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Rupert Everett
IF nothing else, the career of British actor Rupert Everett has offered a definitive illustration of the hoary maxim about the difference a year makes: in 1996, the best gig he could get was partner in crime to a lead-billed orangutan in the critically reviled box office bust Dunston Checks In; in 1997, his career took a quantum leap forward, when he played partner in crime to a lead-billed Julia Roberts in the critically lauded box office bonanza My Best Friend’s Wedding. And how. Not since John Travolta shook his booty in Pulp Fiction has a veteran actor experienced such a whiplash-swift reversal of fortune. Everett’s flip, flamboyant performance as the gay editor who alternately abets and advises against the scheme Roberts’ character devises to win back her old beau on the eve of his wedding elicited gales of laughter from American audiences and set a torrent of agents and producers clamoring to spearhead his next project.
Unlike many of the stars du jour for whom Hollywood has rolled out the red carpet in recent memory, Everett is no stranger to fame. A bona fide sensation in his native Britain thirteen years before Wedding, the very fearless and very opinionated actor very nearly snuffed out a promising career by alienating both the press and his public with his notorious displays of outrageous arrogance. After a stunning cinematic debut in the 1984 espionage drama Another Country and a promising follow-up outing in 1985’s Dance With a Stranger, the world was Everett’s oyster — at least in his own mind. But after he made his American feature-film debut alongside folk hero Bob Dylan in 1987’s laughable Hearts of Fire, he seemed to drop off the face of the planet. By the time he came out of the closet two years later, publicly disclosing his homosexuality years before such declarations would become Hollywood vogue, gossip columnists and movie mavens scarcely remembered who he was. Post-Wedding, it was nearly impossible to read Everett’s name in print without also ingesting some reference to his unabashedly declared sexual orientation (when Sky magazine asked him what he thought of being incessantly described as “openly gay,” Everett shot back, “It’s my Christian name”), and the dashing Brit was on the fast track to becoming Hollywood’s first publicly gay leading man.
Born to wealth and privilege in Norfolk, England, Everett was placed by his parents in the care of the Benedictine monks at prestigious Ampleforth College, a widely reputed Catholic boarding school, when he was just seven years old. Perhaps as a result of his years of classical piano training, Everett’s earliest career aspiration was to be a rock star, a cherished ambition he likely withheld from the good brethren at Ampleforth, who knew him mainly as an attentive student. Shortly after his thirteenth birthday, Everett’s rock-and-roll daydreams gave way to fantasies of movie stardom, and at fifteen, he left Ampleforth to enroll at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. There, his ego led him into frequent confrontations with his teachers, and the school’s administrators eventually gave him the boot.
Everett subsequently put a polish on his acting skills through an apprenticeship with Scotland’s Glasgow Citizen’s Theater, and began appearing in local theater productions across the U.K. Also during this period, the struggling actor tried his hand at the world’s oldest profession: after a chance meeting with a wealthy man who propositioned him in a subway tunnel, Everett commenced a two-year “career” as a gigolo. (Though he baited the British press with hints of these activities following his initial rise to fame, Everett withheld any public avowal for nearly twenty years, before finally airing this particular item of dirty laundry in a widely reported 1997 interview published in US magazine.)
In 1982, Everett essayed what would be his breakthrough role in a London stage production of Another Country. Two years later, when he reprised the characterization for the screen, Everett was suddenly Britain’s hottest rising star. Unfortunately, numerous run-ins with the British tabloids and British theatergoers dimmed his celebrity almost before it could truly begin to gain luster. Everett’s most famous fit of spleen occurred in the wake of one of his performances in a West End production of a Noel Coward play that inspired a female audience member to write him to reprimand him for his lazy work. The actor responded by mailing the woman a sampling of his pubic hairs, “in the hope that they [would] help to avoid further grievance.”
Such outrageous antics didn’t exactly enamor fans, and Everett temporarily scaled back his acting workload to attempt a career making pop records. Though he cut two albums and released several singles — among them “Generation of Loneliness” and “In the Vortex” — his pop-singing career ultimately proved as ill-advised and perfunctory as his dalliance with prostitution. Though he continued making films throughout the late eighties and early nineties, the widely experienced Everett (who also launched a career as a novelist in 1991) barely registered at the box office prior to a career-saving turn in 1994’s The Madness of King George that proved he could still act.
When the opportunity to make My Best Friend’s Wedding came along two years later, both Everett and director P.J. Hogan were initially disinterested — Everett in the part, and Hogan in Everett in the part. Hogan claimed Everett was “too right” for the role of Roberts’ gay confidant, which prompted the actor’s agent to angrily exclaim that the director was only making excuses because his client really was gay. Hogan reconsidered his decision and eventually hired Everett without even auditioning him. Test audiences thunderously approved of the Brit’s portrayal, and Hogan hastily recut the movie to sizably increase his presence. Wedding became a runaway smash at the box office, and Everett suddenly became the hottest property on the market. He followed up the star-making turn with a small role — as Christopher Marlowe, no less — in another runaway smash, Shakespeare in Love; with a portrayal of fairy king Oberon in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; with a starring turn as the titular rogue of An Ideal Husband; and a strong turn as Inspector Gadget’s arch-nemesis, Claw, in Disney’s live-action version of Inspector Gadget. Everett also turned in a lead performance in director Michael (Il Postino) Radford’s indie release B. Monkey; and co-starred opposite Madonna in The Next Best Thing, a film about a straight woman and a gay man who decide to have a child together. A third novel, Guilt Without Sex: A Jewish Bestseller, is in the works, as is a possible adaptation of Everett’s first potboiler, the semi-autobiographical Hello Darling Are You Working?
By his own admission a far cry from the rapscallion he was in his youth, Everett remains one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors, though hardly in the traditional sense. He owns homes in Paris, Miami Beach, London, and New York; he currently resides in the latter city throughout most of the year, sharing his newly puritanical lifestyle with his dog, a black lab named Moise.
Occupation: Actor, Author, Model, Singer
Date of Birth: May 29, 1959
Place of Birth: Norfolk, England, U.K.
Sign: Sun in Gemini, Moon in Pisces
Relations: Father: Anthony (British army officer, stockbroker); mother: Sarah (homemaker); canine companion: Moise
Education: Dropped out of Ampleforth College; expelled from London’s Central School of Speech and Drama
Rupert Everett: Credits
MOVIES
Actor
The Next Best Thing — 2000
B. Monkey — 1999
Inspector Gadget — 1999
An Ideal Husband — 1999
William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream — 1999
Shakespeare in Love — 1998
My Best Friend’s Wedding — 1997
Dunston Checks In — 1996
Cemetery Man — 1995
Ready To Wear (Prêt-à-Porter) — 1994
The Madness of King George — 1994
Remembrance of Things Fast: True Stories Visual Lies — 1994
Inside Monkey Zetterland — 1993
Shooting Angels — 1993
The Comfort of Strangers — 1991
Tolerance — 1989
The Right Hand Man — 1987
Duet for One — 1987
Hearts of Fire — 1987
Chronicle of a Death Foretold — 1987
The Man With the Gold Rimmed Glasses — 1987
Dance With a Stranger — 1985
Arthur the King — 1985
Another Country — 1984
Princess Daisy — 1983
Real Life — 1983
BOOKS
The Hairdressers of St. Tropez — 1994
Hello Darling Are You Working? — 1991
TV
Arthur the King — 1985 (Movie; played Sir Lancelot)
The Far Pavilions — 1984 (Mini-series)
Princess Daisy — 1983 (Movie)
Everett, Rupert Web sites
Midsummer Night’s Dream, A video
Official movie site offers cast and production information, downloadable study guide, trailer, sweepstakes and postcards.
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/midfinal/
Last reviewed by DottieHinkle
Mr. Showbiz Celebrities: Rupert Everett Profile audio video chat games
Photo, biography, news, and acting credits.
http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/ruperteverett/
Last reviewed by ccrowe21
Next Best Thing audio video chat
Official Paramount Pictures’ site for the movie starring Madonna and Rupert Everett. Synopsis, stills, desktops, postcards, live chats and movie trailer.
http://www.nextbestthingmovie.com/
Last reviewed by DottieHinkle
Forever Everett
Filmography, facts, news, articles, interviews, novels, and images.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7724/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
CNN.com: Rupert Everett Unveils His Next Best Thing video
“Everett is promoting “The Next Best Thing,” in which he plays Madonna’s gay best friend and the accidental father of her baby.” Interview and trailer.
http://cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/07/rupert.ev…
Last reviewed by DottieHinkle
Dunston Checks In
A James Berardinelli review of the film starring Rupert Everett.
http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/d/dunston…
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
E! Online Fact Sheet: Rupert Everett
Filmography and news stories.
http://eonline.com/Facts/People/0,12,5089,00.html
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Hollwood Online Movietalk: Rupert Everett audio commerce
Use your RealAudio or Windows media Player to listen to Rupert’s feisty answers to MovieTalk’s questions.
http://www.hollywood.com/movietalk/celebrities/rev…
Last reviewed by ccrowe21
Hollywood.com: Rupert Everett is Madonna’s ‘Next Best Thing’
Photos and interview with the actor about his current role in “The Next Best Thing.”
http://www.hollywood.com/pressroom/interviews/reve…
Last reviewed by DottieHinkle
MetroActive Movies: Cemetery Man
Review of the film starring Rupert Everett and Anna Falchi.
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/05.09.96/c…
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
MovieWeb: My Best Friend’s Wedding
Review, images, and cast information from the 1997 film starring Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz, and Rupert Everett.
http://www.movieweb.com/movie/mybestfriend/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Photo Gallery-
Topics: Actor, Celebrities
Tags: An Ideal Husband, Author, Model, Singer, The Next Best Thing, Tolerance
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