English actor Charles Kay (his real surname is Piff) was born on August 31, 1930 in Coventry, West Midlands, U.K. to parents Charles Beckingham and Frances (Petty) Piff.

Kay attended the University of Birmingham for dentistry and, after graduation, did his two year National Service with the rank of captain in the RAMC. It was in his early twenties that Kay decided to train for the stage. Receiving a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Kay graduated from the distinguished acting school at twenty-eight.

After graduation, Kay joined the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre. He created the roles of Jimmy in Arnold Wesker's Roots (1959) and Charles V in John Osborne's Luther (1961) and also appeared in Wesker's The Kitchen, The Changeling (1961), and Twelfth Night (1962).

In 1963, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared in Stratford and at the Aldwych, London. Playing a wide variety of roles, his stage credits included Octavius Caesar in Julius Caesar, Clarence in The Wars of the Roses, Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors, Osric in the David Warner version of Hamlet, Dobchinsky in The Government Inspector and Moloch in Robert Bolt's The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew.

He remained with RSC until 1966, when he joined the National Theatre. During his six-year run with National, Sir Laurence Olivier headed the company which, in addition to Kay, included an extraordinary group of stage actors including Ronald Pickup, Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Brett, and Joan Plowright. Amongst his credits were the female role of Celia in the all-male production of As You Like It (1967) and Peter Nichols's The National Health (1969).

In the early '70s, Kay made a leap from the stage into television and, over the following decades, has acted in several noteworthy teleplays and miniseries. Some of those include The Duchess of Malfi (1972), Tsar Nicholas II in Fall of Eagles (1974), I, Claudius (1976), The Devil's Crown (1978), Alcock in To Serve Them All My Days (1980), The Citadel (1983), By the Sword Divided (1983), Guy Pendleton in Edge of Darkness (1985), and Fortunes of War (1987).

One of his highest profile film performances came as Count Orsini-Rosenberg in the Academy Award-winning movie Amadeus (1984). Other feature film credits include his theatrical debut in Bachelor of Hearts (1958), Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (1989), Beautiful People (1999), and The Importance of Being Earnest (2002).

Kay's most recent work includes the acclaimed London productions of Tosca's Kiss (2006) and The Last Confession (2007), as well as the recent U.K. tour of Quartermaine's Terms (2008). He is an associate member of RADA and continues to perform on stage and television.



PROFILE - ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, 1965

Charles Kay is probably the only professional actor in the country, and perhaps in the world, who is also a qualified dental surgeon. When he left Warwick School he went to Birmingham University for a five-year dentistry course, spent the next six months as a house surgeon, and pulled soldiers' teeth for two years of National Service in Hanover. Even when, in 1956, on Barry Jackson's advice he decided on an acting career and won a scholarship to RADA, he still found his dental training useful: "I earned my spending money by doing locums in the holidays."

Since the age of 12, when he was Puck in his Welsh prep school's A Midsummer Night's Dream, he had been constantly busy with amateur theatre. At Warwick School he played three leading Shakespeare ladies: Calpurnia, Lady Percy, and Volumnia. As a university student he appeared in seven or eight productions (by now they were casting him in men's parts). This experience helped him win several prizes when he gave up dentistry and went to RADA; they included the Bancroft Gold Medal for his Marchbanks in Candida. Another scholarship followed RADA, into the BBC radio repetory company. Between 1959 and 1963, when he joined the RSC, he played innumerable parts on television (including The Victorians series), on radio, in films (Bachelor of Hearts, The Wild and the Willing), on the provincial stage (several months in Coventry), and in the West End. The London performance that he remembers most enjoyably was Magpie in Russell Braddon's The Naked Island at the Arts Theatre, but the critics took special note of his appearances in Arnold Wesker's Jerusalem-Chicken Soup-Roots trilogy and John Osborne's Luther (in which he played the Pope). He feels sympathetic towards Wesker's work (he also appeared in The Kitchen at the first Royal Court Sunday-night reading of it), and finds the author's presence at rehearsals "totally constructive".

His first parts with the RSC were Octavius Caesar, and Clarence in The War of the Roses. He was also understudying Ian Holm as Richard III and at about 10 o'clock one morning was told that he had to do the part that afternoon and evening. "I didn't feel scared--the prospect was so enormous, and so sudden, that I didn't have time to feel anything. We had some rushed rehearsals, but as far as knowing what I was to wear I was completely in the hands of my dresser." His performance that day bore out the reputation he has for throwing himself wholeheartedly into things. "In the first fight one of my wrists was slashed open. I was bandaged up in the wings, and had to have stitches put in when it was all over, at about midnight."

In last year's Histories he continued as Clarence and added another principal part, the Dauphin in Henry V. This season he is cast as the King of Navarre in Love's Labour's Lost, Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors, and Osric in Hamlet. "I would hate", he says tersely, "to think I was type-cast."

He loves the life of acting with a permanent company. "It's the only really attractive proposition for an actor, not because of the financial security but for the artistic security, which encourages one to expand. I tend to be dissatisfied with every performance I give; I'm a particularly bad first-night actor, very nervous, and that seems to get worse the longer I go on acting. But honest criticism, which is something you get within this company, relieves a lot of this nervousness, this doubting one's own value."

On stage, what he enjoys most is creating a part in a new play; off stage, "talking, music, food. Especially talking."



LATEST PLAYBILL BIO
(curtesy of the Chichester Festival Theatre)

Previously appeared at Chichester as Caius Cassius in Julius Caesar, Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel (Festival Theatre) and Stephen in Simply Disconnected (Minerva Theatre).

Most recent theatre credits include Tosca's Kiss (Orange Tree).

Other theatre credits include seasons at the Royal Court including The Wesker Trilogy, The Kitchen, The Changeling and Luther. West End credits include The Homecoming, The Millionairess, The Scarlet Pimpernel, the original cast of The Woman in Black, Amadeus, Penny For a Song, Cressida, Home and Beauty. He joined the RSC in it's early days to play Clarence in Peter Hall's Wars of the Roses and stayed with the company for four years, after which he joined Olivier's National Theatre at the Old Vic for six years where parts included Celia in the all-male As You Like It, Danton's Death, Three Sisters, The National Health, The Merchant of Venice, Back to Methuselah, Love's Labour's Lost, Edward II. Later RSC credits include Life's A Dream, Waste (Clarence Derwent Award), Pentecost and most recently All's Well That Ends Well.

For the National Theatre The Miser, The Madness of George III.

Television credits include Miss Marple, Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II, Midsomer Murders, Love from Colditz, Goodnight Mr. Tom, Darling Buds of May, Sherlock Holmes, Edge of Darkness, Fortunes of War, To Serve Them All My Days, My Cousin Rachel, Fall of Eagles.

Films include Amadeus, Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, Beautiful People and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Trained at RADA.