Thomas "Tom" Conti is a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, theatre director and novelist.

Early life

Born Thomas Conti in Paisley

Paisley

Paisley is the largest town in the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland and serves as the administrative centre for the Renfrewshire council area...

, Renfrewshire

Renfrewshire

Renfrewshire is one of 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Located in the west central Lowlands, it is one of three council areas contained within the boundaries of the historic county of Renfrewshire, the others being Inverclyde to the west and East Renfrewshire to the east...

, he was brought up Roman Catholic, but he considers himself anti-religious. Conti's father was Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and his mother was Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

.

Education

Conti was educated Hamilton Crescent School an independent fee-paying Catholic boys' (at that time) school in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is a conservatoire of music, drama, and dance in the centre of Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Educational Association, it is the busiest performing arts venue in Scotland...

 in Glasgow.

Life and career

Conti is an accomplished film and television actor. He began working with the Dundee Repertory

Dundee Repertory Theatre

Dundee Repertory Theatre or Dundee Rep is a theatre and arts company in the city of Dundee, Scotland. It operates as both a producing house - staging at least six of its own productions each year, and a receiving house - hosting work from visiting companies throughout Scotland and the United...

 in 1959. He appeared on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 in Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Whose Life is it Anyway?

Whose Life Is It Anyway? is a play by Brian Clark adapted from his 1972 television play of the same title. The play premiered at the Mermaid Theatre in London's West End in 1978 starring Tom Conti as Ken.-Plot:...

in 1979, and in London he played the lead in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell is a play by Keith Waterhouse about real-life journalist Jeffrey Bernard. Bernard was still alive at the time the play was first performed in the West End in 1989.Bernard wrote the "Low Life" column in The Spectator...

at the Garrick Theatre

Garrick Theatre

The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It opened on 24 April 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. In its early years, it appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama, and today the theatre is a...

.

Besides taking the leading role in the TV versions of Frederic Raphael

Frederic Raphael

Frederic Michael Raphael is an American-born, British-educated screenwriter, and also a prolific novelist and journalist.-Life and career:...

's The Glittering Prizes

The Glittering Prizes

The Glittering Prizes is a British television drama about the changing lives of a group of Cambridge students, starting in 1953 and following them through to middle age in the 1970s. It was first broadcast on BBC2 in 1976.-Cast:...

and Alan Ayckbourn

Alan Ayckbourn

Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...

's Norman Conquests

The Norman Conquests

The Norman Conquests is a trilogy of plays written in 1973 by Alan Ayckbourn. The small scale of the drama is typical of Ayckbourn. There are only six characters, namely Norman, his wife Ruth, her brother Reg and his wife Sarah, Ruth's sister Annie, and Tom, Annie's next-door-neighbour...

, Conti appeared in the Princess and the Pea episode of the family television series Faerie Tale Theatre

Faerie Tale Theatre

Faerie Tale Theatre is a live-action children's television anthology series retelling popular fairy tales. Shelley Duvall serves as narrator, host and executive producer of the program, and occasionally stars in episodes...

, guested on Friends

Friends

Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...

and Cosby

Cosby

Cosby is a situation comedy television series broadcast on CBS from September 16, 1996 to April 28, 2000, loosely based on the British sitcom One Foot in the Grave. The program starred Bill Cosby, Phylicia Rashād...

, and played opposite Nigel Hawthorne

Nigel Hawthorne

Sir Nigel Barnard Hawthorne, CBE was an English actor, perhaps best remembered for his role as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary in the 1980s sitcom Yes Minister and the Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister. For this role he won four BAFTA Awards during the 1980s in the...

 in a long-running series of Vauxhall Astra

Vauxhall Astra

Astra is a model name which has been used by Vauxhall, the British subsidiary of General Motors , on their small family car ranges since 1979. Astras are technically essentially identical with similar vehicles offered by GM's German subsidiary Opel in most other European countries...

 car advertisements in the UK during the mid 1990s.

Conti has appeared in such films as Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is a 1983 film directed by Nagisa Oshima, produced by Jeremy Thomas and starring Jack Thompson, David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yuya Uchida, and Takeshi Kitano.It was written by Oshima and Paul Mayersberg and based on Laurens van der Post's experiences...

