Rowan Atkinson - Biography

Last Editor: DIMEPEICEGRL				Rowan Atkinson Biography -   Name : Rowan Atkinson Profession : Actor Birth Details : born January 6, 1955 in Consett, County Durham, England Birth name : Rowan Sebastian Atkinson Height : 6' (1.83 m) Personal quotes : "People think because I can make them laugh on the stage, I'll be able to make them laugh in person. That isn't the case at all. I am essentially Spouse : Sunetra Sastry (February 1990 - present) 2 children Trade mark : Wide range of humorous expressions

Rowan Atkinson Trivia -

Has two children, Lily and Benjamin Rides go-karts round his tennis courts and according to Stephen Fry (his best man) "hasn't got an ounce of show-biz in him". Has an HGV license. Owns various fast cars (Aston Martin Vantages, etc.). Writes articles for CAR (a British car magazine). Education: Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK (electrical engineering); Oxford University, Oxford, UK (electrical engineering) Races (and also crashes) his Aston Martins in the Aston Martins Owners club series. His wife is a make-up artist. Attended Cathedral Chorister School, Durham with Tony Blair. He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Comedy Performance in 1982 for the 1981 season. Once crashed his MacLaren F1, a supercar valued at more than $1,000,000, into the back of a stationary Mini Metro, valued at around $600. The damage was not severe. He was one of the guests at Prince Charles's and Camilla Parker-Bowles' wedding Has publicly opposed the British Labour government's plans to introduce new legislation on incitement to racial hatred, arguing that it would undermine free speech and thought (even citing the possible development of mind-reading technology), and that such measures would make political satire - which he considers seminal in a democracy - unworkable.

Rowan Atkinson Detailed Biography -

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born January 6, 1955 in Consett, County Durham, England) is an English comedian, actor and writer best known for playing the title roles in the UK TV series Blackadder and Mr. Bean. Atkinson was born to Eric Atkinson and Ella May, Anglican farmers in the town of Consett, near Newcastle Upon Tyne. He was educated at Durham Choristers School, followed by St Bees School, and studied electrical engineering at Newcastle University. He continued with an MSc at Oxford (Queen's College), starting his comedy career at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1977. At Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career. Atkinson toured with Angus Deayton, who accompanied him as straight man. The show was filmed for television, and is still popular on video. It characterises Atkinson's comedy style, which is rigorously planned and scripted, often visual-based – comedy as performance, rather than as observation or discussion, observant of life as many of the routines were. Atkinson's talent for visual comedy has seen him described as "the man with the rubber face". In 1978 he was offered his own television series by ITV but turned it down in favour of Not the Nine O'Clock News, which also starred Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith. The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to his starring in the medieval sitcom The Black Adder, which he also co-wrote with Richard Curtis, in 1983. Despite a mixed reception, a second series was written, this time by Curtis and Ben Elton, and first screened in 1985. Blackadder II followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era. The same pattern was repeated in two sequels Blackadder the Third (1987) (set in the Regency era), and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), set in the First World War. The Blackadder series went on to become one of the most successful BBC situation comedies of the 1980s. Atkinson's other famous creation, the hapless Mr Bean, first appeared the following year in a half-hour special for Thames Television. Several sequels followed at irregular intervals before the character transferred to film in 1997. Entitled Bean, it was directed by his former co-star from Not the Nine O'Clock News, Mel Smith. As of 2006, a second film is being planned, which Atkinson says will be the last time he plays him. In 2003, Atkinson was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and in a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder.