Tom Conti

Tom Conti
Tommaso Antonio Conti (born 22 November 1941) is a Scottish actor. He has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and two Golden Globe Awards.
He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the Laurence Olivier Award for Actor of the Year in a New Play in role in Whose Life Is It Anyway? which he performed on Broadway and the West End in 1978 and 1979. He also directed the Frank D. Gilroy play Last Licks (1979) on Broadway. Conti returned to the West End portraying Jeffrey Bernard in the Keith Waterhouse play Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell (1989).
He received an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination for Reuben, Reuben (1983). Conti also acted in such films as The Duellists (1977), Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), Saving Grace (1986), The Quick and the Dead (1987), Shirley Valentine (1989), The Tempest (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Paddington 2 (2017). He portrayed Albert Einstein in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023).
Early life
Tommaso Antonio Conti was born on 22 November 1941 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, the son of hairdressers Mary McGoldrick and Alfonso Conti. He was brought up Roman Catholic, but is now antireligious. His father was Italian, while his mother was born and raised in Scotland to Irish parents. Conti was educated at independent Catholic boys' school Hamilton Park St Aloysius College, Glasgow, and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, both in Glasgow.
Career
Conti is a theatre, film, and television actor. He began working with the Dundee Repertory in 1959. He appeared on Broadway in Whose Life Is It Anyway? in 1979, and in London, he played the lead in Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell at the Garrick Theatre.
Besides taking the leading role in the TV versions of Frederic Raphael's The Glittering Prizes and Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests, Conti appeared in the "Princess and the Pea" episode of the family television series Faerie Tale Theatre, guest-starred on Friends and Cosby, and played opposite Nigel Hawthorne in a long-running series of Vauxhall Astra car advertisements in the United Kingdom from the early to the mid-1990s.
Conti has appeared in such films as Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence; Reuben, Reuben; American Dreamer; Shirley Valentine; Miracles; Saving Grace; Dangerous Parking, and Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase.
Conti's novel The Doctor, about a former secret operations pilot for intelligence services, was published in 2004. According to the foreword, his friend Lynsey De Paul recommended the manuscript to publisher Jeremy Robson.
He appeared in the hit BBC sitcom Miranda alongside Miranda Hart and Patricia Hodge, as Miranda's father, in the 2010 seasonal episode "The Perfect Christmas".
His latest role is playing Albert Einstein in Christopher Nolan's 2023 thriller-drama Oppenheimer. Conti portrays Albert Einstein during his years working alongside J. Robert Oppenheimer, American theoretical physicist, also known as the father of atomic bomb. The film tells the story of the process that led humanity into producing the first atomic bomb during World War II. The film had one of the most successful opening weekends of 2023, and received wide critical acclaim.
Personal life
Conti has been married to Scottish actress Kara Wilson since 1967 and their daughter Nina is an actress and performs as a ventriloquist. According to Nina, her parents have an open marriage.
Conti is a resident of Hampstead in northwest London, having lived in the area for several decades. Conti was part of a campaign against the opening of a Tesco supermarket in nearby Belsize Park. Conti put his Hampstead house up for sale in 2015 for £17.5 million after his long-running opposition to the building plans of his neighbour, the footballer Thierry Henry. Conti had also opposed development plans for Hampstead's Grove Lodge, the 18th-century Grade II listed former home of novelist John Galsworthy.
Conti participated in a genetic-mapping project conducted by the company ScotlandsDNA (now called BritainsDNA). In 2012, Conti and the company announced that Conti shares a genetic marker with Napoléon Bonaparte. Conti has said that he "burst out laughing" when told he was directly related to Napoléon on his father's side.
Political views
Conti considered running as the Conservative candidate in the 2008 London mayoral election, but did not, and in the following election in 2012, he supported unsuccessful independent candidate Siobhan Benita. In the run up to the 2015 general election, Conti said in an interview published in several newspapers that he was once a Labour supporter but had come to view socialism as a “religion” with a "vicious, hostile spirit".
