Ben Kingsley

Ben Kingsley
Kingsley at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	Krishna Pandit Bhanji 31 December 1943 (1943-12-31) (age 67) Snainton, Scarborough, Yorkshire, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1966–present
Spouse	Angela Morant (1966–1972) Alison Sutcliffe (1978–1992) Alexandra Christmann (2003–2005) Daniela Lavender (2007–present)

Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji (Gujarati:કૃષ્ણા પંડિત ભાનજી); 31 December 1943) is an English actor of Indian descent.. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Early life

Kingsley was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji^[1] in Snainton, near Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, the son of Anna Lyna Mary (née Goodman), an actress and model, and Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, a medical doctor.^[2]

Kingsley's father was born in Kenya of Gujarati Indian descent; Kingsley's paternal grandfather was a spice trader who had moved from India to Zanzibar, where Kingsley's father lived until moving to England at the age of 14.^[3][4][5] Ben Kingsley's mother, born out of wedlock, was "loath to speak of her background"; she was the daughter of an English mother who worked in the garment district of East London, and a father who was believed by the family to have been a Russian or German Jew.^[6][7][8][9]

Kingsley grew up in Pendlebury, near Salford. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School, an independent school in Manchester in north-west England, where one of his classmates was the actor Robert Powell.^[10] He later studied at the University of Salford and at Pendleton College, which later became home to the Ben Kingsley Theatre.

Film and television career

Kingsley began his acting career on stage, but made a transition to film roles early on. Despite this focus on film, he continued to act on the stage, playing Mosca in Peter Hall's 1977 production of Ben Jonson's Volpone for the Royal National Theatre, and in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. At about this time, he changed his name from Krishna Bhanji to Ben Kingsley, fearing that a foreign name would hamper his career;^[9][11] he took his stage surname from his paternal grandfather's nickname, "King Clove".^[12]

Kingsley's first film role was a supporting turn in Fear Is the Key, released in 1972. Kingsley continued starring in bit roles in both film and television, including a role as Ron Jenkins on the soap opera Coronation Street from 1966 to 1967 and regular appearances as a defence counsel in the long-running British legal programme Crown Court. In 1975 he starred as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the BBCs historical drama The Love School. He found fame only years later, starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the Academy Award-winning film Gandhi in 1982, his best-known role to date.^[9] The audience agreed with the critics, and Gandhi was a box-office success. Kingsley won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal.^[9]

Kingsley at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival

Kingsley has since appeared in a variety of roles. His credits included the films Turtle Diary, Maurice, Pascali's Island, Without a Clue (as Dr. Watson alongside Michael Caine's Sherlock Holmes), Suspect Zero, Bugsy, which led to an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Sneakers, Dave, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Schindler's List, Silas Marner, Death and the Maiden, Sexy Beast, for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and House of Sand and Fog, which led to yet another Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He won a Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2001.

In 1997, he provided voice talent for the video game Ceremony of Innocence. In July 2006, he received an Emmy nomination for his performance in the made-for-TV film Mrs. Harris, in which he played famed cardiologist Herman Tarnower, who was murdered by his jilted lover, Jean Harris. Later that year, Kingsley appeared in an episode of The Sopranos entitled "Luxury Lounge", playing himself. In the show, Christopher Moltisanti and Carmine Lupertazzi offer him a role in the fictional slasher film "Cleaver", which he turns down. Lupertazzi offers him the role on the basis of Kingsley's real-life performance in Sexy Beast. In 2007, Kingsley appeared as a Polish American mobster in the Mafia comedy You Kill Me, and a Middle Eastern oil minister in War, Inc. In 2010, Kingsley starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island, directed by Martin Scorsese. He is also scheduled to appear in Scorsese's next film Hugo Cabret.

Kingsley's SBK-Pictures has been planning to bring the story of the Native American Conley Sisters to the big screen in Whispers Like Thunder, with Kingsley playing the role of Charles Curtis, the first part-Native American to become vice-president of the United States.^[13]

Honours

Kingsley was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000. He was made a knight bachelor in the 2002 New Year's Honours (the award was announced on 31 December 2001, his 58th birthday).^[14] His demand to be called 'Sir' was documented by the BBC, to some criticism.^[15] Since then, Kingsley appears to have altered his stance; credits for his latest films refer to him only as 'Ben Kingsley'. Penelope Cruz was unsure what to call him during the filming of Elegy as someone had told her she needed to refer to him as "Sir Ben". One day it slipped out as such, and she called him that for the rest of the shoot.^[16]

In 1984, he won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Nonmusical Recording for The Words of Gandhi. He was awarded the Indian civilian honor Padma Shri in 1985.^[17]

In addition, in 2008, Kingsley was awarded the "Cinema for Peace Honorary Award", for the portrayal of the humanitarian role-models Simon Wiesenthal, Itzhak Stern and Gandhi.

In May 2010, Kingsley was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[18]

Personal life

Kingsley has been married four times and has four children: Thomas Bhanji and artist Jasmin Bhanji, with actress Angela Morant, and Edmund Kingsley and Ferdinand Kingsley, both of whom became actors, with theatrical director Alison Sutcliffe. In 2005, he divorced German-born Alexandra Christmann, having been "deeply, deeply shocked" after pictures of her kissing another man surfaced on the internet.^[19] On 3 September 2007, Kingsley married Daniela Lavender, a Brazilian actress, in North Leigh, Oxfordshire.^[20]

He currently lives in Spelsbury, Oxfordshire, England, where he has lived for more than ten years.^[21]

Filmography

References

External links

• Ben Kingsley at the Internet Movie Database
• Ben Kingsley at TV.com
• Ben Kingsley's SBK announces slate, By TATIANA SIEGEL, Mon., 17 Nov. 2008
• Interview, 9/27/05, Cinema Confidential
• Interview, 9/22/05, Dark Horizons
• Interview, 7/28/04, IGN Films
• Interview, 12/16/93, Charlie Rose (Kingsley talks about his experience making "Schindler's List" with director Steven Spielberg).