Hurt says of his school days at Lincoln School: "My parents didn't allow me to play with boys they considered to be common - they were the only ones I really liked!" Hurt was an art student at St Martin's School before winning a scholarship to RADA.

Although he followed many of his contemporaries into the theatre appearing in plays like Wesker's Chips with Everything and Osborne's Inadmissable Evidence, it was in television that he really made his name.

He had appeared in films like A Man For All Seasons (1966) and as Timothy Evans in 10 Rillington Place (1970), but became famous with his television performance in the same year as Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant. He was stunning as Crisp and also in his role as Caligula in the long-running television series of Robert Graves' I Claudius (1976).

Notable screen appearances include Scandal and 1994, but his performances that won BAFTA awards and Oscar Nominations - Midnight Express and The Elephant Man - were stunning. Hurt was also nominated for a BAFTA for his role in Alien.

Hurt keeps busy with a few projects a year and tends to mix the mainstream with the fringe. Amongst his recent roles of note was his television appearances as Tory maverick, Alan Clark. He is apparently a chain-smoker and a bit of a drinker, when he married his third wife he promissed to go on the wagon and drank mineral water at the wedding, but shortly afterwards was given a drink driving ban after crashing his car.

He was honoured in 2004 with the CBE for services to drama.