Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. His performance in the title role of Billy Budd, his film debut, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His other major roles include playing archvillain General Zod in Superman and Superman II. He has also had voice work, narrating Jazz Britannia on the BBC.
About Terence Stamp in brief
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. After training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London he started his acting career in 1962. His performance in the title role of Billy Budd, his film debut, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His other major roles include playing archvillain General Zod in Superman and Superman II, tough guy Wilson in The Limey, Supreme Chancellor Valorum in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, transgender woman Bernadette Bassinger in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He has also had voice work, narrating Jazz Britannia on the BBC, and 1966 – A Nation Remembers on ITV in July 2016 which marked the 50th anniversary of England’s 1966 FIFA World Cup victory. For his acting, Stamp has won a Golden Globe, a Mystfest, a Cannes Film Festival Award, a Satellite Award, and a Silver Bear. He was born in Stepney, London, England, the son of Ethel Esther and Thomas Stamp, who was a tugboat stoker. He grew up idolising actor Gary Cooper after his mother took him to see Beau Geste when he was three years old. His early years were spent in Canal Road, Bow, in the East End, but later in his childhood the family moved to Plaistow, West Ham, Essex, where he attended Ploistow County Grammar School. After leaving school, Stamp worked in a variety of advertising agencies in London, working his way up to earning a reasonable salary.
In the mid‑1950s, he also worked as an assistant to professional golfer Reg Knight at Wanstead Golf Club in east London. He describes this period of his life positively in his autobiography Stamp Album. Stamp won a scholarship to train in various provincial repertory theatres, most notably in a national tour of Willis Hall’s play The Long the Short and the Tall alongside another young cockney actor Michael Caine. He then appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in Term of Trial. He starred in William Wyler’s adaptation of John Fowles’ The Collector, opposite Samantha Eggar, and in Modesty Blaise for director Joseph Losey and producer Joe Janni. Stamp reunited with producer Janni for two more feature film projects: John Schlesinger’s Far from the Madding Crowd, and Ken Schiller’s Poor Cow. He lived in Italy for several years during his time in Italy to star in Federico Fellini’s Toby Dammit, a 50-minute portion of the Edgar Poe adaptation of Unma Mangoreano, starring opposite Silvana Pasoreano. Stamp was approached to play the role of James Bond’s Harry Saltzman, but did not receive a second call from producer Sean Connery because of his opinion about the film, Saltzman’s opinion on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II.
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