Walter Charles Dance (born 10 October 1946) is an English actor. He is known for playing intimidating, authoritarian characters and villains. Dance started his career on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) before appearing in film and television. For his services to drama he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.[1]
Walter Charles Dance was born in Redditch, Worcestershire, on 10 October 1946, the younger son of Eleanor Marion (née Perks; 1911–1984), a cook, and Walter Dance (1874–1949), an electrical engineer who served as a sergeant in the 2nd Regular Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers during the Second Boer War (having previously served in the 2nd Volunteer Battalion) and who was in his 70s when his younger son was born.[2][3] By his father's previous marriage, Dance had two older half-sisters, Norah (1898–1993) and Mary (1903–1908).[4] On his maternal side, he also has an elder half-brother, Michael (born 1936).[5]
During filming of an episode for the genealogical series Who Do You Think You Are? in 2016, Dance discovered that his mother had Belgian ancestry, which traced back to the city of Spa. His immigrant ancestor Charles François Futvoye (1777–1847) had been a pioneer in the art of japanning during the early half of the 19th century.[4] Growing up in Plymouth, Dance attended the now-defunct Widey Technical School for Boys (then known as Widey High School) in Crownhill.[6] He later attended the Plymouth Drawing School (later renamed to Plymouth College of Art, and now known as Arts University Plymouth) and Leicester College of Arts (now known as De Montfort University), where he studied graphic design and photography.[7]
Dance made his screen debut in 1974, in the ITV series Father Brown as Commandant Neil O'Brien in "The Secret Garden". Other small parts followed, including a 1983 cameo as a South African assassin in The Professionals, but his big break came the following year when he played Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown (Granada Television, Christopher Morahan 1984), an adaptation of Paul Scott's novels that also made stars of Geraldine James and Art Malik. Dance made one of his earliest big-screen appearances in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only as evil henchman Claus. Though he turned down the opportunity to screen test for the James Bond role,[9] in 1989 he played Bond creator Ian Fleming in Anglia Television's dramatised biography directed by Don Boyd, Goldeneye (the name of Fleming's estate in Jamaica and a title later used for a James Bondfilm).
Since 2012, Dance has had a recurring role in The Big Fat Quiz of the Year reading excerpts from books, such as Fifty Shades of Grey or the autobiographies of English media personalities, in a deadpan manner. On 30 June 2013, Dance appeared with other celebrities in an episode of the BBC's Top Gear as a "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" for the debut of the Vauxhall Astra.[15] In summer 2018, Dance narrated a documentary entitled Spitfire, which featured the legendary Supermarine Spitfire and recounted the efforts of the RAF pilots who flew them during the Second World War.
Dance married Joanna Haythorn in 1970, and they had a son named Oliver (born 1974) and a daughter named Rebecca (born 1980) before divorcing in 2004.[20][21]
He later dated Eleanor Boorman from 2008 to 2012, and they had a daughter named Rose (born 2012).[22]
He is in a relationship with Italian production manager and former actress Alessandra Masi, whom he met in Italy in 2018.[23]
In a 2020 interview with the Financial Times, he felt NHS workers were not being offered a decent enough pay rise and labelled Boris Johnson a "bumbling buffoon".[27]
In light of the Israel–Hamas war, Dance was one of over two thousand to sign an Artists for Palestine letter calling for a ceasefire and accusing western governments of "not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them."[28] Dance contributed to a video published by the Palestine Festival of Literature in support of South Africa's legal motion accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).[29]
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