Rupert James Hector Everett (born May 29, 1959) is a Golden Globe-nominated English actor and a former singer. He first came to attention in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent movie Another Country playing an openly homosexual student at an English public school in the 1930s. He has since starred in many other film roles and works, including My Best Friend's Wedding, The Next Best Thing and the Shrek sequels.

• 1 Biography
  • 1.1 Personal life
  • 1.2 Career
• 2 Filmography
  • 2.1 Cinema
  • 2.2 Television (selection)
• 3 References
• 4 External links

Everett was born in Norfolk, England, the son of Major Anthony Michael Everett, who worked in business and served in the military, and Sara MacLean, who was Scottish, and descended from the baronets Vyvyan of Trelowarren and the German Schmiedern barons. He has an older brother, Simon Anthony Cunningham Everett (b. 1956). He's also a grand-nephew of Donald Maclean, the (in)famous spy, with whom he shares a striking resemblance. They are also both bisexual. From the age of 7 he was educated at Farleigh School, Hampshire, and later was educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire, but he dropped out of school aged 15 and ran away to London to become an actor. In order to support himself, he worked as a male prostitute, or "rent boy", as he later admitted to US magazine in 1997.[1] After being dismissed from the Central School of Speech and Drama for insubordination, he travelled to Scotland and got a job at the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow.

His break came with the 1982 West End production of Another Country, playing a gay schoolboy opposite Kenneth Branagh, followed by a film version in 1984 with Colin Firth. He began to develop a promising film career, until he co-starred with Bob Dylan in the huge flop Hearts of Fire (1987). Around the same time, Everett recorded and released an album of pop songs, entitled Generation Of Loneliness. Despite being managed by the largely successful pop svengali Simon Napier-Bell (who also managed Marc Bolan, launched and managed Japan, and steered Wham! to international fame) and the title track reaching the Top 40 in the UK, the public didn't take to his change in direction. The shift was shortlived, and Everett would only return to pop indirectly by providing backing vocals for his friend Madonna many years later, on her cover of American Pie.

In 1989 he moved to Paris, writing a novel Hello, Darling, Are You Working? and coming out as gay, a move which some at the time perceived as damaging to his career. Returning to the public eye in The Comfort of Strangers (1990), several films of variable success followed. In 1995 he released a second novel, The Hairdressers of St. Tropez.

Everett's career was revitalized by My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), playing Julia Roberts's gay friend. In 1999, he played Madonna's gay best friend in The Next Best Thing (he also sang backup on her cover of "American Pie", which is on the film's soundtrack). He has since appeared in a number of high-profile film roles, often playing heterosexual leads. He is also a Vanity Fair contributing editor.

In 2006 Everett published his memoir, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins. In it he revealed he had had a 6-year affair with British television presenter Paula Yates. "I am mystified by my heterosexual affairs â€" but then I am mystified by most of my relationships," he said, with the article describing him as bisexual as opposed to homosexual.[2] But in a radio show with Jonathan Ross, Everett described his heterosexual affairs as resulting from adventurousness: "I was basically adventurous, I think I wanted to try everything".[3]

He has starred the voice role of Prince Charming in the Shrek sequels.

The Italian comics character Dylan Dog, created by Tiziano Sclavi, is graphically inspired by Everett. The English actor, in turn, later appeared in an adaptation of a novel based on Sclavi's novel, Dellamorte Dellamore. In 2007 he appeared in the Comic Relief special Comic Relief Does The Apprentice, where he left after a day after being very uncomfortable being in front of cameras. He also led the 2007 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

On July 7, 2007 Everett presented Live Earth. On July 20, 2007 he presented the Channel 4 show, The Friday Night Project. On August 3, 2007 he said something inappropriate for early morning TV on BBC One's Breakfast about why one would frequent the back of a provincial cinema.[4]

Paul Neville

• The Manhood of Edward Robinson (1981) â€" guy
• Soft Targets (1982) â€" actor
• Princess Daisy (1983) â€" Ram Valenski
• The Far Pavilions (1984) â€" George Garforth
• Arthur the King (1985) â€" Lancelot
• Les Liaisons dangereuses (2003) â€" Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont
• Mr. Ambassador (2003) â€" ambassador Ronnie Childers
• Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004) â€" Sherlock Holmes
• The Friday Night Project (2006) â€" guest host, himself
• Comic Relief Does The Apprentice (2007) - celebrity contestant (walked out during first episode)
• The Friday Night Project (2007) - guest host

• Rupert Everett biography and credits at the BFI's Screenonline
• Rupert Everett at the Internet Movie Database
• In-depth biography with many quotes from Everett and friends
• Interview and review of Everett's memoir
• Rupert Fires Himself on Celebrity Apprentice
• Rupert says more naughty things