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Steven Berkoff

Steven Berkoff
Born Leslie Steven Berks
(1937-08-03) 3 August 1937 (age 79)
Stepney, London, England, UK
Residence East London
Education Raine's Foundation Grammar School
Hackney Downs School
Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art
Alma mater L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq
Occupation Actor, playwright and theatre director
Years active 1962–present
Notable work Sink the Belgrano! (1986)
Shakespeare's Villains (1998)
Spouse(s) Shelley Lee (m. 1976) (divorced)
Awards Total Theatre Lifetime Achievement Award (1997)
LA Weekly Theater Award for Solo Performance (2000)
Website www.stevenberkoff.com

Steven Berkoff (born 3 August 1937) is an English character actor, author, playwright and theatre director. As an actor, he is best known for his performances in villainous roles, such as Lt. Col Podovsky in Rambo: First Blood Part II, General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop and Adolf Hitler in the TV mini-series War and Remembrance.

Berkoff was born Leslie Steven Berks on 3 August 1937, in Stepney in the East End of London. He is the son of Pauline (née Hyman), a housewife, and Alfred Berks (né Berkoff), a tailor. His family was Jewish (originally from Romania and Russia). Berkoff's father had abbreviated his family surname to "Berks" in order to aid the family's assimilation into Britain. Berkoff later added back the "off" to his own name, and went by his middle name.

Berkoff attended Raine's Foundation Grammar School (1948–50),Hackney Downs School, the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art (1958) and L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq (1965).

Berkoff started his theatre training in the Repertory Company at Her Majesty's Theatre in Barrow-in-Furness, for approximately two months, in June and July 1962.

As well as an actor, Berkoff is a noted playwright and theatre director, with a unique style of writing and performance. His earliest plays are adaptations of works by Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis (1969); In the Penal Colony (1969) and The Trial (1971). In the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote a series of verse plays including East (1975), Greek (1980) and Decadence (1981), followed by West (1983), Sink the Belgrano! (1986), Massage (1997) and The Secret Love Life of Ophelia (2001). Berkoff described Sink the Belgrano! as "even by my modest standards ... one of the best things I have done".


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