Nicol Williamson

Nicol Williamson was a British actor who trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama and began his professional career at the Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1960. He scored his first major stage success in 1964 with John Osborne's Inadmissible Evidence, gaining a Tony nomination when the play moved to Broadway. His most celebrated screen performance was Merlin in Excalibur (1981), and his film work also included The Wilby Conspiracy (1975), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), Robin and Marian (1976), The Cheap Detective (1978), Return to Oz (1985), The Exorcist III (1990) and Spawn (1997). He put out an album of songs in 1971, made an abridged recording of The Hobbit in 1974, and in 1994 wrote a solo play about John Barrymore. He won the Silver Shell for best actor at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in 1969 for Laughter in the Dark, and died in 2011.