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"I'm not somebody who sets himself up as an icon of sexual orientation," says veteran English actor Nigel Hawthorne. "But my private life has never been a secret. I've never been a closet queen." In fact, the 65-year-old Hawthorne is being introduced to most Americans not as a queen but as king-in the film The Madness of King George. With this bravura performance the unassuming actor, who defines himself as a "quiet man," is making history as the first openly gay Best Actor nominee in the history of the Academy Awards.
"Nigel is immensely modest, and it's genuine," says Thelma Holt. A long-time friend of Hawthorne and the producer of the Restoration comedy The Clandestine Marriage, a hit 1995 London production in which Hawthorne not only stars but makes his directorial debut. "Success came to Nigel late in life," Holt adds. "He was very much a jobbing actor with a vast amount of experience when it happened."
It's ironic that Hawthorne should receive his Oscar nod for playing the tragic King George: He is famed in Britain as a light comic actor on television. He's won four British Academy of Film and Television Awards for his role as scheming senior civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby in the BBC productions Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.
But Hawthorne's journey to film stardom began with another tragic role-in Shadowlands, based on the true story of theologian, writer and apparent confirmed bachelor C. S. Lewis, who awoke to love in late middle age only to lose his wife to cancer. Starring as Lewis first in London and then in New York, Hawthorne won numerous critical accolades, including a 1991 Tony Award. And one night during the Broadway run of the show, Hawthorne's audience included English theater director Nicholas Hytner.
"I was knocked out," says Hytner. "I knew Nigel's work well, but he'd never been given a role of such emotional scope." The memory was fresh in Hytner's mind when three months later playwright Alan Bennett gave him a script for The Madness of George III, a darkly comic recounting of the English monarch's descent into madness soon after America's secession as a British colony. Hytner immediately offered Hawthorne the part, and Hawthorne played the king to critical raves for the next 2 1/2 years, collecting the London Drama Critics Awards and England's prestigious Laurence Olivier Award in 1992.
"Without Shadowlands, the choice wouldn't have been quite so obvious," Hytner remembers. "Everybody knew that Nigel could have done the comic and endearing parts of George III, because that's what he was known for. But Nigel has a fantastic access to emotion."
The actor's private life at the time, Hawthorne now confides, greatly intensified his performance. While his character C. S. Lewis sat nightly beside the bed of his dying wife in Shadowlands, Hawthorne repeated the ritual at the bedside of a lifelong friend who was dying of AIDS-related complications. "It was the most painful experience of my life," he recalls.
Although he feels his sexual identity has never defined him as a person or as an actor, Hawthorne believes it may have allowed for greater depth in the characters he's played. "I'm not scared of showing my emotion, for instance," he explains. "And I think a lot of Englishmen are. They like to bottle it all up, and I don't care. So I have that freedom, which perhaps I wouldn't have had I been a married man."
As a matter of fact, Hawthorne has achieved that emotional freedom without sacrificing the joys of marriage. For the past 17 years, he's been in a committed relationship with a 51-year-old writer he refers to only as Trevor. "We're very happy and we're very lucky," says Hawthorne. "We've had a long relationship. It's been totally successful." Like C. S. Lewis, however, Hawthorne had to wait for love. "Our relationship didn't begin till I was nearly fifty" "It's not a transitory thing," he says. "It's for life. We both know that, an I think we're very privileged."
When plans arose for the Samuel Goldwyn film adaptation, it was Bennett who insisted that Hawthorne-who had been replaced in the film version of Shadowlands by Anthony Hopkins-remain in the lead. "His stipulation was that both Nick Hytner and myself be a part of the deal," says Hawthorne. Bennett's confidence was clearly justified: with a total of four Academy Award nominations. The Madness of King George is one of 1994's most recognized films.
"The whole thing was an enormously pleasurable experience," remembers Hawthorne. "I'm proud of every second of it. It was done with great integrity, great honesty and a huge commitment by absolutely everybody right down the line. It was working with a team. You would hardly know that still existed in movies."
A common show-business myth holds that gay actors may be unconvincing in a straight role. But Hytner's says that the tender relationship between Hawthorne's King George and costar Helen Mirren's Queen Charlotte was sparked by a brilliant on-set chemistry between the two actors. "Helen responded to Nigel's rock-solid character," says Hytner, "and he responded to her spontaneity. What we got was a picture not just of a dynastic marriage between a king of England and a princess from some German principality but also of two middle-aged people fantastically physically at ease with each other."
With regard to Hawthorne and Rupert Everett, another gay actor playing straight in the film, Hytner explains that it's crucial to distinguish homosexuality from effeminacy. "I've worked with effeminate straight actors who were not convincing in bedroom scenes," he says. "But with actors like Nigel and Rupert, their own sexuality has nothing to do with it. Their access to the sexuality of the characters they're playing has everything to do with it.
Like the characters he plays in both The Madness of King George and The Clandestine Marriage, who are ultimately strengthened by the indignities they suffer, Hawthorne takes a broad view of the human condition. Self-promotion, whether it be waving a flag for his sexual identity or for any other purpose, takes a backseat to a humble and questioning nature.
"I loved George," says Hawthorne. "I had a great feeling for him. Now, to get an Oscar nomination, it's something I would have never imagined in a million years happening to me. It's just altered everything. I'm a bit scared of it all, I have to say."
Holt recognizes this unpretentiousness as the mark of a very dignified man. "He's a great leader of a company," she says of Hawthorne's insightful direction of The Clandestine Marriage. "Everyone loves him, and he likes ensemble work. The most interesting thing about this play is that it has no star. And this was the play he chose."
For better or worse, however, the Oscar nomination plucks Hawthorne out of the ensemble, and exposes him, basically for the first time, to the white-hot light of American publicity. And unlike his long-standing fans in Britain, his new American fans will know from the outset that Hawthorne is gay. Will this change in the actor's image carry with it the potential for negative typecasting?
"Oh, I hope not!" laughs Hytner. "I'm not entirely sure how Hollywood casting works. But I think only that very small group of men whose career's depend on making $10 million a movie for, to be frank, arousing teenage girls would be worried. And even then, teenage girls love all that!"
As for the March 27 Oscar ceremonies, Hawthorne will be attending, accompanied by Trevor. "My friends have said, 'What about those Oscar's-with banks of photographers all clicking away and interviews all the time?'" Hawthorne says with a laugh. "And I said 'I dread it,' because I'm quite a quiet person. Trevor and I are both very quiet people, and we just want to live and keep the peace."
Doubts aside, however, both partners wouldn't think of missing it. Says Hawthorne: "My idea is to have a good evening and do a bit of star spotting."
