Nigel Hawthorne

Nigel Hawthorne (April 5, 1929 - December 26, 2001) was a renowned British actor (though he spent some of his formative years in South Africa). In a long and varied career, which began with an advert for Mackeson[?] stout and a bit part in Dad's Army, his most famous roles were as Sir Humphrey Appleby in the TV series Yes, Minister (and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister), and as King George III in the film adaptation of Alan Bennett's The Madness of King George, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. He was knighted in 1999.

An intensely private individual, he was deeply saddened when involuntarily outed as a homosexual in the run up to receiving his Oscar. While struggling with prostate cancer (though his eventual death was of a heart attack), however, he wrote a candid autobiography Straight Face, which was published posthumously.