Denholm Mitchell Elliott (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992) was an English actor. He appeared in numerous productions on stage and screen, receiving BAFTA Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Trading Places (1983), A Private Function (1984) and Defence of the Realm (1986), and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Mr. Emerson in A Room with a View (1985). He is also known for his performances in Alfie (1966), A Doll's House (1973), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Maurice (1987), September (1987), and Noises Off (1992). He portrayed Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). On television, Elliott won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor in 1981 and was nominated for a second for Hotel du Lac (1986).

The American film critic Roger Ebert described Elliott as "the most dependable of all British character actors." The New York Times called him "a star among supporting players" and "an accomplished scene-stealer". He was appointed a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.

Early life and education Elliott was born 31 May 1922, in Kensington, London, the son of Nina (née Mitchell; 1893–1966) and Myles Layman Farr Elliott, MBE (1890–1933), a barrister who had read law and Arabic at Cambridge before fighting with the Gloucestershire Regiment on Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia. In 1930, Myles Elliott was appointed solicitor-general to the Mandatory Government in Palestine. Three years later, following a series of controversial government prosecutions, he was assassinated outside the King David Hotel and buried in the Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion. Elliott's elder brother Neil Emerson Elliott (1920–2003) was a land agent to Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck.

Elliott attended Malvern College and joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. He was asked to leave after one term. As Elliott later recalled, "They wrote to my mother and said, 'Much as we like the little fellow, he's wasting your money and our time. Take him away!'"BBC Radio. Desert Island Discs, 14 September 1974.

In the Second World War, he joined the Royal Air Force, training as a wireless operator/air gunner and serving with No. 76 Squadron RAF under the command of Leonard Cheshire. On the night of 23/24 September 1942, his Handley Page Halifax DT508Record for Halifax DT508, LostAircraft.com bomber took part in an air raid on the U-boat pens at Flensburg, Germany. The aircraft was hit by flak and subsequently ditched in the North Sea near Sylt, Germany. Elliott and four of his crewmen survived, and he spent the rest of the war in Stalag Luft VIIIb, a prisoner-of-war camp in Lamsdorf (now Łambinowice), Silesia. While imprisoned, he became involved in amateur dramatics. He formed a theatre group that was so successful it toured other POW camps playing Twelfth Night.

Career After making his film debut in Dear Mr. Prohack (1949) Elliott went on to play a wide range of parts, including an officer in The Cruel Sea (1953), and often ineffectual and occasionally seedy characters, including the criminal abortionist in Alfie (1966) and the washed-up film director in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974). Elliott and Natasha Parry played the main roles in the 1955 television play The Apollo of Bellac."Giraudoux Play On Television 'The Apollo Of Bellac'", The Times, 13 August 1955. He took over for an ill Michael Aldridge for one season of The Man in Room 17 (1966).

Elliott made many television appearances, which included plays by Dennis Potter such as Follow the Yellow Brick Road (1972), Brimstone and Treacle, (1976) and Blade on the Feather (1980). He starred in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens's short story The Signalman (1976) and was a special guest, playing a key supporting role, in Across The Andes By Frog, one of the Ripping Yarns (1977) written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones . He also co-starred with Jack Palance in the Canadian-American television film The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968).

In the 1980s, Elliott won three consecutive British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards for Best Supporting Actor, for playing the butler to Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy in the American comedy film Trading Places (1983), Dr. Swaby in the British comedy film A Private Function (1984), and the drunken journalist Vernon Bayliss in the British political thriller film Defence of the Realm (1986). He received an Academy Award nomination for playing Mr. Emerson in A Room with a View (1985). He also played Dr. Marcus Brody, an academic and friend of Indiana Jones, in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). A photograph of his character appears in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and a reference is made to Brody's death. A statue was also dedicated to Brody outside Marshall College, the school where Indiana Jones teaches. In 1988 Elliott played the Russian mole Povin, around whom the entire plot revolves, in the television miniseries Codename: Kyril.

Having filmed Michael Winner's The Wicked Lady (1983), Elliott was quoted in a BBC Radio interview as saying that Marc Sinden and he "are the only two British actors I am aware of who have ever worked with Winner more than once, and it certainly wasn't for love. But curiously, I never, ever saw any of the same crew twice." (Elliott in You Must Be Joking! (1965) and The Wicked Lady and Sinden in The Wicked Lady and Decadence). Elliott had worked with Sinden's father, Donald Sinden, in The Cruel Sea. He co-starred with Katharine Hepburn and Harold Gould in the television film Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry (1986) and with Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton (1989).

His career included many stage performances, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and an acclaimed turn as the twin brothers in Jean Anouilh's Ring Round the Moon.

