Denholm Elliott

Denholm Mitchell Elliott, (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992) was an English actor, with more than 125 film and television credits. His well-known roles include the abortionist in Alfie (1966), Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Elliott gave acclaimed turns in a succession of commercial and critical hits throughout his storied career, as well as three consecutive (to this day, a still-unbeaten record) Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award wins in the 1980s for his performances as Coleman the butler in Trading Places (1983), Dr. Charles Swamby in A Private Function (1984), and as the endangered newspaper reporter Vernon Bayliss in Defence of the Realm (1985). But it was his portrayal of the eccentric Mr. Emerson in 1986's A Room with a View that earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1987, as well as another BAFTA nod (but no win), and a Best Supporting Actor nomination and win from the Kansas City Film Critics Circle.

Elliott earned continuous and expanding critical acclaim in his later career, and had an incredibly prolific body of work that spanned the mediums of film, television, and the stage, and did so over the course of more than half a century. The American film critic Roger Ebert described him as "the most dependable of all British character actors." The New York Times called him "a star among supporting players" and "an accomplished scene-stealer".