Robert Stephens

Sir Robert’s career can be divided into two phases. In the 1960s he was widely regarded as Laurence Olivier’s heir, but after leaving Britain’s National Theatre in 1970 and his marriage to Maggie Smith ended three years later, he experienced a slump that was aggravated by heavy drinking. In the 1990s the Royal Shakespeare Company engaged him first as Falstaff in Henry IV and then as Lear in King Lear, which restored Stephens’s career, and he was knighted early in 1995.