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David Suchet
David Suchet as John Barsad in
David Suchet as Nakesh in Iron Eagle
David Suchet as Edward Palmer in
As Reacher Gilt in Going Postal
As DI John Borne in Manhunt
As Martin Kulman in Public Eye (1971)
David Suchet as Matvei in Gulag
David Suchet (Salieri) & Michael Sheen (Mozart)
As Hassan in Executive Decision
As Napoleon in Sabotage!
David Suchet as Shylock in
As Melmotte in The Way We Live Now
As Abraham Van Helsing in Dracula
David Courtney Suchet was born in London in 1946. His mother Joan was an actress, and his father Jack Suchet, originally from South Africa, was a Harley Street surgeon. Both his parents were of Jewish descent, but David was raised without religion and later became an Anglican in the 1980s. David and his two brothers,
In March 2012, I saw Eugene O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham. The cast were superb, especially David Suchet as James Tyrone. It was lovely meeting him afterwards, when he signed my programme & a couple of photographs. He was very friendly, and easy to talk to, and my dad took this photo of us together.
David Suchet as a young child
brothers, Peter (an advertising executive) and John (the well-known TV newsreader & journalist) attended Grenham House preparatory school in Kent, as a boarder.
David hated it at Grenham House, but was much happier when he was sent to Wellington School in Somerset. There he excelled at sport, especially tennis and rugby, and his teacher, Joe Storr, also gave him the chance to play Macbeth in the school production of Shakespeare's play. He enjoyed the experience, and this set him on course to becoming an actor. Aged 16, he joined the National Youth Theatre, then went into repertory theatre, toured around the country, and his career developed from there. He later studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), where he now serves as a council member.
David Suchet - 1964
As Macbeth in 1962
David Suchet began his professional career at the Watermill Theatre inBer
in Berkshire before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1973. He played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet that year; made his American stage debut in 1975 in a production of King Lear, and won a Society of West End Theatres (SWET) Award for Best Actor in 1978 for his performance as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
The Merchant of Venice in 1981
Later notable stage roles have been as John in David Mamet's
Mamet's Oleanna at the Royal Court Theatre in 1993, directed by Harold Pinter; George in a 1997 production ofWho
of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (winning him a London Critics' Circle Award for Best actor).....
in Amadeus
Actor); Salieri in Sir Peter Hall's Broadway production of Shaffer's Amadeus from 1998 to 2000; Antonescu in Terence Rattigan's Man and Boy at the Duchess Theatre in 2005 and Cardinal Benelli in The Last Confession at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2007.
David Suchet as Joe Keller in All My Sons
In 2010, he played Joe Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons at the West End's Apollo Theatre. Described as "a stunning production of a modern classic" by the Telegraph reviewer, David Suchet was named "best actor in a play" at the What's On Stage Awards
Trevor White, David Suchet & Kyle Soller in Long Day's Journey Into Night
Awards in February 2011. In 2012, he starred as James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's great American
American play Long Day's Journey into Night. This toured to Richmond, Nottingham, Milton Keynes and Glasgow before a West End run, again at the Apollo Theatre.
Laurie Metcalf & David Suchet have both signed this photo to me
Away from the theatre, virtually all of David Suchet's work has been for television, with his first TV appearance
Suchet with his WOS Award
appearance as a storyteller on Jackanory in 1966 reading 'Emil and the Detectives'. After small parts in various TV series during the 1970s, the role of Edward Teller in Oppenheimer (1980), the biography of the atomic bomb developer, was his first significant one.
As Krivas in The Professionals (1978)
As Edward Teller in Oppenheimer (1980)
He starred as Sigmund Freud, in the six-part portrayal of the great psychoanalyst Freud (1984) followed by another six-part series, which brought him much acclaim, Blott on the Landscape (1985). This was an adaptation of Tom Sharpe's comedy in which Suchet played a foreign gardener/handyman, Blott. He works for Lady Maud Lynchwood (Geraldine James), and tries to prevent a motorway being built through the grounds of her ancestral home. Little did David Suchet know at the time, that this role would have a life-changing effect on his career, andleadareer.
A Tale of Two Cities (1980)
David Suchet as Buller in
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan
and lead to the role for which he will always be remembered.
As Tsientsin in Reilly: Ace of Spies
David Suchet as Blott in Blott on the Landscape
After voicing 'The Phoenix' in the six-part
part miniseries The Phoenix and the Carpet (1997), Suchet later starred as Morris Price, in the three-part crime series Seesaw (1999) and as Augustus Melmotte, a city banker with mysterious
mysterious European origins, in the 4-episode BBC adaptation of Anthony Trollope's romantic drama The Way We Live Now (2001). This role won him a Royal Television Society award in 2002.
DVD of the BBC mini-series Freud
However, it is for Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot that David Suchet will be forever remembered. It was whilst
whilst watching Blott on the Landscape that Christie's daughter, Rosalind Hicks decided that he would make the perfect Poirot, and it led to him being cast as the character in 1987.
Murder in Mind
David Suchet as Hercule Poirot in
The Adventure of the Clapham Cook
detective Hercule Poirot
Suchet first played him on British television in Christie's short story The Adventure of the Clapham Cook in January 1989. This was the first of thirty five productions that aired as part of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS)
(PBS) Mystery! series from 1989 to 1995. Well known Christie
Christie novels adapted included The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1990), The ABC Murders (1992), One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1992); Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan (1993); Hickory Dickory Dock (1995); Murder on the Links (1995), and Dumb Witness (1996).
