Kenneth Cranham

Kenneth Cranham is a British actor born on 12 December 1944 in Dunfermline, Fife. The son of Margaret McKay Cranham (née Ferguson), who was from Lochgelly, and Ronald Cranham, a London-born civil servant, he trained at the National Youth Theatre before enrolling at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he earned his RADA Diploma in 1966.

Cranham's stage career has encompassed a wide range of productions in the West End and beyond, including Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Birthday Party, Gaslight at the Old Vic, and three works by Joe Orton — among them the radio and stage premieres of The Ruffian on the Stair and the first successful revival of Loot. Both Loot and An Inspector Calls transferred to Broadway, where Cranham appeared between 1968 and 1995. His portrayal of Inspector Goole in the National Theatre's award-winning production of An Inspector Calls earned him an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play. Twenty-three years later, he won the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as Andre in Florian Zeller's The Father in 2016.

On screen, Cranham appeared in the 1968 film Oliver! and went on to accumulate a substantial list of film credits, including Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972), Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), in which he played the deranged Philip Channard and his Cenobitic alter-ego, Chocolat (1988), Gangster No. 1 (2000), Layer Cake (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), Maleficent (2014), and Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017). His television work includes the title role in the 1980s comedy drama Shine on Harvey Moon, as well as appearances in A Family at War (1971), Budgie (1972), Boon (1989), Minder (1993), Rome, Merlin (2008), Death in Paradise (2013), War & Peace (2016), and The White Princess (2017). For BBC Radio 4, he played DS Max Matthews in Roy Williams's The Interrogation and starred as Thomas Gradgrind in a 2007 adaptation of Dickens's Hard Times.

Cranham was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to drama. His first marriage was to actress Diana Quick. He has two daughters: Nancy, from a relationship with actress Charlotte Cornwell, and Kathleen, with his second wife, actress Fiona Victory.