; Reuben, Reuben

Reuben, Reuben

Reuben, Reuben is a 1983 comedy drama film. It stars Tom Conti, Kelly McGillis, Roberts Blossom, Cynthia Harris, and Joel Fabiani.The film was adapted by Julius J. Epstein from the play Spofford by Herman Shumlin, which in turn was adapted from the novel Reuben, Reuben by Peter De Vries. It was...

; American Dreamer

American Dreamer (film)

American Dreamer is a 1984 American film starring JoBeth Williams and Tom Conti. It was directed by Rick Rosenthal from a script by Ann Biderman, David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf.An American housewife wins a trip to Paris in a mystery-writing contest...

; Shirley Valentine

Shirley Valentine

Shirley Valentine is a one-character play by Willy Russell. Taking the form of a monologue by a middle-aged, working class Liverpool housewife, it focuses on her life before and after a transforming holiday abroad.-Plot:...

; Miracles

Miracles (1986 film)

Miracles is a 1986 comedy film about a newly divorced couple who can't seem to get away from one another. The film was written and directed by Jim Kouf, and stars Teri Garr, Tom Conti, Paul Rodriguez, and Christopher Lloyd....

; Saving Grace

Saving Grace (1985 film)

Saving Grace is a 1985 film produced by Herbert F. Solow, directed by Robert M. Young and starring Tom Conti, Giancarlo Giannini and Edward James Olmos.It is based on a novel by Celia Gittelson with screenplay by Richard Kramer.-Plot:...

; Dangerous Parking and Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase

Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase

Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase is an ABC-Network miniseries based on When Rabbit Howls, the autobiography of Truddi Chase, a woman who after being sexually abused as a child, copes by developing 90 personalities. The four-hour miniseries, which was directed by Lamont Johnson stars Emmy...

.

Conti's book The Doctor, about a former Secret Operations pilot with Intelligence Services, was published in 2004.

Conti has been married to Scottish actress Kara Wilson since 1967 and their daughter Nina

Nina Conti

Nina Conti is a British actress, comedian and ventriloquist. Her on-stage puppet sidekick is a depressed monkey named Monk.- Early life :...

 is an actress and ventriloquist; according to her, her parents have an open marriage

Open marriage

Open marriage typically refers to a marriage in which the partners agree that each may engage in extramarital sexual relationships, without this being regarded as infidelity. There are many different styles of open marriage, with the partners having varying levels of input on their spouse's...

.

Film

• The Dark Knight Rises
  The Dark Knight Rises
  The Dark Knight Rises is an upcoming epic superhero film. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film will be the third and final installment in Nolan's Batman film series, and is a sequel to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight...
  
  (2012)
• A Closed Book
  A Closed Book
  A Closed Book is a short novel by Gilbert Adair, published in 2000.The book starts with a slightly awkward meeting between a crotchety blind author and a sighted interviewee he seeks to employ as his assistant....
  
  (2010)
• O Jerusalem
  O Jerusalem (film)
  O Jerusalem is a 2006 drama film directed by Elie Chouraqui. It is based on the history book of the same name, written by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins....
  
  (2006)
• Rabbit Fever (2006)
• Paid
  Paid (2006 film)
  Paid is a 2006 English language feature film directed by Laurence Lamers. It was filmed in Netherlands between 2004 and 2005 with Anne Charrier, Murilo Benício, Tom Conti, Guy Marchand, Corbin Bernsen, Marie-France Pisier, Beppe Clerici and Tygo Gernandt....
  
  (2006)
• Derailed
  Derailed
  Derailed is a 2005 British-American thriller film based on the novel of the same name by James Siegel. The film is directed by Mikael Håfström and stars Clive Owen, Jennifer Aniston, Vincent Cassel, Melissa George, Addison Timlin, Giancarlo Esposito, RZA and Xzibit. This film was the first to be...
  
  (2005)
• The Enemy (2001)
• Don't Go Breaking My Heart
  Don't Go Breaking My Heart
  "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" is a duet by Elton John and Kiki Dee. It was written by Elton John with Bernie Taupin under the pseudonym "Ann Orson" and "Carte Blanche" , and intended as an affectionate pastiche of the Tamla Motown style, notably the various duets recorded by Marvin Gaye and singers...
  