David Suchet as Agatha Christie's Belgian
To prepare for the role, Suchet read all of Christie's Poirot books, and researched every detail, including how many sugar lumps Poirot puts in his tea! He has made the character entirely his own, and continued on his quest to film every Poirot story. He became an associate producer of the series in 2003, and by the time Murder on the Orient Express (2010) had been finished he had just five more stories to go.
In November 2011, plans to make the five remaining
remaining stories were announced by ITV, and that they would make up the thirteenth (and final) series of Poirot - 70 stories in total. In the last of these, Curtain, Poirot dies.
David Suchet has signed this Poirot photograph to me
It is from the episode The Clocks
During filming for Poirot, David Suchet stays in character all the time, even when he gets home, although he does take off his moustache! For the role, Suchet wears a 'fat suit' which he refers to as his 'armadillo padding'.
As Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express
David Suchet as Hercule Poirot
David Suchet as Hercule Poirot
David Suchet as Hercule Poirot
Poirot, which is said to be the Queen's favourite TV show, has built up a worldwide following. Suchet says, "Poirot is a brilliant, yet profoundly complicated character. He's considerate, with a love of elegance and precision, but he is also so maddeningly
maddeningly frustrating to play as he's so vain and pedantic. I've always loved playing him." David Suchet was joined in the Poirot
the Poirot series by recurring co-stars Hugh Fraser (42 episodes as Hastings), Philip Jackson
Jackson (39 episodes as Chief Inspector Japp) and Pauline Moran (31 episodes as Miss Lemon). He also appeared in an adaptation of Christie's Poirot story Lord Edgware Dies. Entitled Thirteen at Dinner (1985), David Suchet played Inspector Japp on that occasion, with Peter Ustinov in the role of Poirot.
With Faye Dunaway in Thirteen at Dinner
As Aaron in Moses
As Joab in Solomon
David Suchet also has more than thirty TV Movies to his name. These show how versatile an actor he is with parts that range from Aaron in the Bible story Moses.
Moses (1995) to domineering Hollywood studio boss Louis B Mayer in RKO 281(1999), about them
about the making of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.
As Louis B Mayer in RKO 281
David Suchet as Baron von Stockmar
in Victoria & Albert
As Cardinal Wolsey in King Henry VIII
He even ventured into costume drama as Baron von Stockmar in Victoria & Albert
Albert (2001). Other notable TV movie roles include Jonathan
Jonathan Gault in the thriller The Last Innocent Man (1987); George Carmen in the biographical drama about the famous barrister Get Carmen: The Trials of George Carmen QC (2002); Van Helsing in the horror story Dracula (2006); the controversial press mogul Robert Maxwell in Maxwell (2007) for which he won a 'Best Actor' Emmy Award, and Reacher Gilt in an adaptation of Terry Pratchett's fantasy comedy Going Postal (2010).
As Robert Maxwell in Maxwell
As Samuel Stern in Diverted
On the big screen, David Suchet's appearances have mostly been in supporting roles in films like The Little Drummer Girl (1984);
(1984); To Kill a Priest (1988); Executive Decision (1996) and Flood (2007). He has had occasional starring roles in feature films however - the dual role of Oliver/Matthew in the romantic drama Sunday (1997) and Napoleon in the comedy Sabotage! (2000) with co-star Stephen Fry.
As Karaman in A Perfect Murder
David Suchet & Lisa Harrow in Sunday
As Deputy PM Campbell in Flood
As Jean-Pierre Thibodoux in The In-Laws
As Lew Vogel in The Bank Job
David Suchet as George in
In 2006, David Suchet took part in the ITV programme Extinct
Extinct along with seven other celebrities, each presenting a case for a large sum of money that would be used to help save an endangered species. He presented the case for the Giant Panda
Panda which was voted into third place by the public.
David in Who Do You Think You Are?
In 2008, he featured in the documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? in which he journeyed round Europe to discover why the family name was changed from Suchedowitz to Suchet. He also went to Paris on the trail of his great-grandfather Arnold Jarche, whose son James Jarche was the Fleet Street photographer, who famously photographed
photographed the 'Siege of Sidney Street' in 1911. It was after James Jarche gave him a Kodak camera as a present that David Suchet first began his lifelong interest in photography.
For ITV, he made the documentary People I Have Shot about his grandfather's work, and this was screened in March 2012. Another of David's hobbies is playing the clarinet. Davids
David Suchet with his grandfather, the
photographer James Jarche
David Suchet with his wife Shiela Ferris
Hello! Magazine feature (22 July 1989)
Although born into a Jewish family, David Suchet's parents were non-religious and he was brought up without any religious observance. In the 1980s he was baptised into the Anglican church after reading Romans
David Suchet has been married to actress Sheila Ferris since 1976, and they live in Pinner, in a house once owned by Lord Nelson's daughter Horatia and, more recently, by the comedian Ronnie Barker. They have two children, Robert (b.1981), a Royal Marines captain, and Katherine (b.1983), a physiotherapist.
Romans Chapter 8 in the Bible, and he remains a devout Christian.
David Suchet OBE
An Emmy Award for Maxwell
Honorary degree - Kent University
He was awarded an OBE in 2002, and a CBE in the 2011 New Years Honours for services to drama.
David Suchet receives his CBE from Prince Charles
drama. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Chichester (in 2008) and the University of Kent (in 2010), and in 2009, he was made a Freeman of the City of London at a ceremony in London's Guildhall.
Freeman of the City of London
Who Do You Think You Are? - David Suchet
The Way We Live Now - David Suchet Interview
VIDEOS
David Suchet has signed my programme from
Long Day's Journey into Night