In 1988, Elliott was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to acting. His scene-stealing abilities led Gabriel Byrne, his co-star in Defence of the Realm, to say, "Never act with children, dogs, or Denholm Elliott." Described by the British Film Institute's Screenonline as an actor of "versatile understanding and immaculate technique," Elliott described himself as an instinctive actor and was a critic of Stanislavski's system of acting, saying, "I mistrust and am rather bored with actors who are of the Stanislavski school who think about detail."

Personal life and death Elliott married twice and was secretly bisexual. He was first married to actress Virginia McKenna from 1954 to 1957. In 1962, he married American actress Susan Robinson, 20 years his junior, with whom he would have an open marriage and two children.

Elliott was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and died of AIDS-related tuberculosis at his home in Santa Eulària des Riu on Ibiza, on 6 October 1992, aged 70. Tributes were paid by actors Donald Sinden and Peter Ustinov, the dramatist Dennis Potter, and Virginia McKenna. Sinden said: "He was one of the finest screen actors and a very special actor at that. He was one of the last stars who was a real gentleman. It is a very sad loss." Ustinov said: "He was a wonderful actor and a very good friend on the occasions that life brought us together." Potter called him "a complicated, sensitive, and slightly disturbing actor" and "a dry, witty, and slightly menacing individual." McKenna added, "It is absolutely dreadful, but the person I am thinking of at the moment more than anybody is his wife. It must be terrible for her." Ismail Merchant described Elliott as "an all-giving person, full of life ... He had an affection and feeling for other actors, which is very unusual in our business."

Elliott's widow set up a charity, the Denholm Elliott Project, and collaborated on his biography.Elliott, Susan; Turner, Barry (1994). Denholm Elliott: Quest for Love. She worked closely with the UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS. She died on 12 April 2007, aged 65, in a fire in her flat in Hornsey, London. Their daughter Jennifer died by suicide in Ibiza in 2003. In 1995, News of the World had published an article exposing her addiction to heroin and alleging that she was a beggar and prostitute, a piece which the tabloid's former deputy features editor Paul McMullan later admitted had "totally humiliated and destroyed her."

Acting credits Film

Year Title Role Notes 1949 Dear Mr. Prohack Oswald Morfrey 1952The Sound Barrier Christopher Ridgefield Breaking the Sound Barrier in USA The Holly and the Ivy Michael Gregory The Ringer John Lemley 1953The Cruel Sea Morell The Heart of the Matter Wilson 1954Lease of Life Martin Blake They Who Dare Sergeant Corcoran 1955The Man Who Loved Redheads Denis The Night My Number Came Up Mackenzie 1956 Pacific Destiny Arthur Grimble 1960 Scent of Mystery Oliver Larker 1963 Station Six-Sahara Macey 1964 Nothing But the Best Charlie Prince 1965 The High Bright Sun Baker King Rat Larkin 1966 Alfie The Abortionist 1967 Maroc 7 Inspector Barrada 1968The Night They Raided Minsky's Vance Fowler The Sea Gull Dorn, a doctor 1970Too Late the Hero Captain Hornsby The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer Peter Niss 1971Percy Emmanuel Whitbread The House That Dripped Blood Charles Hillyer Segment 1: Method for Murder Quest for Love Tom Lewis 1972 Madame Sin Malcolm De Vere 1973The Vault of Horror Diltant Segment 5: Drawn and Quartered A Doll's House Krogstad 1974 The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Friar 1975 Russian Roulette Commander Petapiece 1976Robin and Marian Will Scarlet To the Devil a Daughter Henry Beddows Partners John Grey Voyage of the Damned Admiral Canaris 1977 A Bridge Too Far RAF Met. Officer 1978The Hound of the Baskervilles Stapleton Watership Down Cowslip (voice) The Boys From Brazil Sidney Beynon Sweeney 2 Detective Chief Superintendent Jupp 1979Zulu Dawn Henry Pulleine Saint Jack William Leigh Cuba Donald Skinner 1980Bad Timing Stefan Vognic Rising Damp Charles Seymour Sunday Lovers Parker Segment: An Englishman's Home 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark Marcus Brody 1982The Missionary The Bishop Brimstone and TreacleMr. Tom Bates 1983The Wicked Lady Sir Ralph Skelton The Blue DressTrading Places Coleman 1984The Razor's Edge Elliott Templeton A Private Function Dr. Charles Swaby 1985A Room with a View Mr. Emerson Underworld Dr Savary 1986Defence of the Realm Vernon Bayliss The Whoopee Boys Colonel Phelps 1987September Howard Maurice Dr Barry 1988 Stealing Heaven Fulbert 1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Marcus Brody 1989 Killing Dad Nathy 1991Toy Soldiers Headmaster Scorchers Howler 1992 Noises Off Selsdon Mowbray Final film role

Television