  (1999)
• Out of Control (1998)
• Something to Believe In
  Something to Believe In (film)
  Something to Believe In is a 1998 film directed by John Hough....
  
  (1998)
• Sub Down (1997)
• The Inheritance
  The Inheritance
  The Inheritance is a fantasy novel set in the Dragonlance campaign series and is in the Classics series.-Plot introduction:The setting is Qualinost, Pax Tharkas, and the borderlands between Qualinost and Thobardin.-Plot summary:...
  
  (1997)
• Someone Else's America (1995)
• Caccia Alla Vedova
• Shirley Valentine
  Shirley Valentine (film)
  Shirley Valentine is a 1989 British/American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert. The screenplay by Willy Russell is based on his 1986 one-character play of the same title.-Plot:...
  
  (1989)
• Two Brothers Running (1988)
• Roman Holiday
  Roman Holiday (1987 film)
  Roman Holiday is a 1987 television film, based on the 1953 film of the same name. The plot features Princess Elysa , who is touring Rome, and decides to get 'out and about' away from her normal life. She meets with an American reporter and his photographer, who show her the sights...
  
  (1987)
• That Summer of White Roses
  That Summer of White Roses
  That Summer of White Roses is a 1989 Yugoslav-British film directed by Rajko Grlić.-External links:* at Filmski-Programi.hr...
  
  
• Beyond Therapy
  Beyond Therapy
  Beyond Therapy is a play by Christopher Durang.The farcical comedy focuses on Prudence and Bruce, two Manhattanites who are seeking stable romantic relationships with the help of their psychiatrists, each of whom suggests the patient place a personal ad. Bruce is a highly emotional bisexual who...
  
  (1987)
• The Quick and the Dead
  The Quick and the Dead (1987 film)
  The Quick and the Dead is a 1987 television movie, based on the 1973 novel by Louis L'Amour, directed by Robert Day and starring Sam Elliott, Tom Conti, Kate Capshaw, Kenny Morrison and Matt Clark.-Plot:...
  
  (1987)
• Miracles
  Miracles (1986 film)
  Miracles is a 1986 comedy film about a newly divorced couple who can't seem to get away from one another. The film was written and directed by Jim Kouf, and stars Teri Garr, Tom Conti, Paul Rodriguez, and Christopher Lloyd....
  
  (1986)
• Saving Grace
  Saving Grace (1985 film)
  Saving Grace is a 1985 film produced by Herbert F. Solow, directed by Robert M. Young and starring Tom Conti, Giancarlo Giannini and Edward James Olmos.It is based on a novel by Celia Gittelson with screenplay by Richard Kramer.-Plot:...
  
  (1985)
• Heavenly Pursuits
  Heavenly Pursuits
  Heavenly Pursuits is a 1985 British comedy film directed by Charles Gormley and was released in 1985...
  
  (1985)
• American Dreamer
  American Dreamer (film)
  American Dreamer is a 1984 American film starring JoBeth Williams and Tom Conti. It was directed by Rick Rosenthal from a script by Ann Biderman, David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf.An American housewife wins a trip to Paris in a mystery-writing contest...
  
  (1984)
• Reuben, Reuben
  Reuben, Reuben
  Reuben, Reuben is a 1983 comedy drama film. It stars Tom Conti, Kelly McGillis, Roberts Blossom, Cynthia Harris, and Joel Fabiani.The film was adapted by Julius J. Epstein from the play Spofford by Herman Shumlin, which in turn was adapted from the novel Reuben, Reuben by Peter De Vries. It was...
  
  (1983)
• Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
  Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
  Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is a 1983 film directed by Nagisa Oshima, produced by Jeremy Thomas and starring Jack Thompson, David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yuya Uchida, and Takeshi Kitano.It was written by Oshima and Paul Mayersberg and based on Laurens van der Post's experiences...
  
  (1983)
• Full Circle
  Full Circle
  -Albums:* Full Circle * Full Circle * Full Circle * Full Circle * Full Circle * Full Circle * Full Circle...
  
