
The English Patient,
The Constant Gardener
Harry Potter films
As Lord Voldemort
.
Most recently he appeared in The Reader, to name only a few.
Among his many recieved awards, Ralph is also a two time Academy Award-nominee. He is also the only actor ever to have won a Tony Award for playing Prince Hamlet on Broadway.
In 2001, Fiennes received the William Shakespeare Award from the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Fiennes is a UNICEF UK ambassador.
EARLY LIFE:
Ralph Fiennes was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, into an aristocratic family, the son of Mark and Jennifer Fiennes (1933-2004)
His father, Mark, was a farmer and photographer (and the son of industrialist Sir Maurice Fiennes).
His mother, Jennifer Lash (1938-1993), was a writer.
His surname is of Norman origin.
He is an eighth cousin of HRH, the Prince of Wales, and a third cousin of the adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
The eldest of seven children, his siblings are:
Joseph Fiennes, actor (Shakespeare in Love, Luther);
Martha Fiennes, a director (in her film "Onegin", Ralph acted the title role)
Magnus Fiennes, a composer;
Sophie Fiennes, a filmmaker;
Jacob Fiennes, a conservationist;
Michael Emery, an archaeologist is Ralph's foster brother.
The Fiennes family moved to Ireland in 1973, living in West Cork and County Kilkenny for some years, where Fiennes attended St Kieran's College for one year. He also attended Newtown School, a Quaker school in Waterford.
They moved to Salisbury in England, where Fiennes finished his schooling at Bishop Wordsworth's School before attending Chelsea College of Art.
CAREER:
Fiennes trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He began his career at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park and, also during the late 1980s, the National Theatre before becoming a star in the Royal Shakespeare Company. Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and then made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights opposite Juliette Binoche, for which he received substantial acclaim and praise throughout Europe.
1993 was his "breakout year". He had a major role in the very controversial Peter Greenaway film The Baby of Mâcon with Julia Ormond.
Though the film was poorly received, Fiennes' career suffered no lasting consequences, and later that year he became known internationally for portraying the amoral Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List.
For this he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He did not win the Oscar, but did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for the role. His portrayal as Göth also earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of top 50 movie villains.
In 1994, he portrayed American academic Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show, and in 1996 was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the World War II epic romance The English Patient.

Fiennes' work has ranged from thrillers (Red Dragon)
to animated Biblical epic (The Prince of Egypt)
to campy nostalgia (The Avengers) to romantic comedy (Maid in Manhattan) and offbeat dramedy (Oscar and Lucinda).
Fiennes was cast as Lord Voldemort

in the 2005 fantasy film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and has retained this role for both Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which will be released in two parts in 2010 and 2011. However, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, as Voldemort appears as an 11 year-old. Ralph's nephew , Hero Fiennes-Tiffin will play him (Ralph).