Work
Film
Galileo (1975) as Andrea Sarti (man)
Slade in Flame (1975) as Robert Seymour
The Duellists (1977) as Dr. Jacquin
Full Circle (1977) as Mark Berkeley
Eclipse (1977) as Tom / Geoffrey
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) as Col. John Lawrence
Reuben, Reuben (1983) as Gowan McGland
American Dreamer (1984) as Alan McMann
Miracles (1986) as Roger
Saving Grace (1985) as Pope Leo XIV
Heavenly Pursuits (1986) as Vic Mathews
The Quick and The Dead (1987) as Duncan McKaskel
Beyond Therapy (1987) as Stuart
Two Brothers Running (1988) as Moses Bornstein
That Summer of White Roses (1989) as Andrija Gavrilovic
Shirley Valentine (1989) as Costas
Caccia Alla Vedova (1991) as Conte Angelo di Bosconero
Someone Else's America (1995) as Alonso
Sub Down (1997) as Harry Rheinhartdt
Something to Believe In (1998) as Monsignor Calogero
Out of Control (1998) as Eddie
Don't Go Breaking My Heart (1999) as Dr. Fiedler
The Enemy (2001) as Insp. John Cregar
Derailed (2005) as Eliot Firth
Rabbit Fever (2006) as Prof Rosenberg
Paid (2006) as Rudi
Almost Heaven (2006) as Bert Gordon
O Jerusalem (2006) as Sir Cunningham
Dangerous Parking (2007) as Doc Baker
Deeply Irresponsible (2007) as Nate
A Closed Book (2009) as Sir Paul
The Tempest (2010) as Gonzalo
Rekindle (2011) as Dr. Monty Adams
Streetdance 2 (2012) as Manu
Run for Your Wife (2012)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) as Prisoner
City Slacker (2012) as Ray
Paddington 2 (2017) as Judge Gerald Biggleswade
Oppenheimer (2023) as Albert Einstein
Television
Boy Meets Girl (1969) as Frank
Thirty-Minute Theatre - Revolutions: Fidel Castro (1970) as Che Guevara
Adam Smith (1972) as Dr. Calvi
Z Cars (1973) as Gordon Morley
Barlow at Large (1973) as Myers
Sam (1974) as David Ellis
Fall of Eagles (1974) as Glazkov
Thriller (1975) as Bruno Varella
Madame Bovary (1975, TV mini-series) as Charles Bovary
The Glittering Prizes (1976, TV mini-series) as Adam Morris
The Norman Conquests (1977, TV mini-series) as Norman
Blade on the Feather (1980, TV film) as Daniel Young
The Wall (1982, TV film) as Dolek Berson
Faerie Tale Theatre (1984, "Princess and the Pea") as Prince Richard
Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story (1986, TV film) as Serge Klarsfeld
The Dumb Waiter (1987)
The Quick and the Dead (1987, TV film) as Duncan McKaskel
Roman Holiday (1987, TV film) as Joe Bradley
Fatal Judgement (1988, TV film) as Pat Piscitelli
Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase (1990, TV film) as Doctor 'Stanley' Phillips
The Old Boy Network (1992) as Lucas Frye
The Wright Verdicts (1995) as Charles Wright
The Inheritance (1997, TV film) as Henry Hamilton
Friends (1998, "The One After Ross Says Rachel", and "The One with Ross's Wedding") as Stephen Waltham
Cosby (1999) as William Shakespeare
Deadline (2000–2001) as Si Beekman
I Was a Rat (2001, TV mini-series) as Bob Jones
Andy Pandy (2002) as Narrator (voice)
Four Seasons (2008–2009) as Charles Combe
Lark Rise to Candleford (2010) as William Bourne / Mr. Reppington
Miranda (2010) as Charles
Parents (2012) as Len Miller
Rosemary's Baby (2014)
Doc Martin (2019) as Dr Bernard Newton (Series 9 episode 8)
Stage
Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell
Whose Life is it Anyway?
Savages
The Devil's Disciple
They're Playing Our Song
The Real Thing
An Italian Straw Hat (1986)
The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
Chapter Two
Jesus, My Boy (1998–99, 2009)
Present Laughter
Romantic Comedy
Rough Justice (2012–13)
Twelve Angry Men (2014)
Stage directing
The Last of the Red Hot Lovers
Present Laughter
Otherwise Engaged
Awards
National Board of Review for Best Actor (Reuben, Reuben and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence)
Academy Award nomination as Best Actor (Reuben, Reuben)
Golden Globe nominations for Reuben, Reuben and Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story
Tony Award for Best Actor (Whose Life Is It Anyway?)
Laurence Olivier Award for Actor of the Year in a New Play (Whose Life is it Anyway?)
Variety Club Award for Best Actor (Whose Life is it Anyway?)
References
External links
1941 births
Living people
20th-century Scottish male actors
21st-century Scottish male actors
Alumni of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
21st-century Scottish novelists
Former Roman Catholics
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Male actors from Paisley, Renfrewshire
Scottish atheists
Scottish male film actors
Scottish male stage actors
Scottish male television actors
Scottish people of French descent
Scottish people of Irish descent
Scottish people of Italian descent
Tony Award winners
Writers from Paisley, Renfrewshire
20th-century atheists
21st-century atheists