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Brian Blessed

Personal Info

Known For

Acting

Birthdate

1936-10-09 (Age: 90)

Place of Birth

Mexborough, Yorkshire, England, UK

Brian Blessed

Biography

Brian Blessed OBE (born 9 October 1936)is an English actor. He is known for his distinctive bushy beard, booming voice, and exuberant personality and performances. He portrayed PC "Fancy" Smith in Z-Cars; Augustus in the 1976 BBC television production of I, Claudius; King Richard IV in the first series of Blackadder; Prince Vultan in Flash Gordon; Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in the 1981 original London production of Cats at the New London Theatre; Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, in Henry V; Boss Nass in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace; and the voice of Clayton and the Tarzan yell in Disney's Tarzan. In 2016, Blessed was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the arts and charity. Blessed was born on 9 October 1936 at Montagu Hospital in Mexborough, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of William Blessed, a socialist coal miner at Hickleton Main Colliery (and himself the son of a coal miner) and cricketer for the Yorkshire second team, and Hilda (nÊe Wall). He had a brother Alan, seven years younger, and the pair "went everywhere together" when they were growing up. Alan Blessed died from leukaemia aged 52; their mother died aged 87, and their father died aged 99. Blessed's great-great-grandfather, Jabez Blessed, was the father of 13 children and worked as a china and glass dealer in Brigg, Lincolnshire; many of Blessed's relatives hail from Brigg. Blessed went to Bolton on Dearne Secondary Modern School, and completed his national service in the RAF, in Bicester, before enrolling at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1956.

Filmography (95)

⭐ 5.2 Role: Gavin the Octopus (voice)

Time Travel Is Dangerous!

2025
⭐ 10.0 Role: Grampy Rabbit (voice)

Peppa Pig: Wedding Party!

2024
⭐ 4.0 Role: Grampy Rabbit (voice)

Peppa's Cinema Party

2024
⭐ 7.8 Role: Self

Peter O'Toole: Along the Sky Road to Aqaba

2022
⭐ 0 Role: Narrator

Bug-Eyed Monsters Invade the Earth!

2022
⭐ 0 Role: Self

The Queen: 70 Glorious Years

2022
⭐ 7.5 Role: Charlemagne (voice)

Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans

2021
⭐ 0 Role: Narrator

Dear Mr. Burton

2020
⭐ 8.5 Role: Space Lord

Eugenius!

2020
⭐ 4.9 Role: Narrator (voice)

Shed of the Dead

2019
⭐ 5.0 Role: Friar Tuck

Robin Hood: The Rebellion

2018
⭐ 5.7 Role: Self

Life After Flash

2017
⭐ 10.0 Role: Grampy Rabbit (voice)

Peppa Pig: The Golden Boots

2015
⭐ 0 Role: Self

Brian Cox: Space, Time & Videotape

2014
⭐ 0 Role: The Voice (voice)

The Seventeenth Kind

2014