Sir Robert Graham Stephens (14 July 193112 November 1995) was an English actor in the early years of Britain's Royal National Theatre.

Stephens appeared in two versions of Epitaph for George Dillon on Broadway during the 1958-59 season for which he received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

Stephens's early films included A Taste of Honey (1961),

Stephens played Atahuallpa in the original 1964 National Theatre production of The Royal Hunt of the Sun. He and Smith appeared together on stage and in film, notably in The Recruiting Officer at the Old Vic and the film version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969.

Although Stephens continued to work on stage (notably in the National Theatre's The Mysteries in 1986), film (The Fruit Machine (1988), and as the Master of an Oxford college in an episode of Inspector Morse). He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1993 for Best Actor, for his performance as Falstaff.

Stephens provided the voice of Aragorn in the 1981 BBC Radio serialisation of The Lord of the Rings. In 1985, he directed the British premiere production of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea by John Patrick Shanley at the Gate Theatre, London.

Stephens was knighted as a Knight Bachelor in the 1995 New Years Honours List "For services to Drama".

Personal life and death

Stephens was married four times:

  • 1951: to Nora Ann Simmons; they had one child and divorced in 1952
  • 1956: to Tarn Bassett; they had one child and divorced in 1967 a little under a year after having been knighted.

|-

| 1966

| Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment

| Charles Napier

|

|

| Raymond Chandler

| TV arts series, 1 episode, dramatised readings<br />

|-1990 House of Cards Urquart BBC

| 1990

| The Storyteller: Greek Myths

| Hades

| 1 episode

|-

| 1994–1995

| 99-1

| Commander Oakwood

| 7 episodes

|}

See also

  • List of British actors

References

Bibliography

  • Stephens, Robert; Coveney, Michael. (1995). Knight Errant. Hodder and Stoughton
  • Stevens, Christopher. (2010). Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams. John Murray
  • McFarlane, Brian. (2005). The Encyclopaedia of British Film. Methuen, 2nd edition
  • Portraits of Stephens at the National Portrait Gallery