The Constant Gardener was released in 2005
with Fiennes in the title role. The film is set in the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani, Kenya. The situation affected the crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust in order to provide basic education around these villages. Fiennes is a patron of the charity. His 2007 performance in the play Faith Healer gained him a nomination for a 2006 Tony Award.
In 2008 he reteamed with frequent collaborator director Jonathan Kent to play the title role in Sophocles' Oedipus the King at the National Theatre in London. He will also appear in a 2010 West End revival of Uncle Vanya. Also, he played the Duke of Devonshire in The Duchess (2008).
In February 2009. he was the special guest of the Belgrade's Film Festival FEST. He plans to make a movie in Serbian capital of Belgrade in 2010 after a Shakespeare book. His plans to do it in 2009 are prolonged because of the economic crisis in the world.
Fiennes in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 2003 during his visit as a UNICEF UK ambassador.
STAGE CAREER ROLES:
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (1985) - Role: Curio - Directed by Richard Digby Day - New Shakespeare Company - Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (1985) - Role: Cobweb - Directed by Toby Robertson - New Shakespeare Company - Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (1986) - Role: Lysander - Directed by David Conville and Emma Freud - New Shakespeare Company - Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London and New Shakespeare Company's European Tour
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (1986) - Role: Romeo - Directed by Declan Donnellan - New Shakespeare Company - Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London
Six Characters In Search Of An Author by Luigi Pirandello (1987) - Role: Son - Directed by Michael Rudman - National Theatre's Olivier Theatre, London
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (1987) - Role: Arkady Nikolayevich Kirsanov - Directed by Michael Rudman - National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre, London
Ting Tang Mine by Nick Darke (1987) - Role: Lisha Ball - Directed by Michael Rudman - National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre, London
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (1988) - Role: Claudio - Directed by Di Trevis - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
The Plantagenets: Henry VI, The Rise of Edward IV, Richard III His Death by William Shakespeare (1988-1989) - Role: Henry VI, ghost of Henry VI - Directed by Adrian Noble - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Barbican Theatre, London
King John (1989) by William Shakespeare - Role: Dauphin - Directed by Deborah Warner - The Other Place Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and The Pit Theatre, London
The Man Who Came To Dinner by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman (1989) - Role: Bert Jefferson - Directed by Ron Gene Saks - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Barbican Theatre, London
Playing With Trains by Stephen Poliakoff (1989) - Role: Gant - Directed by Ron Daniels - The Royal Shakespeare Company - The Pit Theatre, London
Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare (1990) - Role: Troilus - Directed by Sam Mendes - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
King Lear by William Shakespeare (1990) - Role: Edmund - Directed by Nicholas Hytner - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare (1991) - Role: Berowne - Directed by Terry Hands - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Barbican Theatre, London
Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1995) - Role: Hamlet, with Francesca Annis as Gertrude - Directed by Jonathan Kent - The Almeida Theatre Company - Hackney Empire, London and Belasco Theatre on Broadway, NY
Ivanov by Anton Chekhov translated by David Hare (February-April 1997) - Role: Ivanov - Directed by Jonathan Kent - The Almeida Theatre Company - Almeida Theatre, London
Coriolanus by William Shakespeare (2000) - Role: Coriolanus - Directed by Jonathan Kent - The Almeida Theatre Company - Gainsborough Film Studios in Shoreditch, London and BAM Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City
Richard II by William Shakespeare (2000) - Role: Richard II - Directed by Jonathan Kent - The Almeida Theatre Company - Gainsborough Film Studios in Shoreditch, London and BAM Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City
The Play What I Wrote by Hamish McColl, Sean Foley and Eddie Braben (2001) - Role: Sir Ralph Fiennes - Directed by Kenneth Branagh - The Duo The Right Size - Wyndham's Theatre, West End
The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton (2003) - Role: Carl Jung - Directed by Howard Davies - National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre, London
Brand by Henrik Ibsen (2003) - Role: Brand - Directed by Adrian Noble - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Theatre Royal Haymarket, West End
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (2005) - Role: Mark Anthony - Directed by Deborah Warner - Barbican Centre, London & tour
Faith Healer by Brian Friel (2006) - Role: Frank Hardy - Directed by Jonathan Kent - Gate Theatre, Dublin and Booth Theatre on Broadway, New York City
First Love by Samuel Beckett - Sydney Festival 2007
God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza (2008) - Role: Alain Reille - Gielgud Theatre, West End
Oedipus the King by Sophocles (2008) - Role: Oedipus - National Theatre, London
Selected television credits
Prime Suspect (1991)
Selected other projects, contributions
When Love Speaks (2002, EMI Classics) - "Sonnet 129" ("Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame")
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY ROLES AND AWARDS:
1990 A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia T. E. Lawrence TV
1992 Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights Heathcliff
1993 The Baby of Mâcon The Bishop's son
1993 Schindler's List,
Winning the Amon Göth BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor
Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
London Film Critics Circle Award - British Actor of the Year
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a motion picture
1994 Quiz Show Charles Van Doren
1995 Strange Days Lenny Nero Nominated - Saturn Award for Best Actor
1996 The English Patient
Count László de Almássy and Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
1997 Oscar and Lucinda Oscar Hopkins
1998 The Avengers John Steed
The Prince of Egypt Rameses (voice)
1999 Sunshine Ignatz Sonnenschein/Adam Sors/Ivan Sors European Film Award for Best European Actor
Onegin Evgeny Onegin - Directed by Ralph"s sister, MARTHA



