Jim Norton was born on 4 January 1938[1] in Dublin, Ireland, and educated at Synge Street CBS.[2] From an early age he wanted to be an actor, and regularly attended performances at the Abbey Theatre.[3] His mother, Frances, played the violin and his father, Eugene, was a baritone singer. Eugene worked as a bakery manager. Jim had one sibling, the late acting teacher Betty Ann Norton.[4]
Career
Norton has been acting for over forty years in theatre, television, and film, and frequently plays clergymen, most notably Bishop Brennan in the sitcom Father Ted, as well as roles in The Sweeney (1975), Peak Practice (1993), Sunset Heights (1997), A Love Divided (1999), Rebus: Black and Blue (2000), Mad About Mambo (2000), Boxed (2003) and Jimmy's Hall (2014).
Norton played the part of Pongo in the screen version of Spike Milligan's war-time memoir Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall. In 1971 he played Chris Cawsey (aka "The Rat Man"), one of several villains in the controversial Sam Peckinpah film Straw Dogs starring Dustin Hoffman. His character had a deviously infectious, deliberately irritating laugh that helped build tension throughout the film.
Norton appeared in the comedy On the Nose as Patrick Cassidy, along with Dan Aykroyd and Robbie Coltrane, in 2001. He appeared in a cameo in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in 2002 as Mr. Mason. He played an Irish immigrant in the 2005 Australian/UK co-production, The Oyster Farmer. He played title role of Stan Laurel in the 2006 TV movie Stan, based on Neil Brand's radio play of the same name. He played Herr Liszt in the 2008 holocaust film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.
2010s
In 2011 Norton appeared as the character Old Mr Black in the film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close directed by Stephen Daldry. He appeared in the 2011 film Water for Elephants, in which he portrays a circus worker called "Camel" who befriends a character played by Robert Pattinson. In 2012 he appeared as the character Tommy in the short film Homemade written by Matthew Roche and directed by Luke McManus. He was in the Ken Loach film Jimmy's Hall which was released in 2014. He plays the role of Mr. Heelshire in 2016 film The Boy. In 2018 he played the role of Mr. Binnacle in Mary Poppins Returns. In 2019 he played the role of the plane passenger Padraig whose death instigates the plan to bury him next to his brother in The Last Right.
Theatre
Norton has a longtime partnership with playwright Conor McPherson, having originated roles in six of his plays in Dublin, London and New York, and for which he has won both the Tony and Olivier Award. Norton played Jack in The Weir (1997), Joe in Port Authority (2001), Matthew in Come on Over (2001), Richard in The Seafarer (2006–7), Reverend Berkeley in The Veil (2011), and Maurice in The Night Alive (2013).
In 2013/2014 he played Maurice in Conor McPherson's The Night Alive, a Donmar Warehouse production, transferred to the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York.
