A Lear who spent years in the wilderness - Telegraph
A Lear who spent years in the wilderness
Stewart Payne recalls Nigel Hawthorne, the star of Yes, Minister and The Madness of King George
12:01AM GMT 27 Dec 2001
SIR Nigel Hawthorne, who died yesterday, was the unctuous Sir Humphrey Appleby in the television series Yes, Minister, a role that confirmed a nation's suspicions about conniving civil servants.
The fact that Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister at the height of the programme's popularity, endorsed it as her favourite TV comedy served only to reinforce that prejudice.
The role shot Hawthorne to fame and paved the way for his Oscar-nominated performance in the film The Madness of King George. In 1999 he played King Lear in the Royal Shakespeare Company's millennium production.
But public acclaim was a long time coming. It was said that Hawthorne spent the first 20 years of his career being ignored and the rest of it being discovered.
He once said: "I'd been going for 24 years and wondering all the time what I was doing wrong. That taught me to be a little more positive."
Hawthorne lived in a 15th century Hertfordshire manor house with his companion, Trevor Bentham, a theatre manager and screenwriter. They were together for more than 20 years.
He was opposed to the aggressive element of the homosexual community and was deeply upset when his homosexuality was made public by American newspapers in 1995, at the time of his Oscar nomination.
He said he felt he was being made to own up to something that many people knew about and about which the majority did not care.
"The militant lot I have no time for. Flaunting your sexuality offends people and what's the point in doing that if you are trying to win them over?" The experience had a profound effect on him and left him prone to depression.
Hawthorne was born in Coventry in 1929 and emigrated with his family to South Africa when he was two. He was educated at St George's Grammar School, Cape Town, and then the Christian Brothers' College, Cape Town, a bleak establishment run on the philosophy of beating wickedness out of boys and beating knowledge into them.
It was here that he discovered his homosexuality, which he hid from his authoritarian father. When he returned to the school 50 years later for a BBC documentary he recalled being beaten with leather straps. It was a "deeply horrific" time. On his last day at school his headmaster said: "Hawthorne, whatever will become of you?"
On leaving, he attended the University of Cape Town, but dropped out after a year in a broadcasting degree course.
His father disapproved of his son's chosen career of acting, but Hawthorne persisted. His first professional performance, in 1950, was as Archie Fellowes in The Shop at Sly Corner at the Hofmeyr Theatre, Cape Town.
With only £12 in his pocket, he went to England in 1951 for what he said turned out to be a wretched experience, seeking auditions and starved of food and affection.
He returned to South Africa in 1957 where he achieved the success he yearned. And in the early 1960s, he decided to return to England, where this time success continued. His first West End appearance was as Fancy Dan in Talking to You in October, 1962. He worked at the Royal Court and Joan Littlewood's Theatre Royal in Stratford East, but was often held back by his modest demeanour.
He realised, when playing a dithering role in Christopher Hampton's The Philanthropist, that his lack of forcefulness was his undoing. It was then that his career started to blossom. He played the dim martinet in Peter Nichols's Privates on Parade in 1977, and then the role that brought him fame, Sir Humphrey Appleby, in Yes, Minister. His performance in that and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister, won him a CBE and offers of more substantial and serious parts in the theatre.
He won a US Tony Award for his part in Shadowlands in 1991, and the Olivier Award for Best Actor in the stage version of The Madness of George III in 1992, and a succession of Bafta Best Light Entertainment awards for his performance in Yes, Minister.
In 1997, he was awarded the Bafta Best TV Actor award for his performance in The Fragile Heart. He was awarded a knighthood in the 1999 New Year Honours List. He played King Lear the same year.
Hawthorne was discovered to have a malignant tumour in his pancreas requiring immediate surgery and was receiving chemotherapy at the time of his death.
Last night, Derek Fowlds, who played Bernard in the Yes, Minister series, paid tribute to Sir Nigel's acting ability and his bravery in fighting cancer. He told Radio 4's PM programme: "He has been very brave battling with cancer. He had only just come out of hospital when I spoke to him three days ago, so it is quite a shock to the system."
He looked back nostalgically on Yes, Minister. "With Paul Eddington, the three of us were together for seven, eight years. We were good mates. We had many happy hours doing those shows. They were special times."