Jeremy Kemp

Jeremy Kemp

Prior to his stage work with the Old Vic and other such venerable British theatrical institutions, Jeremy Kemp was trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Attaining nationwide popularity on the long-running BBC crime series Z Cars, Kemp quit the series cold in 1965 to concentrate on films. Those film historians who've summed up Kemp's post-Z Cars TV appearances as "sporadic" evidently haven't seen his small-screen work in such miniseries as Winds of War and its sequel War and Remembrance (he played German general Armin Von Roon in both); he also played Cornwall in Sir Laurence Olivier's 1983 television adaptation of King Lear, and was featured in the internationally produced historical multiparters George Washington (1985) and Peter the Great (1986). Exuding class and professionalism from every pore, Kemp was afforded ample screen time as Sir John Delaney in the 1994 box-office hit Four Weddings and a Funeral. Evidently, Jeremy Kemp expends all his energy on his acting: when asked in 1981 to list his favorite off-stage hobbies, he wrote "Bad sports and pure idleness." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide