Ronald Pickup

Classically-trained Ronald Pickup was a highly respected, incisive character actor who specialised in the portrayal of prominent historical authority figures or crusty academics. He was born in Chester, England, to lecturer Eric Pickup and his wife Daisy (née Williams). Ronald received his education at Leeds University and then studied at RADA, making his theatrical debut in 1964 at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester.

Ronald's first screen appearance was in a 1964 episode of Doctor Who (1963) for which he was paid £30.

He spent two years at the Royal Court Theatre before joining the ensemble of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic in London for seven years, from 1966 to 1973.

His extensive list of theatrical credits included title roles in Oedipus and Macbeth, as well as highly acclaimed performances in Long Day's Journey into Night (1971) and Waiting for Godot (2009).

It took another decade before he eventually made his first TV breakthrough as Lord Randolph Churchill in the miniseries Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill (1974), co-starring alongside the excellent American actress Lee Remick.

For the big screen he essayed Igor Stravinsky in Nijinsky (1980) and Neville Chamberlain in the Churchill biopic Darkest Hour (2017).

His subsequent roles encompassed a truly impressive gallery of historical personae: William Pitt, the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, Giuseppe Verdi, Friedrich Nietzsche, George Orwell (his own personal favourite role from the telemovie Crystal Spirit: Orwell on Jura (1983)) and Albert Einstein.

In between were frequent guest appearances in popular dramatic fare like Silent Witness (1996), Dalziel and Pascoe (1996), Foyle's War (2002), Hustle (2004) and Midsomer Murders (1997), for which his stock-in-trade characters usually tended to be stately, eloquent and possessed of a mordant wit.

He was nominated for a 1998 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role of 1997 for his performance in Amy's View.

Ronald reached perhaps the apex of his career on screen by way of his likeable performance in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) (and its sequel) as the ageing womaniser Norman Cousins (for which the entire leading cast shared a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination) and he was also latterly praised for his role as the Archbishop of Canterbury in The Crown (2016).