  (1977)
• The Duellists
  The Duellists
  The Duellists is a 1977 historical drama film that was Ridley Scott's first feature film as a director. It won the Best Debut Film award at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival...
  
  (1977)
• Galileo
  Galileo (film)
  Galileo is a 1975 film version of the Bertolt Brecht play The Life of Galileo. The film was produced and released as part of the American Film Theatre, which adapted theatrical works for a subscription-driven cinema series.-Plot:...
  
  (1975)
• Slade in Flame
  Slade In Flame
  Slade In Flame is a 1975 film starring the members of the band Slade. In 2007, BBC film critic Mark Kermode called it the "Citizen Kane of rock musicals" and included its soundtrack among the 50 greatest soundtracks in cinema's history.Record Mirror magazine voted the film at #4 on the top 10...
  
  (1975)

Television

• Andy Pandy
  Andy Pandy
  Andy Pandy is a British children's television series that premiered on BBC TV in June or July 1950. The original series of programmes was shown until 1970, when a new series was made. A third series was made in 2002...
  
  
• Donovan (TV programme) -Psychological thriller, starring Tom Conti as a forensic scientist-turned-writer. 4 Episodes.
• I Was a Rat
• Deadline
• Cosby
  Cosby
  Cosby is a situation comedy television series broadcast on CBS from September 16, 1996 to April 28, 2000, loosely based on the British sitcom One Foot in the Grave. The program starred Bill Cosby, Phylicia Rashād...
  
  
• Friends
  Friends
  Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
  
  , The One After Ross Says Rachel, and The One with Ross's Wedding
• The Inheritance
  The Inheritance
  The Inheritance is a fantasy novel set in the Dragonlance campaign series and is in the Classics series.-Plot introduction:The setting is Qualinost, Pax Tharkas, and the borderlands between Qualinost and Thobardin.-Plot summary:...
  
  
• The Wright Verdicts
• The Old Boy Network
• Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase
  Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase
  Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase is an ABC-Network miniseries based on When Rabbit Howls, the autobiography of Truddi Chase, a woman who after being sexually abused as a child, copes by developing 90 personalities. The four-hour miniseries, which was directed by Lamont Johnson stars Emmy...
  
  
• Fatal Judgement
• Roman Holiday
  Roman Holiday (1987 film)
  Roman Holiday is a 1987 television film, based on the 1953 film of the same name. The plot features Princess Elysa , who is touring Rome, and decides to get 'out and about' away from her normal life. She meets with an American reporter and his photographer, who show her the sights...
  
  
• The Dumb Waiter
  The Dumb Waiter
  The Dumb Waiter is a one-act play by 2005 Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter written in 1957; it premiered at the Hampstead Theatre Club, on 21 January 1960...
  
  
• The Quick and the Dead
  The Quick and the Dead (1987 film)
  The Quick and the Dead is a 1987 television movie, based on the 1973 novel by Louis L'Amour, directed by Robert Day and starring Sam Elliott, Tom Conti, Kate Capshaw, Kenny Morrison and Matt Clark.-Plot:...
  
  
• Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story
• Princess and the Pea
• The Wall
  The Wall
  The Wall is the eleventh studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. Released as a double album on 30 November 1979, it was subsequently performed live with elaborate theatrical effects, and adapted into a feature film, Pink Floyd—The Wall.As with the band's previous three...
  
  
• Rosemary's Baby
  Rosemary's Baby
  Rosemary's Baby is a 1967 best-selling horror novel by Ira Levin, his second published book. Major elements of the story were inspired by the publicity surrounding the Church of Satan of Anton LaVey which had been founded in 1966.-Plot summary:...
  
  
• Blade on the Feather
  Blade on the Feather
  Blade on the Feather is a television drama by Dennis Potter, broadcast by ITV on 19 October 1980 as the first in a loosely-connected trilogy of plays exploring language and betrayal...
  
  
• The Norman Conquests
  The Norman Conquests
  The Norman Conquests is a trilogy of plays written in 1973 by Alan Ayckbourn. The small scale of the drama is typical of Ayckbourn. There are only six characters, namely Norman, his wife Ruth, her brother Reg and his wife Sarah, Ruth's sister Annie, and Tom, Annie's next-door-neighbour...
  
