Derek George Jacobi was born on 22 October 1938 in Leytonstone, Essex, England, the only child of Daisy Gertrude (née Masters; 1910–1980), a secretary who worked in a drapery store in Leyton High Road, and Alfred George Jacobi (1910–1993), who ran a sweet shop[2] and was a tobacconist in Chingford.[7] His patrilineal great-grandfather had emigrated from Germany to England during the 19th century. He also has a distant Huguenot ancestor.[8][9] His family was working-class,[10] and Jacobi describes his childhood as happy. In his teens he went to Leyton County High School for Boys, now known as the Leyton Sixth Form College, and became an integral part of the drama club, The Players of Leyton.
While in the sixth form, he starred in a production of Hamlet, which was taken to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and very well regarded.[2][11] At 18 he won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he read history at St John's College and earned his degree. Younger members of the university at the time included Ian McKellen[2] (who had a crush on him—"a passion that was undeclared and unrequited", as McKellen relates it)[12] and Trevor Nunn. During his studies at Cambridge, Jacobi played many parts including Hamlet, which was taken on a tour to Switzerland, where he met Richard Burton. As a result of his performance of Edward II at Cambridge, Jacobi was invited to become a member of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre immediately upon his graduation in 1960.
Jacobi's talent was recognised by Laurence Olivier, who invited the young actor back to London to become one of the founding members of the new National Theatre, even though at the time Jacobi was relatively unknown.[2] He played Laertes in the National Theatre's inaugural production of Hamlet opposite Peter O'Toole in 1963.[2] Olivier cast him as Cassio in the successful National Theatre stage production of Othello, a role that Jacobi repeated in the 1965 film version. He played Andrei in the NT production and film of Three Sisters (1970), both featuring Olivier. On 27 July 1965, Jacobi played Brindsley Miller in the first production of Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy. It was presented by the National Theatre at Chichester and subsequently in London.
Jacobi was increasingly busy with stage and screen acting, but his big breakthrough came in 1976 when he played the title role in the BBC's series I, Claudius. He cemented his reputation with his performance as the stammering, twitching Emperor Claudius, winning much praise.[2] In 1979, thanks to his international popularity, he took Hamlet on a theatrical world tour through England, Egypt, Greece, Sweden, Australia, Japan and China, playing Prince Hamlet. He was invited to perform the role at Kronborg Castle, Denmark, known as Elsinore Castle, the setting of the play. In 1978, he appeared in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of Richard II, with Sir John Gielgud and Dame Wendy Hiller.
Later career
In 1980, Jacobi took the leading role in the BBC's Hamlet, made his Broadway debut in The Suicide (a run shortened by Jacobi's return home to England due to the death of his mother), and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). From 1982 to 1985, he played four demanding roles simultaneously: Benedick in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, for which he won a Tony for its Broadway run (1984–1985); Prospero in The Tempest; Peer Gynt; and Cyrano de Bergerac which he brought to the US and played in repertory with Much Ado About Nothing on Broadway and in Washington DC (1984–1985). In 1986, he made his West End debut in Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore, starring in the role of Alan Turing, which was written with Jacobi specifically in mind. The play was taken to Broadway. In 1988, Jacobi alternated in West End the title roles of Shakespeare's Richard II and Richard III in repertoire.
In 2001, Jacobi won an Emmy Award[13] by mocking his Shakespearean background in the television sitcom Frasier episode "The Show Must Go Off", in which he played the hammy, loud, untalented Jackson Hedley, a television star with a misguided belief that he deserves a revival of his stage career.
In 2003, he was involved with Scream of the Shalka, a webcast based on the science fiction series Doctor Who. He played the voice of the Doctor's nemesis the Master alongside Richard E. Grant as the Doctor. In the same year, he also appeared in Deadline, an audio drama also based on Doctor Who. Therein he played Martin Bannister, an ageing writer who makes up stories about "the Doctor", a character who travels in time and space, the premise being that the series had never made it on to television. Jacobi later followed this up with an appearance in the Doctor Who episode "Utopia" (June 2007); he appears as the kindly Professor Yana, who by the end of the episode is revealed to be the Master. Jacobi admitted to Doctor Who Confidential he had always wanted to be on the show: "One of my ambitions since the '60s has been to take part in a Doctor Who. The other one is Coronation Street. So I've cracked Doctor Who now. I'm still waiting for Corrie."[14]
In 2004, Jacobi starred in Friedrich Schiller's Don Carlos at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, in an acclaimed production, which transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in London in January 2005. The London production of Don Carlos gathered rave reviews. Also in 2004, he starred as Lord Teddy Thursby in the first of the four-part BBC series The Long Firm, based on Jake Arnott's novel of the same name. In Nanny McPhee (2005), he played the role of the colourful Mr. Wheen, an undertaker. He played the role of Alexander Corvinus in the 2006 action-horror film Underworld: Evolution.
In March 2006, BBC Two broadcast Pinochet in Suburbia, a docudrama about former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the attempts to extradite him from Great Britain; Jacobi played the leading role. In September 2007, it was released in the U.S., retitled Pinochet's Last Stand. In 2006, he appeared in the children's movie Mist, the tale of a sheepdog puppy, he also narrated this movie. In July–August 2006, he played the eponymous role in A Voyage Round My Father at the Donmar Warehouse, a production which then transferred to the West End.
In April 2012, he appeared in Titanic: Blood and Steel and in November 2012, he starred in the BBC series Last Tango in Halifax. In 2013, he starred in the second series of Last Tango, and in 2014, the third series.
In 2013, Jacobi starred alongside Ian McKellen in the ITV sitcom Vicious as Stuart Bixby, the partner to Freddie Thornhill, played by McKellen. On 23 August 2013, the show was renewed for a six-episode second series which began airing in June 2015.[19] The show ended in December 2016, with a Christmas special.
In 2018, he played the Bishop of Digne in the BBC miniseries Les Misérables.[20]
In 2018, Jacobi received the World United Creator – Platinum Demiurge Award for his tremendous contribution to uniting and promoting world literature based on his efforts to introduce William Shakespeare into modern cinema.
In 2007, Jacobi and fellow Shakespearean actor and director Mark Rylance initiated a "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt" on the authorship of Shakespeare's work, to encourage new research into the question.
In 2011, Jacobi accepted a role in the film Anonymous, about the Oxfordian theory, starring Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave. In the film Jacobi narrates the Prologue and Epilogue, set in modern-day New York, while the film proper is set in Elizabethan England. Jacobi said that making the film was "a very risky thing to do", stating "the orthodox Stratfordians are going to be apoplectic with rage".[27]
^Brigstocke, Dominic (26 July 2019), Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans (Comedy, Family, History), Altitude Film Entertainment, BBC Films, Citrus Films, retrieved 11 January 2022
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