Joss Ackland, the distinguished English actor who has appeared in over one hundred movies, scores of plays, and a plethora of television programs in his six-decade career, was born Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland on February 29, 1928 in North Kensington, London. After attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama, the 17-year-old Ackland made his professional stage debut in "The Hasty Heart" in 1945.

Although he first appeared on film in the Boulting Brothers' Oscar-winning thriller Seven Days to Noon in an uncredited bit role and made his credited debut in a supporting role in Vernon Sewell's Ghost Ship, he would not again grace the big screen until the end of the decade. Instead, Ackland spent the latter half of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s honing his craft in regional theatrical companies.

In 1955, Ackland left the English stage behind and moved to Africa to manage a tea plantation, an experience that likely informed his heralded performance twenty years later in White Mischief. In his two years in Africa, he wrote plays and did service as a disc jockey on the radio. Upon his return to England in 1957, Ackland joined the Old Vic company.

From 1962 through 1964, he served as associate director of the Mermaid Theatre. Subsequently, his stage acting career primarily was in London's commercial West End theater, where he made a name for himself in musicals. He was distinguished as Captain Hook in the musical version of "Peter Pan" and as Juan Peron in "Evita". In the straight theater, he was a memorable Falstaff in Shakespeare's "Henry IV Parts 1 & 2" and as Captain Shotover in Bernard Shaw's "Heartbreak House".

In the 1960s, Ackland began appearing more regularly in films, and his career as a movie character actor picked up rapidly in the '70s and began to flourish in the 1980s. It has shown little sign of abating in the 21st century, even though he's well into his seventies.

In addition to his performance in "White Mischief" among his more notable turns as an actor before the camera came in the BBC-TV production of Shadowlands, in which he played C.S. Lewis, and in Lethal Weapon 2, as the South African heavy.

He is the father of seven children, whom he listed as his "hobby" in a 1981 interview. On December 31, 2000, Joss Ackland was named a Commander of the British Empire on the New Year's Honours List for his 50 years of service to the English stage, cinema and television.


He was awarded the C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2001 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to drama. Has five daughters (Melanie, Antonia, Penelope, Samantha and Kirsty) and one son (Toby). His eldest son, Paul, died of a heroin overdose in 1982. On the "BBC Desert Island Discs" radio program broadcast in August 2001, Ackland picked the music he would want with him if he was stranded on a desert island. His picks were, in apparently ascending order: - 1. Ralph Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending", Nigel Kennedy with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle - 2. "Bailero" from "Songs of the Auvergne", Victoria de los Angeles with Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux conducted by Jean-Pierre Jacquillat - 3. "Moon River" sung by Audrey Hepburn - 4. 'Stephen Sondheim''s "Children Will Listen" from "Into the Woods", performed by Bernadette Peters - 5. Nina Simone's cover of "Mr. Bojangles" - 6. Sondheim's "Losing My Mind", sung by Barbara Cook - 7. Jean Sibelius' "Violin Concerto", Ivry Gitlis with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein - 8. Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt's "My Cup Runneth Over", performed by Mary Martin and Robert Preston. Ackland said that if he was limited to just one record, it would be No. 8, "My Cup Runneth Over". For books, in addition to The Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare, he would want Samuel Pepys's Diary. His luxury would be a huge jar of licorice. He has an entry in "Dictionnaire du Cinéma/Les Acteurs" by Jean Tulard, published in Paris in 2007 (page 11).