British Actor of the Year
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Wallace; Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit Victor Quartermaine (voice)
The White Countess Todd Jackson
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Lord Voldemort
2006 Land of the Blind Joe
2007 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Lord Voldemort
Bernard and Doris Bernard Lafferty
Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Miniseries or Motion Picture Made
TELEVISION ROLES AND AWARDS:
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
2008 In Bruges Harry Waters Nominated — British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor
"The Duchess" William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire

Was Nominated — British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Award - British Actor of the Year
"The Reader" By (THE OLDER) Michael Berg


******************************************************
MOTION PICTURE AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS:
1993 - New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor - Schindler's List






Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
a b c d e Fiennes, Ralph. Interview with James Lipton. Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo. 15 January 2006. (Interview). Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
"Constant Gardener Trust - Patrons". UNICEF. http://www.constantgardenertrust.org/html/patrons.htm
Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
"Interview for Serbian National TV - RTS". ( on - youtube.com)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Retrieved on 2009-23-02.
World Entertainment News Network (12 February 2007). "Fiennes in Air Sex Scandal?".
Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2007-02-12
Retrieved on 2008-04-10.



Mark Fiennes - Photographer for the Carnegie Club, Died Dec. 2004

From the BBC Special "Blood Ties"
(IN ORDER OF AGE STANDING LEFT TO RIGHT)
Picture appears courtesy of
A Fiennes Website

Photo credit: Mark Fiennes.
Children:
Ralph Fiennes - Actor in films such as Schindler's list and The English Patient. He was nominated for Oscars for both films, but didn't win (although he should have won for Schinder's!)
Martha Fiennes - Director of the new film "Onegin" (staring brother Ralph).