  
• The Glittering Prizes
  The Glittering Prizes
  The Glittering Prizes is a British television drama about the changing lives of a group of Cambridge students, starting in 1953 and following them through to middle age in the 1970s. It was first broadcast on BBC2 in 1976.-Cast:...
  
  
• Sam
• Barlow at Large
  Barlow at Large
  Barlow at Large is a British television programme broadcast in the 1970s, starring Stratford Johns in the title role.Johns had previously played Barlow in the Z-Cars, Softly, Softly and Softly, Softly: Taskforce series on BBC television during the 1960s and early 1970s...
  
  
• Z Cars
• Adam Smith
  Adam Smith
  Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
  
  
• Thirty-Minute Theatre - Revolutions: Fidel Castro
• Boy Meets Girl
• Lark Rise to Candleford
  Lark Rise to Candleford (TV series)
  Lark Rise to Candleford is a British television costume drama series, adapted by the BBC from Flora Thompson's trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels about the English countryside, published between 1939 and 1943. The first episode aired on 13 January 2008 on BBC One and BBC HD in the UK. In the...
  
  
• Miranda
  Miranda (TV series)
  Miranda is a BBC television series co-written by and starring comedienne Miranda Hart, which first aired on BBC Two on 9 November 2009. The situation comedy also features Sarah Hadland, Tom Ellis, Patricia Hodge, James Holmes and Sally Phillips...
  
  

Stage

• The Real Thing
  The Real Thing (play)
  The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
  
  
• Chapter Two
• Present Laughter
  Present Laughter
  Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
  
  
• The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
  The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
  The Ride Down Mt. Morgan is a play by Arthur Miller.The play's central character is Lyman Felt, an insurance agent and bigamist who maintains families in New York City and Elmira in upstate New York...
  
  
• Romantic Comedy
  Romantic Comedy (play)
  Romantic Comedy is a play by Bernard Slade, author of Same Time, Next Year.The plot focuses on Phoebe Craddock and Jason Carmichael, playwrights who meet and decide to collaborate just as he is getting married...
  
  
• They're Playing Our Song
  They're Playing Our Song
  They're Playing Our Song is a musical with a book by Neil Simon, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, and music by Marvin Hamlisch.In a story based on the real-life relationship of Hamlisch and Sager, a wisecracking composer finds a new, offbeat lyricist, but initially the match is not one made in heaven...
  
  
• The Devil's Disciple
  The Devil's Disciple
  The Devil's Disciple is an 1897 play written by Irish dramatist, George Bernard Shaw. The play is Shaw's eighth, and after Richard Mansfield's original 1897 American production it was his first financial success, which helped to affirm his career as a playwright...
  
  
• Jesus, My Boy (1998–99, 2009)

Stage directing

• The Last of the Red Hot Lovers
  The Last of the Red Hot Lovers
  This article is about the Broadway production. For the film adaptation see Last of the Red Hot Lovers .Last of the Red Hot Lovers is a play by Neil Simon....
  
  
• Present Laughter
  Present Laughter
  Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
  
  
• Otherwise Engaged
  Otherwise Engaged
  Otherwise Engaged is a bleakly comic play by English playwright Simon Gray. The play previewed at the Oxford Playhouse and the Richmond Theatre, and then opened at the Queen's Theatre in London on 10 July 1975, with Alan Bates as the star and Harold Pinter as director, produced by Michael Codron....
  
  

Awards

• National Board of Review for Best Actor (Reuben, Reuben and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence)
• Academy Award nomination as Best Actor (Reuben, Reuben)
• Golden Globe nominations for Reuben, Reuben and Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story
• Tony Award
  Tony Award
  The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
  
   for Best Actor (Whose Life Is It Anyway?)
• Laurence Olivier Award for Actor of the Year in a New Play ('Whose Life is it Anyway?)
• Variety Club Award for Best Actor (Whose Life is it Anyway?)

External links

• Official website
• Tom Conti in Jesus, My Boy, Pleasance Theatre