Anthony Higgins (actor)

Career

Higgins started acting in school and Cosmopolitan Club theatre plays, taking the lead in 'Treasure Island', Sweeney Todd', and 'The Beggar's Uproar' (sic). After graduation he studied at the school of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company. In 1967 he became a professional stage actor. He received positive reviews for his performance as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet at Birmingham Repertory. He worked onstage in Coventry and at the Chichester Festival in Chichester. One of his first television appearances was a pivotal role in a 1968 episode of the TV series Journey to the Unknown with Janice Rule. Another television appearance was in Strange Report (1969) with Anthony Quayle. Higgins' first successes in cinema were: A Walk with Love and Death by John Huston with Anjelica Huston (1969), Something for Everyone (1970) with Michael York and Angela Lansbury, Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), with Christopher Lee, and a cult film Vampire Circus (1972), which was banned in the UK for a time due to purported hints of bestiality.

In all the films of his early career until 1975, Higgins was credited as 'Anthony Corlan' due to the similarity of his real name to that of another actor.

There followed a period of television and plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and other British theatre productions. In 1970 he played Boris in the BBC TV series The Roads to Freedom based on the Jean-Paul Sartre trilogy. In 1976 he played a supporting role in a popular British television series, Hadleigh. In 1977 he played the lead role in a BBC series The Eagle of the Ninth, based on Rosemary Sutcliff's 1954 book. In 1981 he played the supporting part of Gobler in the feature film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, starring Harrison Ford and directed by Steven Spielberg. Higgins won Best Actor of 1979 from Time Out magazine for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company that year.

Higgins played the role of Stephan in the American film production of Quartet opposite French actress Isabelle Adjani in 1981. In the same year the British director Peter Greenaway chose Higgins for the leading role in his breakthrough film The Draughtsman's Contract. In 1985 Higgins appeared as the cuckolded husband in Nagisa Oshima's Max, Mon Amour with Charlotte Rampling. In 1985 he acted opposite Sting in The Bride, a version of Bride of Frankenstein. Throughout the 1980s Higgins appeared in supporting roles in many television series such as Lace, Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story, with Armand Assante, and Reilly, Ace of Spies, with Sam Neill. He went to Australia to play the lead as Sir Laurence Olivier in an Australian made-for-television film, Darlings of the Gods, about the time spent in Australia by Olivier and Vivien Leigh.

In 1991 Higgins played Johann Strauss I in the Austrian-produced, made-for-television series, The Strauss Dynasty, which was filmed in Austria with many well-known actors and aired internationally. He played both Sherlock Holmes and Holmes' enemy Professor Moriarty, in two different decades of his career. He was the villain Rathe (not yet going by the name Moriarty) in Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), and played Sherlock Holmes himself in Sherlock Holmes Returns (1993). In 1993 he played a lead part in the film Sweet Killing. In 2005 he appeared in Chromophobia. He played General Jacques Francois Dugommier in 2007 in Heroes and Villains: Napoleon. In 2009 he appeared in Lewis, Law and Order: UK, and Agatha Christie's Marple ("The Secret of Chimneys").

Films

Television