Nicol Williamson

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Nicol Williamson
Nicol Williamson as Merlin in Excalibur
Born	September 14, 1938 (age 68) Hamilton, South Lanarkshire
Years active	1960 -
Spouse(s)	Jill Townsend 1971-77
Notable roles	Bill Maitland, in Inadmissible Evidence Hamlet

Nicol Williamson (b. September 14, 1938, Hamilton, South Lanarkshire) is a Scottish actor who was described by English playwright John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando". Willliamson was born to a struggling working-class family, but managed to attend the Birmingham School of Speech & Drama.

He made his professional debut with the Dundee Rep in 1960 and the following year appeared with the Arts Theatre in Cambridge. The following year, he made his London debut. His first major success came in 1964 with John Osborne's Inadmissible Evidence for which he won a Tony award when it transferred to Broadway in 1965. In 1968, he starred in the film version. Williamson's Hamlet for Tony Richardson at The Roundhouse caused a sensation and was later transferred to New York and made into a film, with a cast including Anthony Hopkins and Marianne Faithfull.

Some of his other notable film performances are as a Colonel in the Cincinnati Gestapo in Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective; a suicidal Irish soldier in the 1968 film The Bofors Gun; Sherlock Holmes in the 1978 Herbert Ross film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution; and Little John in the 1976 Richard Lester film Robin and Marian. More recently he has appeared as Badger in the 1996 movie adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows and as Cogliostro in the 1997 movie adaptation of Todd McFarlane's comic book, Spawn.

Between 1971 and 1977 he was married to the actress Jill Townsend, who had played the role of his wife in the Broadway production of Inadmissible Evidence . The marriage ended in divorce.

[edit] Emotional behavior

Williamson is known for several tantrums and on-stage antics. During the Philadelphia tryout of Inadmissible Evidence, a play in which he delivered a performance that would win him a Tony Award nomination in 1965^[1] he hit producer David Merrick. ^[2]

In 1968 he apologized to the audience for his performance one night while playing Hamlet and then walked off the stage. ^[3] In 1976 he slapped an actor during the curtain call for Broadway musical Rex, and in 1991 he hit his co-star (Evan Handler) on the backside with a sword during a Broadway performance of I Hate Hamlet. ^[4]

When Williamson appeared in the 1981 film Excalibur, director John Boorman cast him as Merlin opposite Helen Mirren as Morgana over the protests of both actors; the two had previously appeared together in "the Scottish play", with disastrous results. It was Boorman's hope that the very real animosity that they had towards each other would generate more tension between them on screen. (Source: Audio commentary to "Excalibur" DVD.)