Known for:	Excalibur, Return to Oz, Spawn
Birthday:	14 September 1938, Hamilton, Scotland, UK
Height:	6' 3" (1.91 m)

Born at 3:45am-BST Starred as King Henry VIII in the Broadway Musical, "Rex". John Osborne called him "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando". Trained at the Birmingham School of Speech & Drama. When appearing as the ghost of John Barrymore in Paul Rudnick's "I Hate Hamlet" on Broadway in 1991, Williamson shocked audiences when he periodically broke character and derided his co-star and the play in well-publicized tantrums. The play lasted only 100 performances despite good reviews. Turned down a six-figure salary to appear as Enobarbus in Charlton Heston's film of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra," a role eventually played by Eric Porter. According to Kenneth Tynan in his profile of Williamson, his erratic behavior during the North American tour of "Hamlet" led one cast member to publicly apologize to a Boston audience. Was Prime Minister Harold Wilson's favorite Hamlet. Wilson praised his performance to President Richard M. Nixon, and Nixon invited Williamson to stage a one-man show at the White House. He disliked actress Helen Mirren, with whom he had had an affair when the two had appeared in a stage production of "Macbeth," and the feeling was mutual. John Boorman, the director of Excalibur (1981), purposefully cast them as rivals Merlin and Morgana, against both of their protests, because he thought their real life disdain for each other would generate more tension on screen. Was twice nominated for Tony Awards as Best Actor (Dramatic): in 1966 for John Osborne's "Inadmissible Evidence," a performance he recreated in the film version of the same name, Inadmissible Evidence, and in 1974 for a revival of "Uncle Vanya." He lost in 1966 to Hal Holbrook (who won for "Mark Twain Tonight") and in 1974 to Michael Moriarty, who won for "Find Your Way Home". Was a member of the Dundee Repertory Company in the early 1960s. Is the subject of two prints in the Photographs Collection at London's National Portait Gallery: "Niicol Williamson," by Bill Brandt (bromide print on card mount, 1965) and "Niicol Williamson as Corialanus in 'Corialanus'" by Johnny Dewe-Mathews (bromide print, 1973). Was originally supposed to play the Colonel Kane character in William Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration, but dropped out at the last minute and was replaced by Stacy Keach.

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