9:37AM, Jan 07, 2009
FRANK LANGELLA
Born: January 1st 1940
Where: Bayonne, New Jersey, USA
First and foremost a stage actor, Langella is enjoying an cinematic renaissance thanks to his commanding performance as Richard Nixon in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, reprising his Tony award winning stage performance.
Other big screen outings have included newspaper editor Perry White in Superman Returns and TV boss William Paley in Good Night, and Good Luck.
"I just feel that no matter what comes in a career - and mine has been all over the map - you must stay at the table, pick up the cards you're dealt and play them."
Born into an Italian American family, Langella was the son of a business executive and he graduated from Syracuse University in 1959 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama.
He made his big screen debut in 1970 in Diary of a Mad Housewife for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for most promising newcomer.
Langella was best known early in his career for his success in the title role of the Broadway production of Dracula and eventually appeared in the film version opposite Laurence Olivier.
He went on to play Sherlock Holmes in an HBO adaptation of William Gillette's stage play and repeated the role on Broadway in 1987 in Charles Marowitz's play Sherlock's Last Case.
The same year Langella would also portray the villain Skeletor in Masters of the Universe although he subsequently largely avoided film in order to pursue a career on the stage.
By the 1990s he was tempted back and made a memorable three-episode appearance on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the devious Jaro Essa.
Other big screen appearances included Santangel in Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise and Jeffrey Roston in the thriller Body of Evidence.
He was a villainous pirate in the summer 1995 release Cutthroat Island and picked up the Peter Sellers role in Adrian Lyne's remake of Lolita.
This landed him a still-controversial frontal-nude scene, much to Langella's outrage and embarrassment.
In 2005, he appeared in George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck as former CBS chief executive William S. Paley and in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns as Daily Planet editor Perry White.
But, with Frost/Nixon Langella has combined his stage presence with cinema in a performance that stands as his finest on the silver screen.
