David Suchet

Sir David Courtney Suchet was born on 2 May 1946 in the Paddington area of London. His father, Jack Suchet, emigrated from South Africa to England in 1932 and trained as a physician at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London, eventually becoming an obstetrician and gynaecologist. Jack was of Lithuanian-Jewish descent, his own father being Izidor Suchedowitz, originally from Kretinga in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire. The family surname had at one point been recorded as "Schohet," a Yiddish word derived from the Hebrew shochet, denoting a kosher butcher, before Jack changed it to Suchet while living in South Africa. Suchet's mother, Joan Patricia (née Jarché; 1916–1992), was an actress born in England, of Russian-Jewish descent on her father's side and English Anglican on her mother's side. Suchet was raised without religion, became a practising Anglican in 1986, and was confirmed in 2006.

Suchet and his brothers John and Peter attended Grenham House boarding school in Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, and later Wellington School in Somerset. He developed an interest in acting in his teens and joined the National Youth Theatre at the age of 16. He subsequently trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, an institution where he later served as vice president before retiring from that role in 2018.

His professional acting career began at the Gateway Theatre, Chester in 1969, after which he worked in repertory theatres including those in Worthing, Birmingham, Coventry's Belgrade Theatre, Liverpool Playhouse, and the Watermill Theatre. In 1973 he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in 1981–82 he played Bolingbroke in Richard II opposite Alan Howard. His West End debut came in 1987, when he appeared opposite Saskia Reeves in the Kempinski play Separation at the Comedy Theatre. In 1993 he played the role of John in Oleanna at the Royal Court Theatre, a production directed by Harold Pinter that co-starred Lia Williams. Between 1996 and 1997 he appeared opposite Dame Diana Rigg in the West End production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Suchet made his Broadway debut in the 1998–2000 production of Amadeus, in which he was featured as Salieri. His performance earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play in 2000. He has accumulated nine Olivier Award nominations over the course of his stage career. In 2007 he played Cardinal Benelli in The Last Confession at the Chichester Festival Theatre, a role he reprised in the Australian tour of the production in 2014. From June 2015 he starred as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest at the Vaudeville Theatre in London and on tour. In January 2022 he held a three-week residency at the Harold Pinter Theatre performing Poirot and More, A Retrospective.

On television, Suchet portrayed Edward Teller in the serial Oppenheimer in 1980. In 1985 he played Inspector James Japp in the Hercule Poirot television film Thirteen at Dinner, which starred Peter Ustinov in the title role Suchet himself would later take on. That same year he appeared in Blott on the Landscape. In 1988 he played Leopold Bloom in the Channel 4 documentary The Modern World: Ten Great Writers, and appeared in an episode of Tales of the Unexpected. In 1989 he began his long-running portrayal of Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Poirot, a role he continued through 2013, ultimately adapting every novel and short story Christie wrote featuring the character. His performance earned a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor nomination in 1991. In preparation for the role, he compiled a five-page character study detailing 93 aspects of Poirot's life and shared a copy with every director he worked with on the series.

In 2001 Suchet took the lead role of Augustus Melmotte in the BBC serial The Way We Live Now, directed by David Yates, for which he received both the RTS and BPG awards. In 2002 he played barrister George Carman in the BBC drama Get Carman: The Trials of George Carman QC. He starred as Cardinal Wolsey in the two-part ITV drama Henry VIII in 2003, alongside Ray Winstone and Helena Bonham Carter. In 2006 he portrayed fallen press baron Robert Maxwell in the BBC2 dramatisation Maxwell, and voiced Poirot in the adventure game Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express. At Christmas 2006 he played Abraham Van Helsing in a BBC adaptation of Dracula. He appeared in the 2007 disaster film Flood as the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and in 2008 played Lew Vogel in The Bank Job alongside Jason Statham and Saffron Burrows. In 2010 he starred as Reacher Gilt in the Sky TV adaptation of Going Postal. Between 2014 and 2015 he appeared in and narrated two BBC Television documentaries tracing journeys inspired by the lives and travels of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. In 2017 he starred as Dr Fagan in the BBC One adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall and guest starred in the Doctor Who episode Knock Knock.