Birthday quote

Brian Blessed

Born October 9th 1936 in Mexborough, Yorkshire.

Brian Blessed OBE is an English actor, writer, and presenter. He is known for his booming voice and his roles in I, Claudius, Blackadder, and Flash Gordon.
Brian Blessed is the son of William Blessed (1906-2005), a socialist coal miner at Hickleton Main Colliery (and himself the son of a coal miner) and Hilda Wall (1909-1997),
One of Blessed's earliest roles was that of PC "Fancy" Smith in the BBC television series Z-Cars, between 1962 and 1965.
On stage, he starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Cats, as both Old Deuteronomy and Bustopher Jones, for the original 1981 West End theatre production.
Blessed was a keen boxer in his youth and claims to have sparred with the Dalai Lama. He has attempted to climb Mount Everest three times without supplemental oxygen, reaching a height of 28,200 feet in 1993 but without reaching the summit.
In January 2015, Blessed collapsed on stage during a performance of King Lear and later that month announced his retirement.

My parents were so proud when I got a scholarship to go to theatre school – it was unheard of that a coal-miner's son should go to drama school.

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