Kingsley & Quilley Receive New Year’s Honours

LONDON – Ben Kingsley becomes Britain’s latest actor knight in the New
Year’s Honours List announced today. While best known internationally for
his Oscar-winning performance in the title role of Ghandi in 1982 and
for his other roles in such films as Schindler’s List, Kingsley has
also had an extensive stage career, including leading roles for the RSC.

Also honoured with OBE’s are Denis Quilley, 74, currently starring in
Charlotte Jones’s Humble Boy that transfers to the West End’s Gielgud
Theatre from the National Theatre in February, and Lynn Redgrave, 58,
sister of Vanessa who recently seen in the West End in the transfer of the
National’s production of Noises Off, and prior to that appeared at
the Haymarket in her own one-woman play, Shakespeare for My Father.
Actress Miriam Maroyles, 60, most recently seen in The Vagina
Monologues, also receives an OBE, as does Barbara Dickson, most
recently seen in Spend Spend Spend.

From the pop world, the Bee Gees – Robin, Maurice and Barry Gibb – all
become CBE’s. Their score to the film Saturday Night Fever became the
basis of a stage musical, produced at the London Palladium and subsequently
at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre.

From the operatic world, singers Lesley Garrett and ENO veteran Richard
Van Allan are appointed CBE. Rodney Milnes, chief opera critic of The
Times, is appointed OBE.

– Mark Shenton