuliano Montaldo); Hearts of Fire (87, Richard Marquand); Tolerance (89, Pierre-Henry Salfati).
He was perfect as the effete Englishman overwhelmed by Christopher Walken in The Comfort of Strangers (91, Paul Schrader); Inside Monkey Zetterland (92, Jefery Levy); Cemetery Man (93, Michele Soavi); as the Prince of Wales in The Madness of George III (94, Nicholas Hytner); Ready to Wear (94, Robert Altman); Dunston Checks In (96, Ken Kwapis); clearly helpful to Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding (97, P. J. Hogan); B Monkey (98, Michael Radford); as Kit Marlowe, uncredited, in Shakespeare in Love (98, John Madden); An Ideal Husband (99, Oliver Parker); as Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (99, Michael Hoffman); narrating the documentary on Nazi treatment of gays, Paragraph 175 (99, Robert Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman); Inspector Gadget (99. David Kellogg); The Next Best Thing (00, John Schlesinger); Who Shot Victor Fox? (02, Hogan); as Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest (02, Parker).
In another age, Rupert Everett might have been mistaken for Flashman, the cruel bully in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, or regarded as a scion of that wonderfully languid English character actor James Villiers. Everett exudes class, even if he is more plausible as the black sheep of some lofty family. He is an authentic beauty, and one of the few leading actors who has admitted to and relished his gayness. It has been a remarkably brave and enterprising career, and its possible that Everett could take on great roles in an age that might begin to admit gender confusion—and enjoy it.