LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Tom Courtenay
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Best known for his many distinguished years in British theater, "Tom Courtenay" is ... a noted film star who, while never achieving the fame of his contemporaries "Albert Finney" and "Alan Bates", has earned great respect for his memorable performances. A ship painter's son born in Hull, Yorkshire, Courtenay learned the craft at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He took his first professional bow in a 1960 production of Chekhov's The Seagull at the Old Vic. Courtenay next replaced "Albert Finney" in Billy Liar and went on to play the title character in the 1963 film version. In 1962, Courtenay made an auspicious film debut as the angry, misunderstood young protagonist in the highly acclaimed "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner". Through the '60s, the gaunt Courtenay played similar roles. In 1971, his promising film career mysteriously derailed and Courtenay returned to working on-stage.
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Tom Courtenay shot to fame in the early Sixties with a string of successful films - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Billy Liar and Dr Zhivago to name but a few. Since then he has worked mainly in the theatre, but has ... starred in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, created the part of Norman in The Dresser on both stage and screen, performed solo in the brilliant Russian dissident play Moscow Stations in Edinburgh, London and New York, created the role of Serge in the original West End production of Art and played King Lear at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. His latest film is Last Orders? He was knighted in the 2001 New Year's Honours List. Dear Tom is his first book.
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Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) is known to his blue-collar British mates as Billy Liar because of his vivid imagination. This film version of the Keith Waterhouse-Willis Hall stage play "visualizes" some of Billy's more outrageous fabrications. He periodically escapes the drudgery of his job at a funeral parlor by conjuring up impossible adventures, usually involving the conquest of women. In one of her first film roles, Julie Christie plays one of two "real" girls who wish that Billy would come down to earth and pop the question. Following this film adaptation, Billy Liar was transformed into a stage musical, and later resurfaced as a British TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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Tom Courtenay was born in Hull in 1937 and brought up near the fish dock where his father worked. When he left home for university, his mother, Annie, wrote to him every week and when her letters became more searching and more intimate in response to Tom’s unhappiness he kept every one, not knowing that after her early death they were to become his most treasured possession.
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Despite being catapulted to the verge of stardom by the aforementioned films, Courtenay's star began to wane in the late 1960s, and he reverted primarily to stage work and character roles. His best known film role after the 1960s is probably in The Dresser (from Ronald Harwood's play of the same name, in which he ... appeared) with Albert Finney. He won a nomination for Best Actor in the 1984 Academy Awards for that role, losing to Robert Duvall.
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In 1971, his promising film career came to a standstill and Courtenay concentrated on the stage. He returned to the screen after an absence of over ten years to appear in The Dresser (1983), both he and co-star Albert Finney earned Oscar nominations for their portrayals of an aging legendary actor and his unquestioning valet. On the small screen, he gave a refined performance in the made-for-TV drama A Rather English Marriage (1998), once again opposite Albert Finney. Since then Courtenay’s screen performances have been sporadic, he notably appeared in Peter Medak’s true-life story of Derek Bentley, Let Him Have It (1991), and playing an undertaker in Last Orders (2001), an adaptation of Graham Swift's Booker-winning novel. In 2000, Courtenay was awarded a knighthood for his long-running contribution to both stage and screen.
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Tom Courtenay