Simon Callow Movies and Career Information

Simon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE (born 15 June 1949) is an English actor, writer and theatre director. Callow was born in Streatham, London, UK, to Yvonne Mary Guise, a secretary, and Neil Francis Callow, a businessman. He attended the London Oratory School and then went on to study at The Queen's University of Belfast ('Queen's') in Northern Ireland before giving up his degree course to go into acting at the Drama Centre London. Callow's immersion in the theatre came when he wrote a fan letter to Sir Laurence Olivier, the Artistic Director of the National Theatre, getting a response by return suggesting that the young Simon come on board the staff, working in the box office. It was while watching actors rehearse that he realised that acting was something that he knew he wanted to do. Callow made his stage debut in 1973, appearing in The Thrie Estates at the Assembly Hall Theatre, Edinburgh. In the early 1970s he joined the Gay Sweatshop theatre company and performed in Martin Sherman's critically acclaimed Passing By. In 1977 he took various parts in the Joint Stock Theatre Company's production of Epsom Downs and in 1979 he starred in Snoo Wilson's The Soul of the White Ant at the