Peter Firth

More recently, he has starred as senior MI5 officer Harry Pearce in the BBC's popular spy drama series Spooks (2002-present), and played Fred Hoyle in a BBC dramatisation of the early career of Stephen Hawking. George Grossmith died in Folkestone, Kent. Both of these were made as part of the BBC's famous Play for Today anthology drama strand. George Grossmith wrote numerous humourous pieces for the magazine Punch, as well as three books, The Reminiscences of a Society Clown (1888), Diary of a Nobody (co-written with his brother Weedon Grossmith, 1892), and Piano & I (1910). In 1980 he starred as the eponymous time traveller in the BBC's feelgood science-fiction play The Flipside of Dominick Hide, and two years later starred in a sequel, Another Flip for Dominick. Grossmith first retired from the stage in 1891, returned from 1894 - 1897, and made two more short stage appearances before his final retirement in 1900. In parallel to his film career, Firth has continued to appear in various television productions, with several notable credits in various high-profile dramas. He also toured with the D'Oyly Carte Company around Great Britain and the United States of America.

Subsequent film work has included roles in The Hunt for Red October (1990) and Pearl Harbor (2001). George Grossmith became a regular member of Richard D'Oyly Carte's Savoy Theatre company, and created most of the lead comic light baritone roles in Gilbert & Sullivan's famous operettas. Further film work quickly followed, most notably Roman Polanski's Tess (1979), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles. He was noted for his ability to get laughs, often improvising comic business in roles-- although he sometimes tended to do this too often, even at the expense of portions of productions that were supposed to be serious, and the main critisim often directed at Grossmith was that he seemed unable to content himself with playing any scene straight. The film was a success, and earned Firth a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and victory in the same category at the Golden Globe Awards. He soon became well known in London as a comedian. The following year, Firth starred in Equus, the film adaptation of the play in which he had starred on Broadway. After working some time as a legal reporter and a journalist with no great success, Grossmith took to the stage in 1870.

The adaptation was scripted by John Osborne and also starred Jeremy Brett and John Gielgud, becoming a major success with the critics. George Grossmith was born in London, the son of a lecturer of the same name. His first major role as an adult was in the title role in a 1976 BBC Television Play of the Month adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. George Grossmith (December 7, 1847 - March 1, 1912) was an English actor and comic writer, best remembered for his work with Gilbert & Sullivan. In 1973, he appeared on stage in Peter Shaffer's Equus, playing a teenager being treated by a psychiatrist. Firth played Scooper, the leader of the gang.

Firth was a leading child actor by 1970, starring in the Double Deckers series, which was made in the USA but set in London and featured British children in the leading roles. Peter Firth (born October 27, 1953 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, UK) is a British actor, well known for a variety of starring roles in film and on television from the 1970s to the 2000s.