Tom Conti
22 November, 1941
| 1.80 m
Actor
Soundtrack
Biography
Preferring contemporary over classical theatre (with nary a Shakespeare stage credit in sight), one of West End theatre's most enduring and popular faces of the past four decades has been that of Tom Conti.He was born Thomas Antonio Conti on November 22, 1941, in Paisley, Scotland, to a pair of hairdressers. His father, Alfonso, was an Italian immigrant, and his mother, Mary (McGoldrick), was Scottish, though of Irish descent. A student at Hamilton Park Catholic School (for boys), he initially trained for a musical career as a classical pianist but switched gears while attending the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Conti's acting credits began with the Citizen's Theatre's 1959 production of "The Roving Boy" at age eighteen.Throughout the 1960s he tried to make ends meet on the Glasgow and English repertory stages but gained little momentum despite some scattered TV appearances in between. Unable to find the break to sustain himself, he considered leaving the arts at one point for a steadier career in medicine. While performing in the 1972 play "The Black and White Minstrels" at the Traverse Theatre for the Edinburgh Festival, however, he was spotted and cast in the TV series Adam Smith (1972), thus beginning a more promising streak of work. He would return to the play in 1974 at the Hampstead Theatre, where he also performed in "Other People" (also 1974) and as the title role of "Don Juan" (1976). An earlier London stage debut in 1973 with the acclaimed Christopher Hampton play "Savages" also helped move things along.Following a number of successful Engish mini-series roles, particularly his slothful Charles Bovary in Madame Bovary (1975), Jewish novelist Adam Morris in The Glittering Prizes (1976), and ever-conquesting Norman in "The Norman Conquest" trilogy by Alan Ayckbourn, Tom reaped huge career rewards under the... show more
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