Who Do You Think You Are? (UK) S14E01: Charles Dance
dimanche 9 juillet 2017
vendredi 30 juin 2017
Mr Dance in 2001
"Years ago, I saw two of the Game of Thrones cast members perform in plays in London, and I met them at the stage door with my camera.
In early 2001, I saw Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister in GofT) in Long Day’s Journey Into Night. The other cast members were Paul Rudd, Paul Nicholls, and Jessica Lange. My seat was right up close to the stage, which normally is too close but was just right for this one. Lange didn’t come out to meet anybody afterward, but the three men did. This was before gathering at the stage door after a show was popular in the West End, so there were only a few of us waiting. This was also before digital cameras, so I didn’t realize that my photo of Rudd caught him with his eyes shut. He was very friendly, and Charles Dance was very gracious."
jeudi 29 juin 2017
Interview about Who Do You Think You Are?’
Charles Dance reveals all about delving into his family tree to find out about the father he never really knew
Here, the 70-year-old tells TV Times all about his emotional journey…
Your story was incredibly moving, what was the experience like for you?
“It’s not like most episodes where you have startling revelations about how people are related to William the Conqueror. This was about filling in huge gaps in my knowledge about my parentage because I want my children [Oliver, 42, and Rebecca, 35, with ex-wife Joanna Haythorn and Rose, five, with ex-Partner Eleanor Boorman] to be better informed than I was. It turned into an adventure for me; there were so many revelations.”
What did you know about your father, Walter?
“Nothing at all. My mother talked about him, but never in detail, she referred to him as ‘WD’ and said that he was in late middle age when he died, but I found out that he actually didn’t have me until he was 72 and the photo that I assumed was of him going off to the First World War was in fact the Boer War!”
You also learned that you had two half-sisters, as Walter had two daughters Norah and Mary with his first wife, but Mary died aged five after being hit by scaffolding. Was that tough to deal with?
“Finding out about Mary was awful, especially as I then had to go and stand outside the house in West London where it happened. That was a difficult day because I’ve a daughter that age and for a parent to suffer that kind of loss must have been terrible. Then I discovered that Norah lived into her 90s in South Africa before dying in 1993. We had no knowledge of each other, but it would’ve been nice to have met her.”
Do you feel closer to your father now?
“Yes, especially because Noneen also photocopied Norah’s autobiography for me. In that, she talked about Dad’s Roman nose and mine you could arguably describe as Roman… It’s prominent anyway! Noneen also gave me a gold medal that Dad got for elocution. He used to recite monologues like The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck and that ties in with my acting. There were all kinds of connections that rang a bell; it was revealing.”
You find out more about your mother’s side too. Did you know much about her background?
“I remember her telling me that her father went to war in 1914 and came back in 1920 after spending two years shacked up with a mademoiselle from Armentieres! But she worked most of her life and didn’t have an easy life, so if she’d known what I found out, it might have made her more contented.”
You say in the show that you are not aristocratic at all. Why are you often cast that way?
“Because I speak reasonably well and because of the way my face is put together! When I did Gosford Park I said to the director Robert Altman, ‘I should be downstairs not upstairs’ and he said, ‘Not with that face Charles!’ I’d like to play downstairs and there was a time I was a romantic lead, but time takes its toll and somebody thought I was more suited to playing villains. But I’m managing to get away from that.”
How did you feel about turning 70 last year?
“It is a milestone. I was in Botswana on the day doing some press and I had a couple of days safari so on the morning of my 70th birthday these ladies came with cake and champagne at breakfast and danced around singing Happy Birthday while elephants and giraffes were looking on. That was quite something.”
What’s next for you?
“I’ve recently had rather too much fun doing [BBC1’s forthcoming period drama] The Woman in White, where I looked like a cross between Quentin Crisp and my mother in a curly wig! I’m just about to do Godzilla: King of Monsters, which is different. I’d also like to direct another film. I just love the variety, I’m perhaps not as choosy as I might have been, but I just want to keep working. Actors don’t retire because there would be nobody to play old wrinkly people; we have to keep going as long as we can.”
samedi 24 juin 2017
Mr Dance "Who do you think you are"
http://aboutactorcharlesdance.blogspot.fr/2017/06/charles-in-ep-of-who-do-you-think-you.html
CHARLES DANCE, Clare Balding and Lulu are among the stars hoping to uncover their family secrets in the new series of Who Do You Think You Are?.
The popular genealogy show returns for a 14th series this summer with a varied line-up of famous faces hoping to discover all about the unexplored branches of their family trees.
Viewers should look out for Dance discovering the father he never knew...
Who Do You Think You Are? on Thursday, July 6 at 9pm on BBC1.
Yet there was further heartbreak as Dance learned that he had a second half-sister. Walter's second daughter, Mary, was born in 1903 but was tragically killed aged five when she was struck by a scaffolding pole on a building site.
