Ben Kingsley
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. Throughout his career spanning over five decades, he has garnered numerous accolades, including a Grammy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA Award, and an Academy Award from four nominations.
Born to an English mother and a father from Jamnagar, Gujarati Indian descent, Kingsley began his career in theatre, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967 and spending the next 15 years appearing mainly on stage. His starring roles included productions of As You Like It (his West End debut for the company at the Aldwych Theatre in 1967), Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream (including Peter Brook’s 1970 RSC production of the play), Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
In film, Kingsley is best known for his starring role as Mohandas Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982), for which he subsequently won the Academy Award for Best Actor and BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He also appeared as Itzhak Stern in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler's List (1993), receiving a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Subsequent roles have included Twelfth Night (1996), Sexy Beast (2000), House of Sand and Fog (2003), Thunderbirds (2004), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Shutter Island (2010), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Hugo (2011), The Dictator (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013) and Ender's Game (2013). He has also voiced Archibald Snatcher in The Boxtrolls (2014), and Bagheera in the live action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book (2016).
Kingsley was appointed Knight Bachelor in 2002 for services to the British film industry. In 2010, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2013, he received the Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment.
