Simon Ward, British Actor Who Played Churchill
After portraying the Prime Minister in his early years in the 1972 film Young Winston, Ward went on to a long career in movies and television.
Simon Ward, a British actor best known for playing Winston Churchill in the 1972 film Young Winston, died July 20, 2012, in London after a long illness. He was 70.
His most recent work was on the Showtime series The Tudors, in which he played Bishop Gardiner.
Born October 19, 1941, in Beckenham, England, Ward began performing with the National Youth Theatre at age 13. He later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where his roommate was Anthony Hopkins.
By the late 1960s he was working steadily in the theater. Director Richard Attenborough selected him from hundreds of candidates for the lead role in Young Winston. The film was well received and led to other movie work, incuding The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers, Zulu Dawn, Aces High and Supergirl.
He also made numerous television appearances, including the lead role in a made-for-TV movie version of James Herriott’s All Creatures Great and Small and such British series as An Inspector Calls, A Taste for Death and Judge John Deed.
He is survived by his wife and three daughters, one of whom is actress Sophie Ward.