Actor. He was a 20th-century English actor, who appeared mainly as a character actor in films in a thirty-year career. After attending Brighton College, he was a teacher before becoming a professional actor in 1937. He appeared in a number of theatre productions and two films prior to World War II. His career was interrupted by the war, during which time he was a commissioned officer in the Royal Navy and served from 1940 to 1945. He served with distinction aboard the aircraft carrier "HMS Illustrious," was later assigned to the office of the First Sea Lord, and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander. Post-war, he found great success with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the theatre company of the Old Vic, and appeared in numerous West End productions for decades. In addition to his many Shakespearean roles, he portrayed important characters in plays by Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Edward Albee, Anton Chekov, Henrik Ibsen, Harold Pinter, Sir Tom Stoppard, and August Strindberg. He also found success performing adaptations of books and plays for BBC Radio. His screen career flourished on both sides of the Atlantic, and his reputation as a classically-trained actor did not prevent producers and directors from casting him in musicals, adventures, and children's stories. Some of his most memorable roles in film, many of which are now considered by film historians as classics, include supporting characters in "Scrooge" in 1951, "The Heart of the Matter" in 1953, "Storm Over the Nile" in 1955, "Alexander the Great" in 1956, "I Accuse!" in 1958, "Sink the Bismarck!" in 1960, "El Cid" in 1961, "Cleopatra" in 1963, "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" in 1965, "Khartoum" in 1966, "The Taming of the Shrew" in 1967, "Where Eagles Dare" in 1968, "Anne of a Thousand Days" in 1969, "Barry Lyndon" in 1975, "Gandhi" in 1982, and "Lady Jane" in 1986. On television, he appeared in such notable productions as "A Christmas Carol" in 1977; "Shogun" in 1980; "Ivanhoe", "Oliver Twist", and "King Lear", all three in 1982; "Paddington Bear", as narrator and voices in 1976 and 1986; "Inspector Morse" and "The Secret Garden", both in 1987; "Mememto Mori" in 1991; "Lovejoy" in 1993; and "Middlemarch" in 1994. He was among only a handful of actors to achieve widespread and decades-long critical and popular acclaim in four dramatic mediums: theatre, radio, film, and television. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1972 for his services to drama, and was knighted in 1983. Hordern's autobiography, "A World Elsewhere," was published the same year, in which he was invested with a knighthood for his achievements in the performing arts.