Magnus Fiennes - Composer and Musician for Preaching to the Perverted. He has worked with pop artists like All Saints.
Sophie Fiennes - Director of Lars 1-10 which will premire at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.
Jake Fiennes - Prize-winning gamekeeper and Joseph Fiennes' fraternal twin brother.
Joseph Fiennes - Successful Actor
Michael Emery - Aarcheologist and foster son of the Fiennes.
CLOSE RELATIVE (cousin) - Sir Ranulph Fiennes
***************************************************
Obituary - Mark Fiennes
Distinguished photographer known for his work in architecture and interiors
Tuesday, 4 January 2005
Mark Fiennes, the distinguished photographer, was best known for his work in the field of architecture and interiors. Fiennes was, however, a photographer of extraordinary versatility, whose work - featured in 2003 in a major retrospective at the Menier Gallery in London - reflected his sensitivity to places and people, his perennial sense of humour and, not least, an ingrained dislike of pomposity and hierarchy that gave many of his pictures a cutting edge of social comment.
Mark Fiennes, photographer: born Dalton, Northumberland 11 November 1933; married 1962 Jini Lash (died 1993; four sons, two daughters), 1996 Caroline Evans; died Clare, Suffolk 30 December 2004.
Mark Fiennes, the distinguished photographer, was best known for his work in the field of architecture and interiors. Fiennes was, however, a photographer of extraordinary versatility, whose work - featured in 2003 in a major retrospective at the Menier Gallery in London - reflected his sensitivity to places and people, his perennial sense of humour and, not least, an ingrained dislike of pomposity and hierarchy that gave many of his pictures a cutting edge of social comment.
Having taken up professional photography when he was nearly 40, Mark Fiennes achieved success as the illustrator of innumerable articles in Country Life magazine and of no fewer than 25 books, including a collaboration with Norma Major on a history of Chequers (Chequers: the Prime Minister's country house and its history, 1996). He craved new challenges and was working on several projects at the time of his death, including an exhibition of the work of the architect Norman Foster to be shown at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston later this year.
Mark Fiennes was born at Dalton, Northumberland in 1933, the eldest of five children of the industrialist Maurice Fiennes, who was later knighted by Harold Wilson for his services to the export of British heavy engineering products, and of his wife Sylvia. Fiennes's mother was a strong influence, a keen horsewoman with a sense of style in dress and décor that her son inherited.
At the age of eight, Fiennes was sent away to preparatory school and then to Eton, an experience he recalled with distaste many decades later. Excelling neither academically nor as a sportsman, he found Eton abhorrent, a place memorable largely for sheer discomfort.
He became seriously ill with glomerulonephritis (a disease of the kidneys) towards the end of his time there and the consultant Robert Platt (later Lord Platt) gave him only a few years to live. In the hope of prolonging his life, his parents sent him to Australia and New Zealand, where he worked on sheep farms and subsequently cattle stations. Fiennes warmed to farm life and his health was restored - a spell working on a Texas ranch followed.
Returning to England, Fiennes resolved to become a farmer and took on the tenancy of a farm on the estate of the Earl of Stradbroke in Suffolk. It was in Suffolk that he met Jennifer (Jini) Lash, the daughter of an army officer, whom he married in 1962. Jini (whom her fellow writer Dodie Smith remembered as "almost too interesting to be true") had already published two of her five novels and the marriage rekindled Mark Fiennes's artistic instincts. He had been a keen photographer while still a schoolboy and made 8mm movie films of his travels. For a time he considered pursuing a career as a film cameraman.
With a growing family to support (their first son, Ralph, was born late in 1962 and five more children followed, along with a foster son), Fiennes embarked on an odyssey of restoring and reselling houses as a source of income. The family moved to Shaftesbury in Dorset in 1969, briefly to the west coast of Ireland, then to Kilkenny, thence to Wiltshire, before settling in London - which Jini Fiennes disliked - in the late Seventies.
Finally concentrating on his photography, Mark Fiennes launched a fruitful collaboration with the Irish writer Peter Somerville-Large (four of whose books he illustrated) and began an association with Country Life that extended into the early 1990s. His skill at photographing historic houses (and charming their sometimes difficult owners) led to some exceptionally prestigious commissions.
Among the books Fiennes illustrated were tomes on Spencer House (Spencer House, 1993), Dorneywood (Dorneywood, 1992), 10 Downing Street (10 Downing Street: the illustrated history, 1999), Clarence House (Clarence House, 1996) and the post-fire restoration of Windsor Castle (Windsor Castle: restoration of the state rooms, 1997).
The National Trust became a regular client and Fiennes's pictures also featured in guidebooks to some of England's greatest cathedrals. Among major architectural books with Fiennes illustrations was a scholarly monograph Greene & Greene: the work of the California Arts & Crafts brothers by Edward Bosley in 2000.
A number of commissions came from the art publisher Phaidon. Writers relished working with him, feeling that he understood buildings and had a real passion for architecture. Perhaps Fiennes's interest and aptitude in the construction of things helped - his sons were presented with stunningly detailed model aircraft.
