When the Whales Came

David Paul Scofield CH CBE (21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008) was an English actor. During a seven-decade career, Scofield achieved the Triple Crown of Acting, winning an Academy Award, Emmy, and Tony for his work. He won the three awards in a seven-year span, the fastest of any performer to accomplish the feat. Scofield received Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play at the 1962 Tony Awards for portraying Sir Thomas More in the Broadway production of A Man for All Seasons. Four years later, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor when he reprised the role in the 1966 film adaptation, making him one of nine to receive a Tony and Academy Award for the same role. His Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie was achieved for the 1969 television film Male of the Species. Preferring the stage to the screen and putting his family before his career, Scofield nonetheless established a reputation as one of the greatest Shakespearean performers. Among other accolades, his performance as Mark Van Doren in Quiz Show (1994) earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and he won Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the BAFTA Awards for portraying Thomas Danforth in The Crucible (1996). Scofield declined the honour of a knighthood, but was appointed CBE in 1956 and became a Companion of Honour in 2001. Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Scofield, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Born in Burnage, Manchester in 1953, David Threlfall is a celebrated actor of stage, film and television. In the latter, he is perhaps best known as the feckless Frank Gallagher in Channel 4's Shameless. In 1994 whilst working on a production of The Count of Monte Cristo at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, Threlfall met Bosnian actress Brana Bajic and the pair subsequently married a year later.

Dame Helen Lydia Mirren DBE (née Mironoff; born 26 July 1945) is an English actor. The recipient of numerous accolades, she is the only person to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting in both the United States and the United Kingdom. She received an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award for the same role in The Audience, three British Academy Television Awards for her performance as DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, and four Primetime Emmy Awards, including two for Prime Suspect. Excelling on stage with the National Youth Theatre, Mirren's performance as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra in 1965 saw her invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company before she made her West End stage debut in 1975. Since then, Mirren has also had success in television and film. Aside from her Academy Award-winning performance, Mirren's other Oscar-nominated performances were for The Madness of King George (1994), Gosford Park (2001), and The Last Station (2009). For her role on Prime Suspect, which ran from 1991 to 2006, she won three consecutive British Academy Television Awards for Best Actress (1992, 1993 and 1994), a joint-record of consecutive wins shared with Julie Walters, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Playing Queen Elizabeth I in the television series Elizabeth I (2005), and Queen Elizabeth II in the film The Queen (2006), she is the only actor to have portrayed both the regnant Elizabeths on screen. After her breakthrough film role in The Long Good Friday (1980), other notable film roles included Cal (1984), for which she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, 2010 (1984), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999), Calendar Girls (2003), Hitchcock (2012), The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014), Woman in Gold (2015), Trumbo (2015), and The Leisure Seeker (2017). She also appeared in the action films Red (2010) and Red 2 (2013) playing an ex-MI6 assassin, and in the Fast & Furious films The Fate of the Furious (2017), Hobbs & Shaw (2019), and F9 (2021). In the Queen's 2003 Birthday Honours, Mirren was appointed a Dame (DBE) for services to drama, with investiture taking place at Buckingham Palace. In 2013 she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2014 she received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 2021, she was announced as the recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. Description above from the Wikipedia article Helen Mirren, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jeremy Kemp (3 January 1935 - 19 July 2019) was an English actor. He was known for his roles in the miniseries The Winds of War, The Blue Max and Z-Cars. Kemp was born Jeremy Walker in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, the son of Elsa May (née Kemp) and Edmund Reginald Walker, an engineer, and studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama. His TV credits include: Colditz, Space: 1999 and a number of American series such as: Hart to Hart, The Greatest American Hero, The Fall Guy, Conan the Adventurer, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance and Murder, She Wrote. His film roles include: Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, Operation Crossbow, The Blue Max, A Bridge Too Far, Top Secret! and Four Weddings and a Funeral. He also appeared as Cornwall in the 1984 TV movie version of King Lear opposite Laurence Olivier as Lear. Description above from the Wikipedia article Jeremy Kemp, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.   John William Francis Hallam (28 October 1941 – 14 November 2006[1]) was a Northern Irish character actor. Born John William Francis Hallam in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, he appeared in many film and television roles including Nicholas and Alexandra (1971),Murphy's War (1971), The Pallisers (1974), The Mallens (1979), Flash Gordon (1980), Dragonslayer (1981), the BBC television adaptations of Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1989) and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). He also appears in the director's cut of the 1973 film The Wicker Man as McTaggart. He appeared in the science fiction series Doctor Who as the memorable alien "Light" in the serial Ghost Light (1989). He was also known as Barnsey, the prison cell mate of Den Watts in EastEnders. On November 14, 2006, Hallam died in Clifton, Oxfordshire, England at age 65. He was divorced and had four children. Description above from the Wikipedia article John Hallam  licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Barbara Ewing (born 14 January 1939) is a New Zealand actor, playwright and novelist based in the UK. In the 1980s Ewing played the character Agnes Fairchild in British comedy series Brass. Ewing's novel The Petticoat Men was shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award in 2015.

Dexter Fletcher (born 31 January 1966) is an English actor and director. He has appeared in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and the crime comedy Smoking Guns, as well as in television shows such as the comedy-drama Hotel Babylon, the HBO series Band of Brothers and, earlier in his career, the children's show Press Gang. He was also in the film Bugsy Malone. He had a short stint as a presenter on the third series of Channel 4's GamesMaster in 1993 and 1994. Fletcher made his directorial debut with Wild Bill (2011), and also directed Sunshine on Leith (2013) and Eddie the Eagle (2015). He replaced Bryan Singer as director of Bohemian Rhapsody, a biopic about the band Queen, released in October 2018; due to DGA rules, he received executive producer credit. In 2019 he directed Rocketman, a film based on the life of Elton John. Description above from the Wikipedia article Dexter Fletcher, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Nicholas Jones (born 3 April 1946) is an English character actor who has appeared on stage, film and television.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Barbara Jefford, OBE (born 26 July 1930) is a British Shakespearean actress best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre, and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's Ulysses. Description above from the Wikipedia article Barbara Jefford, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.