Norah died in 1993 but Dance visited her granddaughter Noneen in Pretoria, where he saw new photographs of his father and, for the first time, Norah herself. He also discovered Norah had written an unpublished memoir that painted a vivid picture of their father.
Yet the jolly flamboyance still jolts, for – as Dance, 70, says when researching his family history for the latest series of the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? – he’s “cornered the market for austere, villainous characters”. He’s...
The popular genealogy show returns for a 14th series this summer with a varied line-up of famous faces hoping to discover all about the unexplored branches of their family trees.
Viewers should look out for Dance discovering the father he never knew...
Who Do You Think You Are? on Thursday, July 6 at 9pm on BBC1.
......he discovered a tranche of family secrets – including two sisters he never knew existed who were born almost 50 years before he was.
The star came close to tears when told about the girls – one of whom died in tragic circumstances – but also that his father Walter was a Boer War hero and a full quarter of a century older than Dance always believed.
'It's rather extraordinary to know that here in my 70th year, I am only finding out about all of this now,' Dance said as he learned the truth while filming a forthcoming episode of the BBC's genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? 'There is something about this that I do find quite moving.'
The actor had previously known very little about his father, who died when Dance was a young child.
He had always thought that Walter, known as WD, was a divorcee when he married Dance's mother Eleanor, and was in his early 50s when he passed away in 1949.
There was only one photograph of Walter, which Dance had believed showed his father in First World War battle dress. But military historian Peter Donaldson told the actor that the uniform actually dated from the Boer War.
Military records show that Walter was 25 when he volunteered for military service on January 23, 1900 – making him 26 years older than Dance had believed, and aged 72 when the star was born.
Walter served with the Royal Fusiliers as the Boer War entered its most brutal guerrilla phase. He was involved in the 'physical and psychologically demanding' hunt for saboteurs and was awarded a campaign medal.
But more importantly, his military records also identified his next of kin as his wife Louie and a daughter Norah, who was born on December 11, 1898. The listing means Dance had a half-sister who was born 48 years before him.
'I have a sister, I see, right,' Dance said. Fighting back tears, he told Mr Donaldson: 'I have to say this is quite moving, because I know so little. So gradually, bit by bit, we are finding out about the life of a man who I just knew by his name, WD. You have been able to tell me an enormous amount, thank you.'
Dance, who is the father of two daughters, struggled to take in the news as he visited the West London home where she died. He said: 'It is overwhelmingly sad and I don't think, as a parent, that one would ever get over something like that.'
The Dance family tree took another unexpected twist when Norah married a South African in 1921. Three years later, Walter and Louie moved to South Africa, where he had once fought, so they could be close to their grandchildren
She wrote: 'My father had a great sense of humour… much too much sometimes when in a mischievous mood. Often amongst strangers this caused me considerable embarrassment. He was a strong swimmer, keen shot, fisherman, tennis and cricket player, and boxer. He was a loveable and a generous man and was slow to anger... and liked to be considered a ladies' man.'
Fighting back tears as he looked through the book, Dance said: 'I don't know why this is quite so overwhelming, but it is.'
He was particularly moved to recognise traits of his own character, saying: 'It takes a lot to wind me up… somebody has to really put my nose out of joint seriously before I lose my temper.'
He added of Walter being a ladies' man: 'I think that is a quality, not a fault. I think I have inherited quite a lot of that, really.'
Norah's records reveal that Walter worked as an electrical engineer, but in 1936 he was diagnosed with a serious illness and he and his wife returned to England. However, Louie died shortly afterwards.
Walter appears to have married Eleanor soon after Louie's death. That may have upset Norah and could explain why the two sides of the family on opposite sides of the world never knew of each other's existence.
But Dance said finding out about his relatives was 'wonderful' – and that discovering more about his father 'has given me more of an understanding about me'.
Dance features in the first episode of the new series of Who Do You Think You Are? to be screened on BBC1 at 9pm on July 6.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4636312/Charles-Dance-discovers-secret-sister-born-1898
Charles Dance made a shock discovery while filming Who Do You Think You Are? He talks to Julia Llewellyn Smith
Charles Dance is one of our best-known actors – he made his name playing noble Guy Perron in ITV’s 1984 series The Jewel in the Crown, then became famous all over again among a new generation, playing baddy Tywin Lannister in HBO/Sky Atlantic’s Game of Thrones. So it’s hardly surprising that in person, in a Soho office munching on a pain au chocolat – “I shouldn’t really be eating this, but every now and again” – he’s the personification of thespianism, his conversation peppered with mimicry and “darlings”, far more given to anecdotes than introspection.Yet the jolly flamboyance still jolts, for – as Dance, 70, says when researching his family history for the latest series of the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? – he’s “cornered the market for austere, villainous characters”. He’s...
lundi 12 juin 2017
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