Jini Fiennes died of cancer in 1993, after a long illness. While working with Norma Major on her book about Chequers, Mark Fiennes met the floral artist Caroline Evans. The couple married in 1996. It was an exceptionally happy union, although coinciding with several difficult years in terms of his work. The termination of the Country Life association was a blow, but an undaunted Fiennes energetically relaunched his career.
The exhibition of his work held at the Menier Gallery late in 2003, to coincide with his 70th birthday, attracted keen critical interest, not least on account of the sheer range of the images on display - toffs at the races, gypsies at an Irish horse fair, an exotically tattooed tiler crawling over a Suffolk roof, among others. A series of evening parties held at the gallery brought together family, friends and professional collaborators and reflected the range of Fiennes's professional connections and the warmth of his personal friendships and family ties.
After his second marriage, Fiennes moved to Clare in Suffolk where he and Caroline restored a listed timber-framed house and created an exquisite garden, while retaining a small working base in London. He involved himself energetically in local affairs, taking on the post of secretary to the Clare Society and becoming an active supporter of the campaign to stop the further expansion of Stansted airport. Totally unpretentious, friendly and generous to all, he was well liked in the town. Fiennes loved Suffolk and delighted in finding churches that he had never visited, planning further visits to photograph them.
During 2003 he made an extended tour of Europe, with his wife as his driver, photographing Foster and Partners projects for the forthcoming American exhibition. A retrospective exhibition on the work of the Suffolk-based architect Raymond Erith, "Raymond Erith: progressive classicist", recently shown at Sir John Soane's Museum in London, featured a set of Fiennes's colour pictures of Erith's buildings, also used to illustrate the catalogue.
Fiennes was proud of the achievements of his children, the actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, Martha and Sophie, both film-makers, Magnus, a musician, and Jake, a conservation manager on a big East Anglian estate. "Biologically, I am 50 per cent of the equation," he declared, contemplating a creative brood. His own creative achievement remains the tangible memorial of a life resplendent in the warmth and generosity of spirit he himself valued so highly.
BY Kenneth Powell
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Obituary: Jini Fiennes
BY ANTHONY SAMPSON
Friday, 31 December 1993
Jennifer Alleyne Lash, writer and painter: born Chichester, Sussex 27 February 1938; author (as Jennifer Lash) of The Burial 1961, The Climate of Belief 1962, Get Down There and Die 1977, The Dust Collector 1979, From May to October 1980, (as Jini Fiennes) of On Pilgrimage 1991; married 1962 Mark Fiennes (four sons, two daughters); died Odstock, Wiltshire 28 December 1993.
JINI FIENNES was a novelist and painter of unusual insight who combined her creative energy with a gift for unlocking other peoples' lives.
She had a magnetic presence like a gypsy's: she wore long shawls, took her friends by the arm, looking at them with searching eyes. Her energy seemed limitless; in her crowded life she raised seven children including a foster-child and established countless friendships.
But she was also engaged in her own passionate search for truth and fulfilment which became more intense and dedicated in her last six years when she heroically defied attacks of cancer.
An unhappy childhood had made her determined to give out to other people. She had been brought up a Catholic by her Irish mother and her father, Brigadier 'Hal' Lash, who served on Sir William Slim's staff in Burma, and she spent eight years at a convent boarding school. But she felt unloved, left home at 16 and eventualy found a job as under- matron in a prep school in Gloucestershire.
She wrote her first much-acclaimed novel, The Burial, published by Rupert Hart-Davis in 1960, when she was 19; it was followed by four other imaginative novels, with a strong Irish influence, in which she grappled with dark forces of violence and terrorism.
After a period of personal uncertainty she secured a happy and secure home life with her husband Mark Fiennes, who was first a farmer, then a distinguished photographer. They led a nomadic life, building or renovating 15 consecutive homes in Suffolk, Ireland, Wiltshire and London; yet gave their children a confidence which led to striking success particularly in drama and music.
She ceased to be a practising Catholic but retained an intense spirituality and belief in the power of love - refusing to condemn evil in anyone - which overflowed in her novels and later in her paintings, which conveyed human nature, often with a raw ferocity, but with vitality and understanding.
When six years ago she first learnt she had cancer she refused to give in to it. After painful treatment and an operation she appeared to overcome it, and embarked on a solitary pilgrimage through France to Santiago de Compostela in which she sought to find her own answers to the meaning of life.
'Poor cancer, the word is dark and terrible,' she began her book about her journey, On Pilgrimage, published two years ago. But she saw cancer as a challenge: 'A star may be sharp and full of pain, but it may also be a guide, a useful companion on a dark night.' She was inspired by Tibetan Buddhist traditions as much as Catholic rituals, and she revelled in the pagan, earthy aspects of pilgrimage, particularly the gypsy ceremonies at Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.
She returned to be faced with a recurrence of cancer which she continued to fight with extraordinary courage until she found serenity in the final hours, with her family round her.
"ELIZABETH THE FIRST - HER WORLD", BY SUSAN WATKINS, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK FIENNES, (FATHER OF RALPH FIENNES)