Actor - Peter Firth
Peter Macintosh Firth born 27 October 1953
in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England,
the son of publicans Mavis (née Hudson) and
Eric Macintosh Firth.[1] He attended Hanson
School in Bradford.
He is best known for his role as Senior MI5
Officer Sir Harry Pearce in the BBC One
popular award winning spy drama series
Spooks (2002–2011); he is the only actor to
have appeared in every episode of the
show’s ten-series lifespan.
In the highly acclaimed low budget
Liverpool feature film Letter to Brezhnev
1985 he played the role of a Russian Soldier
Sergei.
Along with his film career, Firth has
continued to appear in various television
productions, with several notable credits in
various high-profile dramas. He starred in
two science-fiction episodes of the BBC’s
Play for Today anthology series as the
eponymous time-traveller in the romantic
The Flipside of Dominick Hide (1980), and its
sequel, Another
Flip for Dominick
(1982). In 1994, in
the Fourth Series
of Heartbeat,
he played Dr.
Radcliffe who
partnered with Dr.
Rowan (Niamh
Cusack) in Whitby.
He also portrayed
the Emperor
Vespasian in “The
Jewish Revolt”
episode of the BBC
series Rome: The
Rise and Fall of an
Empire.
He has given a
myriad of additional
television and film
performances
and was a leading
child actor by the
middle of 1970,
having starred in
the first series of
The Flaxton Boys
as Archie Weekes
and in the series
Here Come the
Double Deckers,
which featured
child actors in the
leading roles. Firth
played Scooper,
the leader of the
gang.
Actors Peter Firth and Alex Pigg with Director Chris Bernard
His first major role as an adult was the title
part in a BBC Television Play of the Month
adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel The
Picture of Dorian Gray (1976). The script
was based on a stage adaptation by John
Osborne, and also starred Jeremy Brett
and John Gielgud. That same year saw the
release of the World War I film Aces High
which featured Firth as the inexperienced
RFC pilot Lt. Stephen Croft.
In 1977 he starred most notably as Alan
Strang in the film adaptation of Equus with
Richrd Burton and earned Firth a nomination
for the Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actor and a Golden Globe Award in the
same category. Further film work quickly
followed, most notably Roman Polanski’s Tess
(1979).
Peter also played
Fred Hoyle in
Hawking, a BBC
dramatisation of the early career of Stephen
Hawking. He was also Snaith in the three-
part series South Riding in 2011. Firth has also
appeared on American and Canadian
television, on programmes such as Law &
Order: Special Victims Unit and Total Recall
2070, as well as in television films such as The
Incident starring Walter Matthau.
In 2014 Firth played the part of the
character Adrian Rawlins in Undeniable, a
two-part series made for the ITV network.
In 2015 he played Jacob Marley in four
episodes of the BBC television series
Dickensian.
In 2016 Firth played the part of Ernest
Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and King of
Hanover in ITV’s drama series Victoria.
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