Ben Kingsley
Kingsley at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	Krishna Pandit Bhanji 31 December 1943 (1943-12-31) (age 65) Snainton, Scarborough, Yorkshire, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1966–present
Spouse(s)	Angela Morant (1966-1972) Alison Sutcliffe (1978-1992) Alexandra Christmann (2003-2005) Daniela Lavender (2007-)

Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE (born 31 December 1943) is an English actor. He has won four major motion picture acting awards, receiving Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards throughout his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

[edit] Early life

Kingsley was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji^[1] in Snainton, near Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, the son of Annalyna Mary (née Goodman), an actress and model, and Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, a medical doctor.^[2]

Kingsley's father was born in Kenya of Indian Khoja Muslim Gujarati descent, as Kingsley's paternal grandfather was a spice trader who had moved from India to Zanzibar, where Kingsley's father lived until moving to England at the age of 14.^[3][4][5] Kingsley's mother, born out of wedlock, was "loath to speak of her background"; she was the daughter of an English East London garment worker mother and a father who was believed by the family to have been a Russian or German Jew.^[6][7][8][9]

Kingsley grew up in Pendlebury, near Salford, where he studied at University of Salford. He studied at Pendleton College, which later became home to the Ben Kingsley Theatre. Kingsley began his acting career on the stage at Manchester Grammar School, alongside Robert Powell, but made a transition to film roles early on.^[9] Despite this focus on film, he continued to act on the stage, playing Mosca in Peter Hall's 1977 production of Ben Jonson's Volpone for the Royal National Theatre, and in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. At about this time, he changed his name from Krishna Bhanji to Ben Kingsley, fearing that a foreign name would hamper his career.^[9][10]

[edit] Film and television career

Kingsley's first film role was a supporting turn in Fear Is the Key, released in 1972. Kingsley continued starring in bit roles in both film and television, including a role as Ron Jenkins on the soap opera Coronation Street from 1966 to 1967 and regular appearances as a defence counsel in the long-running British legal programme Crown Court. In 1975 he starred as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the BBCs historical drama The Love School. He found fame only years later, starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the Academy Award-winning film Gandhi in 1982, his best-known role to date.^[9] The audience also agreed with the critics, and Gandhi was a box-office success. Kingsley won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal.^[9]

Kingsley at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival

Kingsley has since appeared in a variety of roles. His credits included the films Turtle Diary, Maurice, Pascali's Island, Without a Clue (as Dr. Watson alongside Michael Caine's Sherlock Holmes), Suspect Zero, Bugsy, which led to an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Sneakers, Dave, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Schindler's List, Silas Marner, Death and the Maiden, Sexy Beast, for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and House of Sand and Fog, which led to yet another Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He won a Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2001.

In 1997, he provided voice talent for the video game Ceremony of Innocence. In July 2006, he received an Emmy nomination for his performance in the made-for-TV film Mrs. Harris, in which he played famed cardiologist Herman Tarnower, who was murdered by his jilted lover, Jean Harris. Later that year, Kingsley appeared in an episode of The Sopranos entitled "Luxury Lounge", playing himself. In the show, Christopher Moltisanti and Carmine Lupertazzi offer him a role in the fictional slasher film "Cleaver", which he turns down. Lupertazzi offers him the role on the basis of Kingsley's real-life performance in Sexy Beast. In 2007, Kingsley appeared as a Polish American mobster in the Mafia comedy You Kill Me, and a Middle Eastern oil minister in War, Inc. Kingsley was asked to play Vulture in Spider-Man 3, but was cut out of the storyline.^{[citation needed]}

Kingsley announced SBK-Pictures is bringing the story of the Native American Conley Sisters to the big screen in Whispers Like Thunder. Kingsley will be playing the role of Charles Curtis, the first part-Native American to become vice-president of the United States.^[11]

[edit] Honours

Kingsley was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000. He was knighted in the 2001 New Years Honours list. On promotional material for the 2006 film Lucky Number Slevin, Kingsley was referred to as "Sir Ben Kingsley." At first, the actor was singled out for some criticism, as such titles had generally come to be omitted from professional credits by that time.^{[citation needed]} It was claimed that the inclusion of "Sir" was a mistake by a studio executive.^{[citation needed]}

His demand to be called 'Sir' was documented by the BBC, to some criticism.^[12] Since then, Kingsley appears to have altered his stance; credits for his latest films refer to him only as 'Ben Kingsley'. Penelope Cruz was unsure what to call him during the filming of Elegy as someone had told her she needed to refer to him as "Sir Ben". One day it slipped out as such, and she called him that for the rest of the shoot.^[13]

In 1984, he won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Nonmusical Recording for The Words of Gandhi. He was awarded the Indian civilian honor Padma Shri in 1985.^[14]

In addition, in 2008, Kingsley was awarded the "Cinema for Peace Honorary Award", for the portrayal of the humanitarian role-models Simon Wiesenthal, Itzhak Stern and Gandhi.

[edit] Personal life

Kingsley has been married four times and has four children. Thomas Bhanji and artist Jasmin Bhanji are his children with actress Angela Morant; Edmund Kingsley and Ferdinand Kingsley, both of whom became actors, with theatrical director Alison Sutcliffe. In 2005 he divorced German-born Alexandra Christmann, after pictures of her kissing another lover surfaced on the internet.^[15] The actor was "deeply, deeply shocked" that his wife was seen kissing a man in a nightclub.^[15] On 3 September 2007, Kingsley married Daniela Barbosa de Carneiro, a Brazilian actress, in North Leigh, Oxfordshire.^[16]

He currently lives in Spelsbury, Oxfordshire, England, where he has lived for over ten years.^[17]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Ben Kingsley at the Internet Movie Database
• Ben Kingsley at TV.com
• Ben Kingsley's SBK announces slate, By TATIANA SIEGEL, Mon., Nov. 17, 2008
• Interview, 9/27/05, Cinema Confidential
• Interview, 9/22/05, Dark Horizons
• Interview, 7/28/04, IGN Films
• Interview, 12/16/93, Charlie Rose (Kingsley talks about his experience making "Schindler's List" with director Steven Spielberg).