Steven Berkoff Movies and Career Information

Steven Berkoff (born 3 August 1937) is an English actor, writer and director. He is typically cast in villanous roles, as exemplified by General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, Lt. Col Podovsky in Rambo: First Blood Part II, Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop, and Adolf Hitler in epic mini-series War and Remembrance. Berkoff was born Leslie Steven Berks, in Stepney, in the East End of London, on 3 August 1937, the son of Pauline (Hyman) and Alfred Berks (Berkovitch), who was a tailor. He attended Raine's Foundation Grammar School from 1948 to 1950, Hackney Downs School and trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, in London, in 1958 and at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq, in Paris, in 1965. He lives with his companion Clara Fisher in east London. As well as being an actor, Berkoff is a playwright and director. He joined the Repertory Company at Her Majesty's Theatre in Barrow-in-Furness for approx two months in 1962 . His earliest plays are adaptations of works by Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis (1969); In the Penal Colony (1969); and The Trial (1971); these complex psychological plays are nightmarish and create a disturbing sense of alienation in their audiences. In