Nigel Hawthorne born 5 April 1929 (d. 2001)Sir Nigel Hawthorne, CBE was a renowned English actor.
He was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, although he grew up in South Africa, where he was educated by the Christian Brothers. He returned to the United Kingdom in the 1950s to pursue acting.
In a long and varied career, which began with an advert for Mackeson stout and a bit part in Dad's Army, his most famous roles were as Sir Humphrey Appleby in the TV series Yes, Minister (and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister), for which he won four BAFTA awards, and as King George III in Alan Bennett's stage play The Madness of George III (Olivier Award) and the film adaptation, for which he received an Oscar nomination.
He was appointed a CBE in 1987, and was knighted in 1999.
An intensely private individual, he was 'deeply saddened' when he was involuntarily outed as gay in the run-up to the Oscars but nevertheless attended the ceremonies with his long-time partner and spoke openly about being gay in interviews and his autobiography, Straight Face, which was published posthumously.
He had several surgeries for pancreatic cancer, although his immediate cause of death was from a heart attack, aged 72. His partner of 22 years, Trevor Bentham, a stage manager and occasional screenwriter, survived him.