Sir Ben Kingsley to open Street Fair on Saturday
Sir Ben and Lady Dani Kingsley have graciously offered to open Street Fair on Saturday, and judge the childrens' fancy dress competition, which is a great honour for Street Fair. I do hope you will all come along to welcome him on Saturday.
Actor Sir Ben Kingsley is perhaps best known for his performance in Richard Attenborough's 1982 film Gandhi, in which he played the title role and won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He has received a further three Best Actor Academy Award nominations for the films Sexy Beast, House of Sand and Fog, and Bugsy.
Born Krishna Bhanji in Scarborough on 31 December 1943, Sir Ben was the son of English model-actress Anne Lyn Goodman and her husband, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, a Muslim Indian GP. Sir Ben attended Manchester Grammar School (where he first began to act) and later studied at the University of Salford. After beginning a successful stage career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, he eventually changed his name, fearing that a foreign name might hamper his career.
Career highlights include playing Itzhak Stern, Oscar Schindler's Jewish accountant, in Schindler's List, terrifying gangster Don Logan in Sexy Beast, and Dr Roberto Miranda, a suspected torturer in Death and the Maiden. In his acclaimed performance in House of Sand and Fog, he portrayed an expatriate Iranian colonel struggling to come to terms with his past.
He was knighted in the New Year's Honours in 2001.
Susie Finch · Wed 17 Sep 2008, 01:45 · Link