Antony Sher

Sir Antony Sher, KBE (born 14 June 1949) is a South African born actor, writer, theatre director and painter. Sher was born into a Lithuanian Jewish family in Cape Town, South Africa, the son of Margery and Emmanuel Sher, who worked in business. He grew up in the suburb of Sea Point (his cousin is Ronald Harwood), but he has worked mainly in the United Kingdom and is now a British citizen. In 1968, after completing his compulsory military service... more

Sir Antony Sher, KBE (born 14 June 1949) is a South African born actor, writer, theatre director and painter. Sher was born into a Lithuanian Jewish family in Cape Town, South Africa, the son of Margery and Emmanuel Sher, who worked in business. He grew up in the suburb of Sea Point (his cousin is Ronald Harwood), but he has worked mainly in the United Kingdom and is now a British citizen. In 1968, after completing his compulsory military service, he left for London to audition at the Central School of Speech and Drama, but was unsuccessful. Instead, he studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art from 1969 to 1971. After training, and some early performances with the theatre group Gay Sweatshop, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982. In the 1970s Sher was part of an astonishing group of young actors and writers working at the Liverpool Everyman. It consisted of the likes of writers Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale and fellow actors Bernard Hill, Julie Walters,... less